The Daily Inter Lake

The Flathead County Planning Board could take action on the draft growth policy sometime in December, but it now appears that the document won't be officially approved until early next year.

After more than a dozen work sessions, the planning board has almost completed its review of the draft policy. It finished modifying the proposed goals and policies in October and is now going through the text.

On Thursday, the board got through most of Chapter 9, the implementation section. After completing that chapter, it will have two more chapters to review. It also may take a brief look at Appendix A, which provides information about existing conditions, and it's waiting for a couple of maps to be produced.

Based on how quickly it's been moving in recent weeks, the board could finish work on the draft as early as next week, and should certainly be done by the end of November.

However, before it can actually vote on the document and forward a recommendation to the county commissioners, a legal notice must be published giving the time and place where the decision will be made.

The legal notice has to run two weeks before the meeting. It also takes another week to write it and get it formatted properly, meaning there's at least a three-week lag time before any action can be taken.

Consequently, even if the planning board finishes its review next week, it couldn't vote on the growth policy until the first week in December. And that's an aggressive schedule; a more likely date would be mid-December.

Either way, the delay bumps final approval of the document into next year.

The commissioners may be able to pass a resolution of intent on the growth policy this year, once they get the planning board's recommendation. That will be followed by a 30-day written comment period, though, so it will be January at the earliest before final approval can be given and the policy takes effect.

That means Commissioner-elect Dale Lauman will cast at least one vote on the document.

Besides the timing of the planning board's recommendation, the other open question is whether it will hold one last public hearing on the revised draft before voting on it.

The last public hearing on the growth policy was Sept. 6. Since then, the board has made minor changes to almost all of the 48 goals and more than 200 policies proposed in the document. It made a couple of major changes as well, added or deleted a number of policies, and is currently revising the text.

All the changes made to the draft policy through last Tuesday's work session are available on the Flathead County Planning Office Web site. Thursday's changes should be online by the middle of next week.

The Web address is www.co.flathead.mt.us/fcpz/growthpolicy.html

The county commissioners could accept these modifications and/or make their own revisions before voting on a resolution of intent.

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com