City stands by infill policy

Whitefish City Council unanimously voted to uphold the 2007 Whitefish City-County Growth Policy following a required biennial review of the document. Their decision reaffirms the established infill policy, flying in the face of unanimous recommendations from the City-County Planning Board to eliminate the rule.

“I’m bewildered by the planning board’s actions here,” councilman John Anderson said before his motion to approve the growth policy as written. “We had a joint work session with them and asked them to do specific work. I don’t think they did. They came back with generalities we can’t work with.”

Council and the planning board met Feb. 16 to discuss possible revisions to the growth policy, which provides a 10-year plan for the city and sets goals and recommendations for natural resources, land use, economic growth, transportation, housing and community facilities in the city’s planning jurisdiction.

The planning board met again in March and unanimously crafted 10 suggested actions for council’s review. The most controversial suggestion was to eliminate the infill policy which promotes construction on already platted lots in the city before creating new lots. The policy is intended to discourage urban sprawl and protect open space and farmland. It mandates that 50 percent of platted lots be developed before land designated as rural or rural residential can be redesignated.

Other recommendations from the board were to offer incentives to encourage infill including a reduction of fees, revise the sign and dark skies ordinances, study fee-in-lieu of parking for downtown, address staffing needs of the planning department, explore options for economic development, and monitor and improve stormwater runoff.

Planning Director David Taylor said his staff generally agrees with the board’s recommendations, but that they supported the infill policy. He also said the sign and dark skies ordinances are not part of the growth policy, but each may need to be reviewed.

In Taylor’s staff report, he notes that the infill policy protects the city from the negative effects of sprawl, including the cost of maintaining roads and utilities.

“Whitefish currently has at least 1,000 undeveloped platted lots where new homes could be built without incurring those added costs to the city and taxpayers,” Taylor said.

Based on the current building trends in Whitefish of 40 new units per year, it would take about 14 years to reach the 50 percent infill benchmark. Going back to the boom years when on average 130 units were built per year, it would take four years to reach the benchmark.

Some argue that an infill policy isn’t necessary in the wake of the national housing market crash because few subdivisions are being planned. They suggest an infill rule discourages new development. However, Taylor counters, “that is also the very reason that the policy should likely be retained — there is currently no market for new large subdivisions, so we should continue to try to protect our rural lands as an important economic resource.”

“As planners and forward-thinkers, we should lay the foundation so that when new development comes, we create well-designed quality neighborhoods with open space, parks and trails to attract new families, rather than the cheap, cram-them-in, bare-bones, minimal-effort type subdivisions that are often approved in lean times in communities hungry for a hint of growth.”

Members of the planning board argued at their March 15 meeting that the infill policy is unfair to residents in the two-mile planning “doughnut.”

Planning board member Diane Smith said infill devalues property. Telling someone they can only hold their land as farmland is a functional devaluation of that property, she said.

Smith motioned to eliminate the infill policy and to replace it with a statement that says the land-use map should be reviewed at minimum every four years. Grant Gunderson moved to recommend that incentives are given to promote infill projects.

Nearly 20 people spoke in favor of the infill rule during public comment at the April 16 council meeting, and most supported the sign and dark skies ordinance that were brought into question.

“Please don’t do anything to degrade the special city we live in,” Doug Chadwick pleaded to council. “Don’t do anything that removes the night sky, or forces me to drive through a clutter of signs. There is a reason why Whitefish is doing so well, and better than the rest of the valley.”

Mary Person said the infill policy was working as intended.

“Infill is good management of city infrastructure,” she said. “It’s growing responsibly.”

Cary Crittenden encouraged council to uphold the infill policy, as well.

“Subdivisons never pay for themselves, taxpayers always pay down the line,” he said. “We’ve got enough lots out there for 20 years. Rampant development is what helped burst the economic bubble.”

Following an hour of public comment, council took little time to make their motion to uphold the growth policy.

“I’m confused when reading these recommendations from the planning board.” councilman Bill Kahle said. “Of these recommendations — six don’t even belong in the growth policy, or they deserve a public process. This [meeting] doesn’t represent a public process.”

Chris Hyatt suggested council meet again with the planning board.

“If we have a city-county board that voted for this, I would say we need to figure out why,” he said. “Obviously, there is something askew.”

Frank Sweeney said via conference call that the policy is working as written.

“We are seeing an increased growth in Whitefish which shows this policy is right for our town and our citizens,” Sweeney said.

A joint work session between council and the planning board is slated for this summer.