Whitefish loses lawsuit over subdivision roads

A Grouse Mountain homeowners association has the right to close its subdivision roads to vehicular traffic, a Flathead district judge has ruled.

The Grouse Mountain Estates Homeowners Association sued the city of Whitefish last year over a resolution that tightened the city’s prohibition of gated communities. The homeowners association asserted there’s enough public traffic on those private roads year-round to warrant permanent gates.

The city argued that The Estates Homeowners Association doesn’t have a vested property right regarding closing access to private roads because of 33 conditions of approval for the final plat of the subdivision.

District Judge Robert Allison said the city’s assumption is incorrect.

“The city made a bargain with The Estates Homeowners Association,” Allison said.

“It agreed that the [Grouse Mountain Estates] roads could be private and that it could close the roads to vehicular traffic by the public. Presumably the city entered into this bargain because if the subdivision’s roads are private the city is not responsible for their maintenance.”

The city must stand by the terms of the final plat, Allison stated, adding that the resolution regarding the prohibition of gated communities passed by the City Council “unconstitutionally interferes” with the association’s vested rights to have the private roads and close them to the public.

The matter came to a head last year when the homeowners association decided to put gates at the entrances of the subdivision, on opposite ends of Mountainside Drive. The decision was spurred by the reconstruction of U.S. 93 West, which prompted motorists to drive through the subdivision to avoid the construction zone.

Grouse Mountain Estates is separate from the older Grouse Mountain subdivision served by Fairway Drive.

Grouse Mountain Homeowners Inc., representing the original first two phases of Grouse Mountain, asked the court to intervene in the lawsuit, but the court did not grant intervenor status.

That homeowners association had alleged The Estates’ gates would impede its existing easement rights.

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