EDITORIAL: Planning for future not a bad thing

Land-use planning and zoning are rarely neutral subjects.

Some property owners embrace zoning for their neighborhoods because they believe it protects their property and can prevent land-use conflicts. It safeguards them from having noisy industries next door; it preserves neighborhood character.

Truth be told, many more property owners in the Flathead object to being told what they can and cannot do with their land. In the name of property rights, they’re willing to forego any regulations. Vast tracts of unzoned land in Flathead County along with various squabbles over neighborhood planning through the decades — not to mention the Whitefish “doughnut” planning control battle — indicate there has been little political will for any comprehensive land-use planning in the Flathead.

That’s why the most recent applicable plan for Evergreen is nearly 30 years old. The county Planning Office now has the complicated task of creating a permanent enterprise overlay zone in Evergreen to bolster commercial growth. Evergreen business leaders want the overlay zone to create more commercial uses. It’s not impossible to make this happen, but even when the overlay zone is completed, the underlying master plan for Evergreen will still date back to 1986.

A lot has happened in Evergreen in 29 years. Public sewer service came to that area — Kalispell’s biggest unincorporated suburb — in 1990 and that opened the door for surges of commercial growth through the years. Floodplain maps have changed, too. Yet there is no planning road map for Evergreen’s future.

How did it come to be that Evergreen has fallen through the cracks in terms of land-use planning? The critical event seems to be the county’s decision to scrap a joint planning effort called the Flathead Regional Development Office right around the time the new millennium was being ushered in. The county and its three incorporated cities divorced and each set up its own planning office.

When that joint effort was disbanded, many lamented it set planning efforts back 25 years. And in many ways it did. It took away a 4.5 mile planning doughnut around Kalispell, leaving no plan for how growth would be managed in outlying neighborhoods including Evergreen.

Several years ago Evergreen business leaders suggested a neighborhood plan for their community, but the effort went nowhere. Again, there was no political will to make it happen.

Whitefish and Flathead County attempted to work together under an interlocal agreement for the Whitefish doughnut, and that turned into a nightmare of legal battles that left thousands of doughnut residents in planning limbo for years.

It makes sense that cities have some say in how their outskirts are developed because as cities grow they expand into those areas. On the other hand, it is hard to justify giving outright control to city officials over land outside their jurisdictions.

Finding common ground in land-use planning and zoning requires diplomacy, cooperation and a vision for the future. Keep that in mind whenever you step into the voting booth to elected local government leaders.