Commission asked to reverse zoning decision

Members of the two Bigfork committees that helped produce, revise and finalize the updated Bigfork Neighborhood Plan appealed to the Flathead County Commissioners last week, requesting the commission reverse a decision to make a last-minute change.

Craig Wagner sent the commissioners a letter on behalf of the Bigfork Steering Committee, of which he is the president, asking for a reversal of a June decision that made a change on the future land-use map along Montana 83 from "agricultural" to "industrial."

While the designated land use is non-regulatory, it does influence zoning in the area. The parcels in question are currently zoned suburban agricultural-5.

"We hope you might change your mind and rescind it," Wagner said.

A procession of concerned committee members told Commissioners Dale Lauman and Joe Brenneman that they felt the public process had been subverted by not requiring the applicant to submit a land-use map amendment request and go through the Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee and the planning board. Commissioner Jim Dupont was absent from the meeting.

"We're very concerned about the way this occurred without public input," BLUAC chairwoman Shelley Gonzales said. "What we're looking at here is predictability."

After being denied a zone change request in 2008, applicants Mike Touris and Chuck Sneed filed a lawsuit against the county and BLUAC, alleging a number of violations. About a year after the initial denial, the applicant's technical representative, Erica Wirtela of Sands Surveying, appealed to the commissioners to use their discretion with the Bigfork Neighborhood Plan and make a map change, which Lauman and Dupont voted to do.

Following the land-use map change, Touris and Sneed submitted another zone change application to switch from SAG-5 to Light Industrial. Both BLUAC and the planning board recommended that the commissioners approve a switch to Light Industrial-Highway, which is slightly more restrictive.

It wasn't just members of the Bigfork committees who were upset with the commissioners' decision last week, however. Planning board member Mike Mower, the lone dissenting vote in the zone change application last month, told the commissioners he felt the public process was skirted.

"If changes need to be made to the plan after the process, I feel the public should weigh in again," he said.

Brenneman was also outspoken against the change, as he was earlier this summer when he cast his vote against the decision.

"I contended at that time, and my opinion remains, that the public process was circumvented quite purposefully," he said.

Brenneman said he thought the land-use map change should go back through BLUAC and the planning board and that the commissioners acted "arbitrarily and capriciously."

"I remain in that feeling," he said. "But as we know, it takes two commissioners to make a change."