Kalispell ponders design of gateway corridors

How should properties along the main highways leading into Kalispell look?

The Kalispell Planning Board began pondering that question Tuesday.

It likely will take a few more workshop sessions before the board settles on recommendations to send to the City Council.

Kalispell's planning department has identified five roads as "gateway corridors" - essentially the main streets leading into the town where the city government wants to make a good first impression on drivers.

These five are :

. U.S. 93 north of Four Mile Drive.

. U.S. 93 south of Kelly Road.

. U.S. 2 north of Reserve Drive. This is where Kalispell's incorporated area gradually is spreading north of unincorporated Evergreen.

. U.S. 2 west of Corporate Drive.

. Whitefish Stage Road north of Reserve Drive. This is where Glacier Town Center is expected to expand east, eventually resulting in a widening and overhaul of Whitefish Stage Road in this area.

In broad strokes, the proposed "entrance corridor standards" call for wide buffers between buildings and the highways on the outer edges of Kalispell - today and in the future - with those buffers narrowing the farther a road reaches into the city. The proposed buffer widths range from 100 feet to 20 feet.

Under the proposal's standards, the buffer area will be allowed to have entrances to the properties; utilities underground but not above ground; pedestrian and bike paths; drainage that must mesh well with the landscape; frontage roads if they are at least 50 feet from the highways; lights; some monument signs; and flag poles.

In the future, the board will be briefed on other proposed requirements including landscaping, signs, access and frontage street standards, storage rules, berms, ways of shielding trash, service and loading areas from the main highways, and having uniform design features for each building on a specific lot.