The Whitefish Community Board made a recommendation to the council in favor of a conditional use permit, approved one variance request and denied another at its meeting Aug. 15.  

Kevin Kaltschmidt requested a conditional use permit to expand the vehicle storage area for Don K Whitefish auto dealership. The property is located across the street from the dealership at 6200 and 6208 U.S. Highway 93 South. 

About half the property is zoned WB-2, or business district and the rest is WR2, or residential with special conditions. A conditional use permit is required in the WB-2 for the storage area which will be wholly located within the WB-2 district. 

Although the entire tract is a little more than 11 acres, only about 1 acre will be used for the storage area. 

Whitefish Senior Planner Wendy Compton-Ring said hopefully the new storage area will also accommodate some employee parking. Many of the employees of the dealership had been parking on Shiloh Avenue to the east of the business but before the end of the year, there will be no parking allowed on that road.  

“We’re asking as a recommended condition of approval to provide us a plan for their employee parking,” Compton-Ring said. “They do have to do landscape screening because it is adjacent to a residential zone and that does require 10 feet of landscaping along street frontages and buffering into residential areas.”  

The board voted unanimously to recommend the permit. The matter will be heard by the Whitefish City Council on Sept. 3. 

Marilynn Sykes, owner of the Whitefish RV Park, requested a variance to construct an 8-foot fence on her property at 6404 U.S. Highway 93 South. The maximum fence height according to the city code is 6 and a half feet. 

Because of new construction and taller buildings near the property, Sykes said the fence was necessary to provide privacy to the park’s full-time residents and visitors. 

The board approved the request to build the fence on the south and west sides of the property. 

Dan Hanson from Frontier Builders, on behalf of Casa Gratis, requested a variance to extend a deck at 1474 Barkley Lane.  

The applicant planned to reconstruct a deck a few feet into the north and south side setbacks and completely into the 10-foot rear yard setback. The new deck would be the same width as the existing house, with 92 square feet in the side yard setbacks and about 336 square feet in the rear yard setback. 

City code allows decks to occupy up to one-third of the required rear yard setback. 

The plan also called for 3 square feet of an existing deck to be removed from the lakeshore protection zone. 

Compton-Ring explained that without a variance, a homeowner could provide maintenance to a deck, paint it and repair a board or two. 

“But you can’t take out a deck out of a setback and then put it back in a setback,” she said.  

Hanson said the existing fire pit is unsafe and unused, so it is slated to be removed and replaced with a deck. 

Diana Stevens and two other residents of Barkley Lane spoke in opposition to the variance. Stevens said her parents created a cabin camp in the 1940s that included seven cabins on the lake where the applicant’s property is now.  

“My dad’s intention was to have ... green space in front, between the cabins and the lake so everybody along the way had a view, enjoyed the lighting, the trees, the lake,” Stevens said. “Nobody was supposed to obstruct that.” 

Other concerns were a potential railing on the deck and the possibility of fire services being adversely affected by the backyard encroachment. A deed restriction regarding the lakeshore protection zone was also mentioned. 

Hanson said the deck will not require a railing as it is only about a foot above grade. 

“I’m just not concerned that it would obstruct anybody’s views, whatsoever,” Hanson said of the project. 

Board member Scott Wurster moved to deny the request because it was not, as stated in a staff report finding, the minimum that could be done to alleviate the hardship. The board voted unanimously to deny the request.