Board deadlocks on mobile-home park plan

A 122-lot mobile-home park proposed on West Evergreen Drive will be forwarded to the Flathead County commissioners without a recommendation after the Planning Board split its vote 3-3.

The deadlock came at the very end of a six-hour meeting that went past midnight. Planning Board members Jeff Larsen and Dean Sirucek were absent.

The commissioners now will wrestle with a final vote on the controversial manufactured-home park planned on 33 acres just west of Evergreen Junior High School.

In addition to preliminary-plat approval, developers Michael Seaman and Garry Seaman still need a conditional-use permit to allow their development, West Evergreen Estates, in the Evergreen Zoning District. The county Board of Adjustment approved the permit in March, but that hearing was rescheduled due to a technical error when the board’s discussion wasn’t caught on audiotape. That hearing will be May 1.

The Seamans want to develop the property with a two-phase subdivision for with lots for lease or rent that will connect to Evergreen sewer and water.

A year ago the Seamans were granted a zoning-map amendment that changed the zoning on the property from suburban and one-family residential to two-family residential zoning that will accommodate the mobile-home park.

There is strong neighborhood opposition to the housing project, largely because property owners fear their property values will decrease significantly with a mobile-home park in the vicinity.

Duane Goulet, who has owned his home on a half-acre lot along West Evergreen Drive for 37 years, said the plans for a massive mobile-home park come on top of multiple 10-plex apartment buildings being built along the road.

“We’re getting squeezed,” he told the Planning Board. “There are over 1,000 trailers in Evergreen. We have the most low-income families in the county; we don’t need more.”

The planned park might be more palatable, Goulet said, if the mobile homes were placed on permanent foundations. As it’s proposed, “it’s not estates,” he added.

In addition to the increased traffic the park would generate, Goulet pointed to road congestion already caused by the railroad crossing on West Evergreen Drive.

Ian Wargo, who lives on Sweetgrass Lane, said the primary reason he’s opposed to the project is his fear of property values going down. His neighbor listed a home for sale and got a “low-ball” offer because of the proposed park, he said.

Many talked about the pressures to local schools and law enforcement with that size of a development in Evergreen.

A mother of three and wife of an Evergreen teacher implored the board to think about the traffic and children’s safety.

“I come from a mobile-home park growing up, so I’m all for this, but this is not the location,” she said. “I know you don’t want emotion in this, but this is a lot of emotion.”

Emotion spilled over into the board discussion, too.

Board member Sandra Nogal sympathized with the neighbors.

“I do put myself in your shoes and no, I don’t want to live next to it,” Nogal said. “My observation is, is this the best we can come up with without saddling Evergreen with a stereotypical trailer park?

“I understand the affordable housing [dilemma]. I’m not making a class statement about trailer parks, but my God, this does nothing for me,” Nogal continued. “I wouldn’t want to live near it, deal with it.”

Stevens took an opposite viewpoint, favoring the mobile-home park.

“Affordable housing has always been one of my prime concerns,” Stevens said. “I try to give as much consideration as I can to it. Affordable doesn’t mean owning, it can be renting.”

The board approved an additional condition for the preliminary plat approval, adding language that mobile homes in the proposed park can’t be older than 10 years.

Eric Mulcahy of Sands Surveying, representing the Seamans, said the residential zoning in place allows up to 12 units per acre, but the Seamans are proposing 3.7 units per acre. That’s a density comparable to surrounding single-family home neighborhoods, he said.

There would be a pedestrian path to the Evergreen school, and a fence that was requested by the school district.

“We’re trying to make a development that is sensitive to the neighborhood,” Mulcahy said.

Some smaller lots would be clustered in the internal portion of the subdivision, with bigger lots around the perimeter.

There will be 8.9 acres of open space, far more than the 1.78 acres required by subdivision regulations, Mulcahy pointed out. Floodplain acreage on the site would be open space.

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