The Whitefish Community Development Board recommended approval for a car wash, a building and a lakeshore variance, and denial for a permit for a retail store to operate a bar. 

Rocky Mountain Car Wash requested a permit to construct and operate a car wash at 6335 U.S. 93 South, the former site of the Big Mountain Thrift Store.  

It is a family-owned and operated company, based in Belgrade, and operates about a dozen car wash locations.  

The proposed car wash will feature four self-service bays, three automatic wash bays and several self-serve vacuum stations. 

The board voted unanimously to recommend approval of the car wash after adding a condition that the developer use a silenced dryer system and integrate water recycling technology. 

Whitefish City Planner Dave Taylor said access to the carwash would be via a new road, Snowy Mountain Lane. The business will not have direct access to U.S. 93 South. 

“Because this is considered a formula business ... they will have to have a design that’s not the same as their other locations,” Taylor said. 

Taylor Kasperick with Performance Engineering is working for the developer and said fewer than 200 vehicles a day are expected to visit the car wash. 

Kasperick said the two main generators of noise at a car wash are the dryers and the vacuums. He said the dryers have been located away from neighboring residential areas and the vacuum turbine is housed within an enclosed structure. 

“As far as noise goes, we always have the option to use silenced dryers,” Riley Irwin, owner of Rocky Mountain Car Wash, said. 

While his company does reuse some of the water it uses, Irwin said his company has researched water recycling systems and most of them are “very expensive, very intricate and take up a lot of space.” He said the most efficient systems claim to recycle 55-60% of water and, in reality, usually recycle between 15-25% 

Three people made comments at the meeting, all in opposition to the car wash because of the amount of water it uses, the burden on the wastewater system, the noise and the number of car wash businesses already in town. 

“This will be the fourth [car wash] within, probably, a mile and a half. We have a car wash on Spokane. We have the one directly across 93 ... and then you have the one by Glacier Bank that used to be Sunrift,” Whitefish resident Lisa Barone said, adding another car wash business seemed excessive. 

This item is scheduled to be heard by the City Council Sept. 2. 

THE CITY OF Whitefish requested a major lakeshore variance to reinforce the boat ramp at City Beach. The board recommended approval unanimously.  

Whitefish City Planner Lauren Macdonald said boat propulsion has caused erosion at the end of the existing ramp. 

The proposed project involves the installation of precast concrete panels over a riprap foundation to reinforce the ramp and prevent further erosion. Additional site improvements include resurfacing the driveway, reinforcing the embankment and replanting native vegetation. 

The Lakeshore Protection Committee studied the proposal and Whitefish Lake Institute Executive Director Mike Koopal expressed support for the project. 

Brandon Theis of Civil Solutions described the concerns associated with the project and said a temporary inflatable cofferdam would facilitate dry construction conditions.  

“We’re really worried about the turbidity,” he said. 

He said the notion of digging with clamshell buckets was replaced with the idea of using cofferdams. 

“These are water-filled cofferdams – the same material you have in your river raft,” Theis began. “They’re about 18-feet wide ... and about 8-feet tall and 75-feet long, like big socks. 

“They’re sealed at the end, and you fill them with water, and you lay them out in a horseshoe shape around the boat ramp, and they slowly and gently go down to the bottom of the lake,” he continued. “Then we pump the water out and they settle in on each other and then we can do the work.” 

Theis said the goal is zero turbidity and there will be both weekly and daily monitoring of the lake. 

This item will be heard by the Whitefish City Council on Sept. 2. 

THE BOARD voted 4-1, with Mallory Phillips voting in opposition, to deny a request by Kettle Mtn. LLC for a conditional use permit to use a full liquor license in Kemo Sabe, an existing retail store. 

The board said serving liquor in a retail store was not in keeping with the character of the area.  

“The other thing that concerns me is the precedent that this sets for other retail establishments,” said board member Scott Wurster, adding that if every retail establishment in town began offering alcohol, it would “really change the character of the community quite substantially.”  

A hearing on this matter with the City Council is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 2. 

DALEN PROPERTY Holdings LLC requested a permit to construct a second building on its property at 6345 U.S. 93 South. The board voted unanimously to recommend approval. 

Whitefish Senior Planner Wendy Compton-Ring said the building would have a medical office on the first floor and two apartments on the second floor. 

There was no public comment. 

The matter goes to the City Council on Sept. 15.