Planning Board rejects Kapoor zone change

The Flathead County Planning Board last week rejected a zone change request by Florida company Location Ventures on 12.4 acres east of Columbia Falls along Highway 2.

The company was asking for a zone change from SAG-10 to R-1, which have allowed for at least 12 homes to be built on the wedge-shaped parcel.

The vote for a negative recommendation to county commissioners was 7-0 with Greg Lake abstaining.

Planning board members brought up several concerns, including safety concerns about access to Highway 2 and the character of the neighborhood, which is farmland north of the Highway, but commercial and residential land south of the highway.

The planning board received a host of comments against the zone change, but they rejected the notion it amounted to spot zoning, as it was close to high density development in Columbia Heights.

But safety was a major concern.

“This particular development needs a different approach,” board member Gary Votapka said. The point was literal, not figurative — the approach to the property literally drops steeply down the hillside to access the land, of which there is already one home and several outbuildings.

Boardmember Greg Stevens said in general, he supports more housing in the Flathead, whether its “affordable” or not. New homes are still adding inventory, he noted, which meant that newcomers at least weren’t buying up existing properties.

He also was critical of the argument against the development because it was close to the Bad Rock Wildlife Management Area. He said restricting development because the state or federal agencies decided to preserve a nearby property was an unfair to private owners.

“it’s unfair to surrounding landowners to require a buffer,” he said.

But this development didn’t past muster — there were too many safety concerns for Stevens.

Chair Jeff Larsen said that when he looks at zone changes, he likes to look at what’s happening on surrounding properties. In this case, the surrounding private lands remained agricultural.

Boardmember Sandra Vogel said a zone change from SAG-10 (10 acre minimum lot size) to SAG-5 (5 acre minimum) would have been more appropriate.

“SAG-5 would be fine, but not R-1,” she said.

Location Ventures is seeing its own problems, particularly in its home state of Florida, where CEO Rishi Kapoor is under investigation by the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission according to reports in the Miami Herald.

Now private investors in Location Ventures are also suing Kapoor in an attempt to get their money back, the newspaper is reporting.

Location Ventures tried to get the Columbia Falls City-County planning Board to change the zoning on about 22 acres of land along Highway 2 just to the west of this proposal.

That was a much bigger development, with Kapoor looking to building about 180-units on the swampy ground.

The Columbia Falls City Council, in a 5-2 vote in April rejected the request after hours of contentious public meetings.

He also sought a zone change from SAG-10 to R-1 from the county on 113-acres of the Wilkinson Trust property adjoining the 12.4 acres.

But the deal fell through and the Wilkinson family said the land was no longer for sale — so it never made it before the planning board.

If Location Ventures had succeeded in its grander plan, the area could have seen at least 300 homes and likely more, as it was also reportedly eyeing another 140 acres to east for more housing.

The company specializes in high-end luxury homes in Florida, its showcase development being Villa Valencia in Coral Gables.

The Flathead County Commissioners will take up the zone change request on the 12.4 acres at 10:30 a.m. at its Aug. 31 meeting. There will be a public hearing at that time.