Commissioners deny Hwy. 83 zone change

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

The Flathead County Commissioners voted 2-0 to deny a zone change requested by Chuck Sneed and Mike Touris of Bigfork on Thursday, following a contentious meeting about the proposal.

Touris and Sneed sought a change from Suburban Agricultural-5 to an Industrial zone, a request that was voted down by the Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee and the Flathead County Planning Board.

The request originally appeared before the commissioners on Jan. 10 but was postponed until the Feb. 14 meeting in order to take more time with the information. At the Valentine's Day meeting, Commissioner Dale Lauman not present because of illness.

Erica Wirtela of Sands Surveying in Kalispell, who represented Touris and Sneed throughout the process, sent a 13-page letter to the commissioners outlining what she said she considered to be an objective collection of findings of fact. She said the staff report, which recommended denial, had been written with denial in mind and because of that the findings had been, in her opinion, skewed.

"By doing this in reverse the goals and policies have been cherry picked," she said.

Assistant Director of the Flathead Planning and Zoning Office B.J. Grieve said that planning staff had notified the applicants from their very first meeting together that staff would recommend denial because the proposal did not meet goals and policies laid out in the 1993 Bigfork Neighborhood Plan.

Commissioner Joe Brenneman, who made the motion to deny the application, said Wirtela's findings of fact were "creative" but that they did not change what he saw as an incompatible use.

Wirtela had argued before BLUAC on Oct. 25 that Touris' property was unsuitable for a residence in part because of it's proximity to United Tool Rental next door. United Tool operates as a non-conforming use with the Bigfork Neighborhood Plan because it was in existence before the plan's adoption in 1993.

Wirtela and Grieve argued over the nomenclature surrounding the nature of a recently constructed building on the Touris property, with Wirtela taking issue with the staff report's characterization of the structure as a "warehouse sales-office." Wirtela said the building was a hay barn.

That construction was also a point of contention at the BLUAC meeting in October, as construction had begun before the application was presented. At that meeting, Touris told the Bigfork board that the structure was 1,000 sq. ft. of living space and a large garage for storage use only, not his plumbing business. It was questioned at that meeting why a zone change would be required then, since a residence is allowable under SAG-5 zoning.

During the open public comment period — comments were not allowed during the actual application portion of the meeting because it had been continued from a previous meeting — BLUAC vice-chair Shelley Gonzales said BLUAC would be "anxious to work with Mr. Touris and Mr. Sneed" were they to come back before the board with a different request.

After voting to deny the application, Commissioner Gary Hall said that he hoped BLUAC would make good on that indication.

When reached on Monday, Wirtela said that she and her client were still considering their next move.