Growth is coming, which way will city go?
An aerial view of the neighborhood to the east of South Nucleus, the street on the right. To the west is city, to the east is county.
The Columbia Falls City Council last week examined where the city might expand in the future.
State law, in part, limits how much the city can expand on its own. The law, for example, prohibits the city from simply annexing agricultural or industrial land, without the request of the owner.
In other words, the city typically can’t “build it and they will come” with infrastructure. For one, it doesn’t have the funding and secondly, state law ties its hands to a point.
At least one subdivision, for example, is planned east of the Flathead River, but it will rely on wells and septic systems.
Crossing the river with sewer and water lines is an expensive proposition. Once a development or home hooks into city services, it’s typically annexed into the city.
The city can also annex neighborhoods that are “wholly surrounded.”
There are some exceptions, however. Meadow Lake relies on the city for sewer service, but is not part of the city under a contract penned years ago.
There has been some interest lately in a developer seeking city water, which could bring at least part of Meadow Lake into the city. But Meadow Lake has its challenges would it become part of the city. It’s streets aren’t up to code and since its roads are private, it allows golf cart traffic, which wouldn’t normally be allowed in the city limits.
Extending city services also can benefit the environment. For example, east of South Nucleus, homes along the river rely on septics and water wells. Those septics are aging, however, and the river would likely benefit from pollution not entering from failing tanks.
Still, extending services typically requires a special improvement district, where homeowners pay an additional fee to hook into the system.
Riverwood Estates recently did that — as it needed city services, namely water. It was also wholly surrounded by the city.
So where could the city expand in the future? The most logical would be to the south and the west, if landowners decide to convert farmland to housing.
Another possibility would be to the north, on old farmland near the former Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant.
There are some strategies the city can implement to make services more attractive to developers. One would be to extend the length of time a landowner would have to pay back a developer for extension of services. Right now, if services are extended, a developer can recoup some of the costs as homeowners connect into the lines. That time period is capped at 10 years. The city could extend the time limit further.
One thing is the growth appears inevitable.
In 2001 the city was one square mile. Today it’s two square miles.
Council took no formal action on changing its extension of services policy.