Transitional zoning plan inches forward in Whitefish

The long-awaited highway business transitional zoning district took another step forward last week as City Council gave staff further direction during a work session. This time, the issue centered mostly around traffic and on imposing a size limit on buildings.

The U.S. Highway 93 South Corridor Plan calls for the creation of a highway business transitional zone (WB-T) to manage the city's growth. The purpose of the WB-T is to assure that properties at the entrance to Whitefish that are annexed into the city are developed in a way that complies with the city’s vision for the gateway to town.

Whitefish Planning Director Dave Taylor’s report states the WB-T is intended “to be a low-intensity, mixed-use zone where offices, destination-oriented uses and residential would be allowed, with high-traffic uses discouraged.”

Typically, when properties are annexed, they are rezoned with the closest city designation to the current county zoning. In this particular area, the equivalent zone would be secondary business (WB-2). Taylor said the city does not want to see more WB-2 south of Montana 40.

“The business transitional zone … does have increased buffers along the highway, it reduces the permitted uses quite considerably … encourages things like offices, some mixed-use,” said Taylor. “The current draft … does allow multi-family up to 18 units, above that requires a conditional use permit.”

The Whitefish Planning Board recommended approval of the WB-T in January. The City Council held a public hearing in February, followed by another discussion and two work sessions. The lion’s share of the discussion had been about the proposed uses and development requirements.

Since the last discussion, the original draft was modified to delete several of the permitted uses, like wholesale and warehousing, as well as several conditionally permitted uses like bars and lounges, hotels, amusement parks and automobile boat and RV sales and others.

A change also was made to ease development of multi-family units as permitted or conditional, based on the number of units. The bulk and scale requirement was reduced from 10,000 to 7,500 square feet.

The city says another benefit of the transitional zone is that it provides some control over how property is developed.

“We could potentially capture some of those types of developments that could happen out there into our code so that our zoning would apply, our architectural review would apply, our environmental ordinances, like our water quality, would apply and as well as being able to potentially take some of those properties potentially off of septic which obviously can impact water quality,” Taylor said.

According to Taylor, good urban planning typically locates high-density housing near the downtown area to minimize the strain on roads and utilities that occurs with commuting. In this case, he said the area could support multi-family and mixed-use developments because its proximity to two highways would minimize traffic impacts.

While the WB-2 is the equivalent of county B-4, the current zoning south of Montana 40, the WB-T is preferred as it is more restrictive regarding permitted uses but still attractive enough to entice annexation.

The staff report stresses the importance of ensuring that future development will be developed to city codes, standards, environmental regulations and aesthetics.

“If they couldn’t get sewer and septic, what they’re specifically looking at is self-storage units, one of the few things they can build that don’t require any kind of septic permits and it’s a use by right in the county, so there's not much we’d be able to do,” Taylor said. “Until we adopt some kind of a zoning we can put in place, and somehow entice people to annex, we really have no control over how that stuff develops.”

Councilor Ben Davis voiced three worries. He’s concerned about scale and wants to ensure that the area will not become “the Hutton Ranch of the north.” Secondly, he wants to see the orderly development of transportation because, as he said, “that road is dangerous, it’s high-speed.”

“The third thing would be the issue of high-density residential. We need (it) and I’m a big advocate of that,” said Davis. “But I still have a hard time with the fact that, as Dave (Taylor) described, good city planning puts that toward the core of town, not the farthest point possible from the core of town, which is what this is.”

Councilor Andy Feury agreed with Davis’ points, reiterating the desire to limit the size of future buildings and the importance of development of transportation.

Council asked Taylor for a list of the size of existing buildings in Whitefish and the discussion about the WB-T will continue at a later date.

“We can all say what we want to see in that intersection but if it doesn’t monetize for somebody, nothing’s going to happen,” said Taylor.