Board supports annexation plan

Kalispell City Planning Board members voted 5-0 on Tuesday to recommend the city annex the 19.77-acre Kalispell Armed Forces Reserve Center on U.S. 93.

The Montana National Guard facility has been having problems with an on-site well and requested the annexation to hook up to city water service.

The facility would continue to use its on-site septic system, at least for now, even though city sewer is also available.

In other business, the planning board voted 5-0 to recommend the city issue a conditional use permit for Mick Hagestad to build a 2,800-square-foot storage building for his 35-year-old painting business at 1020 West Center St.

The board heard from a neighboring homeowner who wants the business to stop spray-painting things outside because the fumes and overspray drift onto her property about 50 feet away. Those activities should be moved inside, she said.

The business and the home are both in a B-2 general business zone.

“I don’t want to shut this business down,” Kathy Fabel said. “When they’re spraying the paint it’s right next to my fence and lands in the yard. They have masks on, I’m just the neighbor next door with no mitigation of fumes.”

Hagestad said he would like to install an indoor paint booth at some point, but that is not part of the proposed storage building.

A recommended component of the proposed conditional use permit would require the occasional outdoor spray painting to be done on the southwest corner of the property, on the other side of an existing building.

“Based on the concern from the neighbor, we felt that was appropriate. It would almost double the distance,” senior city planner Sean Conrad.

Both items will now go before the Kalispell City Council with favorable recommendations from the board.

Also Tuesday, city planning staff presented several options for allowing A-frame or sandwich-board signs on city sidewalks in parts of the downtown.

An original proposal would have allowed the signs, subject to restrictions, on Main Street from Center to Fifth.

At its last meeting, council tabled the issue, which is one of five proposed zoning regulation changes, for more discussion.

Planning board members voted 5-0 to recommend a new option that would allow the signs on Main Street from Center to Fifth and along First Avenue West and First Avenue East and the alleys between those streets and Second Avenue West and Second Avenue East, also between Center and Fifth.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.