01/07/08 City Council MinutesAlso present: City Manager James Patrick, City Attorney Charles Harball, City Clerk Theresa White,
Public Works Director J m Har sz, Finance Director Amy Robertson, Detective Lieutenant Jinn
Breeden, Fire Chief Randy Brodehl, Planning Department Director Tom Jentz, Senior Planner Sean
Conrad, Planner.][[ Nicole Johnson, and Recording Secretary Judi Funk.
President Larson called the.meeting to order and led the Pledge of Allegiance.
A. AGENDA APPROVAL
Gabriel moved. approval of the Agenda. The motion was seconded.
Kenyon moved to continue. the public hearing until the Council and public obtain additional.
professional input on our draft transportation plan and traffic issues related to Glacier Town Center,
reconvening the public hearing February 18.
White noted the public hearing cannot be continued until it is opened and testimony received.
Kenyon stated he would reserve his motion for later.
The motion carried unanimously upon vote with Mayor Kennedy and Kluesner absent,
B., OATHS OF OFFICE
White administered the oath of office to Council members Mari Gabriely , Rand Kenyon, Duane
Larson, and Wayne Saverud.
C. ELECTION OF. COUNCIL PRESIDENT
President Larson explained that the Council needs to elect a Council President and asked for
nominations.
Kenyon nominated Duane Larson.
Olson moved to close the nominations. The motion was seconded.
The motion carried unanimously upon vote With Mayor Kennedy absent. Larson was declared
Council President for lack of additional nominations.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 1
D. CONSENT AGENDA APPROVAL
1. Council Minutes — Reaular Meeting December 17 2007
Gabriel moved approval of the Consent Agenda. The motion was seconded.
There was no discussion.
The motion carried unanimously upon vote with Mayor Kennedy absent.
E. STUDENT ISSUES
Sam Skelim,124 Somerset Drive, asked Council to improve the crosswalk on woodland Pare Drive
stating it is unsafe because people are traveling too fast coming down the hill from Anderson
Masonry. He proposed a blinking light to warn motorists of the crosswalk.
Brita Thorderson, 716 Blaine View Lane, said recently a group of students collected 60 gallons .of
garbage around Woodland Park Drive. and she suggested putting up a sign encouraging people not to
litter and what the fines are if they do.
Daniel Gordon, 130 Krause Lane, spoke regarding the homeless population around Kalispell and
how the Samaritan House could use Channel 9 for non-profit advertising.
Hannah Febach, 528 Crestview Road, stated she is concerned with the cleanliness of the woodland
Park pond and suggested that it be dredged.
Niles Moschetti, 50 Amdahl Lane, said more people would probably utilize different areas around
the pond ifit it was clean.
Madison Gaunter, Lakeside, remarked they looped at several solutions for the pond and the best one
seems to. be dredging it or using an environmental cleanser.
Colin Morrison, 85 Scarborough Avenue, asked that a guardrail be. installed on the steep hill on East
Evergreen Drive near Village Greens. He said students collected nearly 60 signatures on a petition
asking for the guardrail and even though it is not M' the City limits right now, he understands it is
going to be annexed. (Petition is attached and by this reference made a part of the official record)
Fred Morris, 81011th Street East, said because the road is supposedly being annexed this year the
County said it is not willing to do anything and in addition, the required technology to install a
guardrail in that area is very expensive.
Krista Nag l' ch, 259 Hemmler Creek Road, and Angela Maisch,151.1 Lake Blaine Road, spoke about
traffic problems at Flathead High School and asked that snow removal on 5th and 6th Avenues west,
and 6th, 7th, and 8th Streets west be completed before 7:15 am in order to prevent accidents.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 2
F. PUBLIC COMMENT
Rick Breckenridge,1405 Highway 2 West, speaking. on behalf of the Bay Ridge Estates subdivision,
stated they have been working with the Fire Chief to get a water tank installed prior to annexation.
Richard Griffin, 312 Northridge Drive, said he attended the ice rink ribbon cutting ceremony at
Woodland Park and he was excited to learn that the rink was established in a cooperative effort with
the private sector.
Bridget Pellett, 2034 Ruddy Duck Drive, commented the Ray of Hope is also a non-profit
organization that helps the homeless and wanted the students to know that. She also wondered when
we are going to start preserving our farmland.
G. PUBLIC HEARING — GLACIER TOWN CENTER
President Larson opened the public hearing and asked for comments concerning the Glacier Town
Center project proposed for approximately 485 acres north of West Reserve Drive between Highway
93 North and Whitefish Stage Road.
Pat Arnone, 595 Lauman road, stated it has come to her attention that Mayre Flowers from Citizens
for a Better Flathead recently wrote a letter to the Montana Department of Transportation on the
subject of the flow of traffic on Highway 93 and that it looks like a "deal" was cut between MDT and
the developer that was against Montana law. She said we have to abide by our laws first or "we don't
.having anything". Arnone handed out an article on the impact of traffic lights and said we need to do
::a new traffic study before any more lights are installed on 93. (Handout is attached and by this
reference made a part of the official record)
Brent Hall,191 Lakeside Boulevard, said we lost $22 million of timber this year due to fires and he
doesn't want to lose the Wolford project and the jobs it will bring. He said the radical
environmentalists filing frivolous law suits are breaking our backs; this project will create jobs and
tax revenue and give us a lock on being the biggest shopping area in the northwest. Hall said he fully
supports this proposal.
B.J. Carlson, 2620 Mission Trail Way, speaking on behalf of North 93 Neighbors, read a written
statement concerning their lawsuit with Wolford and traffic issues. (Written statement is attached
and by this reference made a part of the official record)
Lynn Stanley, 838 2nd Avenue East, said it is unthinkable to widen Highway 93 to allow people to
move rapidly between Whitefish and Kalispell and then put stop lights on it. She said the fast route
should be preserved north of Reserve, adding we only have one chance to get this right which is why
we need a peer review of the Wolford transportation plan.
Linda Pistorese, Columbia Falls, stated she is a real estate agent and noted that commercial real
10
estate grew by 11.4% from 2006 to 2007, while residential sales dropped 22%. She said this project
will offer a lot of jobs and help with commercial growth.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 3
Bruce Telllck, 9 W yndover Hill Drive, realtor, commented he is in favor of not impeding the process
unnecessarily and encouraged Council to move forward. He said it's a fact of life that the City
boundaries are moving north and practically speaking, we can not expect to have a freeway through
that area and stop lights are a safety buffer.
George Taylor, 504 5th Avenue East, said he doesn't think the issue with transportation is a "we pay
all or Bucky pays all" situation, this should be a joint effort, adding we should control our safety
nutters, not MDT. Taylor said he feels this proposal is a good project and we need to meet
someplace in the middle.
Shawn Sullivan, 324 Boone Road, stated the transportation plan on Highway 93 is already broken
and the last thing we need is another set of stop lights on that road. He said Highway 93 is a
thoroughfare and should be used for transportation, not stop and go stop lights.
Rod McIver, 975 Rose Crossing, questioned why the transportation system` should be set up to favor
people who are shopping instead of someone who is working; commercial operations need to feed
into bleeder roads. from the side. He said he hopes we can come. to a compromise with. Wolford
because he is the only person who has played by any fair rules, unfortunately he comes at an
awkward time when our transportation system is severely crippled.
Doug Rauthe, 413 6th Avenue Bast, said the Housing Affordability Ladder group has met with
Wolford regarding affordable housing and they plan to meet again.
Mayre Flowers, Citizens for a Better Flathead, displayed a large sign which said "Anything worth
Doing is worth Doing Right, So Let's Deep Highway 93 Stop Light Free". She suggested that before
the Council approves this protect it needs to adopt the transportation plan, adopt impact fees, identify
a plan for paying for a junior overpass at Rose Crossing and request a peer review of the traffic plan.
Flowers recommended that Dan Burden, who is extremely credible with these types of is .sues, be
contacted to conduct the traffic plan review. She said she has contacted him and he is willing to
review the plan and mare suggestions.
Megan McCrae, Citizens for a Better Flathead, read a letter addressing the areas in which the project
fails Jo. satisfy the PUD regulations, subdivision regulations, and the growth (Lette . oliors,
p Y
Comments, and Handouts subnitted by Citizens for a Better Flathead are attached and by this
reference made a part of the official record)
Brent Moore, Senior Planner, CTA Architects, an behalf of Wolford Development, read a letter and
submitted information asking that the Council remove .six. of the .47 conditions recommend by the
Planning Board. He also included a letter outlining Kathleen rager's qualifications for developing a
traffic plan. (Letter and attachments are attached and by this reference made a part of the official
record)
Bryan Schutt, Planning Board president, read a letter describing some of the discussions the Planning
Board had on this project. (Letter is attached and by this reference made a part of the official record)
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 4
Kathleen Yager, Denver, CO, transportation engineer for wolford, submitted the written transcript
of her presentation at a warp. session December 17. She summarized the traffic plan and emphasized
that H.i4 ghway 93 is not. a. "free flowing'' roadway, noting there are lots` of access points on US
Highway 93. that cross traffic and the only reason there aren't more accidents. is because the volume
hasn't gotten high enough. (Transcript of December 17 work session is attached sand by this reference
made a part of the .official record)
Ian McCaskell, Architecture Plus, Louisiana, explained that the traffic costs for the Wolford project
in Ames, Iowa are being shared with the City.
Roxanne Brothers, 786 4th Avenue. WIN, said she is concerned with what is happening on Highway
93 and adding more stop and go lights. will increase pollution. She said we should bring in an
independent person to do a traffic study rather than going with someone that Wolford hired and she
questioned why there are no frontage roads in the area.
Mary Critchlow, 520 4th Avenue East, also expressed concern with traffic flow and safety issues on
Highway 93 and submitted a report from. the Montana Department of Transportation identifying the
tap five percent of Montana highways that demonstrate the most .severe highway safety needs with.
Highway 93 listed. Critchlow also handed out a Daily InterLake article regarding sewage treatment
plant capacity. (Submittals are attached and by this reference made a part of the official record)
Brian .Beck, 2100 Mission Way South, remarked that traffic in and around Kalispell may be
inconvenient, but it is not a problem, adding he doesn't feel a j um" or interchange is necessary. He
said he knows the .Wolfords personally and they have integrity and do quality work. Beck rebutted
that the "plight of the farmer is not the result of governments allowing subdivisions; subdivisions are
the result of the plight of the fanner" and he. encouraged the Council to move forward on this project.
Garrick Guymon,139 West Cedar Drive, suggested limiting access to the development via one way
roads; northbound 93 drivers could enter the development by turning right, with southbound traffic
from Whitefish and Columbia Falls entering from Whitefish Stage Road. He said in addition, there
could be a stop light at Rose Crossing to slow traffic and help w*th the flow. �iuyman said once the
mall is here we can't get rid of it and the Council needs to look at the traffic situation, especially the
bypass, prior to approval.
Joe Unterreiner, Kalispell Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, spoke on Kalispell's role as a
regional trade center for northwest Montana and the retail sector is an important part of that. He
urged the Council to approve this project with reasonable considerations.
Denise Smith, Flathead Business and Industry Association Executive Director, commented that even
if an independent review is conducted, .MDT will still be the one to approve appropriate mitigation
and implementation along Highway 93. Smith said instead of a review, the FBIA supports the
Technical Advisory Commiittee's recommendation to conduct a Highway 93 corridor study similar
to the study that was done on Highway 2.. She submitted MDT's Access Management and Land Use
Planning Policy paper outlining what MDT can and cannot do, and stated Wolford Development has
shown they have staying power and it is time for this community to welcome them (Policy Paper is
attached and by this reference made a part of the official record)
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 5
Ken Kalvig, Wolford Development's legal counsel, rebutted several previous. speakers' comments
including statements that the proposal fails to. follow the growth policy. He emphasized that this
project is being proposed far Kalispell and the laws of Kalispell and Montana have to apply; what is
happening in Ames, Iowa is not relevant. Kalvig also noted that he has tried to review the
correspondence from Citizens for a Better Flathead to MDT regarding transportation issues and there
is a lot of material in those documents that they do not find is with merit. In conclusion, IalvIg said
the public has had ample opportunity to comment and it would violate his client's due process rights
to keep the public hearing open for another 5 weeks to accommodate one speaker. He said Wolford
has only asked for fairness and he asked the Council to not support continuing the public hearing.
Wayne Freeman, CTA, also addressed several speakers' concerns, emphasizing that there was no
deal. between MIST and the developer; MDT was asked to comment by the City staff and they did so.
He said Dan Burden has a degree in recreational management and promotes common. sense design,
which is what CTA does every day. Freeman remarked they have worked .very hard with the North
93 Neighbors and the City plann-m`g staff and he feels this is a project they can all be proud of.
Chad Wolford, Wolford Development, said his father first envisioned this project in1999 and since
that tune they have been 100% committed to see this project through. He said despite lawsuits and
personal attacks, they have made numerous concessions and donations to move this project forward.
Wolford said they are pleased to submit a plan that provides numerous benefits to the community,
y
however, half a dozen items remain that jeopardize the economic viability of this project and they
hope the Council will take that into account when considering the proposal.
Brent Card, 354 Plantation Drive, stated he represents the 80 acres which is annexed into the City
and is north of the west half of thisroj ect. He said he feels the Rose Crossing in will solve
a lot of the traffic problems. Card also noted he has spoken with Wolford Development many times
and asked that Council approve the project.
Kenyon moved the public hearing be continued until February 18 in light of the tremendous
interest in traffic safety issues and the changes noted by Mr. Moore in the not -yet -finalized
plan.. There was no second.
President Larson closed the public hearing.
(All comments received prior to the public hearing are attached and by this reference made a part of
the official record)
H. REPORTS/RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUBSEQUENT COUNCIL ACTION
H/1. PRESENTATION - ANNEXATION AND INITIAL ZONING -- LONNIE AND KIM
BUCHHOLTz
Johnson gave a staff report and answered questions on a request from Lonnie and King Buchholz to
annex approximately one half of an acre on the west side of 7th Avenue West.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 6
Hl2. RESOLUTION 5253 —ANNEXATION -- LONNIE AND KIM BUCHHOLTZ
The property proposed for annexation is located between 11th Street Nest and Sunnyside Drive.
Atkinson.moved Resolution 525.3, a resolution to provide for the alteration of the boundaries of
the City of Kalispell by including therein as an annexation certain real property described as
Lot 3 of western Acres Subdivision. located in Section 18, Township 28 North, Range.21 west,
P.M.M., Flathead County, Montana, to be known as Buchholtz Addition No. 399; to. zone said
property .in accordance with the Kalispell Zoning Ordinance, and to declare as effective date.
The motion was seconded.
There was no discussion.
The motion carried unanimously upon roll call vote with Mayor Kennedy absent.
