City planners and poster boards were staked out at Bias Brewery in downtown Kalispell on Wednesday evening for the municipality’s first open house in its effort to draft a new land use plan.

The brewery was quiet, but the hope was that those coming to grab a beer would stop by to provide comments and learn about the plan, which is intended to guide growth in the city and spur more attainable housing.     

The move to draft a new land use plan comes from the passage of Senate Bill 382 in May 2023. Also known as the Montana Land Use Planning Act, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Greg Gianforte as a means of streamlining housing construction. 

The act identified 14 zoning regulations meant to free up development, which were displayed on poster boards along with stickers for people to choose which regulation would be best for Kalispell.  

Regulations adorned with the most stickers included allowing higher density housing near public transit, places of employment, or Flathead Valley Community College; allowing apartments as a permitted use in office and commercial zones; increasing the maximum building heights by at least 25%; and allowing a duplex wherever a single-family residence is allowed. 

The city already has already complied with many of the regulations identified in the act, whether through applying for planned use developments or conditional use permits, said Assistant Development Services Director PJ Sorensen.  

While duplexes are allowed in about 75% of the city, they are not permitted in R-2 and R-3 zones. In those zones are “the more traditional older established single-family neighborhoods. Because people bought into that, they didn’t feel comfortable opening the door to that,” Sorensen said.   

Kalispell is among nine Montanan cities that must create a new land use plan in accordance with the act, which requires adopting a minimum of five out of the 14 zoning regulations.  

“The land use plan has to speak to how much growth you are going to have, what your housing needs are over the next 10 years, and then where are those units going to go through the creation of a future land use map, which the city already had,” said Melissa Ruth, a planner with Colorado-based engineering firm Logan Simpson. “And then that last piece the city didn’t have was specifically how are you going to do that out of these 14 strategies.”  

Logan Simpson was hired by the city in December to spearhead its public engagement campaign, which is just now kicking off. On Wednesday, March 12 and Thursday, March 13 a series of drop-in sessions and open houses were held.  

But the community may still provide their thoughts on the city’s recently released public engagement website, https://engagekalispell.com/#tab-59610. Users can post their thoughts on challenges facing Kalispell, tag areas on a map where the city needs revamping, sign up for project updates and learn more about the Montana Land Use Planning Act.  

“We’re really tailoring it to, what can we do better with housing? What do you want to see?” said Ruth. “Really gathering feedback on what people’s vision is for the future of Kalispell.” 

“You don't really see communities that are this invested in their outcome,” she said. 

Laid out on one of the tables at Bias Brewery were chalk boards where people could write what their favorite thing about Kalispell is. Their pictures were taken on a Polaroid which Ruth wants to then incorporate into a vision collage.   

A PROVISION of the act that has drawn criticism from city officials is how it limits public input on site-specific developments. By frontloading public input to creating the land use plan, the act would ditch public hearings in front of City Council on site-specific construction.  

But that provision was ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge in Bozeman earlier this month. The decision has left planning staff with unanswered questions on how site-specific projects will be approached after the new land use plan is adopted in May 2026.  

Sorensen said that the act may make construction less streamlined by convoluting the city’s development approval process.  

When a development proposal comes in, the city typically votes on annexing, zoning and approving the subdivision all in one go. But with the act, annexation and zoning will go through a public hearing while approving the subdivision will be an administrative decision that can be appealed in court, which creates a disconnect.  

Sorensen warned that rather than streamlining construction, it may double the timeline.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and junderhill@dailyinterlake.com.