Sale of independent school hits zoning snag
A request that would allow a local lip balm company to move into the Whitefish Independent High School building appears to have hit a snag.
Hurraw! lip balm has applied with the city for a conditional use permit to allow for the business to operate in the building as a home occupation. However, owners of the company asked the Whitefish City-County Planning Board last week if there was any way around a condition of the permit that would require a residence on site.
“We have no intent to use this as a residence,” Neil Stuber said. “We’ve been looking for three years to find a location and we love this property. We want to use this for our primary location, but having to create a residence on the property creates an awkward situation.”
Stuber and Corrie Colbert have signed an offer to purchase the building from Whitefish School District contingent upon the company obtaining a CUP to operate at the location.
The school building is currently zoned for high density multi-family residential. Under that Hurraw! can obtain a CUP, but must operate as a home-based business and include a residence in the building. Otherwise, Hurraw! is considered to be light manufacturing, which isn’t permitted in the multi-family residential zone.
The Planning Board Oct. 17 voted to recommend the CUP including the residence requirement, but several board members said they felt their hands were tied because of the zoning issue.
“I want to see this building recycled for a new use rather than sitting empty and eventually forcing someone to tear it down,” board member Greg Gunderson said. “I don’t see how there could be a better use of this building (than Hurraw!).”
City planner Wendy Compton-Ring acknowledged that the lip balm business would likely have less impact to the neighborhood than the school does now, but said the zoning rules make it difficult.
“Light manufacturing would have to be located somewhere else,” she said. “This also wouldn’t be appropriate for a rezone because it’s in the middle of residential and would be spot zoning. There’s really only one way for it to be considered and that’s as a home occupation.”
Stuber said having a residence in the building is detrimental to the company’s image when it sells its products on an international level.
“To have any residence requirement isn’t sufficient for us,” he said. “We want to be in Whitefish, but we’re at the point were we’ll have to start looking for other places.”
Planning Director Dave Taylor noted that the allowed uses for the high density multi-family residential zoning could be modified to include light manufacturing, but the process to change the zoning code would take several months.
Boardchair Ken Meckel suggested recommendation of the application and thus forwarding the issue to city council to handle.
“This is far from a desirable situation,” he said. “Because this is a zoning situation, I think the council should handle it.”
The board did vote to amend the language of the residential condition. Changes included reducing the size of the residence from a minimum of 600-square-feet to 250-square-feet and removing the requirement that the residence be occupied by the owner or an employee.
City council will hold a public hearing on the matter at its Nov. 4 meeting beginning at 7:10 p.m. at City Hall.