H13. ORDINANCE 1626 -- INITIAL ZONING — LONNIE AND KIM BUCHHOLTZ -1ST
READING
The Buchholtz's have requested an initial zoning designation of R-4, Togo -Family Residential.
Saverud moved first reading of Ordinance 1626, an ordinance to amend Section 27,02.010,
official zoo ng map, City of Kalispell Zoning Ordinance, (Ordinance No.. 1460), by zoning
certain real property more particularly described as Lot 3 of 'Western Acres Subdivision
located in Section 18, Township 28 Nortb, Range 21 west, Flathead County, Montana
(previously zoned bounty R.-5, Two Family Residential) to City R-4 (Two Family Residential)
in accordance with the Kalispell Growth Policy 2020, and to. provide an effective date. The
motion was seconded.
There was no discussion.
The motion carried unanimously upon roll call vote with Mayor Kennedy absent.
H14. PRESENTATION --ANNEXATION, INITIAL ZONINGG AND PRELIMINARY
PLAT -- BAY RIDGE DEVELOPMENT
Johnson gave a staff report and answered questions on a request by Bay Ridge Development, LLC
for annexation, zoning, and preliminary plat approval of approximately 19 acres of land located on
the north side of Three Mile Drive.
Hafferman commented Meadows Lane is a dead end street and therefore there could be a question as
to whether this follows the design and construction standard that defines a cul-de-sac. He said in
order to address and rationalize this long entrance he moved an amendment to the findings of fact to
state: "Meadows Lane is about feet to the loop road; if the property south of the cul-de-sac on
Bowser Creek Loop is subdivided and annexed to the City, an easement is to be provided for a
possible second mess road."
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 7
Larson noted that Hafferman would have to wait until the appropriate agenda item before making a
motion.
Hafferman said the findings are not included in any of the following actions.
Harball stated the findings of fact cannot be mended, but Hafferman could include his motion as a
condition when the preliminary plat is considered.
There was discussion.of impact fees and how to mare sure prospective buyers are aware of the
impact fees prior to. purchase.
Kluesner said the future homeowner would see the encumbrance on the title before the loan was
closed.
Gabriel remarked that. she is having a hard time accepting the density of this subdivision that abuts
County agricultural land.
H/5. RMSOLUTION 5254 —.ANNEXATION — BAY RIDGE DEVELOPMENT
The property proposed for annexation is located at the terminus of Meadows Lane an d is south of
Quarter Horse Estates.
Atkinson moved Resolution 5254, a resolution to pro d for the alteration of the boundaries of
..the City of Kalispell by including therein as an annexation certain real property described as
Assessors Tracts 1B,1BF,1BD, and IDEA located withm the south half of Section �, Township
. forth, Range 22 West, P.M.M., Flathead County, Montana, to be known as Bay Ridge
Addition No.4Qo0 40zone said property in accordance v�ift.hthe Kalispell Zoning Ordinance,
and to declare an effective date. The motion was seconded.
..... .....
There was no discussion.
The motion carried unanimously upon roll call vote with Mayor Kennedy absent.
I/6. ORDINANCE 1627 -- INITIAL ZONING -- BAY RIDGE DEVELOPMENT. 1ST
READING
Bay Ridge Development has requested an initial zoning of R.-3, Urban Single Family. Residential on
the property listed above.
Kenyon moved first reading of ordinance 162'7, an ordinance to amend Sect nri 27.02.0109
official zoning map, City of Kalispell zoning ordinance, (ordinance no. 14.60) by zoning
certain real property more particularly described as Assessors Tra ds 1B, 1BF, IBD, and
1BDA located within the south half of Section 2, Township 28 North, Range 22 Wes Flathead
�
County, Montana (previously zoned County AG -So (Agricultural) and. SAG-5 (Suburban
Agricultural)) to City R-3 (Urban Single Family Residential) in accordance with the Kalispell
Growth Policy 2020, and to provide an effective date. The motion was seconded.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 8
There was no discussion.
The motion carried upon roll call vote with Atkinson, Hafferman, Kenyon, Kluesner, Olson.,
Saverud and President Larson voting in favor, Gabriel voting against, and Mayor Kennedy
absent.
I/7. RESOLUTION 5255 — PRELIMINARY PLAT.. BAY RIDGE ESTATES
Bay Ridge Development also requested preliminary plat approval of Bay Ridge Estates, a 40-lot
subdivision with lots that range in size from 7,000 to 30,000 square feet.
Kenyon moved Resolution 5255, a resolution conditionally approving the prelim lnary plat of
Bay Ridge Estates Subdivision, more particularly described as Assessors Tracts 1B, lBF,1BD,
and.. lBDA located within the south half of Section 2, Township 28 North, Range 22 `west,
P.M,M., Flathead County, Montana. The motion. vas. seconded.
Hafferman moved to amend the findings of fact to state: "Meadows Lane is about feet to
the loop road; if the property south of the culmde-sac on Bowser Creek Loop is subdivided and
annexed to the City, an easement is to be provided for a possible second access road." The
motion was seconded.
Hafferman was reminded he can not amend the Planning Board's findings of fact, however, the
condition could be added to the resolution.
Hafferman withdrew his motion. The second concurred.
There was no further discussion.
The motion carried upon roll call vote with Atkinson, Hafferman, Kenyon, I luesner, Olson,
Saverud and President Larson voting in favor, Gabriel voting against, and Mayor Kennedy
absent.
H18. ORDINANCE 1628 -- ZONE CHANGE -- EFF AND KAREN THIESEN . 1ST
READING..
Jeff and Karen Thiesen requested a zone change from R-4, Two --Family residential, to B-1,
Neighborhood Buffer District, on two properties totaling 1.19 acres located along the western side of
North Meridian road near the intersection of Three Mile Drive.
Saverud moved first reading of Ordinance 1628, an ordinance to amend Section 27.02.010,
official zoning map, City of Kalispell Zoning Ordinance, (Ordinance No. 1460), by zoning
certain real property more particularly described as Lots lg and 20 of the Sinopah Subdivision
located in Section 1, Township 28 North, Range 22 'L7'LTest, Flathead County, Montana
(previously zoned City R-4, Two Family Residential) to City B-1 (Neighborhood Buffer
District) in accordance with the Kalispell Growth Policy 2020, and to provide an effective date.
The motion was seconded.
Kalispell city Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 9
Conrad gave a staff report and answered questions concerning ingress, egress, and topography.
There was no further discussion,
The motion carried unanimously upon roll callvote with Mayor Kennedy absent..
H/9. CHANGE ORDER — UPPER ZONE WATER. SUPPLY AND STORAGE ERWECT
Staff is requesting approval of a change order for the Upper zone. Water Supply and Storage Project
in the amount of $152,320..00 for additional costs to install pipeline.
Gabriel moved Council approve the change order for the Upper Zone Water Supply and
Storage Pra�ject in the an�vunt of $152,320,OQ for additional casts to instal pipeline. The
motion vas seconded.
Hansz gave a staff report and answered questions.
There`was no further discussion.
The motion carried unanimously upon vote with Mayor Kennedy absent.
1. MAYO COUNCIL CITY MANAGER'S REPORTS o Action
:. Hafferman requested that the Council receive only one set of conditions for the next meeting because
it has been confusing with all of the changes and responses.
Olson stated he agreed with Kenyon that we need to get another opinion on the traffic issue, but he
couldn't agree with continuing the public hearing for so long. He said if someone wants to bring in
another expert to talk to us, "we would be foals not to take that opportunity"..
Kenyan emphasized that this is something that is going to have a major hnpact on every person in
this valley for the next 50, 60, 70 years and to listen to only one person on homer this should be done
"is foolhardy".
Atkinson commented that he would like to hear what Dan Burden has to say, however, he doesn't
know if it would "clear a whole lot up for us because this is another opinion".
5 averud asked that any action on Glacier Town Center be set for the first meeting in February, rather
than January 21, to give the Council time to read all the information.
Gabriel said she would request that in the future the public submit information to the Council prior to
the meeting so members have time to review it.
Patrick announced that he has requested a meeting with MIST to review their approvals and the
transportation study.
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 10
Kenyon asked for a copy of MIDT's findings.
Hafferman said he thinks it is "entirely inappropriate" for the City Manager to be meeting with the
Montana Department of Highway officials about the wolford development. He said we had better
"watch very carefully how each one of us conducts ourselves" in this process and he urged Patrick
not to meet with the highway officials.
In response to questions at the December 17 meeting, Patrick further explained the STTP transfer that
occurred in November.
Iluesner stated he feels the City Manager acted in the best interests of the City, but in the future he
would like to know about these types of transfers.
J. AWOURN
The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 p.m.
amela B. Kenned4f
Mayor
ATTEST:
Theresa white
City Clerk
Approved January 22, 2008
Kalispell City Council Minutes
January 7, 2008
Page 11
PETITION
This petition calls for a guardrail along the hill on West Evergreen �]r ve, A stretch of
t. .
Zoo ft of:. ard ra 10 on both sides of the road would greatly �r . prove the �vel1 b g of
drivers on this goad.
XT-n�*"
All
11 � E r 11, ��i�
■
ILI
PETITION
Tl�s tion calls for a guardrail along the hill orb West. Evergreen i.... ve, A stretch. of
200: ft o `ral on both sides f the road �vud great x rove t w Of
drivers on this road.
�, s
PETITION
Impact of single traffic light of rush hour
Chapter 2B
Impart of sine #raffic tight :at hush hour
Traffic sWiats seem Ike a reasortable approach_ But. the
reafty is that traffic is at a standstill in all6q*cfions . most of the
time. The IMPACT of a single ti-c signal on a highway or
street is o dms ica-ly reduce . the hsirnurn traft carrying
rapacity of .that road: During rush hour traffic is always bated
up when alight turns green, because more.. vehid6s are
arriving at the sight than can get through it- In a case study,
on a road des:ig to carry 12,00o vehicles per hour at 45
moil : a s rt*1raffie ,fight reduced nmdway capacity by 70
p unt to:` 2 52D vehicles per hour for westbound. traffic.
iiereis why.
every minute).
But that's only part of the problem.
In addition, consider the billions of barrels of gasoline bumed
sitting at traffic signals; all the extra pollution; wear on the
vehicWs brakes at each stop; and wear on transmissions with
each acceleration. Finally, have you considered whether traffic
signals are. SAFE?
PrapficaVewwience shoves us #hat frustrated or unpatient
drivers% instead of stov dN and stopping when a light turns
arnber, actualfy ACCELERATE in order to get through the
fight, and `sooner or later, cause accidents and carnage
Finally, consider the dance' to ` ns using "Wad" "don't
walk" signals at braf 4ightµcontrolled intersections. Typically,
the "walk" signal is very brief, and starts to go amber white
- -9- -A-�, _ -_- L. -fit----- go- - _ A._ -- _ _f.'-- Tt-
rostra n
Thy Tr b Traffia lhts
s hr`n���rn
[fed fiot for th
Gman l for. *4100M
3 _
t
i for
lµ b for thh
Z
3`Ks
In the example above, through traffic
only had a green light 12.6 seconds
out of every minute. This resulted in
a flow rate of only 2,520 cars per hour.
:02 f nI2008 i 2.20 PM
zts impact or sm ne r r me nent at rusn hour -:. utomawa t ransnartati...
nttri:Ilwww.autOmateatMSDCWLGnrn/htrniV 2 b.idrnJ
pecesmans are naR way across the intersecuon. r ne
pedestrian must exercise blind faith in rnokxists who may run
the red fight, dash across the amber light, or turn right on red
vdfde paying scant attention. For a young pedestrian with
20:2-0 vision, strong legs and great reftexes, the road
may seem an exciting sport. But for anyone who is elderly,
infirm, or has poor vision, or is simply not fully alert, "walk"
"donrt wak" can be a frightening, nerve-wracking and perhaps
deadly experience.
To return to our bu is light example,...
Gradually, after the first vehi es.have accelerated through the
signal -controlled interchange and , following
vehicles start going faster, and get 'through the in tersection at
increasJing speeds. But no vehicle goes through but
for one or more cycles of this stoplight. The capacity
of the roadway is limited by haw many vehides can get
through the light while t. is green, and these ►vehicles are all
traveling at much less. than the design speed of the roadway.
Each suc eeding light will similarly. cause delay because traffic
will..arrive at near design sped, then. slow down to the rate it
can get through the intersection: The capacity of the highway
is much less affected by the addition of subsequent stvplighfs.
That's because the first fight causes a lesser traffic flow for
subsequent fights (but each stoplight causes cumulative
delays for the individual dfiver). This is a sirroified analysis of
a very complex equation.
It is also why a 5-mile tin a major roadway with
several traffic I'19 hts can take 30 minutes or more to travel
during rush hour. In thie ATS system, where there are: no traffic `
fights and through traffic never has to stop while vehicles enter
or exit the roadway, a single lane can carry 18,000 vehicles an
hour.
Traffic lights: A BOTTLENECK that cuts traffic ftow
"'No advanced transportabon system should be considered
viable if it requires vehicles to step at any time other than for
departures, arrivals or stops for the travelers' convenience"
----KATS Inventor Waldemar Kissel
o „f"7 i /7r7nniz 1,7-,)n PKA
4�, IvFUUU V SLOPlIgHt t-4p aC ruSn nUur eXPressway rrusu-a ion - AutomaL..
Double stoplight trap and rash hour expressway frustration
nup:11Www.aumnlmatransport.coml,l3tn] vu2c.tltm i
Chapter 2C
Now consider the impact of double stoplights the dreaded 'stoplight trap"
In this common situation, two stoplights are placed a few hundred feet
apart, or at. consecutive city blocks. when the first light turns green, the
second light tums red shortly thereafter. When the first :light is red the
second light is green.
The result is traffic stopped on red at the first light is stopped again on
red at the second tight. During hearty traffic the second light receives
twice as many vehicles as can get through ftwintefsection. Traffic then
backs up at the first light. Each time the lights cycle through green and
red the traffic jam gets longer.
This stoplight configuration is COMMON and is a frequent cause of
GRIDLOCK.
Rush hour expressway
Now. consider the impact of just one slow driver at rush hour on an
expressway with two southbound lanes. Traffic behind the. slow driver
starts backing: up, and as drivers react, each has less finite to respond.
Each subsequent vehicle must slow down more than the car it follows.
Drivers in the backed -up lane start moving to the other lane to squeeze
past the slow driver, causing a bottleneck that reduces the carrying
capacity of both lanes. Eventually, traffic comes to a complete stop.
This acts likes WAVE, that moves further back in the line of traffic.
Even after the skm vehicle exits the .highway, this RIPPLE continues.
After a few minutes the vehicles start moving again and eventually. they
are going full sue. again. Drivers may havo emoted to see a wreck
ahead, and are surprised to find no visibie cause for this delay. Often
the delay is caused by gawking people slowing down to observe a
driver pulled over on the side of the road by police.
