Wessel Re: Daily InterLake Default News pageHello Michelle,
Please pass this on to the Planning Board.
Dear Planning Board,
Thank you for your concerns about adequate public involvement on the
Starling project as expressed at your meeting this past Tuesday night.
I have had the same concerns on many of the larger projects being
proposed in the City.
Please consider establishing a standard similar to that adopted by
Flathead County in the Memorandum of Understanding reached between the
City, County, and Bucky Wolford. Among many other public involvement
items regarding public hearing conduct, some key points are that the
Planning Board determines the notification distance and billboard-type
sign requirements on "large" development projects. If you are
interested in specifics of the MOU, the City Attorney's office could
provide you with a copy.
I also think it is important that large projects are submitted
electronically to the City and immediately available on the City
website. I would advocate that a large project would be a residential
subdivision over 50 homes, but various guidelines of varying amounts of
information should be established for all types of projects.
As much as I like hanging out with the City Planning Staff at their
offices (especially when there's free pizza!), I too, would rather do
this at my convenience, on-line, in the evenings. Now days, with most
projects prepared electronically, this is not a significant burden to
place on Staff or the developer to make this information available upon
submission.
For your reference, the Daily Interlake had a short story about this in
today's paper:
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2007/05/24/news/news03.txt
Thank you for your consideration,
Pete Wessel
121 Rainbow Drive
Kalispell, MT 59901