Meetings planned on density mapping

The Daily Inter Lake

The Flathead County commissioners told planning officials to take a proposal to the public on calculating the best housing densities on unzoned land.

Although no formal vote was taken Monday, all three commissioners individually said that the county's planning department and Planning Board should hold public meetings in April to get feedback on the plan.

Then planning officials are to return to the commissioners in May to provide that feedback.

A schedule for those public sessions -possibly six -has not been set yet.

The concept is called a Development Predictability Map.

Its purpose is to map out the most ideal densities for the county's unzoned land, without zoning's regulatory clout.

The concept is strictly for the county's unzoned land, which is about two-thirds of its private lands.

The idea is to lock down some factors and figures that developers and county planners can use to predict an ideal density of houses per acre on unzoned land.

The draft plan covers only proposed densities.

The plan cannot enforce those formulaic densities but developers would be required to consider those densities and come up with valid reasons not to comply with them.

The plan - using computer-generated density maps - would not be used for other subdivision-related decisions such as land uses, setbacks, building heights and other factors.

The sought-after feedback includes whether a Development Predictability Map approach is desirable, what factors should be used to determine an ideal density for an area, and what the actual numbers should be to choose one ideal density over another.

A basic thread throughout the proposed Development Predictability Map is measuring the times it takes to drive from specific basic services to a new house or new group of houses in an unzoned area.

The Planning Board committee suggested that the following factors be considered:

n Fire-station locations and response times for fire trucks to reach a burning house over back roads.

n The time and distance that a home or homes are from basic commercial services such as gas and food.

n Is a development on a 100-year flood plain?

n What type of roads connect a group of homes to other services?

n Driving distances and times to schools.

Planning officials said this list could be expanded, trimmed or otherwise changed after receiving public feedback.