Planning board to tackle city airport
A proposal to update and enlarge a planning area covering the Kalispell City Airport and land around it will get its public hearing at the Kalispell City-County Planning Board Tuesday night.
A vocal group advocating for quiet skies and greater airport safety measures promised to be on hand for the South Kalispell Airport Redevelopment Plan hearing.
But with a community meeting planned on Nov. 30 for proponents and opponents to air concerns and have questions answered, Tuesday's hearing could be just another step in a process that is getting more visibility by the week.
Planning Board officials are calling it an urban renewal project, with boundaries for the tax increment finance district proposed to grow to the south, west and east. Along U.S. 93 South, the growth would include blighted land that could be improved as more taxes are captured with future development.
But at the airport, it also paves the way for a significantly bigger airport, built almost entirely with Federal Aviation Administration money, that could accommodate bigger planes and increased flights.
City planning staff members are making several recommendations on goals and actions, which board members will discuss Tuesday night.
Staff members recommend that the board accept public comment; discuss whether to recommend including land west of Airport Road and north of the future bypass; consider the goals, actions and changes in the boundaries; but then table any recommendation to city council until after the Nov. 30 meeting.
The second phase of a housing development that leap-frogs past Evergreen to the north side of East Reserve Drive, Trumbull Creek Crossing Phase 2, also is up for a hearing Tuesday night.
Northwest Development Group of Lake Oswego, Ore., is asking for annexation into the city of Kalispell, initial zoning that combines residential and light industrial, preliminary plat and a planned-unit development overlay. It's just north of Trumbull Creek Crossing Phase 1, a smaller community of single-family homes.
Trumbull Creek Crossing Phase 2 sits on 160.5 acres that now are zoned for suburban agricultural with a 10-acre minimum lot, SAG-10, and lie in the county.
The planned-unit development overlay and request for R-3 zoning applies to about 55 acres. It creates a plan for 176 single-family residential lots, with a portion of them planned for lower-priced homes on lots as small as 4,400 square feet. Other lots range up to 10,300 square feet.
The board also will consider a zone-change request from Dick Mitsch for land on U.S. 93 South. It was zoned from B-2 to P-1 when being considered for a pre-release center. But since that failed, Mitsch wants it to revert to B-2 that accommodates a wide variety of commercial uses.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the City Hall Council Chambers.
Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com