This effect is seen repeatedly every day on 1-4 traveling east from
Orlando to Tampa and all drivers experience it in heavy traffic. Its why
some cynical commuters have dubbed Interstate Highway 4 in Odando
the "l-4 parking lot."
Conclusion:
The busier a conventional expressway or road gets during rush hour,
the fewer vehicles it is capable of carrying.
dreaded double stoplights
d
she animation
one slow car` causes a gaff c darn
< Back to Chapter 2B j next: Cho ter 3i`ra ed and waste in. our current road s Stem>
I of 1 in/2008 2:06 PM
January 7, 2008
Dear Mayor and City Council people,
My name is B.J. Carlson and I am speaking on behalf of N93N. We reached agreement
with Mr. Wolford on February 13, 2007 and have been working to the finalize the
settlement and dismiss the lawsuit since that time. As you know, Mr. Wolford has
generously donated 5 acres to be used for the benefit of the community. We applaud him
for that as we see this 5-acre parcel which is adjacent to a central park as being pivotal
to enhancing the project. Our lawyers are now conferring about how to articulate this
donation as a part of the PUD conditions and to finalize Exhibit E, The Dedication of the
Community Parcel. It is our hope that we can finalize the settlement and dismiss the
lawsuit in the very near future.
Again we want to call attention to our concerns about the configuration and timing of the
road systems necessary to effectuate the community facility. As currently proposed,
while the community parcel, and a cul-de-sac road into it, is in phase I, the main access
roads running north and south adjacent to the parcel and the east and west Lake
McDonald Road are not planned until phase 3. As a result, while the sunset clause for
the donation is 5 years, full access on these roads is not scheduled until phase 3, or 2014.
We believe that these access issues would make it more difficult to attract a viable project
sponsor up front, and if the facility is developed, will make access to it after it is
constructed difficult. We strongly urge that the east/west Lake McDonald Road, and the
north/south road adjacent to the Park, be completed in Phase 1 so that people get to the
community facility, both from the direction of the Glacier Town Center and from
Whitefish Stage Road.
Many people are here tonight because of their concerns about the best way to manage
traffic on Highway 93. We too are concerned about highway 93 and the additional traffic
that The Glacier Town Center brings. Now is the best time to look at this situation
carefully to ensure that the long term interests of this rapidly growing community are
met.
PO Box 771 9 35 4th Street West
Kalispell, Montana 59903
www.flatheadcltizens.org
Dwane K.ailey, District Administrator
Montana Department of Transportation
Z 100 w Broadway
Po Box 7039
Missoula, MT 59807-7039
Dear Mr. Kailey,
t: 406.756.8993 0 f: 406.756.899 1
citizens@flatheadcitizens.org
January 2, 2008
Citizens for a Better Flathead is deeply concerned that the relationship between the rapid growth
occurring in Flathead County and the transportation infrastructure needed to sustain this growth
and keep our local economy thriving is breaking down. This problem is well documented in the
recently completed Kalispell Transportation Study. This study concludes that over $200 million
dollars are needed over the next twenty years to address Kalispell's growth and transportation
needs. These costs include $76 million for the Kalispell Bypass, $24 million for two additional
ramped interchanges to make this bypass function properly once built, continued investments of
federal dollars in the expansion of US Highways 93 and 2, and an estimated $112 million in other
needed transportation improvements in the Kalispell area to catch up with growth.
The study also makes clear that these costs far exceed the funds estimated to be available to
finance these improvements. At the same time, it points out that the completion of the Kalispell
Bypass is fundamental to the success of other improvements identified. The study then concludes
that many future projects will need to be financed by the private sector during the development
process to assist with the construction and expansion of the transportation infrastructure.
Given this background, the purpose of this letter is to further document for you our concerns over
the letter you issued November 28th, 2007, (attached). Your letter endorsing the Glacier Town
Center/ Mall developer's request for multiple -accesses with stoplights to US Hwy 93 north of
Kalispell is not in keeping with the findings of the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
Furthermore, it is apparent, given MIT's failure to date to substantiate the position taken in this
letter, that it was a premature conclusion, not based in documented findings. As such, the decision
to approve this developer's request as set forth in this letter appears to be beyond your legal
authority, and in direct conflict with MDT policy and state and federal laws. (See attached
rationale.)
Most importantly MDT's decision encased in this-Novernber 2$'h letter, to allow a new series of
P Y � r a
stoplights at the northern terminus of the Kalispell Bypass, blacks the intended free -flow of traffic
from this bypass north to whitefish. By blocking this free flow of traffic north, your decision
undermines the pledged $76 million federal dollar investment in the Kalispell Bypass. Afterall,
why build the bypass around downtown if you are just going to stop traffic again once it re-enters
US Hwy 93 north?
IF ok
Even your letter of November 28 acknowledges that MDT believes a junior interchange could
provide increased safety and mobility over stoplights. Your letter, however, concludes that you do
not believe that you have the authority to "require" the developer to install this interchange. Our
letter lays out why state and federal law (see attached rationale) do not allow you to simply
endorse this developer's request for new accesses to US Hwy 93. We also lay out a proposal for
an independent professional review to provide peer review of this access request with the goal of
finding a better solution for this and future development proposals in this corridor.
MDT's own regulations require that any modification to a controlled access resolution, as is in
place for US Hwy 93 from Kalispell north of Reserve Street to Whitefish, be based on findings
considered and approved by the Montana Transportation Commission. In response to my phone
request on November 29th you acknowledged that you had no data available to justify our
y
November 28t' letter. In addition, you have failed to respond to subsequent
requests to provide me
q
any findings and supporting data upon which you based your letter. We are forced to conclude that
this information did not exist when you issued your letter on November 28th as is required by state
law MCA 2-4-103. A decision of this significance must now be subject to both the additional
review and consideration of alternatives under NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, and
MEPA, the Montana Environmental Policy Act before any recommendation is made to the
Transportation Commission.
Finally, we are deeply concerned regarding the timing of this letter. This coupled with the fact that
your letter was the product of a closed door, non-public meeting with the developer just the day
before the Planning Board public hearing on the Glacier Mall is suspicious. This timing prevented
reasonable public review and comment on this letter. It also allowed your letter to be used by the
developer at the public hearing to argue that the city had no authority to deny his proposed
transportation access plan for this mall despite its conflict with local planning documents and
grave concerns expressed by this board.
We urge you to withdraw your letter of November 28thand comply with MDT policy and state and
federal law in further consideration of this access request. We fully realize the political and
economic pressures that MDT and the City are under to reach a decision on this developer's
request for the largest commercial expansion in the County's history. Yet, if this commercial
expansion is warranted and viable then the public needs to be assured that the developer will
provide the extensive transportation infrastructure needed to make it a success without
undermining the public investment in the US Hwy 93 Bypass.
A city council member recently responded to the developer's traffic consultant's assertion that
MDT had given their mall project its "blessing." He pointed out that the MDT had also given its
blessing to highway accesses south of this project that have required subsequent and costly
modifications and still have left us with failing intersections and traffic gridlock. We can and must
do better.
The most constructive course of action at this point would be for the developer, the city, and the
MDT to place this development application on hold. Next MDT should immediately hire an
independent consultant with the expertise needed for a peer review of this transportation proposal
to help identify and understand potential effective solutions.
2
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER FLAnmAD
We recommend retaining the services of Dan Burden, a nationally recognized specialist in
transportation and land use planning. In 2001, "Time" magazine cited Mr. Burden as one of six
international "civic innovators." He was selected as the "Distinguished Lecturer" for the 2001
Transportation Research Board (National Academy of Sciences). With over 25 years of experience
and work in over 200 communities across the country, he is considered a national expert on traffic
calming, street corridor and intersection design, walkability and bicycling and is recognized for his
communications expertise in charrettes, visioning, and other citizen participation techniques.
Since 2005, he has served as Senior urban Designer and now Principal with the engineering firm
of Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, Inc, as well as the founder and executive director of Walkable
Communities, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that helps develop walkable communities, since 1996.
MDT is well acquainted with Mr. Burden's expertise having retained him as a trainer for MDT
staff and for consultation on transportation projects in the state. Locally, Mr. Burden was retained
a few years ago by the MDT to assist the community of Bigfork with developing a corridor plan
for the section of Hwy 35 through Bigfork. This successful planning process united diverse parties
1.
in endorsing and adopting a "community friendly" redesign of this highway corridor.
The stakes are high. Highway 93 will continue to be a critical thoroughfare for tourists, businesses
and residents. It is crucial that this stretch of road be developed in compliance with the law and in
a manner that enhances the community into the future. We only have one opportunity to get this
right. An investment in such professional and impartial expertise at this critical juncture can help
avoid costly and divisive delay of this land use decision. We recognize that the city has identified
this project area north of the city as appropriate for additional commercial and residential
development and believe that sound solutions are possible to allow development proposals to
move forward and are committed to working to find such solutions.
Sincerely,
Mayre Flowers
Executive Director, Citizens for a Better Flathead
Attachments:
Rationale and Basis for Argument that the MDT Letter of November 28th is Premature
and Not Compliant with MDT Policy and State and Federal Law.
MDT's letter of November 28, 2007
MDT's letter of November 27, 2007
cc
Governor Brian D. Schweitzer
Hal Harper, Chief Policy Advisor
Office of the Governor
Director Jim Lynch, MDT
Senator Max Baucus
Senator Jon Tester
Kalispell City Council
Kalispell City Planning Board
Whitefish City Council
Flathead County Commissioners
Wolwoldford Development
Jim Skinner, MDT
Mike Tierney, MDT
Federal Highway Administration
Flathead Legislators
Tim Davis, Montana Smart Growth
Coalition
3
P.O. Box 771 KAL sPELL, MT 59903 4o6.756.8993 FAx: 4o6.756.8991 Emmu C1T1ZENS@FLkTHRADC1T1 ENS.oRG ONI tNE. WWW-FLATHEA- crnzENS-ORG
Rationale and Basis for Argument that the MDT Letter of November 28th is
Premature and Not Compliant with MDT Policy and State and Federal Law.
The intent and goals for the committed $76 million federal and state investment in
the Kalispell Bypass is not being upheld. If your decision stands, allowing this major
traffic increase from the Glacier Mall on to US Hwy 93 (rather than other local streets
that serve this property) through a series of stoplights, it will now prevent the intended
continued free flow of traffic north to whitefish from this bypass. Furthermore, it will
establish some of the worse traffic gridlock in the state created by these new proposed
stoplights for the Glacier Mall to the north coupled with three intersections to the south
including the bypass terminus intersection of Reserve and US Hwy 93, all of which are
currently operating at a failing level of service of D or F at peak hours. It will also set a
problematic precedent for additional access requests in this Kalispell to whitefish
corridor.
The position taken by MDT in its November 281h letter endorsing signalized accesses
to US Hwy 93 is contradictory to the department's position that seven overpasses
were needed to conserve the capacity of the Kalispell Bypass and associated road
networks. It is also contradictory of MDT's own extraordinary, and without
precedent, recent investment in a US Hwy 93 junior interchange just north of the
proposed Glacier Mall to serve new development at the intersection of Church Drive
and US Hwy 93.
Analysis of the traffic impacts from the proposed Glacier Mall, a 485 acre largely
commercial project with some residential uses, were not part of the final 2006 EIS
for the Kalispell Bypass. These impacts and the proposed stoplights must now be
reviewed under NEPA for their effects on the bypass and on the capacity of US Hwy
93. This is particularly important given the fact that the three intersections to the south
including the bypass terminus intersection of Reserve and US Hwy 93 are currently at a
level of service D or F at peak hours.
MDOT regulations require that any modification to a controlled access resolution,
as is in place for US Hwy 93 from Kalispell north of Reserve Street to whitefish, is
based on findings considered and approved by the Montana Transportation
Commission. ,You have not only acknowledged that you had no data or findings
available in response to my phone request for it on 11 /29, but have repeatedly failed to
respond to subsequent- requests to .provide me any findings and supporting data upon
which you based your letter to the Glacier Mall Developer. This information apparently
did not exist when you issued your letter on November 2 8th as is required by state law
MCA 2-4- l 03. Your letter, absent these findings and review by the Transportation
Commission, exceeded your authority to issue a definitive position on the
transportation plan for the Glacier Mall.
The Glacier Mall Transportation Impact Study (TIS) provided by the developer was
based on false assumptions including assumptions that infrastructure improvements
to Reserve and whitefish Stage Road are already in place, yet no funding is expected
to be allocated for -such improvements for many years. The public pointed this out and
your staff requested at the November 26h meeting with the developer- that their
Transportation Impact Study be revised to reflect accurate assumptions. The developer
agreed at that meeting to provide these revisions later that day, yet your staff confirmed
on 112/08 that these revised figures or responses to Mike Tierney's letter of 11/27/07
have never been provided. Thus MDT's 11 /28/07 approving proposed accesses to US
Hwy 93 was based on an inaccurate TIS.
• MDOT regulations require that a decision of this significance should be subject to
additional review under NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, and MEPA,
the .Montana Environmental Policy Act before any recommendation is made. ARM
15,2.261.
• MDT's Montana Fight of way Manual, Chapter S on Access Management adopted
in March 2007. This MDT policy establishes that access to US Hwy 93, which is part of
the National Highway System, should be denied when accesses to other local roads is
available unless it is proven that there will be a "significant benefit to the highway
network." Access to at least two other local roads is available and no data has been
provided to shove any benefit from three main accesses on to US Hwy 93.
* The Kalispell Growth Policy, the Kalispell Subdivision Regulation, and the new
draft Kalispell Transportation Study. These planning documents provide findings that
call for the use of a Junior Interchange at the proposed mall location to provide- access to
Hwy 93 so as to preserve its safety and capacity. MDT's access management policies
require the department to give- local planning regulations due consideration.
■ MDT's TransPlan 212002 Vpdate: Access Management and Land Use Planning
Policy Paper and state law. This policy and state law (see below), including the afore
mentioned controlled access resolution passed by the Montana Highway Commission in
1989 for this highway corridor, empowers you and local governments with then "authority
to require developers to mitigate transportation impacts" and to deny additional access,
despite your letter assertion that you have no such agility.
• Local planning authority and State laws including MICA 61-5-331-332 , MCA 60-5--
101-111 and- MCA 61- 12 -101 empower MDOT and local governments to adopt
regulations to regulate highway use to preserve safe movement of traffic. Your letter and
decision fails to honor and support local planning documents that seek to conserve
limited federal highway capacity and to ensure traffic safety.
• MDT's federally required `Five Percent Report" identified this highway corridor as
one of the top ten deadliest in the state. This finding emphasizes the need for greater
access control and review under NEPA. and MEPA of alternatives before any decision is
reached.
