Council sends neighborhood plan to planning board

The Lakeside County Water & Sewer District meeting room resounded with applause, last Tuesday, when the Lakeside Community Council announced a unanimous vote to send the recent Lakeside Neighborhood Plan update on to the Flathead County Planning Board to begin the next phase in the revision process.

The decision to send the revision on to the county level came after an extensive public comment period, including most recently a three-week public comment period to allow the public to review changes made to the draft revision as a result of previous comments that had been received.

Council secretary, Barb Miller, reviewed comments received during the last comment period, prior to the Council's final decision, allowing them to consider each one and decide whether they warranted further changes to the plan. Only four additional comments had been received and, after hearing the comments, council members agreed that no other changes were needed.

Miller also summarized the public meeting held on July 14. She reported an attendance of 30 people-not including committee or planning staff members-at the meeting, of whom 11 spoke in favor of the plan, three spoke in opposition, and none requested that any changes be made.

She stressed that, as shown on the committee's official website, the committee took time to review and respond to each comment received since the first public comment period was opened in late April, adding that all comments the committee believed relevant to the neighborhood plan were addressed in the plan.

"Every single comment that was submitted had follow up," Miller said.

Flathead County planner Andrew Hagameier then outlined the next step in the process for the updated plan, which involves sending the plan in to the county along with the application for a growth policy neighborhood plan amendment. Hagemeier said the the council will forward an electronic copy of the Lakeside plan and all of the files belonging to the Lakeside Neighborhood Plan Committee.

Hagemeier stressed that, while the plan has been approved at the local level, it must now be reveiwed by the members of the Flathead County Planning Board, who may also make changes before forwarding it to thecommissioners. The planning board, he said, will likely spend a significant amount of time on the plan, and hold another round of public meetings.

"Obviously, you have a stake in it, so you're going to be there at least some of the time," Hagemeier told the council members. "There's going to have to be some give and take. The planning board is not going to give you everything that you want."

Hagemeier said that with respect to the Lakeside plan, six months should be both reasonable and achievable in getting the plan through the planning board and into the commissioners' hands. However, he added that, once the planning board makes a recommendation to the commissioners, the commissioners are not required to open it up to further public comment. Once the commissioners have made a decision on the plan, a 30-day comment period will follow that decision.

During that 30-day comment period, Hagemeier said the commissioners will accept "any comment that is received from anywhere," and may decide to make changes based upon those comments.

The LNPC's official website, http://lakesideplan2008.com, was recently updated with the version of the revised Lakeside Neighborhood Plan that was submitted to Flathead County by the Lakeside council. The site also contains the results of the July 14 public meeting, during which the Lakeside council accepted additional community input, as well as the written comments received from July 1-21 and council's responses those comments.