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12-18-20 City Manager Report1 City of Kalispell OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER Information Memorandum 12/18/2020 1. Public Works Winter Season- Snow Plow Policy Winter snow season is here and the city crews are prepped and ready to take on the snow and ice conditions in the city streets. The city’s Snow Policy was adopted by Council in 1997 and provides a policy on snow removal procedures for streets, alleys, parking lots, and sidewalks. The Policy delineates responsibilities of the public and sets expectations for city roles and responsibilities. A summarization of the policy, along with answers to frequently asked questions, can be accessed on the Kalispell website at www.kalispell.com/278/Snow-Removal or by calling Public Works at 758-7720. Recently, Public Works has updated the website to include an interactive Snow Removal Map. The map details the snow removal priorities routes, as denoted below, and the berm and haul routes. 1. Priority 1 - Emergency Routes will be plowed first when the city experiences more than 3 inches of snowfall. Additionally, Emergency Routes are sanded/de- iced/plowed daily as road conditions warrant. 2. Priority 2 - Regular Residential Snow Plow Routes will be plowed after emergency routes. 2 3. Priority 3 – Alley Routes. The Public Works Street Department, when time and resources allow, will only plow the alleys in order for the City Solid Waste equipment to service the garbage containers and for other Kalispell utilities services. In order for the city to plow 140 miles of streets there are 10 established routes, requiring 12 staff to operate equipment and 87 cul-de-sac/half moons, requiring 4 additional pickup plows. Snow removal operations generally will start at 4:00 am on snow events that accumulate 3 inches or more of snow on city roadways. The goal of the snow plow policy is to plow Priority Routes 1 and 2 within 48 hours of the end of a snow event. 2. Parks Department Currently we have 2 contractors working on forestry projects throughout the city. One contractor is finishing the removal of 46 trees. The second contractor is continuing to prune trees damaged in last spring’s windstorm. Most of our parks crew has transitioned over to Forestry for the winter months allowing us to have two forestry crews. One of our crews is pruning small and medium trees in Empire Estates while another crew is pruning large trees along 3rd Avenue East. Registration for our annual Freeze Out Camp at Elrod Elementary School on December 21 through 23 and December 28 through 31 has increased from previous years and has reached our 40-child capacity per day for five of the seven days. We currently have children registered for 264 of the 280 available openings which is a 40% increase from last year’s numbers. The Freeze Out Camp schedule and registration form can be found on the KPR website: https://www.kalispell.com/249/Youth-Camp-After-School. Registrations for our Learn to Skate program have also increased. Both Session 2 (January 5 through 14) & Session 3 (January 19 through 28) are already full and participation is 13% higher over the previous year. Our annual Woodland Water Park Season Pass Sale has begun and will go through February 2021. Families and individuals can save 15% in December, 10% in January, and 5% in February. 3. Fire Department Fire Department staff are continuing efforts in-service the new transport ambulance that was delivered in October. We have encountered delays both internally and externally with third party vendors finalizing the installation of the power cots and various other supplies. Our hope is to have this unit responding to calls next week. Fire Department staff have begun their required recertification for BLS health care provider and Advance Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). This entails didactic and clinical 3 training and testing. 4. Police Department Officer Dennis Bain is training with the Gracie University in Florida on defensive tactics December 14-18. Officer Bain was recently selected as our defensive tactics coordinator and is tasked with modernizing our defensive tactics, training protocols and de- escalation. The Gracie System has recently been reviewed both medically and legally for use in law enforcement. Furthermore, although GST was developed for its tactical effectiveness, its leverage-based techniques are less likely to cause serious injury to both the officer and arrestee. We are preparing for Sergeant testing to be completed in early January. The process will consist of a written exam, scenario-based testing, oral board, and leadership assessment. Sgt. Chad Zimmerman will be retiring from the Kalispell Police Department on December 28, after 25 years of law enforcement service. Year to date calls for service are 31,090, this compares with 34,594 in 2019, and 33,451 in 2018. 