The Whitefish City Council heard public comments about the growth policy at its meeting last week and voted to keep the public comment period for Vision 2045, open through March 23 and, if necessary, into the April 6 meeting. 

The council's lack of a quorum for the March 16 regular meeting caused the group to move public comment about the growth policy to March 23. A work session on zoning and subdivision regulations is scheduled at 5:30 p.m., before the March 23 meeting. 

Whitefish Long Range Planner Alan Tiefenbach gave an overview of the 320-page plan, which began with six visioning sessions in February 2023, several council work sessions and over 500 pages of public comment. 

The first part of the policy includes a background section, the vision, and six elements: land use, housing, transportation, economic development, public facilities and environment, natural resources and hazards, along with an implementation segment to be completed with tables later. 

The second half of the document contains resources and data in the form of essays that summarize the staff’s research. 

Topics of controversy in the economic development element involve an alternate version of the element proposed by Heart of Whitefish. After the Planning Commission voted in favor of that version over the one prepared by city staff, the City Council asked it to revisit that section of the plan due, in part, to public concerns. 

Staff has issues with the element, including the labels of rapid versus slow growth.  

“We didn’t use the term rapid, slow or moderate growth anywhere else in the growth policy,” Tiefenbach said. 

He said any mention of the need for locally available goods and services has been stricken, along with objectives for revisions to zoning for additional commercial uses or mixed use. A discussion about paid parking has been removed. 

Tiefenbach said about two pages regarding the benefits of tourism were added as well as several paragraphs about the effects of short-term rentals on the economy. 

He said all discussions about the loss of local serving businesses in the last few years were removed and replaced with a paragraph about businesses currently in Whitefish. 

“In the original economic development element, we listed what all the findings were of the GSBS report, and some of those findings were stricken,” Tiefenbach said. 

Three open houses and two online surveys allowed for the input of about 550 people for the land use element. The consulting firm czb was hired by the city to assist.  

Tiefenbach said the plan focuses more on form than use. Form is the look, size and relation of a building.  

“We have to have clear parameters about how we want the city to look and how we want the city to function so that there’s more predictability, so the citizens know what’s going to get built, and so the development industry knows what's going to get built,” he said. 

Controversy arose about the assigned place types for two neighborhoods. One area west of Spokane Avenue and south of East Third Street was changed from Heritage Urban Neighborhood to Heritage Downtown Neighborhood and back again. 

The second source of disagreement is the area called land use area B near the Park Knoll neighborhood. The concerns were about density, location of commercial uses and protection of the wetland. 

Crandal Arambula submitted a downtown plan that would upzone areas within a one-mile radius of downtown. Tiefenbach said that level of specificity does not belong in a community plan. 

The public facilities element contains maps of the water and wastewater master plans. More sources of groundwater and the replacement of some clay pipes are needed as is a new fire station north of the viaduct. 

The transportation element combines several existing related plans. The No. 1 comment was to make Whitefish more walkable. In the plan, trails, with the exception of the Whitefish Trail system, which is considered more recreational, are considered critical transportation infrastructure and treated the same as roads, transit, air and rail. 

The environment, natural resources and hazards element was the topic for six Planning Commission work sessions and the most discussed issue was water quality. 

The Whitefish Planning Commission voted 6-1 to adopt the plan in February. The dissenting vote was due to reservations about the public process round the economic development element. 

Seventeen people shared concerns about the growth policy at Monday’s meeting, including Don Arambula who said Whitefish is not big enough to support enough retail to make mixed use successful. 

“What we do know is your downtown is the local servicing destination for people in this community,” he said. “Somehow, there’s this belief that it’s tourist serving only. It is not. There are almost 100 businesses.” 

The discussion and time for public comment will continue at the next regular Council meeting at 7:10 p.m. March 23 and at a work session beginning at 5:30 p.m. that night.