The Whitefish Planning Board last week gave a favorable recommendation for a large condominium project planned for south of U.S. Highway 93 West directly across from Whitefish Lake Golf Course.

Ronnie and Sharon Kyle are requesting a conditional use permit to construct 52 condo units in three buildings on property just west of Grouse Mountain Park. The 4.47-acre property currently contains a single-family home and some outbuildings.

Plans are to construct three buildings with two containing 18 units and one containing 16 units. The buildings would contain a combination of two-, three- and four-bedroom units.

The project is proposing to pay a cash-in-lieu fee of affordable housing of about $1.2 million under the city’s Legacy Homes Program.

Eric Mulcahy, with Sands Surveying, in representing the developer said that by providing the cash the project would be providing the equivalent of 30% of the housing units as affordable rather than the 20% if it provided affordable units in the project.

“It really seems like a bonus to the Legacy Homes program that offsets our decision to do it that way,” he said.

Under the city’s Legacy Homes Program, the project would need to provide 20% of its units as affordable or 10.4 units. But when the developer selects to pay the fee in lieu of units, then they are required to provide the cash at a rate of 1.5 times the fee in lieu rate.

Planning Board member Whitney Beckham expressed concern about getting cash rather than affordable housing units.

Board member John Middleton, who also serves on the Whitefish Housing Authority Board, said the Legacy Homes Program, besides creating affordable units, was also designed to assist in providing funds to assist the housing authority in developing projects in the areas that make sense.

“The cash flow will help with other projects,” he said. “In the low-density resort residential zoning where this project is located, it’s not considered the best use to provide affordable units particularly when the cash can go toward other projects that are not in that zoning.”

As part of the Legacy Homes Program, the developer plans to use three incentives — additional building height, density bonus and reduced parking.

The program allows for buildings to be 5-feet higher than the standard up to 40 feet.

The density of the project is 11.63 dwelling units per acre and the zoning allows for a maximum density of 10 units per acre without the bonus.

The parking standard requires 121 spaces for the project, but the applicant is using the reduced parking incentive and is only planning 112 spaces.

The entrance to the project would be off Highway 93 and includes a large landscaped round-about to slow traffic as it enters the project before accessing parking under the buildings.

The two 18-unit buildings will have subgrade parking and three floors of condos. The 16-unit building will have two floors of condos and under-the-building parking.

The property since at least 1982 has been zoned low-density resort residential, which is “intended to provide low density setting for secondary resorts” according to the city zoning code.

The buildings are planned to be centered around a central open space that contains a clubhouse with resident amenities including barbecues, hot tubs, grassy area and paved plaza spaces.

The open space and buildings were designed around a small wetland at the center of the open space. The wetland is about 3,500-square feet in size and thus is exempt from requirements for a buffer of setback, according to city planner Wendy Compton-Ring.

“While there are no plans for restoration of the wetland, if they decide to restore the wetland then they’ll have to submit a plan for that,” she noted.

A traffic impact study for the project, found that it would generate 283 new trips per day adding to the existing streets and no mitigation is required as a result.

The project will use both city sewer and water service.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has approved a deviation request for the city to operate and connect a limited number of new services to its water treatment plant while it plans for expansion of the plant. The city has 462 allowable equivalent residential units remaining as part of that deviation, and this project will require 25 of those units.

City Council will consider the request at its May 4 meeting.