• MDT has the authority to eliminate at grade intersections on controlled -access
highways as provided for in MCA f 0-5-l06. MCA 60-5-106 states that "Elimination of
grade crossings. (1) Each highway authority may provide for elimination of intersections
at grade of controlled -access highways or controlled -access facilities with existing
federal -aid and state highways, county roads, and city or town streets. Elimination shall
be accomplished at the boundary of the controlled -access right-of-way.
(2) After the establishment of any controlled -access highway or facility, no private or
public highway or street which is not a part of the highway or facility shall intersect it at
grade, except as may be provided in the resolution designating it a controlled -access
highway or facility. No street, road, highway, or other public or private way shall be
opened into or connected with any controlled -access highway or facility without the prior
consent and approval of the appropriate highway authority which adopted the controlled -
access resolution.
(3) The commission may, whenever it determines that the public safety is not thereby
impaired, authorize the continued intersection at grade of lightly traveled farm entrances
and minor public roads as ways of access to controlled -access highways in sparsely
populated rural areas. The commission shall have sole jurisdiction to determine the
existence and location of any intersection with interstate highways, throughways, and
other federal -aid and state highways.
The deeded easements recorded for the Glacier Mali Property under the access
control resolution passed in 1989 are not adequate or consistent with the proposed
accesses for the Glacier Mall. These existing easements are limited to 30-40 feet in
width and do not allow for the proposed uses, necessary easements, or locations of these
uses in the Glacier Mall- transportation plan.
• The Glacier Mall developer does not even own the property for which he is
requesting his southern access. It is owned by another private land owner who has
not made application for this access. Access permits for city owned public roads must
be made by that local government body and these requests have not been made.
• Allowing stoplights temporarily has not been documented as a sound alternative.
Secondary. access to the property exist that could be developed for initial access until
such time as construction of a junior interchange or similar solution can be put in
place.
• Under SAFETEA-LU, new federal transportation. funding legislation, the statewide
plan should include measures to ensure the preservation and most efficient use of
the existing system. This has not been demonstrated for the Kalispell to whitefish US
Hwy 93 corridor.
• According to the Federal Highway Administration, which bears ultimate
responsibility for decisions impacting national Highway System of which US Hwy 93
is a part, "NEPA requires and FHwA is committed to the examination and
avoidance of potential impacts to the social and natural environment when'_
considering approval of proposed transportation projects. In addition to evaluating
the potential environmental effects, we must also take into account the transportation
needs of the public in reaching a decision that is in the best overall public interest. The
FI IWA. NEPA project development process is an approach to balanced transportation
decisionmaking that takes into account the potential impacts on the human and natural
environment and the public's need for safe and efficient transportation." The FHwA is
also committed to review and analysis of the potential cumulative environmental impacts
or effects (ecological, aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic, social, or health) of its
projects and actions.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rose Crossing
J
0
P4
F."
EXIM
Legend
Dedicated Roads
Private Easement-Adj . Property Owner
Private Easement-Adj. Property Owner
Owns To Center Line of Alley
West Reserve Drive
Glacier Town Center
Roadway Ownership a . ..... .
August 6,2007
Kalispeff, Montana WOVORD
NORTH D&ELOPMENT, VC.
CITIZENS FOR A
BETTER FLATHEAD
To: Kalispell City council
01/07/2008
From: Citizens for a Better Flathead
Po Box 771, Kalispell,. MT 59903
Re: The Glacier Town center annexation, Planned Unit
Development, and Subdivision Phase 1
Please accept the following comments regarding the proposed Glacier Town Center for
the hearing record.
The Glacier Town Center fails to comply with Kalispell's PUD standards, Growth
Policy, and Subdivision Regulations:
i Kalispell zoning provisions for PUD's ( 27.21.030 (2)) require that a PUD
"shall be under single ownership."
It should be noted that the glacier Mall/Town Center PUD is not under
sin le ownership as re uired by the city zoning regulations. Furthermore,
established access rights have not been clearly disclosed by the applicant
as required by the city's subdivision regulations and EA1. These facts call
into question the city council's legal authority to accept and process
this application. It also raises roblems for the citv and MDT in bein
able to deal with one land owner when establishing land use conditions for
limited and consolidated access points to the Glacier Mall/Town Center
that allow for the preservation of the functional integrity and safe and
efficient operation of US 93. Attached is a map documenting that the
property is not under single ownership.
V The main entrance to the proposed Glacier Mall/Town Center is located
on property owned by Gary and Janet Spannuth on property adjoining the
Glacier Memorial Cemetery. Under the right-of-way condemnation
proceedings by the MDT against the Spannuth property a sin le 3 oft wide
private access was established and was further limited into the future by
the Limited Access Resolution adopted by the Montana Highway
Commission in 1989. This access is considerably less than the Soft access
€ Kalispell Subdivision Regulations under Contents of the Preliminary Plat at (F) call for this disclosure as
does the community impact report of the EA under 2. g.
with stoplig ht on US 93 ro used in the Glacier Mall/Town tenter
application.
* Kalispell PUD regulations require that: "In the case of a plan which proposes
development over a period of years, the sufficiency of the terms and conditions proposed
to protect and maintain the integrity of the plan which findings shall be made only after
consultation with the city attorney." 27,21,020 (2) (e). Yet no evidence o,Preview by the
city attorney has been presented
• PUD requirements regarding budding heights: The Glacier Mall/Town Center
PUD calls for the unrestricted use of 60 foot height limits when the City's PUD standards
require compliance with 3 5 foot building heights. City PUD regulations do not allow for
this 60 foot height unless it is an exception handled as a variance. A blanket height limit
of 60 feet should be denied.
• The Kalispell Growth Policy Update calls for policies that do not support
additional stoplights and unlimited access control onto US 93:
GOAL - 1: Gateway entrances to Kalispell that enhance the community through
improved design.
POLICIES:
1. Gateway Entrance Corridors (areas of special concern) would extend up to 150 feet of
either side of the existing R/w for primary highways and up to 50 feet for secondary
highways.
2. The following roadway corridors are identified as gateway entrances to Kalispell.
a. Highway 93 North corridor north of Four Mile to the County Landfill.
b. US Highway 2 (LaSalle) from. Deserve Drive to Birch Grove
c. whitefish Stage from Reserve Drive to Birch Grove. (minor entrance way)
3. The following design standards are intended to enhance the gateway entrances to
Kalispell
a. Access control is important along the gateway entrance roads.
b. Access should be coordinated so as to allow only collector or arterial streets to
intersect. The judicious use of right -in right -out approaches, frontage roads and
good internal development street design should be the rule to reduce or eliminate
the need for direct access onto major gateway roads,
c. with the construction of the Church Drive overpass on US 93, every effort
must be taken to fully utilize this interchange and conversely limit direct access
onto US 93 for at least 1Ia mile along areas north and south of this facility to avoid
congestion points and the need for future traffic signals. The judicious use of
right -in right -out approaches, frontage roads and good internal development street
design will mitigate the need for direct access out.
d. Extra setbacks, buffering and landscaping along US Highway 93 North and
US Highway 2 and to a lesser degree along whitefish Stage Road are the norm.
e. In those areas planned for general commercial development on a gateway
entrance, it should occur as an integrated development utilizing and enhancing the
2
property back from the gateway as opposed to occurring as a shallow linear strip.
Significant individual business highway exposure, individual access points, and
pole signage would not be the norm. out parcels of commercial businesses would
be anticipated within the improved design of a PUD along the corridors.
f. Additional design standards should be developed to ensure that signage
enhances development, not detracts from it. wall signage integrated into the
overall building design is preferred over free standing signage. Monument signs
are preferred over other types of free standing signage. where development
entrance signage or monument signage is proposed, it should be done so as part of
a unified planned unit development concept.
g. where the adjacent gateway road speed is posted at 35 mph or lower:
i. A minimum 20 foot landscape buffer should be provided abutting the
gateway road.
ii. Street trees should be incorporated into the landscape buffer.
iii. A pedestrian trail or sidewalk should be incorporated into the
landscaped buffer area.
iv. Four sided architecture would be the norm adjacent to gateway
entrances.
h. where the adjacent gateway road speed is posted from. 36 — 45 mph:
I. A minimum of 40 feet of landscaped buffer area should be provided.
H. Street trees and berming should be incorporated into the landscaping.
iii. A pedestrian trail or sidewalk should be incorporated into the
landscaped buffer area.
iv. Four sided architecture would be the norm adjacent to gateway
entrances
i. where the adjacent gateway road speed is posted above 45 mph:
i. A minimum 100 -- 150 foot impact area should be provided for major
entrances and a 50 foot entrance for minor entrances.
ii. within this impact area, a combination of berming, landscaping using
live materials and trees as well as grass, a pedestrian trail system, limited
parking and frontage roads should be incorporated.
iii. Primary buildings should not be located in this impact area, unless
specifically approved in a PUD.
iv. Four sided architecture should be the norm for development adjacent to
the impacted area.
v. Monument signs would be anticipated to occur in the rear portion of the
impacted area, other free standing signs would not.
vi. whenever parking or signage is proposed in the impact area, it shall
only be done under a PUD process where the impacts of these actions are
anticipated and provided for.
• Kalispell Subdivision Regulations implement these growth policy goals and
policies in section 3.09 by establishing that:
K. Street intersections shall meet the following requirements (pg. 3 9) :
Kalispell Growth Policy, page 78
S. Location of collector and arterial streets shall comply with the Kalispell
City -County Master Plan or any other major street and highway plan adopted
by the Board of County Commissioners and/or the City of Kalispell.,
The Kalispell Growth Policy for this area calls for "into 45% general
commercial (270 acres) and up to 25% urban mixed use (150 acres)." Note the
Glacier Mall proposal makes a joke of this mixed use designation, which should
be largely residential as this is the common planning definition of mixed use. Instead
by calling for 95% of this mixed use area to be general commercial also it is not in
beeping with the city's growth policy. Thus the Glacier Mall proposal asks for
66% general commercial (322 acres) with a B--3 general commercial zoning and
does not comply with the city's growth policy that allows for u�ta 45% general
commercial or only 270 acres.
• Policy 4 on page 10 of the Kalispell Growth Policy states "Affordable housing
should be recognized as a primary consideration within the community when
adopting or amending land use regulations. The ability of the average wage earner to
either buy or build a home is an essential component of the standard of living, quality
of life, and general welfare in our community. This development is proposing to
create a significant number of retail jobs that rarely provide a "living wage"
given housing costs in the city and county. This development fails to mitigate this
by providing permanent affordable housing within this development.
i The applicant's Environmental Assessment is inadequate given accurate
transportation data has not yet been submitted. In a letter dated Nov 27 from the
MDOT to the developer, additional information was requested. As shown in the
attached email, the developer has not provided the MDOT with the materials
requested in the Nov 27 letter.
o An approved TI S for all phases based on accurate data should be available
prior to approval of the preliminary plat in order for the council, staff and
public to evaluate the subdivision impacts. City Subdivision Regulations state
that, "Each question pertinent to the proposal must be addressed in full (both
maps and text); those questions not applicable shall be so stated. Incomplete
Environmental Assessments will not be accepted. The sources of information
for each section of the Assessment shall be identified. All Environmental
Assessments shall contain the signature, date of signature and mailing address
of the owner of the property and the person, or persons, preparing the report."
' Kalispell Subdivision Regulations, page 39
11
Page I of I
Meaan McCrae
From: "mayre" <fowers a@digisys. net>
To: "Megan McCrae" <megan a@flatheadcitizens.org>, "Mayre Flowers" <Mayre a@flatheadcitizens.org>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 4:44 PM
Attach: Document. pdf
Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: RE: Glacier Town Center review)]
Mayre, there were no recordings or minutes from the meeting that I am aware of.
Any revisions/analysis discussed in the meeting that require the developer to submit new information are formally covered by
comment number 2 from our November 27th, letter. Again, to my knowledge, we have not recieved any materials from the
developer since this meeting or as a result of this letter.
l would like to point out that the sort of information and revisions that we requested from this developer are routine. Nothing in
this request should be taken as an indication this developer could not or will not complete MDT's review process for permits. l
have attached MDT's November 28th, 2007 letter that further details MDT's position on the review process for this development.
Also, you are welcome at any reasonable time to view the file or request copies of the file materials generated during the review
of this development. We require that you request the information you wish to view in writing so that we can ensure you have the
correct information. In this case, you would simply need to request to view or obtain copies of all the information in the file for
the Glacier Town Center. There are costs associated with copies of materials that you will need to bear. Your formal request
can be faked to me at 406-444-7671.
mike
From. mayremailto:flowers i is s.netI
Sent. Wednesday, January 02, 2008 11:39 AM
To: Tierney, Michael; Mayre Flowers
Subject: Re: Glacier Town Center Review
Michael- --Thanks for your note. My question was a bit more specific and I ask that you clarify your response
below. My question is : At the November 26th meeting between MIST, wolford Development, and the City of
Kalispell it was pointed out by an MIST engineer that the developer's traffic study had assumptions that could
not be made including that improvements of an upgrade of Reserve to five lanes and whitefish Stage to four
lanes would already be in place and that the Reserve intersection would be rebuilt. The developer's engineer
responded at that meeting that they would provide revised figures later that day that removed assumptions that
other road improvements were in place. Have you receive those revised figures? If so will you please FAX
those to me today. Is there a recording of that meeting on the 26th and are there minutes from that meeting?
I look forward to your response. Thanks Mayre
Mayre Flowers
Executive Director
Citizens for a Better Flathead
PO Box 771
Kalispell, MT 59903
406--756-8993, fax 406-756-8991
mayrflatheadcitizens .rc1
flatheadcitizens.org
11700OR
CITIZENS-% FOR A
BETTER FLATHEAD
I.
From Kalispell Subdivision ge ulations
Conditions not met or information on cily abilitv to regulate conditions:
No
3.08 ACCESS.
B. where access to the subdivision will be by an easement across privately owned property, the
subdivider must provide evidence that the necessary easement has been acquired and that the easement
encompasses the nature and intensity of the use which will result from development of the subdivision.
3.09 STREETS AND ROADS - DESIGN STANDARDS (pg. 37):
C. Residential driveways shall not have direct access to arterial streets or State or Federal
Highways] ------------------------------------------------------ .___._----_-_________-_-______-__ _-_________---___-__--____
E. when a subdivision abuts or contains an existing or proposed arterial street, the City Engineer
may require a frontage roads or other treatmen� as_may be necessary for adequate protection of- -------------
_
residential properties and to separate arterial and local traffic. Screen plantings or other means of '•,
screening may be required in areas abutting arterial streets or highways.
F. when a subdivision abuts or contains a railroad right-of-way or a controlled access highway, a
street approximately parallel to and on each side of such right-of-way at a distance suitable for an
appropriate use of the intervening land may be required. Such distances shall also be determined
with regards to the requirements of approach grades and future grade separations.
