Board works on annexation rules

An unwritten policy that has been guiding Kalispell annexations for years is about to have some words put to it.

There has been grumbling across the city about far-flung subdivisions annexed during the boom development years earlier this decade. These islands stretch police and fire forces too thin, some argue. The city’s cost for extending sewer and water is too great, opponents say. They’re a land grab, others claim.

Even so, another proposed annexation on the north end of Evergreen — Trumbull Creek Crossing Phase 2 — made its way through the Planning Board and to the City Council last month.

It didn’t get far before the developer put it on hold.

After a broad-ranging discussion on annexation on Jan. 11, prompted by but not focused on Trumbull Creek Crossing, the council bounced the annexation issue back to the Planning Board.

The board’s job: To draft a city policy that lays out a philosophy on when and where to annex, both in the short term of five or 10 years and over the long haul of perhaps 30 or 40 years.

The board also needs to provide some maps to give the philosophy a face.

To that end, general discussion took a turn toward specifics Tuesday at a Planning Board brainstorming session.

The Silverbrook and Starling developments could form the north and west boundaries, board members suggested, with new construction filling in the gaps between current city limits and these islands.

Lone Pine may be a natural southwest boundary. Old School Station and adjacent land might stand as the southern terminus.

The Whitefish River through Evergreen could form a natural eastern boundary; no annexation of Evergreen is implied, even though 51 percent of the lot owners there have signed waivers of protest.

Even with these parameters, everything still is in the hypothetical stage until a policy runs through the public hearing process and a final council vote.

“We’ve had an unwritten annexation policy for years … It’s not on the books,” Planning Director Tom Jentz told Planning Board members at a work session Tuesday night. “But we do have an extension-of-services policy that says this is what you’ll do if we annex you.”

For years the modus operandi was that if land was immediately adjacent to city limits, it could be annexed.

But available, developable land touching city boundaries was limited.

It amounted to a no-growth policy, Jentz said. Residential subdivisions went in along Two Mile Drive and Foy’s Lake Road but that was about it.

“We did it so as to not be a burden to taxpayers,” he said. But the good intentions blew up in Kalispell’s face when Evergreen got all the major new commercial development before 2001.

“It shellacked us,” he said. While the county areas surrounding Kalispell boomed, the city crept along at a snail’s pace, getting boxed in and losing revenue all the while.

So the planning office, with the council’s blessing, took a different tack.

A city sewer line went in along Three Mile Drive. Pent-up demand and limited supply of lots meant the resulting growth spurt there brought skyrocketing land prices along with it. The pattern continued when subsequent island subdivisions were annexed.

Now, the pendulum has swung with a vengeance in the opposite direction.

Today the city has 1,300 final-platted lots sitting vacant, many of them in Silverbrook Estates north of town. That’s a 10-year supply of housing lots in boom times, Jentz said. In today’s market it’s a 20-year supply.

But this quiet market has its advantages. It allows time to hammer out just what the city believes is an appropriate way to plan for its future growth.

Jentz produced eight options as fodder for the board’s discussion:

n Rely on the city’s growth policy, following the map and zone boundaries already approved; that’s what the planning office has been using the most lately.

n Require that land be immediately adjacent to city limits.

n Draw a line extending a fixed distance around city limits, perhaps a half-mile or a mile, and don’t consider annexation requests outside that line.

n Set a boundary limited by natural topography such as Lone Pine or the Whitefish, Stillwater or Flathead rivers.

n Base the number of acres allowed for annexation on anticipated development in coming years.

n Require all new development to be infill.

n Approve outlying developments and require they be built to city standards, but forbid annexation for now.

n Set up an annexation district that requires developers to build to city standards but phases responsibility for services from the developer to the city over a specific period, perhaps 10 years. It would be annexed after that period.

Each of the options generated some support and some resistance among board members, along with some chagrin over how the boom time colored decisions on annexations.

“We have what we have here,” Jentz said, diverting focus away from the past. “We can beat ourselves up — it was a good or it was a bad [decision]. But how do we prepare for the next wave?”

He cautioned against basing decisions solely on the city’s current ledger sheets.

“If the county says yes but the city says no to a developer because we don’t have the money right now, that could be the end of growth for the city at that place forever,” he said.

“We’ve got to consider what’s best for the city’s long-term future.”

Board members asked the planning staff to come up with some maps and draft policy language for a joint work session with the City Council, tentatively slated for March 8.

The Planning Board’s regular meeting is the following night, but annexation is not on the agenda.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com