County inventories surplus, undeveloped park land

Undeveloped county parks on Whitefish and Bitterroot lakes are on a short list of surplus parks the Flathead County Park Board may recommend the county sell to generate revenue for other park development.

County Parks and Recreation Director Jed Fisher told the county commissioners on Thursday that the new parks master plan sets a goal of evaluating undeveloped parks to determine if they can prudently be developed, and if not declare them as surplus property.

By selling surplus acreage, the county then can use that money to acquire or develop other parks that would better serve the public, Fisher said.

Eagle Point Park, a two-acre county park on Whitefish Lake, essentially has no access except by foot or boat because it’s on a cliff that’s too steep for development. But lakeshore property on Whitefish Lake — even steep property — is valuable, Fisher said.

Two unnamed county parks on Bitterroot Lakes also are on the list for immediate review. One is a four- to five-acre spot on a steep hillside across from Blue Grouse Park. The other is on the west side of Bitterroot Lake, also on a steep bank that would cost too much to develop.

“We’re just putting feelers out about what is feasible to sell,” Fisher said.

The Park Board also is eyeing up to a dozen parcels of county park land in the Many Lakes area, where subdivision development through the years has yielded the county various undesirable small sites set aside by developers as subdivision requirements.

“Maybe we get rid of six and develop one with a public dock,” he suggested about the Many Lakes park plight. “We need to get rid of some of them. It’s long overdue.”

The commissioners noted that access to any of the Many Lakes sites is confounded by a confusing road system serving a maze of developments.

“It’s a textbook case of idiotic planning,” Commissioner Joe Brenneman said about the Many Lakes area.

The commissioners agreed that some surplus land should be sold, but Brenneman urged Fisher to advise the Park Board to come up with a plan for how the revenue from surplus sales would be spent.

“People fear that when the government sells property that the money disappears into some vortex,” he said, adding that the money should be reinvested back into the area from which the revenue was derived.

Flathead County owns 515 acres of park land divided into 70 sites. Only 32 of those sites are developed. Undeveloped parks are designated as open space or natural areas in the parks master plan.

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