Lawyers for the Flathead Warming Center say that Kalispell’s proposed amendment allowing City Council to revoke conditional use permits would violate the municipality’s settlement with the homeless shelter.  

 The Institute for Justice told Kalispell City Attorney Johnna Preble in a Wednesday letter that the proposed ordinance would destroy the Warming Center’s vested property rights as well as those of all current permit holders. 

“[The Institute for Justice’s] letter explains that the proposed changes would not only violate the Constitution and destabilize property rights citywide, but fail to honor the city’s promise in the settlement agreement that the Center’s [conditional use permit] is a vested right,” read the Nov. 20 statement from the national nonprofit law firm. 

The Institute for Justice represented the low-barrier homeless shelter in its lawsuit against the city for stripping the shelter’s conditional use permit in September 2024.   

The Warming Center argued that the revocation process was illegal and lacked due process. The suit was settled in March and the city agreed to permanently reinstate the permit, pay $140,000 in legal fees incurred by the Warming Center and issue a public apology to shelter Director Tonya Horn for falsely accusing her of lying during the permit application process. 

Conditional use permits allow property owners to use their land in ways not typically permitted in certain zones.  While the current ordinance stipulates that an application can be denied, there is no language outlining the protocol for revoking a permit after it has been granted. 

The amendment will allow Council to revoke, suspend or reconsider a permit if it determines there were misrepresentations made in the property owner’s permit application, unintentional or not.  

The institute in its letter called the language arbitrary and dangerous because it would only be used against lawful but politically unpopular property owners.  

The current ordinance also states that a conditional use permit remains attached to the property indefinitely, language that the shelter wielded against the city in its lawsuit. The proposed amendment would clarify that permits do not stay with the land.  

The revision “would destroy a core property right that has allowed hundreds of Kalispell property owners to invest in their land with confidence,” read the Institute for Justice’s statement.   

The law firm acknowledged that not all the language in the proposed amendment was harmful to permit holders, though.   

The revised ordinance states that the city must notify the permit holder of any alleged misrepresentations in the permit application or conditions that were allegedly violated. The permit holder would then have 15 days to come into compliance and set a hearing date for Council to present its findings of fact.

THE PLANNING Commission backed the proposed ordinance earlier this month despite criticism that it would stymie economic development by making businesses weary of investing time and money into any endeavor reliant on permits.   

Horn at the meeting threatened to take the city back to court if the amendment is used to make another attempt to rescind the shelter’s permit. 

City officials said at the meeting that the ordinance is meant as a protection for both the city and permit holders, not a weapon to target the shelter or any other permits in the city.  

They maintained that the city has always had the power to revoke permits, but the change is necessary to plug holes in the process exposed during Kalispell’s dispute with the Warming Center. 

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 and [email protected].