Gun club stirs up resentment

By RICHARD HANNERS

Whitefish Pilot

A Texas man's plans to build a shooting range for trap and skeet on Farm to Market Road has stirred up a hornets nest, as neighbors with ways and means scramble for legal and monetary solutions to what they call a nuisance.

Robert Hayes bought the 60-acre ranch near Tally Lake Road early this year. The word got out about his plans when a construction worker told a neighbor about a gun club being built at the former Sundance Farms ranch.

John Klassen, who's lived a short distance away for 17 years, said it took about 10 days to round up 120 signatures on a petition opposed to the plan — "We could easily have gotten 200," he said — and more than 100 people turned up at Olney-Bissell School on April 10.

Klassen, a retired Whitefish music teacher, said sound carries in the basin there. He said he can hear guns from the gun range on KM Road seven miles away, and he can hear construction workers talking on Hayes' land.

"People here are beside themselves," he said. "Many planned to retire here. Now they're talking about selling and moving on."

Both Klassen and his neighbor, Michelle Larsen, also spoke to Hayes.

"He's not going to live there," Klassen said. "It's one thing to live there and have a gun club. It's another not to live there and shoot up the neighborhood."

Klassen said neighbors are looking at a number of solutions, including zoning.

"We do have rights as landowners — even without zoning," he said. "We're being walked over."

The petition was presented to the commissioners on April 16.

"We believe the noise from such a facility would seriously degrade our lifestyle and negatively affect our land values," it states.

The Flathead Audubon Society also presented a letter to the commissioners.

"This property is used heavily by migratory birds, especially in spring when the area is often temporarily flooded," Audubon officer Bruce Tannehill wrote.

Waterfowl could be displaced to less desirable areas, the noise would impact the atmosphere of Farm to Market Road area, and lead shot poses health hazards to birds that consume it, he said.

Jay Deist, president of Triple D Game Farm, in Kalispell, wrote saying he used the Klassen's property as a wildlife movie set.

"To my knowledge, this was planned by the developer without any attempt to determine the impacts a shooting range may have on adjacent land owners or businesses," he said. "The Klassen property was specifically chosen by the Triple D because of its scenic beauty and solitude free of noise pollution."

Flathead County Commiss-ioner Gary Hall said he's very familiar with the site.

"I grew up there as a kid," he said. "My father harvested hay there, and I attended school half a mile away at Olney-Bissell School."

The commissioners agreed that without zoning, there was little that could be done to restrict a gun range, and Hall recommended the neighbors meet with Hayes.

Narda Wilson, a land-use consultant hired by the neighbors, said going through the public process to create a neighborhood plan would take too long. Instead, some neighbors want zoning, probably with a 10-acre minimum, she said.

But the first priority would be to meet with Hayes and encourage him to relocate — possibly to an existing gun range further north. Another option is for the neighbors to buy Hayes out.

The Olney Bissell School Board sent a letter to Hayes on April 10 asking to meet with him to discuss their concerns.

"The noise from frequent gunfire during school hours could be disruptive to student concentration," chairperson Lorri Hustwaite said in the letter. "The constant shooting could de-sensitize the students to the sound of gunfire, which could be a safety issue."

There was also a neighborhood concern, Hustwaite said.

"The close proximity of a shooting club to the school could have fiscal consequences due to families not wishing to move close to a shooting club," she wrote.

Sean Frampton, who is Hayes' attorney, had a different take on the matter.

"Noise is the big issue, not safety," he said. "But it could be a case of people not wanting a shooting range around them."

He said neighbors of his in Whitefish shoot guns, and it doesn't bother him.

"As an ardent hunter and bird hunter, I don't believe the noise of shotguns will be a nuisance," he said. "There's a lot of land out there to diffuse the noise."

Frampton said there are no restrictions prohibiting Hayes from establishing a shooting range at the site because the area is unzoned, and interim zoning can't be done because Hayes has already paid for the land with a specific use in mind and spent money on design work.

"I talked to many of the neighbors after the commissioners' meeting," Frampton said, "and 20 percent of those I talked to were not opposed to the gun range — they were opposed to zoning out there."

Frampton said part of the problem is hearsay. Most of the neighbors never talked to Hayes, he said. There was also the need to understand the scope of the neighbors' concerns, he said.

"For example, will the site become a commercial gun range?" Frampton said. "Something like that can be mitigated with a covenant."

As for the noise, Frampton said landscape architect Bruce Boody has ideas about controlling sound with berms and trees.

"It's a case of people needing to talk to each other," Frampton said.

A meeting between neighbors and Hayes is scheduled for Friday, May 4, at Frampton's Whitefish office.