A planned unit development for Glacier Volkswagen cleared the first of two readings on Monday. But questions about the document’s adequacy and a crossfire over latecomer’s fees left some members of the Kalispell City Council divided.

The same arguments that confronted Kalispell Planning Board members a month ago quickly resurfaced. After two hours of discussion and public comment, council members were left split 5-3 on the issue. Jim Atkinson was not present.

“At this point I think I’ll vote for it,” council member Tim Kluesner said of the planned unit development and its 20 conditions. “Going forward on the rest of the acreage, there’s a lot that’s going to have to go on and definitely we’re going to need some plans.”

The document applies to two lots totaling almost eight acres at the southeast corner of U.S. 93 and Lower Valley Road. One of the lots is where DePratu Ford and Volkswagen wants to build the new car dealership.

Both lots are part of a 55-acre tract owned by Todd and Davar Gardner — land that also must go through a planned unit development process before it can be developed.

Ken Kalvig, an attorney representing Old School Station developer Paul Wachholz, argued the proposed document does not contain the level of detail that city regulations require. 

He pointed to conditions requiring landscaping plans, pedestrian and bike path plans, water and sewer plans and a full traffic analysis for all 55 acres before a building permit is issued. He added that there’s no mention of development phases, overall plans or internal roads for a large commercial property at the city’s southern entrance that could accommodate development on the scale of Hutton Ranch Plaza or Mountain View Plaza.

“I don’t see any cohesive design. I see two linear lots along the highway,” Kalvig told the council. “There is more information that needs to be seen and [staff] pointed it out in [their] staff report.”

This document does not meet Kalispell’s normal planned unit development process, Kalvig said. “The problem is staff is wanting you guys to rewrite the process for these PUDs. They want that information to come in apparently after your work is done and the public record is closed — for the administration to deal with it. That is not how you guys have done it in the past.”

Kalvig’s biggest concerns center around water and sewer plans and if the two lots and the larger 55-acre tract will connect to $4 million in oversized lines that Old School Station developers installed and handed over to the city under the assumption they would be paid back through latecomer’s fees as other projects hooked up to the lines. 

The plan leaves that unknown and that’s a major concern for Wachholz, who has a large amount of that investment left to recoup, Kalvig said.

Todd Gardner responded that Old School Station infrastructure is not needed to service the two lots in question — a position Mayor Tammi Fisher and others on the City Council ultimately seemed to agree with as they decided to move forward. 

“I acknowledge Paul spent $4 million getting those lines to his development,” Gardner told the council. “If his development worked, that latecomer’s [agreement] would be paid back by now. Instead, now he’s coming after us. I do feel sorry for it, but I don’t want to pay for it.”

Kalispell Planning Director Tom Jentz said questions about latecomer’s fees are unrelated to the proposed planned unit development and will get worked out as final engineering plans are prepared for the site and presented to the public works department for consideration.

“Utilities are obviously available and that was our charge. If they hook up to that [Old School Station] line they would be paying latecomer’s fees. But if they come up with another design public works would find suitable, that could be accommodated as well,” Jentz told the council. “You are struggling with the latecomer’s agreement, a different issue. But these lots have services they can tie into in multiple ways.”

Council members took differing views of the issue. 

But all of them were mindful of a $312,736 legal settlement they approved in 2011 to resolve botched latecomer’s fee collections related to an oversized water line that Owl Corporation ran to West View Estates.

Kari Gabriel, Bob Hafferman and Wayne Saverud pushed for more time to consider the situation and voted against the planned unit development while others on the council moved to adopt it.

“This staff report is greatly lacking of information,” Hafferman said. “I want to be sure that our taxpayers are not going to be ending up paying for something that should have been plain and simple.”

The planned unit development comes up for a final reading at the next regular City Council meeting.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.