Cover LetterJanuary 4, 2010
Tom Jentz, Planning Director
City of Kalispell
Planning Office
201 1" Avenue East
Kalispell, MT 59901
RE: Willow Creek Amendment
Dear Mr. Jentz:
Enclosed please find our application to amend the Willow Creek PUD. Willow Creek is a Planned Unit
Development located on the west side of Kalispell along Foys Lake Road. It was originally proposed in
October of 2006 and received the preliminary plat containing 531 dwelling units was approved in
December 2007. Since that time, the civil engineering process has revealed many challenges contained
in that plan. Therefore, several changes to the plat have been proposed including; moving the access
locations, modifying interior roads, creating additional open space, adjusting project phasing,
reconfiguring of lots and the redirection of internal traffic flow. This application is being presented to
your office at the request of the City of Kalispell Planning Board to gain approval of these many changes.
The first major change is being proposed at the request of the City of Kalispell Public Works Department.
In the early summer of 2008 a set of civil engineering plans for the Willow Creek Project was presented
to Public Works. In the comments that we received back, we were instructed to move the easterly
approach on Foys Lake Road 300 feet to the west to create the required separation of this intersection
and the round -a -bout that will be constructed with the Kalispell By -Pass. However, the topography of
the site makes this request impractical. Therefore, we are proposing to move the easterly approach 900
feet to the west. We feel that this will address the concerns of the Public Works Department while at
the same time being topographically compatible with the site.
Secondly, the arterial road through the middle of the neighborhood that was proposed with the original
plan created two major issues. First, to grade the road to City of Kalispell standards the excavation of
over 1 million cubic yards of material is required. Secondly, because of the major changes the
topography of the site a huge amount of storm water that traditionally would have flowed north to
Ashley Creek would be directed south to Foys Lake Road. In an attempt to mitigate these issues we are
proposing to abandon the center arterial concept and replace it with two arterial roadways that follow
the perimeter of the project.
Also, in an effort to comply with the conditions of approval for Willow Creek a number of lots have been
reconfigured. Specifically, the lots along the arterial roadways that also border the Ashley Creek buffer
area have had an alley added to the rear. This alley will provide access to these lots while avoiding the
aesthetic and safety drawbacks of "Frontloaded" houses. The alley also creates a boundary between
public areas and the lots, giving clear definition to the public domain. To further reduce "Frontloaded"
houses onto arterial roads, the lots bordering the large park in the western portion of the project have
been reconfigured. As a consequence of this the size of the park has increased.
Finally, because Willow Creek borders the Kalispell By -Pass, noise mitigation was required and proposed.
However, the original plan for Willow Creek did not fully appreciate the shear mass of the mitigation
that would be required. The City Staff had indicated that the slopes of the noise berm could not be
greater than 33% or a 3 to 1 slope. The approved preliminary plat does not assume this and we had
originally planned to create much steeper slopes. As the slope of the berm was softened on the
engineering plans it was apparent that sufficient room for noise mitigation was not reserved. Therefore,
the roadways and the lots on the east side of subdivision have been modified to create room for the
noise mitigation berm. Consequently, this reconfiguration reduced the total number of units in the
development from 531 to 471 and increased to total open space of the project.
We have taken all of these changes and combined them into this application. Please review this
application and forward it to the City of Kalispell Planning Board and City Council for their approval.
Sincerely,
Hubert Turner
President
Trigon, Inc.