5. Planning Department The Planning Board held a public hearing on December 15 and heard three application requests. The application requests consisted of the following: 1. File #KCU-20-06 – A request from Northwestern Energy for a conditional use permit to allow the expansion of an existing non-conforming use at 890 North Meridian Road. The property is located in a B-1 (Neighborhood Business) zone, and utility storage yards with associated offices are not currently an allowed use within that zone. Expansions of up to a cumulative increase of 50% are allowed with a conditional use permit. The proposal would add approximately 5305 square feet to the existing 13,975 square foot building. 2. Files #KZC-20-02 and KPP-20-04 – A request from JAG Capital Investments, LLC for a zone change from R-2 (Residential) to R-4 (Residential) and major preliminary plat approval for Autumn Creek subdivision, with a total of 28 residential lots/sublots on approximately 8.41 acres of land, including 1.14 acres of parkland and 1.89 acres of open space. The property is located on Hathaway Lane north of Highway 2 West. 3. File #KZTA-20-02 – A request from the City of Kalispell for a zoning text amendment addressing accessory dwelling units (“ADUs”), which are second dwelling units on a property. The proposed amendment would allow a separate ADU as a permitted use on a lot in zones that allow duplexes (R-4, R-5, RA-1, RA-2, and H-1) in addition to those zones which already allow them. It would include design requirements which would require (1) that an ADU meet setback 4 requirements for a house unless going into a grandfathered structure, such as a garage; (2) that parking for the second unit would be one required space, for a total of three parking spaces for the two units, as well as reducing the required parking for a duplex to the same number; (3) that the height is limited to single- story and 18 feet high unless it meets the setbacks for a principal structure; and (4) that the size is limited to no more than 1000 square feet. The Planning Board also held a work session on a request from Dale Crosby-Newman and Scott Harrison for the Farmstead Planned Unit Development (“PUD”), which includes annexation, initial zoning, and a Residential Mixed Use PUD overlay on approximately 102.25 acres of land abutting the south side of Four Mile Drive to the west of Stillwater Road, along with major preliminary plat approval for Phase 1 of the development. Approximately 0.91 acres was previously annexed into the city and zoned R-2 (Residential). The remaining area is proposed to be annexed with the entire property to be zoned R-3 (Residential) with the PUD overlay. The PUD calls for a total of 391 dwelling units (173 single family lots and 178 townhome lots) along with 1.47 acres of residential mixed use with 40 multi-family units. The Phase 1 preliminary plat consists of approximately 28.57 acres with 108 lots, streets and open space. 6. Building Department In the last 2 weeks, we have issued permits for 5 single-family homes and 14 townhomes. This brings the total of new single-family/duplex and townhouse units for the year to 306, compared to 158 last year at this time. The total project valuation for residential construction this year is at $60,482,799.00. Commercial project valuation is at $63,686,448.00. A large portion of the commercial project valuation for the year as attributable to multi-family development, which is classified as commercial for building purposes. There have been 156 multi-family housing units issued so far this year. At the end of 2019, the building department had issued permits for a total of 84 multi-family units. There was a total of 176 combined building and/or fire inspections completed in the last 2 weeks. Residential – 86 Plumbing – 11 Commercial – 16 Mechanical - 9 Electrical – 13 Fire - 41 7. Community Development Staff is working on three brownfields phase I environmental site assessment eligibility requests for properties in the Core Area, pending sales. Staff is preparing the 3rd & Main lot Request for Proposals (RFP) to be advertised to 5 developers. The City is seeking developers to submit redevelopment plans for the City- owned parking lot formerly referred to as the Valley Bank lot. This property has been chosen due to its high visibility location along Main Street and its location in the newly established Downtown Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District. Redevelopment of this property will further the City’s mission of promoting economic growth, improving area employment opportunities and expanding tax base. It is anticipated that, following successful completion of a recorded Developer’s Agreement, the selected developer will receive credit against the market value of the property based upon the tax increment generated by the project.