The Kalispell City Council on Monday voted to amend its South Kalispell urban renewal plan, which details planning and policy options for Kalispell City Airport and the surrounding area.

City attorney Charlie Harball described the revised plan as a blueprint that gives guidance to the council on a range of policy options as it considers the future of the area.

The Kalispell City Airport has taken center stage during the council’s recent meetings and work sessions, and the plan notably includes analyses and cost estimates of five broad options for the facility, ranging from closure to investments that would expand it and bring it within Federal Aviation Administration compliance.

Harball stressed that should the council vote to adopt it, the city would not be obligated to any of those options.

“They did the best they could, I think, to give you a number of facts to work with,” he said, referring to CTA Architects Engineers, the firm contracted to draft the plan. “What you’re really doing is setting up some findings of fact to be able to go forward with. ... You would not be deciding any of those tonight.”

Council members Kari Gabriel and Sandy Carlson provided the only dissenting votes on the ordinance to amend the redevelopment plan, after council member Phil Guiffrida’s motion to re-insert the costs of depreciation for airport assets into the plan had won unanimous approval.

Planning director Tom Jentz explained that the Urban Renewal Agency Board had previously removed the figures on the basis that one of the board’s members felt they were confusing.

“He happened to be a commercial Realtor and he said to him it just confused the situation,” Jentz said.

Guiffrida said he was uncomfortable removing a specific finding within the amended plan, which was released earlier this year and incorporated CTA Architects’ prior findings in a 2015 report on the airport and surrounding area.

Several airport supporters spoke during a public hearing preceding the vote, and Guiffrida referred to one of the comments questioning the impartiality of the firm hired to write the plan.

“Looking at past reports and why things are put in and why things are taken out of reports, there may be some truth to that,” he said.

The plan’s other options for the airport including maintaining the status quo at the facility, privatizing it or incorporating it into an airport authority.

The latter emerged as a possibility during the council’s work session last week, after local businessman and airport user Dewey Swank spoke on behalf of a group of other airport stakeholders, suggesting they could help pick up the city’s cost of keeping the municipal facility open.

The council has set a tentative May 1 deadline for finalizing a public-private partnership for the airport and directed staffers to begin meeting with the user group to establish the agreement’s framework, due in October.

City Manager Doug Russell told the council that talks with the pro-airport group are scheduled to begin this week.

The draft urban renewal plan for South Kalispell is available on the city’s website, kalispell.com/planning/documents/SKURP_4-5-16_Draft2.pdf.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.