Whitefish Council ready to act on new parking lot
The Daily Inter Lake
The preliminary design for a surface parking lot at the corner of Second Street and Spokane Avenue will be considered at tonight's Whitefish City Council meeting.
Earlier this year, the council scrapped plans for a three-story parking garage, citing exorbitant construction costs and a weakened economy.
The cost of a multistory parking garage had risen to $6.6 million, prompting council members to back away from the proposal, even though the Heart of Whitefish downtown group lobbied heavily for the larger structure that was detailed in a downtown master plan.
The city still needs to provide parking, however, to handle the space that will be temporarily lost when Central Avenue is reconstructed starting next fall.
What the city intends to build instead is a surface lot with 81 parking stalls, a kiosk to post community information and a landscaped entrance to the downtown district, at a cost of $419,000. The project also includes reconstruction of the adjacent half block on First Street.
The city wants to finish the parking lot by July 1, 2009.
The council has two public hearings on the agenda.
First up is a request for approval of Great Northern Heights, Phase 3B. The latest phase of this subdivision, located behind Western Building Center, is 14 sublots and one single-family lot being developed by Rob Pero on 2.93 acres.
The second hearing is to consider a request to work with Whitefish Housing Authority to apply for a $450,000 Community Development Block Grant. The grant would continue a homeownership program that started three years ago with block-grant money.
The council will consider a recommendation to amend subdivision regulations to allow more than 18 months for infrastructure completion. The proposed amendment is based on a recent request from Edgewater Business Center and the growing possibility that other developers may request similar extensions, interim City Manager Dennis Taylor said in his council report.
If the council approves the subdivision regulation amendment, it also will consider extending Edgewater Business Center's subdivision improvement agreement deadline to Dec. 31, 2010. The developer of the business center - at the southwest corner of East Edgewood Drive and Second Street - is relying on the city's proposed extension of a sewer main to provide sewer service there, but that extension has been delayed due to a lack of money.
A quarterly review of Whitefish City Court is last on the agenda. An audit recently revealed a backlog in the processing of citations after disposition. During budget hearings earlier this year the council and City Judge Brad Johnson discussed ways to improve the processing of dispositions in order to turn the money over to the city general fund in a more timely manner.
The council meets at 4:45 p.m. today to conduct a number of interviews for city committees. The regular meeting begins at 7:10 p.m. at Whitefish City Hall.