Fresh Life plans to convert store into church
Fresh Life, a multi-site Christian church in Kalispell, has plans to convert a former piano store building on U.S. 93 South into a Whitefish church campus.
The Whitefish City-County Planning Board will hold a public hearing on Thursday to consider a conditional-use permit for the new Fresh Life Church.
Two buildings on the proposed site — a metal building that previously housed the 1066 Pianos store and a smaller shop building — are in the five-acre suburban agriculture zone where churches are allowed with a conditional-use permit.
Fresh Life Church and applicants Sam and Lourdes Pollack propose to add about 80 paved parking spaces to the site. The Whitefish Planning Office is recommending a five-foot landscape buffer along the highway.
While the main building previously was used as a retail store, the buildings no longer have any vested commercial rights as a pre-existing nonconforming use, since the property has been vacant for more than six months, Planning Director David Taylor said.
According to the Fresh Life website, the church holds Sunday morning services at Mountain Cinema in Whitefish, in addition to numerous worship services at the former Strand and Liberty movie theater buildings in Kalispell.
In other business, the board will continue discussion of establishing an overlay zoning district to allow nightly rentals in certain residential areas of Whitefish with future zoning map amendments.
Last month the board reviewed Courtland Chelmo’s application for the rental overlay district, but postponed a decision to allow for the planning staff and applicant to provide more information.
Among the items the board wanted to know was the current number of available nightly rentals. The planning staff counted 116 units that qualified as nightly rentals.
According to research done by Eric Mulcahy of Sands Surveying, there are just over 1,500 properties zoned with a resort residential or resort business designation, but not all of those lots have buildings on them. The majority currently are not used as short-term rentals.
The meeting begins at 6 p.m. Thursday at Whitefish City Hall.