Planning effort for Evergreen takes first steps

The seeds have been sown for a future Evergreen neighborhood plan.

On Tuesday the county commissioners agreed to prepare a resolution to establish a seven-member Evergreen Land Use Advisory Committee that will shepherd the process of establishing land-use guidelines for an area that includes one of the state's largest unincorporated cities.

The resolution also will set the boundaries for the planning area.

Alan Gilbertson, president of the Evergreen Business and Property Owners Association, told the commissioners he consulted with representatives from the Evergreen Fire Department, Evergreen Sewer and Water District and Glacier Park International Airport before penciling out what he believes are logical boundary lines.

By consensus the commissioners agreed with Gilbertson's suggested boundaries.

The southern border would coincide with the southern border of the Evergreen Fire District along Conrad Drive. To the north, the proposed land-use district would go as far as Conn Road, which is part of the airport's runway entry space. Whitefish Stage Road would serve as the western border, and to the east the proposed district would include the flood plain on the east side of the Flathead River and the Old Steel Bridge.

The proposed district contains the area governed by the Helena Flats Neighborhood Plan, which will continue to serve as the planning tool for the Helena Flats zoning district.

LAND-USE planning in the Evergreen area has been elusive for years. The city of Kalispell in 1994 tried to annex part of the heavily populated area on the city's eastern edge.

Evergreen residents successfully challenged the annexation. During the 1990s box stores and commercial development flourished along the U.S. 2 strip.

Some areas of the proposed district remain unzoned, and zoned property in and around Evergreen essentially is governed by a joint Kalispell city-county master plan from 1997 when the Flathead Regional Development Office was a countywide planning office. The county incorporated those joint city-county plans in its 2007 growth policy, Flathead County Planning Director Jeff Harris said.

It's a good time for Evergreen area residents to take a look at how the area has developed and how they want to move forward with planning, he said.

The Evergreen Business and Property Owners Association has been a springboard for community change in recent years. Four years ago the group sponsored a community meeting to address the question, "What next, Evergreen?"

That meeting focused on four issues: How people feel about having a regional sewage treatment plant, how they feel about annexation and incorporation, whether they support the creation of an Evergreen community council, and whether they support the creation of an Evergreen neighborhood plan as part of the county growth policy.

Though discussion has ensued on all of those topics, the neighborhood plan is the first to move into action.

Evergreen came into being in the 1940s when a person could buy an acre of land for less than the cost of a Kalispell city lot. Post-World War II development spurred growth in the rural area that had all the amenities of Kalispell at its fingertips.

Little by little, the community began to solidify its own identity. Evergreen got its own water system after the 1964 flood. It has its own fire district, and a sewer system that triggered tremendous growth during the 1990s.

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