The Kalispell City Council may amend the city’s annexation boundary to include a potential development north of town.

After being previously denied city annexation, the owners of the Majestic Valley Arena, just north of Silverbrook Estates, requested a zoning change from Flathead County for 40 acres of the property to allow future development.

Majestic Valley owners Jan and Bob Parker are looking to retire, according to Erica Wirtala of Sands Surveying Inc., and want to advertise the property as a develop-ready site.

Wirtala spoke to a council work session on Monday night.

“They’d like to retire and they need to make some plans,” Wirtala said. “When the city told them no, they turned to the county.”

The Parkers have requested a B-3 zoning amendment to 40 acres, which would open the door to a wide variety of development such as big box stores and hotels.

They’re asking the city to connect the property to city services, which would require the Parkers or future developers to build to more restrictive city standards rather than the county. In 2011, the arena owners received a letter from then-City Manager Jane Howington suggesting the city would be interested in Majestic Valley annexation. However, the city denied a request for annexation in November, citing the lack of a development plan and the growth policy (which was created after the 2011 letter from Howington) barring annexation north of Silverbrook Estates.

At Monday’s work session meeting, the owners seemed to have a few ideas in mind for future development.

“They don’t want a huge hotel, they want a place where competitors could stay,” Wirtala said. “This is a very specific type of development. Not a Kohl’s or a Macy’s.”

When the city annexed Silverbrook Estates in 2008, the property developers paid for city services to be extended to Silverbrook — all the way to the northern boundary at Church Drive.

With city services so close, connecting to those services would be cheaper than digging for a large-scale septic system. If Kalispell agrees to provide city services, it would have final say in what is developed. Majestic Valley owners likely would need to present a planned-unit development to the city defining what kind of development they hope to build on the property.

The council still took issue with amending the annexation boundary that is set by the city’s growth policy.

“When you open that door, who’s next?” council member Phil Guiffrida said. “Who’s going to want that to be the process from now on?”

Only one resident spoke about her concerns during the public comment period.

“My concern, more than anything else, is they’ll get that B-3 zoning from the county. Then it’s a wide-open door and that’s the problem,” said Sharon DeMeester, a member of Citizens for a Better Flathead.

Council member Jim Atkinson echoed DeMeester’s concerns.

“We’re back to the situation we’ve been in forever between the county and the city,” Atkinson said. “Do we want to see city standards in growth just outside the city or do we want to have the county standards there and be blocked in as a city?”

Jan Parker spoke at the meeting on Monday, saying Majestic Valley owners would be willing to submit a planned-unit development plan and even sign a document binding future developers to the plan.

The arena produced $1 million in economic impact to the local economy from the Montana High School Rodeo finals alone last year, according to the Kalispell Convention and Visitors Bureau. The potential development would complement the arena, not crowd it, Parker said.

“We need a little hotel and a little feed store. I can’t lure a hotel here on a hope and a prayer,” she said. “The other option is we go through the county.”

At the end of the meeting, City Council members agreed to examine adjusting the annexation boundary to bring the Majestic Valley property into the city.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.