Whitefish microbrewery, inn put on hold

Just hours before a public hearing was planned Monday for a proposed microbrewery and bed-and-breakfast inn in Whitefish, Ryan Zinke pulled his application from consideration.

The project isn’t dead, Kalispell attorney Rich DeJana said, adding that he advised Zinke over the weekend to withdraw the application because the zoning needed for the microbrewery doesn’t comply with the Whitefish growth policy.

“I didn’t think I could defend it” as currently proposed, DeJana said.

Zinke and his consultants and legal counsel will re-evaluate the project, he added.

The Whitefish City Council was poised to take action Monday night on a planned unit development overlay for the project planned on U.S. 93 West. The city planning staff had recommended tabling the project until a corridor study could be done, and noted in the staff report that the project doesn’t comply with the growth policy.

But two weeks ago the Whitefish City-County Planning Board recommended approval of the project.

Zinke, a Republican state senator for District 2, was unable to be reached by phone and email on Tuesday.

There was a groundswell of opposition to the commercial project from neighbors, who turned in a petition to City Hall on Monday. Signed by two-dozen property owners who live within 150 feet of the proposed Double Tap microbrewery and Snow Frog Inn, the petition of protest cites state law in asking that a two-thirds majority vote of the council be required to pass the planned unit development.

State law supersedes local law in this case, Whitefish City Attorney Mary VanBuskirk said. State law allows such a petition if 25 percent of the affected property owners sign it. The city calculated that 33 percent of property owners in Zinke’s neighborhood had signed the petition.

Zinke’s project is planned in a largely residential neighborhood along U.S. 93 West, an area zoned low-density multifamily residential. Very limited commercial activity is allowed there, but the planning staff had acknowledged in a staff report that the nature of the corridor is changing and may change even more when the highway is rebuilt. The first phase of highway reconstruction is anticipated to begin next year.

The neighbors’ biggest concerns were increased traffic, noise and overall neighborhood intrusion.

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