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02/23/76 Bd of Adjustment MinutesMINUTES The regular monthly meeting of the Board of Adjustments was held in the First National Bank of Kalispell Community Room at 7:30 P.M. on February 23, 1976. Present were all five members of the Board of Adjustments and Lee Kaufman, Deputy City Attorney. The meeting was called to order, and the proponents for the variance were heard first. The following county employees or officials appeared in favor of the variance: Doug Duckworth, Polly Nikolaisen, Louann Bennzinger, Loretta Hindahl, Joe DeLong (County Commissioner), Frank Guay (County Commissioner), sirs. Elliott Robocker and Harland Peschel. All of the testimony of the above individuals concerned why the variance was needed. Appearing as an individual for the variance from 803 6th Avenue East was Mrs. Norm Schappacher. Also for the variance was Don Lindahl of FVCC, who stated that they would like to have two instructors and approximately 25 students there at a later time. Steve Petrini of the County Planning Board also appeared and showed a chart which said that the minimum number of cars per day would probably be 395 and the maximum number would probably be 576. Dick Taylor, architect, of 830 Woodland Avenue, testified that the project if converted into a nursing home would be very expensive and that if the building was demolished, they would probably have a $150,000.00 demolition cost. He stated that the building was sound and had a million dollar valuation in his opinion. Mrs. Dorothea Armstrong showed a survey made last May which was very difficult to follow. Deputy County Attorneys Stewart Pearce and Leonard Vadala also had numerous comments to make, along with presenting various exhibits numbered 3 through 18 concerning their acquisition of the building and the revenue bond issue. Exhibit no. 3, which was a petition passed around the room, stated that all the undersigned are opponents not in favor of the county's application. 53 persons signed this exhibit at the meeting. Appearing against the variance for the reasons listed were the following: R. B. Manley 629 5th Ave. E. Ron Brurud 714 3rd Ave. E. Frank Wraught 761 7th Ave. W.N. Mr. & sirs. Jerome Belstad 426 5th Ave. E. John MacMillan 540 6th Ave. E. John Cundy 413 6th Ave. E. Ray Meyers Principal Hedges School Dixie Rhoads Hedges P.T.A. 645 5th Ave. E. Parking -Traffic Traffic Traffic Residential Impact Area Change Higher Taxes; Effect on East Side Residents Safety of School Children Safety of School Children; Traffic MINUTES February 23, 1976 Page 2 Dave Stewart 946 k'oodland Ave. Area Change S. M. Bekier 1335 5th Ave. E. Frank Foot 1335 6th Ave. E. Same as tdalterskirchen Robert Rhoads 645 5th Ave. E. Residential Impact Mary Gibson Eliminate Food Stamp Program Attorney William Walterskirchen presented three petitions: Petition No. 1 was from parents of children attending Cornelius Hedges School signed by 63 persons. Petition No. 2 was from residents of the Kalispell East Side, and had 187 names against the variance. Petition No. 3 was from citizens residing within 300 feet of the former hospital and was signed by 34 persons. Attached to petitions numbered 2 and 3, totaling 221 names, is a letter signed by George Beardsly, City Clerk, in which he states that 135 of these names were identifiable as names of registered voters, and that 123 of those names and addresses both agreed with the voter registration records. On the 12 name differential, there was an address discrepancy. There were 20 lines signed "Mr. and firs." or "sirs." using the husband's given name which were not counted. The balance of the narnes were not registered voters or were not legible enough to identify. Mr. Walterskirchen stated that in addition to the problems of traffic and parking, the main concern of the persons involved was the possibility that property in the area would be devalued if the hospital is turned into a county office complex. Rudy Hoecker also spoke against the variance as did several other individuals. In summary, 15 individuals or county employees spoke in favor of the variance and 13 spoke against. In addition, William Walterskirchen presented petitions from 34 persons in the immediate area, 187 residents of the East Side, and the P.T.A. petition showing 63 persons against the variance. Upon a motion duly made and seconded, the Board on roll call vote, unanimously voted to table the proceedings for the evening. J. AUSTIN MILLER Chairman J. Austin Miller Remarks PUBLIC HEARING February 23, 1976 - 7:30 P.M. On July 21, 1975, Norma Happ, Acting Mayor of Kalispell, advised Mr. Leonard Vadala, Deputy County Attorney, that the building would require a variance before it could be used by the county. In December 1975 the City of Kalispell Building Inspector informed Flathead County that they would have to seek a variance. On December 11, Mr. Ralph Jackson, Building Inspector for the City of Kalispell, issued a two -page report which showed the changes needed to update the building to conform with the uniform building codes. On January 12, 1976, at its regular monthly meeting, the Board of Adjustments passed a motion to request from the County specific plans and uses for the building. In response to this request, on January 28, 1976, the County Attorney supplied a list showing all of the proposed usages of the building in three phases. Phase I included the Mental Health Program; Health Department; Women, Infants, and Children; Sanitarian; Dental Health; Aging Services (Retired Senior Citizens Volunteer Program, Council on Aging Program, Aging Information Co- ordinator, Nutrition Program, and National Association of Retired Persons); Red Cross; Alcohol Administrative Offices; Welfare Department; and Family Planning. Also included in Phase I was the Nutrition Program and Kitchen and Food Services vocational training operated by the Flathead Valley Community College. In addition, they included ADC Training, which we presume means Aid to Dependent Children training. Total number given in this letter was approximate number of employees 68, approximate number of automobiles 60. Phase II included the Study Commission; Park Department; Areawide Planning Organization; Public