Recent hot-button topics such as COVID-19 restrictions and affordable housing continued to dominate the discussion at the Kalispell City Council’s Monday evening meeting, held virtually via Zoom videoconference.

Although there was only one action item on the council’s agenda Monday, that proposal and public comments spurred in-depth conversations among the council about the city’s role in reducing the spread of the novel coronavirus and setting limitations for homeowners association agreements.

Lance Isaak provided the only public comment during the remote meeting. As the chair of the school board of Kalispell Public Schools for the past four years, Isaak urged the council to use any resource available to help keep COVID case numbers down throughout Kalispell.

Isaak explained everyone involved in the school district has been working diligently to try to keep the schools from becoming a place for the virus to spread. But he warned students and staff are still at risk from the community at large, especially with the impending holiday season.

“Contact tracing has indicated that KPS COVID cases have been due to spread outside the school building,” Isaak reported. “As we approach Thanksgiving and the holiday season, the board is concerned about a resurgence of COVID cases in our community as family and friends come together…We’re getting to a critical time and I really believe that if we want to keep our schools open, we need everybody’s support in this.”

At the end of the meeting, council member Kyle Waterman urged his fellow council members to heed Isaak’s warning. Waterman said the council should focus on “upping our game of communicating that everybody needs to take restrictions seriously and make their plans for the holidays and take those seriously.”

There was no formal action related to virus restrictions taken during the meeting.

THE LONE agenda item before the council, a proposal to sell a city lot to Robert Peccia and Associates, was unanimously approved. The sale came as a result of the completion of the new Westside Interceptor sewer line that was completed on the west side of Kalispell this fall.

The city worked with RPA to design the route for the new sewer interceptor in 2014, but the line was eventually rerouted and Lot 48 of the Aspen Creek Subdivision was no longer needed for the new infrastructure. Therefore, RPA opted to buy the lot from the city for $71,212.

Council member Ryan Hunter followed up on public concerns he had heard that the civil engineering firm might use the purchased property for commercial, rather than residential use. But City Manager Doug Russell explained the neighborhood is zoned for single-family residential property, so that will likely be its future use.

The lot sale became a spring board for a larger discussion of affordable-housing options and homeowners association agreements. Hunter told the council he had looked into the potential for Habitat for Humanity to buy Lot 48 and use it to develop affordable housing. However, he said he learned HOAs in the Aspen Creek neighborhood and more generally throughout the city largely prevent organizations such as Habitat for Humanity from being able to develop affordable housing in those areas, because the agreements require features like more expensive driveway materials, pricier roof lines and minimum sizes.

Based on this investigation, Hunter expressed an interest in looking into the legality that the city could set certain limitations on HOAs as a way to make it easier to implement affordable housing options.

Hunter said he’d like to see if it would be possible for the city to “put regulations in place to remove some of these barriers to affordable housing in some of our neighborhoods.”

This idea led to further discussions from the rest of the council, like council member Chad Graham, who supported the right of HOAs to set standards for the aesthetics of their neighborhoods, and council member Sid Daoud, who spoke about the government’s need to respect private contracts.

Ultimately, Mayor Mark Johnson said the Kalispell city attorney would look into the legalities of Hunter’s proposal and, depending on those findings, the council could revisit the idea at a work session.

Reporter Bret Anne Serbin may be reached at (406)-758-4459 or bserbin@dailyinterlake.com.