County speeds up 'doughnut' zoning change

By RICHARD HANNERS / Whitefish Pilot

At the request of the Flat-head County Commissioners, county planners have revised their strategy for transitioning Whitefish's two-mile planning and zoning area back to the county.

A draft version of the revised eight-step plan calls for redesignating all land with city zoning inside the so-called "doughnut" area to county zoning within the next few months.

When city and county representatives met in Kalispell on Aug. 28 to talk about how the "doughnut" would transition back to the county, city officials were led to believe this work would take about a year.

Furthermore, the draft version of the county's transition strategy presented at the meeting called for dividing up the work so the county would handle all land with a county zoning designation and the city would continue to handle all land with a city zoning designation.

According to a draft version of the revised strategy, the county planning board could hold a public hearing on the zoning changes as soon as Oct. 15. A hearing before the county commissioners is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 6, with a final vote slated as soon as Dec. 15.

Neither Whitefish city planning staff nor members of the Whitefish City-County Planning Board have directly participated in the transition process.

A new "regulatory subcommittee" of the county planning board has been established to determine appropriate zoning for "doughnut" land with city zoning. It met for the first time on Aug. 29.

Whitefish implemented city zoning on all unzoned land within the two-mile area shortly after the city took over planning and zoning for the "doughnut" area in 2005.

City and county zoning designations don't exactly match up. The county has suburban-agriculture zoning with five-, 10- and 20-acre minimums, for example, while Whitefish has similar zoning but with one-, 2 1/2- and 15-acre minimums.