Notification issues interrupt Meadow Lake hearing

A Meadow Lake Resort homeowner’s comment that he and his homeowners association had not received notice about a subdivision proposal at the resort sent city staff scurrying for answers during the Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board meeting on Oct. 14.

Patrick Malone, who is a board member of his homeowners association and has been a homeowner at Meadow Lake since 2008, said he had concerns about increased parking problems and traffic congestion from the proposed Glacier Village subdivision.

He noted that homeowners associations at Meadow Lake are responsible for fixing deteriorating roads, damage to shoulders by parked vehicles, new landscaping that would replace the current natural vegetation, and maintenance for a proposed sidewalk in Glacier Village. He also said a swimming pool and other amenities promised by developers have never materialized.

Notification problems

Glacier Village was approved by the city in 2013, but after further review the developers decided the cost of ripping up existing infrastructure to fit the new design was prohibitive, so they went back to an earlier design that also had been approved by the city.

City manager Susan Nicosia said notice for the amended subdivision’s hearing was placed in local newspapers as legal ads, and there were news articles about the Oct. 14 meeting. She also noted that according to the state’s Cadastral map database, the legal owner of the building where Malone owned a condo unit was Meadow Lake Resort Development LLC, not him, so that’s why the notice didn’t go to Malone.

Board member Jason Bryan noted that in his experience, homeowners associations themselves often have trouble tracking down members. Board member Mike Shepard agreed and said the city had problems dealing with homeowners associations in the past.

Board member Lee Schlesinger wanted to know if notification rules could be changed for “unique” places like Meadow Lake Resort, where homeowners and residents more than 150 feet from a proposed project are all “funneled into” the same narrow roads and are impacted by traffic congestion and parking problems.

Planning board chairman Russ Vukonich said he was concerned about getting as much feedback as possible at public hearings, and he wondered if Canadians read Flathead newspapers. He said he was surprised there was so little comment on the Glacier Village proposal, in writing or at the hearing, but he concluded that the city was following the law when it came to notifying neighbors.

As for alerting the public about upcoming hearings, Hungry Horse News editor Richard Hanners told the board that because all four items on the planning board’s Oct. 14 agenda were scheduled to go to the Columbia Falls City Council for a vote on Oct. 20, there was no way the Hungry Horse News could put a story about the advisory board’s meeting in the print edition before it went to a binding vote. He said the story could be put online.

Entitled plan

Parking issues at Meadow Lake were familiar to the planning board members who had sat through a decade’s worth or more of subdivision plans at the resort. Vukonich said he recalled talk about vehicles, boats and RVs parked on the road long ago during the Spyglass project hearings.

“I heard so many assurances from Meadow Lake Resort,” he said. “Is the developer here listening to the homeowners associations?”

Shepard said Malone’s comments about the Glacier Village subdivision were “exactly the same” as what he heard last year.

In his staff report, planning consultant Eric Mulcahy said the proposed roadway through Glacier Village would be much narrower than city standards, but it would be set up as a one-way street, and the city fire chief had approved the plan.

Bruce Lutz, a landscape architect with Sitescape Associates and a longtime resident of Meadow Lake, spoke for the Glacier Village developer. He pointed out that plans for the hotel in the subdivision first appeared in 2007, all the underground infrastructure was put in place in 2009, and the Glacier Village plan is “entitled” by prior city approval.

The Glacier Village subdivision is not designed for on-street parking of boats and RVs, he said. Homeowners associations in Meadow Lake Resort could require that boats and RVs be parked outside their subdivision. He said the subdivision request before the board was for Glacier Village alone, while the issues being discussed involved the entire resort.

The planning board gave a unanimous recommendation of approval for the amended project. Board member Steve Hughes was absent.

Sixplex condos

A request from Randy Jones Construction for a conditional-use permit to build five 6-plex condominiums on Diane Road in Columbia Falls also was given a unanimous recommendation.

The area is zoned CRA-1, which is the city’s multifamily zoning district, and Jones has already built seven similar buildings on Diane Road. Each individual condo unit would be provided two off-street parking spaces.

Mulcahy said the 1.6-acre project conforms to the Columbia Falls Growth Policy. He recommended approval with 16 conditions. Jones will be required to finish construction of Diane Road rather than phase it in as before, he must make a payment-in-lieu toward city park lands, and a stormwater management plan must be completed.

Several board members approved of the stormwater plan requirement, noting that the city was currently dealing with an expensive fix to stormwater problems in the 13th Street West area it inherited from the county.

“The city has learned its lesson from past development there,” Shepard said.

Nicosia noted that Jones is also required to build Diane Road to city standards, which would help address drainage problems. In hindsight, she said, the city should have required Diane Road to be completed when the first multifamily projects showed up there a decade ago.

Hardship CUP

A hardship conditional-use permit request from Joe and Shirley Voss for their property outside the city on South Hilltop Road was given a unanimous recommendation.

The couple recently split off 17 acres and kept five acres, where they have a 5,000-square-foot house and a mobile home where Joe’s 91-year-old father lives. Their plan is to continue downsizing their lives by building a smaller home on the property in the future.

The couple received a hardship CUP for the mobile home in June 2002. The new application arose because of the recent land split.

Staff recommended approval with four conditions. The CUP must be renewed each year, and the mobile home must be removed when Voss’ father leaves.