Board backs 207-acre annexation

The Kalispell Planning Board recommended Tuesday night that the 207-acre Siderius Commons site be annexed into southern Kalispell.

That recommendation now goes to the Kalispell City Council.

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 Planning Board also recommended that the site's eastern half be zoned for general business use and its western half be zoned 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, literally 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.

Also Tuesday, the board recommended that a conditional use permit be granted to Straight Blast Gym, which wants to set up at 419 First Ave. East.

The gym is a merger of two existing businesses headed by Kisa and Travis Davidson.