Kalispell grows by 207 acres

The Kalispell City Council unanimously voted Monday to annex the 207-acre Siderius Commons site into southern Kalispell.

The Siderius Family Limited Partnership proposes to build 535 homes and a neighborhood-hub business district.

The site is west of U.S. 93 South with Cemetery Road on the north and Ashley Meadows Road on the south.

Siderius Commons expects to set up a community land trust on part of the site to decrease the cost of housing.

The council also gave preliminary approval to zoning the site's eastern half for general business use and zoning its western half for low-density residential and apartment use.

In November, the council annexed nine business-oriented tracts totaling almost 82 acres owned by Gardner Investments along U.S. 93 South between Lower Valley Road and Snowline Lane. That land is across the road from Siderius Commons.

The Siderius and Gardner sites would extend Kalispell to within a mile of Old School Station, a 55-acre island of incorporated land surrounded by rural Flathead County.

"It's a good infill for our extended boundaries," council member Bob Hafferman said.

Council members Duane Larson and Randy Kenyon voiced concerns that Kalispell needs to be extremely selective in future annexations so the city's services and budgets don't get overextended.