Residents comment on Flathead County growth policy

The Daily Inter Lake

The tug of war over Flathead County's new growth policy is winding down, with just one opportunity left to lobby the County Board of Commissioners before it puts its stamp on the document.

A general public comment period at 9 a.m. Tuesday is the last chance anyone will have to sway the board - though by this point, every conceivable issue likely has been raised.

The commissioners, beginning at 1 p.m., will spend Tuesday making their own changes, additions and deletions to the much-revised document.

About 15 people went to the general public comment period Thursday, urging the commissioners to avoid creating an overly restrictive growth policy, or one that gives small landowners undue say in what their larger neighbors can do.

"I'm against neighborhood plans," said Jim Etzler, one of the speakers. "I've invested in some land and I'm considering developing it, but my neighbors seem to have much more influence over what happens than I do. I think that's wrong. My neighbors have no right to control the property I worked for."

Neighborhood plans have been one of the more contentious issues in the growth policy, particularly after the Flathead County Planning Board added language requiring organizers of new neighborhood plans to have the support of 60 percent of the landowners within the proposed jurisdiction - and owners of 50 percent of the actual land area - before the plan could proceed through the public review.

A summary report presented to the commissioners Thursday indicated that more than 70 percent of the 173 verbal and written comments received about the growth policy since Dec. 11, when the Planning Board completed its review, specifically cited neighborhood plans as an issue of concern.

The vast majority of these comments - including more than two dozen form letters - bashed the Planning Board's language and recommended that the commissioners remove the 60/50 requirement and reinstate the initial draft language provided by the county planning staff.

"We oppose the changes [regarding] neighborhood plans," wrote Donald and Suzanne Sullivan. "The changes favor large landowners over small in formulation and approval of new neighborhood plans. We believe this is unfair. The legislative and judicial foundation of this country are based on equal representation."

However, the commissioners also received a petition signed by about 70 local farmers and large landowners urging that the 60/50 requirement be maintained, and F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. General Manager Ron Buentemeier also wrote that "to say a person who owns one acre in a neighborhood-plan area has the same representation as someone who owns 160 or 10,000 acres is frightening."

Mapping trailed neighborhood plans as the issue cited most frequently in the 173 comments, according to the summary report.

Until the new development-predictability map called for in the growth policy can be created, many people want the map from the 1987 Master Plan used as a basis for designating future land uses. The Planning Board, though, thought that many sections of the '87 map were hopelessly outdated, so it preferred using two new maps based on existing land-uses and zoning.

After the commissioners make their modifications Tuesday, they'll consider a resolution of intent at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 31. If that's approved, it will be followed by a 30-day written comment period, after which the final version of the growth policy can be adopted.