K. Street intersections shall meet the following requirements (pg. 39):
11 for 1ment rmni it is not. clear that.
privat, ramie can be granted:acros to
#'ederal:highwaysf. , these types of uses.
or at it S Advantageous ,fer: the city► to.
allow #htasso roads to reins private when
they ;arc.prop9sad to,provide public
aaooss 'to the proposed Volume of traffic?
Commek mf�
1 Subdryisipn'
Teguiations allow far -the city ;to require :
i 7fz a , :d. re nacded to sepairate arterial
and local tra€fic
This`vvould be Ylie function of.9 Junior
,Intuc nge and it shoWd be required.
8. Location of collector and arterial streets shall comply with the Kalispell City -County Master
Pla �� or_any other m4igr_street_and highway plan adopted by the Board of County Commissioners _, _ Comment LW3]: Thcpropvsed traffic
and/or the Cat of Kalispell.
plan fQr'the Glacier' town Center does not
�' P comply with the city growth..
policylnzastcr plan
6. Land Use
d. Describe the basis of the need for the subdivision. How much development of a similar nature is, or is
not, available in the area? -------------------------- _--------------------------------------------------- _-------------------------- mnQm1:Thishas not been
done and `shculd.'be done by:an .
inddant cdmmercial nrcds
assessmant for the service area.
1. CONTENTS OF THE PRELIMINARY PLAT (Appendix A pg.1):
F. All existing and adjoining streets and alleys, avenues, roads and highway, and width -of the __ Comment [mf5l::Easements for
...existing aeas.and right ofways have
right-of-way with existing and proposed street names and access points from the nearest public-------
:esse
not ; disclosed
roads;
G. Any existing and proposed utilities, utility easements and right-of-way easements located or
proposed to be located on or adj acent[to the tract, including description of their width and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Comme0t.EW61. This has not been
-------------
purpose; providad"for land not owned by woldford
Development
Environmental Assessment elements for which adequate information has
not yet been provided. State law and Subdivision Regulations require the developer to submit
an application with a complete Environmental Assessment which meets all of the mandatory disclosure
requirements. Clearly that has not been done in this case. As you are probably aware, in ,Neighbors Over
the Aquifer (NOT) v. Board of County Commissioners of Flathead County, Cause No. DV-05-179(B),
Judge Curtis granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs and invalidated this subdivision at issue on the
basis that the applicant failed to submit all of the information required in its application and
Environmental Assessment. As Judge Curtis explained: "There are a myriad of reasons why the
legislature has required the applicant to provide the information prescribed for the EA; one being that
this is a burden that cannot and should not be placed upon the public, who are, predominantly, simply
interested citizens without the resources or technical expertise of a developer... The bottom line is that
the responsibility for submitting a complete EA falls on the developer and, in the instant case the board
approved a submission based on an incomplete EA." (NOTA Order of 7/28/06 at p. 9.)
An approved TIS for all phases based on accurate data should be available prior to approval of the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - Commend [mi]t spa
preliminary plat in order for the council, staff and public to evaluate the subdivision impacts. City
fro�,'11nT that:.
p ' P p P onfmiaS. this aectiatc: and complete data
Subdivision Regulations state that, "Each question pertinent to the proposal must be addressed in full has -not ye bpiprovidGd:
(both maps and text); those questions not applicable shall be so stated. Incomplete Environmental
Assessments will not be accepted. The sources of information for each section of the Assessment shall
be identified. All Environmental Assessments shall contain the signature, date of signature and mailing
address of the owner of the property and the person, or persons, preparing the report."
Appendix B. PART II - SUMMARY OF PROBABLE IMPACTS (p9.9):
c. Describe how the subdivision allows existing services, through expanded use, to operate more
efficiently or makes the installation or improvement of services feasible e�-------
.g. allow Installation _ Comment`[mm]: `IWolford Traffic..-.
of a central water system, or upgrading a country road). study as,* ° Envirncntal
Assessment fails to answer this.
Appendix B. PART III - COMMUNITY IMPACT REPORT {pg.11}:
--
2. Roads and Maintenancel ____________.__________-__.- Comment[mf9l: The.Wolford
a. Estimate how much daily traffic the subdivision, when full occupied, will generate on Envi on6ental Assessmenffails to
� P provide,�a level of detail and
existing streets and arterials. informadon roquired
b. Describe the capability of existing and proposed roads to safely accommodate this increased
traffic.
c. Describe increased maintenance problems and increased cost due to this increase in volume.
d. Describe proposed new public or private access roads including:
i . Measures for disposing of storm runoff from streets and roads.
i i. Type of road surface and provisions to be made for dust.
iii. Facilities for streams or drainage crossing (e.g. culverts, bridges).
iv. Seeding of disturbed areas.
e. Describe the closing or modification of any existing roads.
f. Explain why road access was not provided within the subdivision, if access to any individual
lot is directly from arterial streets or roads.
g. Is year-round access by conventional automobile over legal rights -of --way available to the
subdivision and to all lots and common facilities within the subdivision? Identify the owners of
any private property over which access to the subdivision will be .provided i _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ � ~ - Comment lm�1D]; Not done
h. Estimate the cost and completion date of the system, and indicate who will pay the cost of
installation, maintenance and snow removal.! - -- _-- _ _ _____ ___ ________w__________- __ _---____ M_- 'Comment[mnil: Datai.n�Qmp�te.
for proviiing accurate rusts
3. Effects on Local Services
b. Describe the additional or expanded public services and facilities that would be demanded of local
government or special districts to serve the subdivision.
i. Describe additional costs which would result for services such as roads, bridges, law enforcement,
parks and recreation, fire protection, water, sewer and solid waste systems, schools or busing, (including
additional personnel, construction, and maintenance costs). ii. Who would bear these costs (e.g. all
taxpayers within the jurisdiction, people within special taxing districts, or users of a service)?
iii. Can the service providers meet the additional costs given legal or other constraints (e.g. statutory
ceilings on mill levies or bonded indebtedness)? iv. Describe off -site costs or costs to other jurisdictions
may be incurred (e.g. development of water sources or construction of a sewage treatment plant; costs
borne by a nearby municipality).[
-cornmen� (rn lysis Complete.n
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
c. Describe how the subdivision allows existing services, through expanded use, to operate more
�° �"ys'$ lay not been
prn��ded .
efficiently or makes the installation or improvement of-------- 11-1 services feasible_(e.& allow installation of ........
Co�tsrnentlmh3j= Carriplctc
central waters stem, or upgrading n a count road).
�' pg g country �
r and mllysis used.has not been
�_ ..
provided
PART III - COMMUNITY IMPACT REPORT
Provide a community impact report containing a statement of estimated number of people coming into
the area as a result of the subdivision, anticipated needs of the proposed subdivision for public facilities
and services, the increased capital and operating cost to each affected unit of local government. Provide
responses to each of the following questions and provide reference materials as required ..----
Commen.t:jmfl4lo. Complete
--------------------�__
2. Roads and Maintenance
respt�rise �nnalysis used hss not been
provided:
a. Estimate how much daily traffic the subdivision, when fully occupied, will generate on existing streets
and arterials.
b. Describe the capability of existing and proposed roads to safely accommodate this increased traffic.
c. Describe increased maintenance problems and increased cost due to this increase in volume.
d. Describe proposed new public or private access roads including:
i. Measures for disposing of storm run-off from streets and roads.
ii. Type of road surface and provisions to be made for dust.
iii. Facilities for streams or drainage crossing (e.g. culverts, bridges).
iv. Seeding of disturbed areas.
Additional Rules to be complied with:
(§ 76-3-622(1)9 MCA; emphasis added.)
The referenced statute, § 75-4-1 q4, MCA, requires the DEQ to promulgate regulations, and the
subdivider to make disclosures, that are in accordance with the following:
(b) adequate evidence that a water supply that is sufficient in terms of quality, quantity, and
dependability will be available to ensure an adequate supply of water for the type of subdivision
proposed;
(c) evidence concerning the potability of the proposed water supply for the subdivision;
(d) adequate evidence that a sewage disposal facility is sufficient in terms of capacity and
dependability;
■ when a developer proposes to hook up to an existing public wastewater treatment system, then
the developer must provide evidence that the system is approved by DEQ, that the managing entity has
authorized the connections, and "the system has adequate capacity to meet the needs of the
subdivision." (See DEQ ARM 1 7.36.328(2)(b)(i); see also DEQ Subdivision Review Joint Application
Form C Wastewater Treatment, C.3.a.(3)).
f Trod,
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!� ,project site
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Wolford Response to Questions
http:llwww.city. ames. ia.uslhousingweb/RequestChangeLUPP/WoIfor
...
Responses
Development,
applicant at th
i Commission
given below c
Development,
Would the developer consider permeable paving?
permeablelpervious pavement.
Will you pay for a buffer grove of trees to catch litter and reduce noise in Ketelsen
Marsh? At the appropriate time in the planning process (most likely during the zoning process
when we develop the landscaping plan in conjunction with the City's requirements) we will
gladly work with Steve Lekwa and the Story County Conservation Board and others to develop
a mutually agreeable buffer plan.
Will your company pay for the eventually anticipated cloverleaf and increased lighting
for 1 3th and 1-35 interchange? Wolford Development, Inc will pay for the road improvements
required by the additional traffic generated by our proposed developments. However, it is
important to understand that, according to the Site Traffic Impact Report which has been
reviewed and approved by City Staff, Story County, IDOT and FHA, loop ramps in both the
Northwest and Southeast quadrants of the 13th Street and 1-35 intersection are only required
when the projected year 2025 is analyzed. The year 2025 assumes: (1) increased background
traffic, (2) full build out of both the mall and power center, including all available outparcels, (3)
full build out of the 13th Street Industrial property,
What kind of jobs will be available at a new mall? How much do the jobs pay per hour?
Available jobs will range from entry level jobs to management positions. According to the
National Retail Federation, in 2001 the average hourly wage of a non -supervisory retail
employee was $9.77, the average compensation of a Department Manager of a retail store was
$45, 000, the average compensation of a Store Manager was $60, 000 and the average salary of
a Department Store Managers start at $80, 000 and exceeds $ t 00, 000.
Has the dramatic increase in shopping by Internet been factored into discussions of the
need for new retail establishment? over the last couple of years Business in all industries,
retail included, has been soft. Fortunately, the business climate is improving and this year's
Holiday Season's sales in retail stores across the country are doing quite well. According to the
National Retail Federation, e-commerce will supplement, not replace, traditional "brick and
mortar" stores.
Is it true that Wal-Mart has turned down your site? It is our understanding that Wal-Mart
wants a Super Center store in the Ames market but they have not made a location decision.
What anchor stores does Mr. Wolford have signed to build at the proposal in question?
Anchor Store deals are subject to Confidentiality Agreements because they want to control their
public announcements. What we can say is that we are working with a national department
store that is not currently in the market, and a couple of the existing national anchor stores at
North Grand Mall who feel they need to expand their operations with single -level stores in order
Wolford Response to Questions http://www.city.ames.ia.us/housingweb/RequestChangeLUPP/WoIfor..,
to stay competitive in the market. They do not feel this opportunity is available at North Grand
Mall.
Will Mr. Wolford build, own and manage the mall or build and sell it? Wolford
Development, Inc. will build, own and manage the proposed projects.
Is it true that you've offered Younkers $5 million as an incentive to break their lease with
North Grand Mall and move to your site? No
How can Mr. Wolford justify taking prime agricultural land out of production, destroying
not only Ketelsen Marsh but also other wildlife habitat (brushy areas and fence rows)
and business away from downtown Ames and the North Grand Mall? Wolford
Development's initial review of the Ames market included it's review of the city of Ames' Land
Use Policy Plan and the Commercial Land Needs Assessment Report which show the need for
additional Regional Commercial Property east of 1-35 to satisfy the City's growth plan. As to
Ketelsen Marsh, our Phase t Environmental Site Assessment concludes that the only conflict
with Ketelsen Marsh is the potential restriction on public hunting since Iowa law prohibits
hunting within Zoo yards of a structure. We believe that this impact can be mitigated through
buffering and as stated above we are willing to work with the Story County conservation Board
to arrive at a mutually agreeable buffering plan. As to the proposed mall's effect on downtown
business, our market study concludes that since Downtown Ames was already impacted by the
development of North Grand Mall, the proposed projects will have minimal impact on Downtown
Ames. As to our project's effect on North Grand Mall, it is clear that our development will have
a dramatic effect. Although we have no say in the future direction of North Grand ball, it is
apparent that it will have to be re -tooled.
Assuming Mr. Wolford is a wealthy man, can he tell the public why he needs the money
he would get from this proposed mall? Our proposal is not about `Mr. Wolford's need for
money." It is about giving at least two of the current anchor stores at North Grand Mall an
opportunity to expand with single -level stores, and properly size their stores to serve the market
for the next forty to fifty years. Also, it is about giving other national retail stores interested in
locating in the market the opportunity to do so.
You can reach us at:
City of Ames, Room 214,515 Clark Avenue, P.O. Box 8111
Ames, IA 50010
Monday - Friday 8:09 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
515-239-5400
515-239-5404 - FAX
515-239-5133 W TDD
Sack to the Planning &-Housing Hoare
Ci Government I Living In Ames I City Employment I Departments
Doing Business I Facilities I News and Information I Home
More Community Information
www.cityofames.org
Privacy Polio Disclaimer
@Copyright, 1996-2002, City of Ames, Iowa
1 /ry /r1nn0 I -A. A e A A A
2/2/2067 - Volford Development Lines Up Anchor Tenants For Maio... http://www.chattanoogan.com/articies/article—I00952.asp
Chul:lunoogonocolm MET"PIOUMN AIROORT
tmtta�s sotm W"low fwft SAVE TIME, AND YOUR 5ANITY.
January 7,
2008
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Wolford Development Lines Up Anchor Tenants For Major Center
In Arizona
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posted February 2, 2007
C A...R T:. R D EU
Chattanooga -based Wolford Development, Inc. has announced the anchors
:.G
chattanw)ga S _ Ulp � x y &.Operla
for its new lifestyle development scheduled to open March 5, 2008, in
Arizona.
,�
k0b,L L Meftthatdt, Mime Dawetor Ex Ci.YnCi1iFaw
Dubbed The Shops at Lake Havasu, Wolford Development, Inc, will bring
]KEALL,�.
approximately 740,000 square feet of fashion, food and fun to its 105-acre
site on the north end of town, it was stated.
