Dust Storm

East Valley paving proposal has neighbors all stirred up

There's an age-old growth story underlying a proposed Rural Special Improvement District to pave portions of Mennonite Church Road and Creston Road.

Farmers living amid the fertile, rolling hills of the Creston area have gotten by with their gravel roads for decades. It's a nice place to live - even idyllic, some would say - with its panoramic views, elbow room and neighborhood schools.

During the Flathead Valley's unprecedented growth spurt in the early 2000s, lots of people decided they wanted a piece of that East Valley heaven, and subdivisions began sprouting up in fields where amber waves of grain used to dominate the landscape.

For the most part, those newcomers signed waivers of protest to stake their claim in the new neighborhoods, agreeing to pay their share if and when the day came to pave the surrounding roads.

That day is here.

Road dust has become a big problem on Mennonite Church and Creston roads, and when the new bridge across the Flathead River - the one on Holt Stage Road replacing the historic Old Steel Bridge - is finished by late summer, those roads are on track to become busy thoroughfares.

And those farm families, the ones who didn't mind the dust when it was just them and a few neighbors, are being asked by the county to pay their fair share of the road improvements.

Therein lies the rub, said Tom Gorton, whose family has owned a farm on Creston Road for 85 years.

"We're the only people who've had to [pay to] pave a through road and that's a concern with everybody," Gorton said.

He and other neighbors such as Sandy Babich believe the county should have required the Leighty family, developers of Foxhill Estates subdivision, to pave portions of the county roads when the subdivision was put in a couple of years ago.

"It's a shame to hurt landowners who've been out here for a long time," said Babich, a local wool producer who operates Blaine Creek Farm. "Our farm has been highlighted as historical by the Central School Museum."

The Mennonite Church and Creston road special-improvement district seems innocuous, she said, but she and Gorton maintain it will set a precedent for other county gravel roads that become connector roads in high-growth areas.

Gorton added: "It's being shoved down our throats."

FLATHEAD County does have an advantage with this particular RSID.

Of the 144 property owners counted in the proposed district, 71 have signed waivers of protest. That goes a long way in getting the needed approval.

A district can't be formed if the owners of more than 50 percent of the parcels protest it, County Administrative Officer Mike Pence said.

Improvement districts typically are initiated by the property owners. But the Mennonite Church and Creston road district is being proposed by the county and is unique in that the county will pay for a portion of the project.

All of the details about this proposed district - cost assessment methods, project design and cost and future maintenance - will be explained at an informational meeting at 7 p.m. Monday at the Creston School gymnasium.

The county proposes to pave Creston Road from Montana 35 to Mennonite Church Road, and Mennonite Church Road from Montana 35 to Creston Hatchery Road - a distance of more than 3 miles.

The approximate $1.6 million cost will be split three ways. The county intends to chip in $611,000 (of which $429,000 is anticipated federal stimulus money); developers of Foxhill Estates will pay $87,000 to pave 1,000 feet of Mennonite Church Road; and the rest will come from property owners.

The county expects to assess the payments on a "per-parcel basis," Pence said.

With a 15-year payback at 5 percent interest, it would cost a property owner $819 annually per tract. Over 20 years the annual payment drops to around $682 per tract.

State law doesn't require latecomers to share in the RSID, Pence noted, so those who move to the area once the district is established "get the benefit of the new [paved] roads."

There is some urgency in tackling the road-dust problem, especially in high-traffic areas, Pence said. Two years ago when the county was fined by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for poor air quality, part of the action plan that resulted was curbing road dust.

In short, the state is holding the county's feet to the fire to do something tangible about the dust problem.

"Part of the agreement with DEQ is that when we have enough waivers to justify it, that we attempt to do RSID improvements," Pence said.

The road improvements are expected to generate an additional 740 vehicle trips a day added to a daily load of about 1,200 vehicle trips. It amounts to a 62 percent increase in the traffic coming from outside the district, a traffic study noted. The study doesn't appear to factor in the effect the new bridge will have, however.

Gorton has his own traffic counts.

In 1998, about 58 vehicles a day passed by his place. Now it's about 450 vehicles on the one-mile stretch of Creston Road to Montana 35.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com

Meetings planned

Rural Special Improvement Districts

Mennonite Church

and Creston roads

7 p.m. Monday, April 13

Creston School gymnasium

Jensen and Berne roads

7 p.m. Thursday, April 16

New Bad Rock Fire Hall

2279 Middle Road