The Whitefish Planning Commission on May 5 recommended amendments to both zoning and subdivision regulations, several of which were a matter of housekeeping.  

The meeting was held last week following an error in the public notice for the April 28 meeting. 

Whitefish Planning and Building Director David Taylor clarified the changes were being made to implement the Montana Land Use Planning Act, not the newly adopted community plan.  

Amendments to satisfy Vision Whitefish 2045 will come in a few months, he said, including changes to the zoning maps. The full rewrite of the zoning code and switch to a place type map will happen in phase 2. 

Whitefish City Manager Dana Meeker said the city will hire a consultant to ensure zoning is compliant with the land use plan and the map.  

“This is the biggest change that we have to make right now is how developments are approved,” Meeker said, adding that the city is going in front of the Legislature at the end of the month to show the city complies with the law. “We want to make sure we ... can say that we have taken the steps to adopt the land use plan, that we have made the steps to make sure that we are not holding the public hearings that, in their eyes, were delaying the process for development.” 

After attempting and failing to move all permitted uses to conditional uses in the WB-4, the Commission voted to move personal services, professional offices and artist studios/galleries, from the list of permitted uses back to conditional uses. 

The appeal process for permits was clarified. An application is made to Taylor, the zoning administrator. If it is denied and the applicant wishes to appeal, the reason must be that Taylor made a mistake and it was based on impacts that were unforeseen, according to the land use law. 

The case would go to the Planning Commission to decide.  

“Maybe you agree, but then the neighbors disagree, and then that gets appealed to the City Council,” Taylor explained. 

It was reiterated that the much maligned 60-foot building height requirement in WB-2 applies to entirely multi-family residential buildings used for residential purposes and for mixed-use buildings when every floor above the ground floor is used entirely for multi-family residential use for residential purpose. 

Whitefish defines residential purposes as 30 days or more of rental occupancy. Short-term rentals are not allowed. 

The City Council will address the amendments and recommendations on May 18.