Officials said, "The Shops at Lake Havasu will offer customers a unique
o
in complex will have a warm inviting�"�
shopping environment. The shopping com p
open-air environment with landscaping and a variety of eye-catching
architectural elements. In addition to the lifestyle center, the 105-acre site
will provide seven outparcels for development by individual businesses as
PineappleCode
well as an 18-acre site for future development.
by Su rft
New to the market will be a Dillard's fashion department store measuring
Better BLisiness Software
approximately 100,000 square feet.;�.�;do;,
Xm1EA*U
William Dillard, II, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of
LAKc MO- �rAaoe
42�9.e34'9500
Dillard"s, said, "We are excited to be entering the Lake Havasu market with a
new store as part of this development. Lake Havasu gives us an excellent
opportunity to expand our presence in the state of Arizona and offer area
i'i°Yg 4
residents more quality shopping choices. Through past experience, we have
confidence in Bucky Wolford and know this will be a first class center and a
real asset to the entire community and surrounding trade area."
Flrq�'�'� �' a.���� for YOU
st. Church
Dillard's Inc, ranks among the nation's largest fashion apparel and home
Dow"town Zhaftwib
furnishings retailers with annual revenues exceeding $7.7 billion.7NOW,fi'`'
Officials said, "The tone of the Lake Havasu store, both in building design
commer�cia.l gding
u F to 5 on
and merchandise assortment, will reflect Dillard's renewed focus on u scale
p
3_0� dv�TMii Gome cases
and contemporary fashion. Customers will especially enjoy Dillard's latest
advances in store design and shopping convenience in the shoes intimate
9 PP 9
David Jones .(423) 400-:9797
�e�'$° s .�
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apparel and accessories areas."�""'l`�`='�
Bald,910840a
Based out of. Little Rock, Ark., Dillard's operates 330 stores in 29 states.
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Dillard's currently has 21 stores in the Arizona/Las Vegas/California area.
` `* �'enne s'ee
`,� American water
Also joining the project will be I.C. Penney, which Is relocating to the Shops
at Lake Havasu and tripling the size of its current store in the market. The
p 9
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new store, at more than 102,000 square feet, will Incorporate J.C. Penney's
Professional Service
latest format and design features to create an easy and exciting place for
And Results
customers to experience the store's outstanding selection of high -quality,
Vv'lth Jay RoWnson
fashion -right merchandise at smart prices.
Clicl.R Here
J.C. Penney Company, Inc. is one of the nation's largest department store,
Cc� ections
Correc
offs i-s
catalog and e-commerce retailers with more than 1,000 department stores
Needed
throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico, As part of its strategic growth plan,
Donna The Buffalo
JCPenney plans to open 50 stores per year from 2007 through 2009, most in
In Huntsville 2 Tights
the single -level, off -mall format. There are currently 22 JCPenney stores in
Dec. 30-31
Arizona.
Crossroads Cafe
"Our plan to open a larger store in Lake Havasu City indicates our strong
City Bids, Parchases
commitment to this market, as well as customers' outstanding response to
Click Here
our merchandise and services," said Paul Freddo, J.C. Penney vice president
and director of real estate, "Wolford Development is creating a prime
shopping destination for the area at The Shops at Lake Havasu that will
��d$ by Ie,
Leading Chain Tenants
9000 potential retail &
foodservice tenants &
37,500 key personnel.
www.LeadingChainTenants.com
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212120(7--Worford Development Lines Up Anchor Tenants For Majo...
http://www.chattanoogan.com/afticles/article—I 00952. asp
provide an excellent platform for growing our presence in the community."
The final anchor position will be filled by a new 201,821 square foot
Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Officials said, "Customers at the new Supercenter will notice the latest
aesthetic features such as wider aisles, stained concrete flooring throughout
most of the store, faux wood flooring in the apparel areas, neutral colors and
skylights as well as the expanded merchandise selection. As a one -stop
shopping experience, the Supercenter offers 36 general merchandise
departments as well as a full line of groceries including a bakery, a
delicatessen, a frozen food section and meat, dairy and fresh produce
sections."
Bucky Wolford, president and CEO, said, "The Lake Havasu - Kingman
market is extremely under served and we're pleased to finally be bringing
this project to this retail parched market. There is not another project of this
magnitude and with this type of regional drawing power within 150 miles.
The commitment of our anchors alone proves out the pent-up demand and
untapped retail sales which are now migrating outside the area."
When completed, The Shops at Lake Havasu will contain over 70 retailers
and restaurants in a "Main Street" town --center setting which will redefine the
shopping pattern of Arizona's "west coast." Roughly a 2 1h-3-hour drive
between Las Vegas and Phoenix, The Shops at Lake Havasu will be the only
regional center in the area.
Wolford Development, Inc. is a privately owned development company
headquartered in Chattanooga.
The company was founded in March of 1999 by James L. "Bucky" Wolford.
Since its inception, Wolford Development, Inc. has developed, opened and
managed in excess of 1,200,000 square feet of retail projects in
Chattanooga, Cleveland, Tn.,; and Gadsden, Ala., representing a total
development cost of $116,000,000.
New projects currently in the development pipeline in addition to Lake
Havasu, Ariz., are Ames, Iowa, Jackson, Tn,, and Kalispell, Mont. These
projects encompass 3 million square feet representing over $350 million in
construction cost.
Wolford's team for the Lake Havasu project consist of Morgan Construction of
Chattanooga as the general contractor, Architecture+ of Monroe, La., as the
architect and Miller -McCoy of Chattanooga as the civil engineer.
For leasing information, contact either Patrick Kellner or Jeff Davenport at
Wolford Development corporate offices in Chattanooga at (423) 874-0811.
Email this to a friend
I!uPR
R F NiOi,E LERS
I ,►y,r►nnn 1 n_ A n sILA
11. Executive Summary
For full report, go to:
htt-p://www.cityofames.ora/HousinaWeb/Planning/
Commercial-Land.htm
ff
A. Identify the Acres Projected to be Absorbed by the Year 2030
Using the Market1sales to Acres Methodology (586-acres)
Projecting commercial land needs from land absorption trends provides a good estimation
of future commercial growth patterns. However using land absorption methodology alone
does not completely explain the all of the factors contributing to commercial land
development trends. Data associated with commercial sales trends needs to be understood
and is not readily apparent when only using a land absorption model. Therefore, another
land prediction model that is more complete in its explanation of commercial sales
patterns compared to land absorption patterns is needed to explain future commercial
land resource needs.
When past retail sales trends is compared to past land absorption trends, a strong
correlation between the two is revealed. This correlation provides another method to
predict future land needs. The amount of commercial land resources necessary to meet
future community needs is predicted by a projection of the average change in commercial
retail sales per year. once future sales are estimated, the relationship between sales trends
and acres absorption is used to explain future commercial land needs. This method, the
"market/sales to acres methodology," incorporates market data information into the
future land resource need estimate.
When commercial land needs are identified using the market/sales to acres methodology,
it is estimated that approximately 586 acres of commercial land will be absorbed in the
City of Ames over the life of the Land Use Policy Plan or until the year 2030. This
equates to annual commercial land absorption of approximately 20wacres per year. In
other words, approximately 20-acres of land per year will be developed (absorbed) that is
currently commercially zoned and vacant, planned and vacant, or land that should be
redeveloped or rezoned.
B. Existing Supply of Commercially Zoned, Planned
.. or Rew
developable Acres within the Existing City Limits or within the
Planning Area of the City of Ames.
City Staff identified commercial land resources that are currently within the City of Ames
and are zoned commercially and vacant. These land resources are available for
commercial development at this time. In addition staff identified vacant acres that are not
zoned today but are planned for commercial development both in the City currently, and
within the surrounding planning area. Lastly, staff has analyzed existing developed acres
in commercially designated areas and identified underutilized commercial properties that
represent a redevelopment potential.
The analytical approach taken to estimate the commercial land inventory was very
conservative in calculation of vacant acres. where questions arose to whether land should
10
be considered vacant or not, or re -developable or not, the land in question was not
I
considered as a viable commercial land inventory option. The following table represents
a compilation of the acres that are available to meet the commercial land needs of the
City.
Table II-1. Summary of Existing Commercial Land Resource Supply (Vacant
Acres)
Vacant Land
Inside the City
Planned
of Ames and
Vacant
Zoned,
Acres
Acres of Re -
including land
%
Inside and
development
°lo
Total
zoned
Outside
Potential
commercially
the City of
since the year
Ames
2000
347
43%
402*
50%_j
55
7%
804
* This number will not coincide with the vacant acres calculation found in Land Use Policy Plan analysis
in this report. To calculate the correct amount of inventory, it is important not to double count acres
that are zoned and acres that are plannea! This table avoids double counting by placing zoned
commercial acres in one category, which may include planned acres, and placing non -zoned planned
commercial acres in another category.
C. Vacant Land Inside the City of Ames and Zoned
.. Including
Land Zoned Commercially Since the Year 2000 (347-acres)
As of year 2000, there are approximately 292-acres of land zoned for commercial uses
that are vacant. This number discounts land that is physically prohibitive to develop
and/or in the floodway. (See explanation on page 29 of this report) Since the inception of
this commercial land inventory study, the City of Ames has rezoned approximately 54-
acres of commercial land resources in areas designated as environmentally sensitive
areas. Therefore, the amount of developable vacant land currently zoned for commercial
land uses amounts to about a 17 year supply of commercial land resources (347-acres
divided by 20-acres per year approximates 17 years). (See Map IV-])
D. Planned Vacant Acres Inside and Outside the City of Ames
(402-acres)
The city's Land Use Policy Plan Map targets land resources inside and outside of the
city's corporate limits for commercial expansion.
There are planned vacant commercial land resources inside the City's corporate limits.
Approximately 50-acres of planned and vacant land, not yet zoned for commercial
development, currently exists within the corporate limits of the City of Armes.
12
Outside of corporate limits, in the Village/Suburban Residential designated areas, there is
a need for 60-acres to be developed as Neighborhood Commercial land uses. (See
methodology explanation on page 79 of this report.) Therefore, 60-acres out of the 2,352
vacant acres available in the Village/Suburban Residential planned areas needs to be set
aside for commercial development. The future land use map outlines an additional 40-
acres of vacant land available in the Community Commercial Node location in the
secondary growth priority area. Additionally 252-acres of vacant land available for
proposed for future Regional Commercial land uses. The total number of vacant acres in
planned areas outside of existing corporate limits is approximately 352-acres. 352 vacant
planned acres outside of corporate limits plus 50 vacant planned acres within City limits
totals 402 acres.
E. Identify the Amount of Land Resources Available for
Redevelopment Opportunities (55-acres)
Within the current commercial zoning designations, there is approximately 55 acres of
land available for commercial redevelopment. This number includes non --conforming
uses, vacant structures, or deteriorated properties.
F. Identify Other Land Use Opportunities, i.e. RH and GL
Reiterate the Conservative Nature of the Analysis.
The computation of available commercial acres used in this study does not take into
account the commercial land resource that could be available in areas zoned General
Industrial (GI) or Residential High Density (RH). General Industrial zoned land allows
for an extensive amount of commercial development opportunity. Likewise, Residential
High Density zoning allows for some commercial development on the first floor of multi-
family structures. Therefore, areas zoned GI and RH represent commercial land resource
opportunity beyond the estimated 803-acres of vacant commercial land accounted for in
this study.
13
Table H-2. Computation Table - Commercial Acres Needed Compared to
Commercial Acres Su
I .
Comments:
Acres Projection from Retail
585
� �
Represents the projected to be needed
Sales/Absorption methodology
by the 2030
Represents vacant land that is
+ Vacant paned Acres as of 2000
292
currently zoned in the City of Ames
See m:E IV-1
(293)
Planne Acres for
Represents the acres that should be set
Neighborhood/Convenience Commercial in
from the 2,352 vacant acres located in
+ Conventional Suburban Developments in
50
the planned area for Villa e/Suburban
p �
Village/Suburban Residential Land Use
Designations
Residential growth. (See map IV-])
(233)
Represents the vacant area planned for
+ Planned Acres for a Community Commercial
40
Community Commercial Node
Node
development in the Northwest Growth
Priori Area. (See map IV-])
(193)
Represents the vacant area planned for
Planne and Vacant Acres for Regional
g
Regional Commercial Growth in
Commercial +
25
Southeast Ames at the intersection of
Highway 30 and Interstate 35. (See map
I� I
59
+ Zoned Acres that are re -developable
55
Represents existing acres in the City
that can be redeveloped (see = IV-])
113
Represents land that was added to the
City of Ames after December 2000,
Vacant honed Land Added to Commercial
the cut --off date for the analysis
+ Zones in 2�01
54'
included in this study. This is the land
that was made available for
commercial development in 2001. (See
map IV-])
168
Represents various vacant land parcels
Planned Vacant Acres that are no t
that are within the Cityof Ames, that
Village/Suburban Residential, Not Regional
+ Commercial, and currently not Vacant Zoned
50
are not zoned commercially, but are
Commercial Land
planned for commercial development
(See ma IV-])
218
Excess supply q f commercially zoned
arty for planned acres
14
G. Policy implications...
Based on the analysis represented in the Computation Table (see table above),
the amount of commercial land that is currently zoned and vacant, planned
and vacant, available as part of the development of the areas designated
village/suburban residential, and considered as redevelopment opportunities,
the supply of commercial land exceeds the projected commercial need. The
total land inventory is approximately 8 03 -acres, or approximately 218 acres
above the projected 586-acres needed.
Council could adopt a more conservative approach that would discount some
or all of the commercial acres designated for Regional Commercial land uses.
The vacant Regional Commercial land resources are estimated to be
approximately 252-acres. If the City Council believes that none of these land
resources should be counted in the commercial supply inventory of the City of
Ames, then there would be a deficit of approximately 34-acres.
However, subtracting the area designated in the Land Use Policy Plan as
Regional Commercial should not be the basis by which more commercial land
area is designated. Regional Commercial land resources, although not an
immediate development option, will be needed to accommodate commercial
expansion in the future. North Grand Mall met the commercial expansion
need of the City of Ames in the early I970's, the Regional Commercial area
planned along I-35 will accomplish the same need in the future.
H. Distribution of Commercial Land Resource Supply
The commercial land resource analysis concludes that the City of Ames does not have a
need to add more commercial land supply (acres), as part of the City's 30-year land use
policy. The City of Ames currently has about 75% of its commercial land resource needs
inside existing corporate limits and has an abundance of planned land resources outside
of its corporate limits, representing roughly 37% (804-acres of supply divided by 586-
acres needed) over its estimated need by the year 2030. From the standpoint the retail
sales/acres absorption methodology used in this study, the City of Ames has an adequate
inventory of commercial land.
Although the City's Land Use Policy Plan accounts for the correct amount of commercial
acres, there is an issue of whether or not the plan outlines suitable locations for
neigh borhoodlconvenience commercial land uses. The Land Use Policy Plan states that
neighborhood commercial land uses will be the result of village development in areas
planned for Village/Suburban Residential land uses. Since commercial development may
be part of a village residential development proposal, the location of neighborhood
commercial uses is a function of village residential design. The plan allows for a
sufficient amount of flexibility in village residential design to meet future
W
neighborhood/convenience commercial needs. However, if areas develop primarily as
conventional suburban residential developments, the plan is silent on the suitable
locations for neighborhood scale commercial land resources. Neighborhood/convenience
commercial development is typically not a function of conventional suburban residential
design; there are no specific criteria in the Land Use Policy Plan to locate
neighborhood/convenience commercial land uses in areas zoned for emerging suburban
residential development.
