Family to set up land trust

By JOHN STANG/Daily Inter Lake

A community land trust is being set up for the proposed Siderius Commons project south of Kalispell.

That's what Jerry Nix, broker for the family of Josephine and the late Hank Siderius, told the Kalispell City Council at a Monday workshop session.

In a community land trust, a nonprofit organization owns the land while selling homes on top of it.

The idea is to remove the land's costs from a home's price, thereby lowering it.

Nix speculated that the land trust sites could have homes available for $135,000.

This was part of a discussion on whether Kalispell should change the growth policy for south of town.

Essentially, the growth policy tells developers outside city limits what they are required to do with their sites before the city will consider annexing them.

A growth policy is also a map of how the city government wants to expand when landowners seek annexation.

In the near future, the council is expected to receive a request from Gardner Investments to annex about 81 acres along the east side of U.S. 93 South between Lower Valley Road and Snowline Drive for commercial and light industrial use.

In early 2009, the council is expected to receive a Siderius request to annex 207 acres along the west side of the same segment of U.S. 93 South.

Siderius Commons tentatively would involve 535 homes and a neighborhood business hub.

A significant number would be on the community land trust's sites.

If both sites are annexed, that would extend the city's main southern border to within one mile of the Old School Station business park, a 55-acre "island" of incorporated Kalispell.