A proposal to build a 77-lot recreational vehicle park near Columbia Falls goes before the Flathead County Planning Board for a public hearing on Dec. 13.

Property owners Robert and Geraldine Rupp are asking for preliminary plat approval to build Whispering Pines RV Park on 13 acres off Kinnikinnick Lane, a private road south of Montana 40. The park would include eight full-service spaces, 42 partial-service spaces and 27 primitive (no services) spaces.

The Rupps propose to establish a separate multiple-user water and sewer system to serve the RV park. The lots would be developed in two phases by the fall of 2023.

The property currently is developed with a home, shop and mobile home, which will be removed. The north section of the property is grassland, while the south section is forested.

The Columbia Falls Rural Fire Department will require Kinnikinnick Lane to be improved to a minimum width of 20 feet, exclusive of road shoulders, according to comments submitted by Fire Chief Rick Hagen.

In other agency comments, Jessy Coltrane of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said that while the property isn’t in any critical wildlife habitat, the RV park “has the potential to result in increased human-wildlife conflicts in the area.”

A public hearing will beheld on the RV park proposal.

In other business, the Planning Board will hold a public hearing to consider preliminary plat approval for Countryside Estates, which would include 24 residential lots and four commercial lots on 53.3 acres in the Evergreen area. The property is owned by Robert and Donna Fink and is located along Helena Flats Road off Montana 35.

The property currently is used as a tree nursery. The front half of the property is zoned scenic corridor and the rear half is unzoned.

A third public hearing involves a zone change request from Icecap LLC for the Eslick property at 7645 Montana 35 in Bigfork, in the Holt Zoning District. The proposed zoning amendment would change the zoning from suburban agricultural with a 10-acre minimum lot size to general business on 10 acres and one-family limited residential zoning on 57.7 acres.

The Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee met Nov. 30 and voted 4-1 to forward a recommendation of approval for the Eslick zone change to the Planning Board.

Once the Planning Board makes its recommendations on all three agenda items, they’ll go to the county commissioners for final approval.

The Planning Board meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 13, in the second-floor conference room of the South Campus Building, 40 11th St. W. in Kalispell.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or [email protected].