BLUAC recommends approval of permits for two apartment complexes

The Bigfork Land Use Advisory Committee met last week to hear two applications for conditional use permits to build two four-plex apartment buildings on Jewel Basin Court.

BLUAC acts in an advisory capacity for official Flathead County land use decision-making boards and Flathead County Commissioners concerning applications and proposals for growth and development projects within the Bigfork Zoning District.

Jewel Basin Court already has other similar apartment complexes built by the applicants, Rodney and Tia MacFarlane. The applicants were not at the meeting but a staff member with the Flathead County Zoning and Planning Office was present to answer questions from board members about the applications.

Board members expressed immediate concern about how the apartments would worsen traffic in an area that is already experiencing congestion, particularly during peak tourist season. Board member Lou McGuire said it’s an issue every time an application comes up on that road because of its proximity to Highway 83 (or Swan Highway) and Highway 35.

“It’s the old traffic question…you look at this and say this is only going to affect traffic by 1%. Well, when they built the first four or eight, it was only going to affect traffic by 5%, and then they built the next some and it will only affect traffic by 3%...what’s the total percent of it affects traffic by the things we approved in the last five years,” McGuire said.

Stevens said the percentages in his report were based off of an annual traffic study conducted by the Montana Department of Transportation for Highway 83. He said the impact on traffic might seem worse than 1%, but there is not an official traffic count of Jewel Basin Court since it is a private road and not maintained by the county.

“So what we look at is the most recent traffic counts for 83 and what the proposal will generate according to the trip generation manual. That’s what we came up with and that’s why it’s such a small percentage, because Highway 83 gets a ton of traffic,” Stevens said.

McGuire said it still stands that in the past few years traffic has gotten increasingly worse in that area in part because these individual projects contribute to the issue in small increments over time.

Gonzales and Johnson said they have gathered some data from the state and visited the property in an attempt to study how much traffic comes in and out of that road. Gonzales said many of the 31 commercial buildings on the road seem to not be in use, so it’s unclear how much those buildings would contribute to the traffic count. But, she said they counted 74 units in the residential buildings, and based on a metric of 6.65 trips per day, per unit, the total would come up to 492 trips per day in and out of that road.

Vice Chair Jerry Sorensen said that the traffic at the intersection will only get worse, and Board member-at-large Richard Michaud reiterated the growing traffic problems on the highways of the surrounding area, and that the widening of Highway 35 to four lanes will compound the traffic problem. Gonzales said the staff reports do not include a cumulative traffic analysis in this congested area, and that BLUAC needs to address this problem in every application so the community knows they are serious about the traffic problem.

Another concern for the board was the intended use of the apartments. Board member Chany Ockert asked if the apartments would be one bedroom or studio apartments, something she said was needed by many working class people in Bigfork.

“Right now we’re having a housing crisis in Bigfork…so if there could be more availability and different sizes,” Ockert said.

Stevens said he wasn’t sure what the units would be since the county only looks at the footprint of the building. He said he would pass the consideration on to the applicants.

The board amended the findings of fact for the applications to include a comment from their members about the concerns with traffic congestion around Jewel Basin Court. McGuire made a motion to recommend denial of the first application, but the motion died for lack of a second. Sorensen moved to forward a recommendation to approve the first application, which was seconded by Gonzales and voted on unanimously by the board, with the exception of McGuire who abstained.

The discussion for the second application was mostly the same, since it was identical to the first. Gonzales did bring up some concerns about the size of the apartment complex in the second application. She said she visited the property and didn’t get the same measurements for the width of the building as was listed on the application. Stevens said he would look into it and amend the application if necessary.

The board voted to recommend approval for the second application as well, with Ockert moving and Gonzales seconding the motion. As with the first application, the board voted unanimously for approval with the exception of McGuire, who abstained from voting.