A proposed Evergreen mobile home park cleared its first planning hurdle on Tuesday with the approval of a conditional-use permit from the Flathead County Board of Adjustment.

Property owners Michael V. Seaman and Garry Seaman needed the conditional-use permit to allow a manufactured home park within the Evergreen Zoning District before they can proceed to subdivision review before the county Planning Board on April 11. The county commissioners will make the final decision on the proposed housing development.

The Seamans want to build a 122-lot mobile-home subdivision on 33 acres of agricultural land west of Evergreen Junior High School.

The property, at 74 West Evergreen Drive, abuts River Road on the west side. A year ago the Seamans asked for and were granted a zoning map amendment that changed the zoning on the property from suburban and one-family residential to two-family residential zoning.

Neighbors turned out in full force at the Board of Adjustment public hearing to oppose the mobile-home park, largely because of the increased traffic they believe it will generate and concerns that property values could decrease for neighboring homeowners. Some expressed concern about the density of the park, the caliber of people it could attract and whether there would be adequate law enforcement.

“This park sounds like it will bring a lot of trouble to this quiet neighborhood,” West Evergreen Drive resident Jacque Anders said in a letter to the Planning Office. “We are all worried about crime going up and more drugs … This will affect us all in a negative way.”

Eric Mulcahy of Sands Surveying, representing the Seamans, said the residential zoning in place allows up to 12 units per acre, but the Seamans are proposing 3.7 units per acre. That’s a density comparable to surrounding single-family home neighborhoods, he said.

Some smaller lots would be clustered in the internal portion of the subdivision, with bigger lots around the perimeter.

There will be 8.9 acres of open space, far more than the 1.78 acres required by subdivision regulations, Mulcahy pointed out. County planner Erik Mack said floodplain acreage on the site would be open space.

The developers are working with the Evergreen School District on an easement to create a pedestrian path that could be used by students walking to school.

The Board of Adjustment unanimously approved the conditional-use permit, subject to 21 conditions. They added a couple of new conditions beyond what the planning staff had recommended. One of the new conditions will require a 30-foot buffer with a “living fence” of vegetation, plus a 4-foot chain-link fence on the southern boundary of the subdivision.

Editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.