Administrator; Election Department; Extension Service; Refuse Disposal Office; Library Storage; and general storage for various offices. They showed approximate number of employees 18, approximate number of cars 12. Phase III included courthouse offices of an administrative nature. The - 1 - Commissioners intend to prepare the courthouse in the future to house just the court and court -related services. The Assessor and Treasurer and other non -court - related services would be transferred to the new office building. No estimated number of cars or employees is shown under Phase III. It should be noted that the County believes that the health -related services which they refer to would come in under some sort of grandfather clause. In a letter dated February 2, 1976 to the County Attorney, Norb Donahue who is the City Attorney, stated that the only conforming use of the present building without a variance is the operation of a full service hospital. On February 10, 1976, the County Attorney's office wrote to Mr. Donahue again and suggested that some type of compromise as to proposed uses be worked out. The County requested that the City or Board of Adjust- ments tell the County what proper uses there were. Mr. Pearce, Deputy County Attorney, states that at the present time it is unclear whether multiple family or educational use is the better use of the facility which he feels should be principally an engineering decision. It is Mr. Pearce's belief and that of the Commissioners, however, that some of the proposed uses would result in a lighter use than either multiple family or educational, but having purchased the facility, it is axiomatic that the County must use it in the manner most advantageous to the greater number of citizens. In a letter from Stewart Pearce, Deputy County Attorney, on February 17, 1976, he requests that the original application be amended for variance only and strike from the original application all reference to a reclassification from Class 1 to Class 5. On February 8, 1976, the Board of Adjustments published a Notice of Public Hearing for this meeting tonight in the Daily Interlake, setting forth the proposed uses of the building as outlined by the Deputy County Attorney. Immediately after publishing this notice, we attempted to get the Montana State Highway Department to - 2 - do a traffic and parking study, but they said that since it was so far away from any of their highways that they would be establishing a bad precedent if they did the study. Immediately thereafter, we called all of the agencies in Phase I and Phase II to get information as to the number of employees and number of visitors involved in the agencies. In some cases we talked to the Program Director, in some cases we talked to the Administrative Assistant to the Director, and in some cases we talked to the secretary of the Director. We asked them how many employees they had and how many people they saw per week or per month or per day. We asked for traffic peak periods and whether it would increase or decrease in the future. All of the agencies were most cooperative and furnished us with these figures. It is impossible to tell if the figures are accurate or not, but we presume that they are since they came directly from the agencies involved. We were unable to reach George Clark at the hospital but we talked with Terry Moody, his secretary, who said that there were approximately 100 nursing and nursing aide staff. This, of course, is on a three -shift basis, and since there are some who are there in the daytime who are not there at night, we estimated that 40 out of the 100 would be there in the daytime. She said there were approximately 20 people in office or administrative positions, so we estimated 25. She estimated that there had been about 10 in the kitchen, so we estimated 15. This made a total of 80 for the daytime shift. She said that there were approximately 50 doctors on staff but that quite a few of them were from other towns or cities, so we estimated that approximately 35 would be there daily. We estimated that there were approximately 60 visitors per day on the average day, or a total of 175 persons overall. The proposed use of the hospital in Phases I and II only showed 124 employees full-time and approximately 24 part-time. From the information we gathered that there would be probably a minimum of 269 visitors per day, 124 full-time employees per day, or a minimum of 393 persons per day. The maximum included 124 full-time employees, 24 part-time employees, and 635 visitors. This did not include any laundry workers or food - 3 - service personnel from the college nor any Phase III persons. In a newspaper article on Sunday, February 22, 1976, Frank Guay stated that the figures in the study may be terribly exaggerated. I have told you how our figures were gathered, and we must realize that the traffic might be light some days and very, very heavy on others. Also, we must realize that we only counted persons, and obviously there may be less cars than persons. A graph has been prepared showing the county projected minimum and county projected maximum uses in Phase I and Phase II as compared to the old hospital use. The red portion is the doctors and visitors, and the dark portion at the bottom is the full-time and part-time employees. It's normal at these meetings to ask for all of the proponents to this change and then to ask for the opponents to this change. We have asked that you sign your names on a list if you wish to speak. There may be some of you here who have come to this meeting to protest the actions of the County Commissioners in purchasing this building. That is not the purpose of this meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to hear all evidence concerning the desires of the people who live in that area or who would be affected by any change. So when we read the names off of the list for people to speak, if your purpose is merely to protest the action of the Commissioners or if you don't have an opinion either for or against, we would ask that you just pass. In order to keep this meeting down to a reasonable length of time, we request that everybody hold their speech down to five minutes or less. - 4 -