2 subdivision regs made permanent

Whitefish City Council quickly dealt with four provisions to Whitefish’s subdivision regulations that were set to expire this year.

Council voted unanimously Nov. 19 to make permanent two 2010 amendments, while letting two others expire. There was no discussion from council following a motion from Chris Hyatt.

Each of the regulations dealt with extending preliminary plats and subdivision improvement agreements.

The provisions came about in 2010 following an update to the city’s subdivision regulations. That year, several developers had contacted the planning department about their preliminary and final plats that were set to expire.

Due to the economic conditions, most of those developers had either extended their plats to the maximum length, or extended their subdivision improvement agreements to the maximum.

The Planning Board had voiced concerns about allowing extensions for developments that were not viable. They noted that allowing additional time could harm other viable projects by affecting their ability to get financing.

Council adopted four extensions, but included a sunset date of Dec. 31, 2012.

“While they wanted to permit certain limited extensions, they felt it was appropriate to sunset these options, as the economic downturn may be temporary and permanent policy decisions shouldn’t be made in haste,” Planner Wendy Compton-Ring said in her staff report.

One of the amendments made permanent allows 24 months for a subdivision improvement agreement with a possible 24-month extension. The previous standard was 18 months.

The other amendment made permanent is the ability for a preliminary plat that has gone back through the review process to obtain a new three-year approval timeframe. Previous regulations were silent on this matter.

One provisions that will expire at the end of the year upped the number of years between subdivision phases.

The other provision set to sunset created a new variance option for subdivisions approved between April 2006 and March 2008, but set to expire at the end of 2012 for the current Water Quality Regulations. There were five preliminary plats at the time that fell into this category. There are currently no more subdivisions that meet those standards.