Conventional suburban residential developments are very different from traditional
village residential developments. Whereas villages are compact, dense, and integrate
pedestrian scale and automotive commercial oriented activities into their residential
design, conventional suburban residential development require more land resources, are
heavily auto dependent, draw a clear distinction between commercial and residential
uses, and have a very widespread population density. The more land consuming and auto
dependant nature of conventional suburban residential design thus requires
neighborhood/convenience commercial land resources to be planned in locations that
minimize trips, maximize convenience, and provide for commercial market sustainability.
According to the Urban Land Institute, American Planning Association, and research
submitted by RM Plan Group of Nashville Tennessee, neighborhood/convenience
commercial land uses serving conventional suburban residential developments should be
located:
9 Adjacent to or within the center of the highest possible concentrations of
population;
0 on major or minor thoroughfares (because vehicular movement is critical);
• Encompass and area of approximately 1 mile in radius for vehicle travel
convenience;
a In a cluster of approximately 2-5 acres in scale minimum, and 10-acres at the
most.
Providing too much commercial opportunity in one area could saturate the commercial
activities in that area, thus hampering commercial vitality and success. As such, new
neighborhood/convenience commercial should not be added when the following
circumstances exist:
Where there already is an existing neighborhood/convenience commercial
center that may not absolutely adhere to the established criteria as stated
above, and
Where there are more intense commercial activities [Community Commercial
Node, Highway oriented Commercial, Regional Commercial, Downtown
Service Center] that also serve as neighborhood/convenience commercial land
uses within the location criteria as stated above.
16
L Implications to the Adopted Land Use Policy Plan
The analysis of commercial land resources within current city limits and within the
planning area of the City of Ames has revealed that there is not a shortage of commercial
land resources in general. However, there may ultimately be a shortage of
neighborhood/convenience commercial land resources if future development within the
identified growth areas does not follow the Village Residential land use alternative.
It is important to retrace the evolution of the Land Use Policy Plan that was adopted by
City Council in August of 1997. Initially, the original draft of the Land Use Policy Plan
relied exclusively on the Village Residential land use alternative for all new development
within the identified growth areas of the City. This included the creation of
neighborhood/convenience scale commercial to support the residents of newly developed
villages.
At the point when the Land Use Policy Plan was ready for final approval by City
Council, there was not policy support for the Village Residential land use option
exclusively, and therefore an alternative land use option was included in the Plan. This
alternative is now referred to as "Suburban Residential". The suburban residential land
use alternative does not include the creation of neighborhood/convenience scale
commercial centers.
Since this amendment to the plan did not proposed neighborhood/convenience
commercial centers as part of Suburban Residential alternative, staff believes it is in the
best interest of the city to determine the location of future neighborhood/convenience
commercial centers in our growth areas.
The criteria that is commonly used to locate neigh borhoodlconvenience scale commercial
land uses, where neighborhood/conveniencecommercial land uses follow the
conventional suburban residential land use model, includes:
• A population cluster threshold of 2,000 to 3,000 people
2-acres at the minimum and 10-acres at the maximum of land area
• Frontage on a street that is a collector class or greater
Within a vehicular travel distance of 1 mile at the minimum and 2 miles at the
f
maximum
(Source.- Urban Land Institute, American Planning Association, RM Plan
group.)
This criterion establishes the ideal size, general demographics, and geographic location
for conventional neighborhood/convenience centers. The map titled "Map 1I-1. Summary
Map, `� outlines the most suitable locations for neighborhood/convenience land uses
serving conventional suburban residential development in the City' s priority growth
areas. This map outlines where neighborhood/convenience centers should be located if
17
the preferred growth areas of the City develop as conventional suburban residential
developments.
Since the LUPP allows for the property owner to select the Village Residential or
Suburban Residential land use alternative, either form of land use will create the needed
neighborhood/convenience commercial center if this commercial development is guided
by established or adopted planning policy (i.e. properly located, sized, clustered, and
integrated). It is staff s recommendation that the following policies be incorporated
into the Land Use Policy Plan of the City of Ames:
If a village with a commercial center is approved, or is planned to occur in an area
where a neighborhood commercial center is planned, then the commercial land uses
in the village should serve as the neighborhood/convenience commercial center for
the area; and no other commercial center would be allowed in the area criteria as
established on page 17 of this report.
• If a village does not occur, or is not planned within an the area where a neighborhood
commercial center is identified on the future land use map in the Land Use Policy
Plan of the City of Ames, then the City should be prepared to zone an area which
would result in the development of a neighborhood/convenience commercial center.
■ Higher development standards than what currently exists in the Neighborhood
Commercial Zone needs to be established ensure that the land use relationship
between the center and the adjacent residential land uses will be compatible. These
higher development standards are needed whether the adjacent land uses are
developed as village residential or suburban residential. These standards might
include such items as: building placement, signage, lighting, landscaping, screening,
and building materials.
• Any proposed neighborhood/convenience commercial center, suburban or traditional
in design, should not supplement or add to Community Commercial Lodes, other
established commercial land use designations, or existing neighborhood/convenience
commercial uses.
18
Map II-1 — Summary Map
19
When recorded return to preparer
Prepared by: Witham D. Bartine, The Financial Centex', 666 walnut Suite 2000, Des Moines, IA 50309-39897 515-243-7100
AN AGREEMENT PERTADUNG TO THE REZONING
AND DEVELOPMENT OF LAND
IN THE CITY OF AMES
THIS AGREEMENT, made and entered into this dayof AlXqwml�
2005 .by and between the C�"I�Y OF AMES, IOWA., a municipal corporation (hereinafter called
"City") established pursuant to the Iowa Code and acting under the authorization of Iowa Code
Chapter 414 (2005); and. WOLFORD DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS, L.L.O., a Nevada limited
liability company, its successors ,and assigns (all hereinafter collectively called "Developer").
WITNESSETH THAT;
WHEREAS, the parties hereto desire the improvement and development of an area
legally described as set out on Appendix A, hereinafter called the "Site;"
WHEREAS, Developer has petitioned the City requesting that zoning regulations of the
16
City be changed to rezone the Site from a zoning district classification of Agricultural C'A7) and
Planned Industrial (PI"), as applicable, to the Planned Regional Commercial ("PRC") zoning
district,
'WHEREAS, the Parties agree that said zoning change should occur subject to imposition
on Developer of conditions that are in addition to existing regulations of the City, all as provided
for by Iowa Code § 414,5 (2005);
NOWTHEREFORE, the parties hereto have agreed and do agree as follows. -
ARTICLE I.
INTENT AND PURPOSE
1.1 inten .
It is the intent of this Agreement to provide for the development of a planned regional
commercial center that will serve not only the City, but also the surrounding market area. guch
commercial center is characterized by a lifestyle center north of East 13th Street and a power
center south of East 13th Street, both of which shall include anchor stores, and free-standing
retail., dining, and entertainment establishments served by common parking areas, The
provisions of this Agreement, coupled with the ordinances of the City of Ames, Iowa, will
facilitate development in a planned, orderly fashion, so as to protect public health, safety, and
general welfare, in accordance with the Land Use Policy Plan of the City.
1.2 !!U[R0S§!
Therefore, it is the purpose of this Agreement to:
A. Document, record, and give notice of a certain plan of development, and the
public and private measures and undertakings essential to the implementation of that plan of
development, for the Site.
B. Provide remedies to the City in the event the said plan of development is not
adhered to or achieved by the Developer.
C. Provide parameters for requests for releases of the Developer in the event
project completion is not feasible, and upon completion of the planned improvements.
This Agreement does not create or vest in any person or organization other than the City
any rights or cause of action with respect to any performance, obligation, plan, schedule or
undertaldng stated in this Agreement with respect to the Developer or the Project. This
Agreement does not prevent the City from amending, modifying, or releasing the Developer
from some or all of the provisions of this Agreement. No person shall have any cause of action
or recourse against the City or Developer by reason of any such amendment, rnodifflcatior, or
release.
ARTICLE 2.
DEFEVITIO S
2.1 Definitions.
In addition to other definitions set forth in this Agreement, all capitalized terms used and
not otherwise defined heroin shall have the following meanings unless a different meaning
clearly appears from the contest:
A. &reemepj means this Agreement Pertaining to Rezoning and Development
of Land in the City of Ames and all appendices hereto, as the sane from time to time may be
modified, amended, or supplanted.
B . means the City of Ames, Iowa, or any successor to its functions.
C. CongepLuaL-Site Plan, shall mean the graphic depiction of Developer's
conceptual development plan for the Site as shown in Appendix E attached hereto and
incorporated herein by this reference.
D. DSlelonet means wolford Development Options, L.L.C., a Nevada limited
liability company, and its lessees, licensees, successors and assigns.
R. East Barilla Site shall mean that area of land described on Appendix D
hereto.
w2w
F. FA. shall mean the Federal Ighway Administration, an agency of the
.Mf
United States of America.
G. ..Gross Building Area ffiBA) shall mean the area of a building measured to
the exterior face of the building line without deductions.
H. Iowa Code shall mean the Iowa Code (2005).
I. EDOT shall mean the Iowa Department of Transportation., an instrumentality
of the State of Iowa.
J. Major Anchor Store shall mean a Retail Store containing not less than
So, 00o square feet GBA,
K. _Minor Anchor Store shall mean a Retail Store containing more than 10,000
square feet GBA and less than 80,000 square feet GBA, and also includes a multi -screen movie
theatre,
L. Noah Site shall mean that area of land described by Appendix B attached
hereto.
M. „Outnareel shall mean a separately platted tract of land within the Site that
will legally support free-standing buildings and designated as such on Appendix L.
N. pro' eci shall mean a lifestyle shopping center and related improvements to be
constructed on the North Site and a power center and related improvements as defined in this
Agreement to be constructed on the South Site.
D. Rennin Ordinance shall mean an ordinance subjecting the Site to the
Planned Regional Commercial District, and North Bast Gateway Overlay District zoning
regulations of the City.
P. + A shall mean the form of reciprocal easement agreement entered into by
and among the Developer and the owners of the Major Anchor Stores, as amended from time to
time. The City acknowledges that it is possible that there may be separate REAs for the North
Site and the South Site; therefore, the term "REA" shall refer to the reciprocal easement
agreements, collectively.
Q. Rem. Store (which may be a Major .Anchor Stare, a Minor Anchor Store, or
a Specialty Store) shall mean a ,store or sm' lar commercial concern incorporating one or more of
'the operations typically found at a shopping center or a lifestyle center including without
limitation the sale of goods and services, entertainment uses,. and office uses.
R. ite shall mean the land legally described in Appendix A attached hereto.
The S ite i ncludes the Forth Site, the South Site, and the East B arilla Site.
S. &Wala Store shall mean a Detail Store containing less than 10,000 square
feet GBA.
"3..
T. South Site shall mean that area of land described by Appendix C attached
hereto
U. SUDAS shall mean Statewide Urbana Design and Specifications, current
a.
edition.
V, Traffic Study shall mean the October 2003 traffic study by HwS Consulting
Group, Inc. entitled " 13 5 and E. 13th Development."
ARTICLE 3.
ORDINANCE
3.1 R.ezonin� Ordin nee.
This Agreement shall be construed under Iowa Code § 414.5 as a written agreement by
Developer for the imposition of conditions that are in addition to existing regulations, which
Agreement has been entered into by Developer and City prior to the public hearing rewired
under § 414.5. Developer understands and agrees that the execution of this Agreement is a
condition precedent to any action by the City in holding a public hearing on the Rezoning
Ordinance or taking any council action with respect to a rezoning ordinance. City and Developer
agree that the conditions contained in this Agreement are reasonable and the result of extensive
negotiations between the parties, and that the conditions and requirements imposed upon the
parties herein are necessary to satisfy public needs that are directly caused by Developer's
rezoning request.
3.2 Effective mate of Rezoning Ordinance,,
A. City and Developer agree that this Agreement is the binding obligation of
Developer immediately upon Developer's execution and delivery of this Agreement to the City
before the public hearing required under Iowa Code §414.51, subject to final passage of the
Rezoning ordinance by the City Council in accordance with Iowa Code § 384.3. In addition to
binding the Developer, the City desires that the effect of the Rezoning Ordinance shall be to
make this Agrewent a covenant running with the land subjected to the Rezoning ordinance at
such time as Developer acquires fee simple title to that land. Because the Rezoning ordinance
shall become effective under Iowa Code § 3 80, 6 only when published in accordance with Iowa
Code § 3 80. 7(3), it is agreed by Developer that the City Council may direct the City Clerk to
defer publication of the Rezoning ordinance until Developer gives proof to the City by an
opinion of title by an attorney at law who has examined the abstract of title of the land that is the
subject of the Rezoning Ordinance that fee simple title to that land has been conveyed to
Developer. At the time of such publicatior� the Agreement shall be a covenant valid and 'binding
on the Developer and the land subjected to the Rezoning Ordinance.
E. The City may enact the Rezoning Ordinance for the Site. If the aforesaid
opinion of title with respect to the Site 'is not delivered to the City as aforesaid by the 1t day of
December, 2007, the City may repeal or change the Rezoning ordinance, and Developer shall
have no cause of action against the City for or by reason of such repeal or change.
M2
3.3 Effect of Agreement.
Developer and City shad diligently and in good faith proceed to comply with all of the
terms, conditions, and covenants contained in this Agreement, and all ordinances of the City of
Ames, Iowa. The City shall have no obligation to issue any approvals with respect to any
grading, excavation, construction, reconstruction, or remodeling on the North Site until the City
Council determines that the Master Plan for the Site and Major Site Development Plan submitted
by Developer for the Forth Site comply with the requirements of the ordinances and policies of
the City of Ames and this Agreement. The City shall have no obligation to issue any approvals
with respect to any grading, excavation, construction, reconstruction, or remodeling on the South
Site until the City Council determines that the Master Plan for the Site and Major Site
Development Plan submitted by the Developer for the South Site comply with the requirements
of the ordinances and policies of the City of Ames and this Agreement. Consistent with Section
4.4 hereof, the Master Plan and the Major Site Development Plan shall shove the Bast Bariiia Site
as property for future development.
3.4 Cence tua Site plan.
The Conceptual Site Plan shall be supplanted by the Master Plan when approved by the
City pursuant to the o-GNE ordinance, which in turn shall be supplanted by the Major Site
Development Plan when approved by the City for the respective portions of the Site.
