The Lake County Commissioners will hold a public meeting for the Pablo Mill Village, a proposed 58-lot subdivision, on Jan. 6 at 2:30 p.m. in the Commissioners Chambers at the Lake County Courthouse.  

The proposed subdivision would occupy 47.83 acres located on the old lumber yard of the former Pablo sawmill, which Eric Huffine, a local businessman and previous Polson mayor, bought a couple of years ago.  

The project consultant, Marc Carstens, the sole owner of Carsten & Associates, described the proposal as “pretty unique,” with mixed-use residential and commercial lots. The property will have smaller lots for duplexes and larger lots for houses, with lot sizes varying from around 8,000-to-22,000 square feet. 

The Plum Creek Timber Co. closed the mill in the summer of 2009 due to “eroding demand” in wood products, according to a 2009 Daily Inter Lake article. Carstens said developer Mike Maddy initially bought the property and has been selling portions of it off.  

Huffine said the idea got started because he wanted to build workforce housing for his crews and give them a better opportunity in life, something to invest in. This gave him the idea of building duplexes, in which a person could buy the entire unit and rent out the other half to pay the mortgage.  

“Maybe it's not the single-family home with a white picket fence, and it's not their dream house or anything, but maybe we could get them started there,” Huffine said.  

Carstens said they aren’t squeezing these units together, and, in fact, the open space between units is twice what the law requires. This allows kids to play within the area of the houses while improving the quality of life, and the higher-density housing will face Old Highway 93.  

“Eric is a unique person. He actually has the community at heart,” Carstens said. “People will put that out there as their guiding factor. But Eric actually believes it.”  

Huffine said he isn’t sure he can afford all the “horizontal” costs—expenses for site development and infrastructure such as roads, utilities and sidewalks whereas vertical costs are the actual structures—for this project and is looking for some sort of partnership or an investor who can invest money in exchange for a portion of the lots.  

“If I could trade half the lots for the horizontal cost or something,” Huffine said. “Because it still is my goal to get some workforce housing. I still think the most affordable option in the valley that I can find is trying to build that thing out.” 

Huffine said this is the first subdivision project where he has tried to take a concept and turn it into reality. He has another housing development north of Polson that he bought with a partner, but it was completed when they purchased it.  

Carstens said there are three elements for a project to move forward, which are planning, surveying and sanitation. Carstens is fulfilling the planning and surveying roles.  

The proposal has been presented to the Lake County Planning Board, with one opposing vote. The board will share its view of the project during next week’s meeting.  

This project has been submitted for county review under the Subdivision and Planning Act— a state law designed to promote health, safety and general welfare with established rules and processes for dividing land. This is a crucial step involving local governments, state agencies such as the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and public participation to ensure that essential services like water and sewer are adequate.  

Carstens said during the meeting with the commissioners that they will review the planning board’s recommendations and either give preliminary approval with conditions, deny the proposal, or give flat preliminary approval, which he said never happens.  

Among the conditions, he said, is DEQ approval. Once they have the governing body’s approval, Carstens said they can move forward with their DEQ application and hire an engineer to develop the water and sewer, which will be connected to Pablo's system.  

Carstens said he’s worked with subdivisions for a long time, and this is the first proposal he's mitigated on social media. He said he answers as many questions as he can every day on social media, which usually happens during the subdivision hearing. But he considers it an extended planning board hearing, and he doesn’t mind the public forum.  

A post about this subdivision popped up on Mission Valley Safety Awareness on Dec. 2, and Carstens attempted to address concerns in the comments. The subdivision placement on the old sawmill site raised many questions about environmental, health and safety, but Carstens said he is not anticipating anything other than gravel in the old lumber yard.  

Carstens said Maddy completed an environmental study when he purchased the property, but he expects the commissioners to request another environmental study for this specific area of the sawmill.