Supreme Court upholds zoning variance for Swiss Apartments

The Montana Supreme Court has upheld a district court ruling that allows for a nine-unit apartment complex to be rebuilt in Columbia Falls.

The Swiss Apartments on Fourth Avenue West burned in a spectacular mid-day blaze in August 2020. A second fire three days later burned what was left.

A few months after the fire, owner Chad Ross submitted a plan to rebuild the apartments with a different site plan, including a new configuration that would feature three new buildings over the roughly half-acre lot. The structures included a four-plex, triplex and duplex.

The Columbia Falls Board of Adjustment, in turn, gave Ross a variance to build the units.

Neighbors Inge and Mark Cahill, Kerin Gayner, William and Nanette Reed and Irving Erickson challenged that decision and sued in Flathead County District Court.

Granting the variance was in the public interest and followed the city’s regulations, Judge Robert Allison ruled in July 2022.

“Granting the variance serves the public interest in providing affordable housing for young families and members of the workforce living in Columbia Falls,” Allison opined. “The affordable housing is good for the community. The loss of the legal non-conforming structure to fire constituted an unnecessary hardship to the property owners that is unique to them. The design of the rebuild was created to blend in with the single family residence neighborhood and all other zoning requirements of the CR-3 zone are complied with, aside from the single family requirement, thus, the spirit of the ordinance is observed. The existence of other multi-unit structures in the neighborhood would render a denial of the variance untenable. Granting the variance constituted substantial justice.”

But the neighbors appealed Allison’s decision to the Montana Supreme Court.

Writing for the court panel, Justice Mike McGrath upheld Allison’s ruling in an opinion issued May 5.

“Upon review, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in determining that the Board of Adjustment did not abuse its discretion in granting [Ross’] application for a variance,” McGrath found.

Furthermore, McGrath also found the fire was, in fact, a hardship when it came to rebuilding. The plaintiffs argued it was not.

“… The accidental fire clearly constitutes a hardship unique to [Ross'] property. Petitioners provide no authority supporting their claim that an accidental fire cannot be classified as a unique hardship under the ordinance simply because the same fire also served as the trigger for terminating the legal accommodation for a preexisting nonconforming use … we decline to so hold here and factual finding … is not so lacking in foundation as to be unreasonable,” McGrath opined.

The Swiss Apartments were originally built on unzoned county land in 1969 and weren’t annexed into the city until 1998.

The neighborhood is a mix of single-family and apartment buildings. An apartment building is just to the north of the Swiss Apartment lot and has been there for years.