ARTICLE 4,
E"ROVEMIENTS TO BE CONSTRUCTED
4.1 Develo er's Obfi atlon to construct.
The Developer agrees to construct a regional commercial lifestyle center on the North
Site, and may construct a regional commercial power center on the South Site, all in a manner
that is consistent with the ordinances and polices of the City, and this Agreement. Developer
shall also construct certain can -site and off -site infrastructure improvements in support of the
Project, all as required by Article 7 of this Agreement.
4.2 N rth Site Jmj2roveMents,
Developer agrees to construct or cause to be constructed a minimum of four hundred
ninety-eight thousand (498,000) square feet GBA of buildings and other regional commercial
improvements on the North Site, exclusive of outparcels, as follows:
A. Two (2) Major Anchor Stores totaling at least one hundred sixty thousand
(160,000) square feet GB A;
B. A combination of Major Anchor Stores, Minor Anchor Stores, and Specialty
Stores totaling at least four hundred ninety-eight thousand (499,OW) square feet GBA; and
C. Subject to the requirements of Sections 4.2.A and 4,23, above:
. 5"
1. At least one hundred sixty thousand (160,000) square Feet GBA of
such space must be Detail Stores that did not have a store open for business in the
City as of December 31, 2404; and
2. At least eighty thousand (80,000) square feet GBA of the above -
stated 160,000 square feet GBA shall be Minor Anchor Stores.
4.3 South Site Irn rovements.
Developer agrees to construct or cause to be constructed, exercisable at Developer's
option, a minimum of three hundred thousand (300,000) square feet GBA of buildings and other
regional commercial improvements on the South Site, exclusive of Dutparcels, that shall include
at least one (1) Major Anchor Store of not less than eighty thousand (80,000) square feet GBA.
The balance of the said three hundred thousand (300,,000) square feet GBA of buildings shall be
comprised of either Major Anchor Stores, Minor Anchor Stores, and/or Specialty Stores,
4.4 No- East Rri1Ya Site Imrovements KNuired.
16
Developer and City agree that Developer shall not be required to construct any regional
commercial improvements on the East Bar11Ia Site pursuant to the terms of this Agreement.
Developer acknowledges that it shall submit a Master Plan for the East Barilla Site as property
for future development at the time that Developer seeks Master Plan approval for the North Site
or the South Site, but that it may be required to submit a new Master Plan far the East Barilla
Site in the future if the development plans of Developer or its successors and assigns for the East
Barilla Site Crary materially from the approved Master Plan for the East Barilla Site,
4.5 Fo rce_ gj eu re.
With respect to the requirements of this Article 4, it is understood that delays could result
from causes that may reasonably be presumed to be beyond the control of either party. Those
causes are agreed to be: governmental war measures, wind storms, or labor strikes, Both parties
shall, in good faith, use such effort as is reasonable under all the circumstances known at the
time to mitigate delays caused by such events and make reasonable allowances of additional time
for performance of the requirements of this Article when any event as aforesaid causes an
unavoidable delay. Any party desiring an allowance of additional time for performance shall
give written notice thereof to the other party within 20 days of the occurrence of the event that
cause[ or will cause delay.
ARTICLE 5,,
TEMIMG AND BUILD -OUT OF THE PROJECT
5.1 Sin le -Phase Conitmqion,
Developer agrees to construct, or cause to be constructed, the improvements described in
Sections 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 for both the North Site and, when applicable, the South Site,
concurrently and not in phases.
"S
5.2 fonstrughon Period.
A. NMUAo, Developer agrees to complete the construction of the exteriors of
buildings having not less than 498,000 square feet GBA as described in Section 4.2, and the site
and off` -site improvements relating thereto within three (3) years from the date of issuance to
Developer or its assigns of the first building permit related to any portion of the North Site,
B. South Site. Developer agrees, exercisable at its option, to complete the
construction of the exteriors of buildings having not less than 300,000 square feet of GBA
described in Section 4.3, and the site and off -site improvements relating thereto, within three (3)
years from the date of issuance to Developer, or its assigns, of the first building permit related to
any portion of the South Site.
5.3 Conditions Precedent to Ci 's obii ation to Issue permits and A rovals — North Site.
The City shall have no obligation to issue any permits or approvals in connection with the
North Site until the Developer has satisfied each and every one of the following conditions
precedent:
A. S mi i n of E id n i n din n in . Developer shall
submit to the City evidence of equity capital and written commitments for funding and financing
necessary for completion of the North Site. The commitments for financing shall be
unconditional commitments to provide construction mortgage financing and shall provide for a
loan -to -value ratio as determined by Developer's lender, subject to customary conditions based
on the Developer's performance of certain obligations prior to receiving funding including, but
not limited to, pre -leasing requirements, covenants pertaining to title, provision of mechanic's
lien waivers, inspection duties, approval of the construction budget of Developer's general
contractor for the Forth Site, and other commercially reasonable due diligence requirements.
The level of equity capital shall be deemed acceptable hereunder if provided in the amounts
required by Developer's lenders.
B. Sqhmisaign. f of s. Developer shall submit to the City
evidence of binding lease or sale commitments (which may be in the form of so. -called short -
form leases or memoranda of sales contracts) from purchasers or tenants for the North Site, as
follows:
1.. Developer shall submit to the City fully executed binding lease or
sale transaction instruments as referenced in Section 5.3.B above with at least
three hundred twenty-nine thousand (329,000) square feet GBA of Major
Anchors, Minor Anchors, and Specialty Shops, of which there must be: (a) at least
two Major Anchor Stores having an aggregate area of not less than one hundred
sixty thousand (160,000) square feet GBA; (b) at least eighty thousand (80,000)
square feet GBA of Retail Stores that did not have a store open for business in the
City as of December 31, 2004; AND (c) not less than forty thousand (40,000)
square feet GBA of Minor Anchor Stores.
2. Rental or purchase price information may be redacted.
-7-
5.4 Conditions Precedent to Ci �s Obligation to issue Permits and Approvals — South Site,
The City shall have no obligation to issue any permits or approvals in connection with the
South Site until the Developer has satisfied each and every one of the following conditions
precedent:
A. $ubmission of Evidence of uit a ital and Fiaancirg. If Developer elects
to construct power center improvements on the South Site, Developer shall submit to the City
evidence of equity capital and written commitments for funding and financing necessary for
completion of the South Site. The commitments for financing shall be unconditional
commitments to provide construction mortgage financing and shall provide for a loan -to -value
ratio as determined by Developer's lender, subject to customary conditions based on the
Developer's performance of certain obligations prior to receiving funding including, but not
limited to, pre -leasing requirements, covenants pertaining to title, provision of mechanic's lien
waivers, inspection duties, approval of the construction budget of Developer's general contractor
for the South Site, and other commercially reasonable due diligence requirements. The level of
equity capital shall be deemed acceptable hereunder if provided in the amounts required by
Developer's lenders.
B. Submigion o f Leags, Developer shall submit to the City
evidence of binding lease or sale commitments (which may be in the form of so-called short�-
form leases or memoranda of sales contracts) from purchasers or tenants for the South Site, as
follows:
1. Developer shall submit to the City fully executed binding sale or
lease transaction instruments as referenced in Section 5AB above with at least
one Maj or' Anchor Store and with additional Major Anchor Stores, Minor Anchor
Stores, and Specialty Stores having an aggregate area of not less than fifty percent
(50%) of the number determined by subtracting the actual total square feet GBA
of such. Major Anchor Store from three hundred thousand (300,000) square feet
GEA required under Section 4.3 hereof.
2. Dental or purchase price information may be redacted.
5.5 Prncedur four Rpyiew of inf rrn ino Decisions by the City as to whether information
submitted by the Developers satisfies the requirements of Sections 5.3.A, 5.3.B, 5AA, and 5.4.B
above shad be made by the City Attorney.
5.6 Issuance of Permits and Aparovale.
A. The City shall not be obligated to issue any permits or approvals for any
portion of the Site until Developer has provided f~ue protection service, sanitary sewer service,
and interior all-weather construction road service to the property lines of the North Site and the
South Site as required to support Developer's construction activities, There shall be no
obligation to provide interior construction road service for the South Site until the Developer
takes out building permits for the South Site.
"8-
B. The City shall net he obligated to issue any permits or approvals with respect
to the South Site until the City issues to the Developer, or its assigns, all permits and approvals
that will support the construction of at least 329,000 square feet GBA in accordance with Section
5,3.B.1.
ARTICLE 6.
OTHER RESTRICTIONS
6.1 Waiver -of Tao Abatement
In consideration of the City's execution of this Agreement, Developer hereby covenants
that it shall not seek or obtain any farm of tax abatement with respect to the Site, whether
authorized under the Iowa Code or the Municipal Code of the City, and Developer, acting on its
own behalf and for its successors and assigns, hereby irrevocably and permanently waives any
right that it may have under law to seep or obtain any form of tax abatement with respect to the
Site.
6.2 General An i b1l ty of Other Laws and Ordinances.
The parties acknowledge and, agree that this Agreement is being executed in
contemplation of the Conceptual Site Plan, but without further review or approval of specific
plans for the Project. Therefore, the parties acknowledge and agree that it is not passible to
anticipate all of the infrastructure requirements of Developer that may be required to properly
develop the Site. Therefore, the parties agree that all work done by or on behalf of the Developer
with respect to public streets, sidewalks, bile paths, building design and construction, and
utilities (both on -site and off -site) shall be made in compliance with the Iowa Code, the Ames
Municipal Code, SUDAS, and all other. federal, state, and local laws and policies of general
application, whether or not such requirements are specifically stated in this Agreement,
ARTICLE 7,
PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE
7.1 Compliance With Qrdivances and Other Rules of Gen.erai-A-vol mfion
All work performed pursuant to this Article 7 shall be done in good and workmanlike
fashion, M' compliance with SUDAS, City ordinances, rules, regulations, and standards that are
generally applicable to all development projects regulated by the City, and all such work shall be
approved in advance by the City in accordance with standard practices of the City.
7.2 er
A. 13th 57 A n Developer shad pay City a connection
fee of Forty-one thousand Dollars ($41,000,00) for the right to connect to the existing City water
main along East 13th Street west of its 'intersection with 570th Avenue.
B. 570 3 h Developer, at its cost shall, in
conjunction with Developers construction activities and prior to the issuance of any City permits
or approvals, extend a twelve -inch (12") water main from East 13th Street north along 570th
Avenue to the northern boundary of the North Site.
C. East..13th Str Ea f Sloth A n while Developer shall be obligated at
its cost to extend a twelve -inch (12") water main along East 13th Street through and east of its
intersection with 570th Avenue to the eastern boundary of the Last Barilla Site, such obligation
for the extension east of 570th Avenue shall arise only at such time that Developer files a final
plat affecting the Bast Barilla Site, and Developer shall not be obligated to construct such water
main until the City approves a final plat covering all or part of the East Barilla. Site. However,
the Developer and the City a ree that if development by anyone occurs on land in the vicinity of
a a
the Site, and East of 57o Avenue, the Developer shall proceed • immediately with the
construction of the said water main upon receipt of written notice from the City to do so.
D. Earl DM]gpment East of the Si e The City and Developer acknowledge
that one of the inducements to the City for enactment of the Rezoning Ordinance is the extension
of a water main eastward from 570th Avenue to the eastern boundary of the Site, and north of
East 13th Street along 57M Avenue to the northern boundary of the Site, for purposes of
facilitating the economic development of the land lying east of the Site. If such development
begins before December 1, 2007, the City may construct the aforesaid water main and. the
Developer shall reimburse the City for each progress payment and final payment made by the
City for that work, within ten days of the City's notice to Developer of a payment having been
made. The Developer shall have no obligation to reimburse the City as aforesaid until such time
as the Developer has acquired title to the Site. If the Developer acquires title to the Site while
such work is 'n progress or aver it is completed, the Developer shall then reimburse the City for
all payments made by the City for such work not later than ten days following a request for
payment by the City.
7.3 &nitary S�y .,
A. Initi Cbli a i n f Dev 1 r. In conjunction with Developer's construction
-41 activities and prior to the issuance of any City permits or approvals with respect to the North Site
or the South Site, Developer at its sole cost will extend a trunk eighteen inch (18"') sanitary sewer
line within existing City right-of-way along Last 13th Street from Dayton Avenue to Sloth
Avenue; and, a twelve inch (12") sanitary sewer line along 5 7e Avenue from East 1 P Street to
the north line of the North Site. while Developer shall be obligated, at its cost, to extend , a
twelve inch (12") sanitary sewer main along East 130' Street through and east of its intersection
with 57e Avenue to the eastern boundary of the East Barilla Site, such obligation for the
extension east of 570h Avenue shall arise only at such time that Developer or its successors and
assigns file a final plat affecting the East Barilla Site, and Developer shall not be obligated to
construct such sanitary sewer east of 570t' Avenue until. the City approves a final plat covering
all or part of the East Bardla site. However, the Develo r er and City agree that if development
�
occurs on the land 'n the vicim'ty of the Site, east of 570Avenue, the Developer shall proceed
immediately with the construction of the said sanitary sewer upon receipt of written notice from
the City to do so,
B. Develo p er' ob ' ati on t Time of Subdivi i n, In Connection with the final
platting proceedings for any portion of the Site, Developer shall extend sewer mains to service
each portion of the Site that is so platted.
C. 1 D v to m nt E t of he Si e The City and Developer acknowledge
that one of the inducements to the City for enactment of the Rezoning ordinance is the extension
of sanitary sewer service eastward from Dayton Avenue to the eastern boundary of the Site, and
north of East 13th Street along 570th Avenue to the northern boundary of the Site, for purposes o
facilitating the economic development of the land lying east of the Site. If such development
begins before December 1, 2007, the City may construct the aforesaid sanitary sewer extensions.
and the Developer shall reimburse the City for each progress payment and final payment made
by the City for that work, within ten days of the City's notice to Developer of a payment having
been made. The Developer shall have no obligation to reimburse the City as aforesaid until such
time as the Developer has acquired title to the Site. If the Developer acquires title to the Site
while such work is in progress or after it is completed, the Developer shall then reimburse the
City for all payments made by the City for such work not later than ten days following a request
for payment by. the City.
7.4 'Water aA..&.nitary Sewer Extensi n Bene#lts A 'ustment
For the purpose of assessing the costs of water and sanitary sewer utility extensions on
the basis of benefit to land areas, it is recognized that the City has the authority, and shall take all
necessary action, to' establish water and sanitary sewer utility connection fee districts pursuant to
the procedures provided for by Iowa Code § 384.38(3). The City shall, subject to its
governmental discretion, establish such districts with respect to the areas of land that are not a
part of the Site, but which Will be served and benefitted by the extension of water and sanitary
sewer utilities pursuant to this Agreement; and the money collected by the City by virtue of such
districts shall be disbursed to the Developer to such extent and M' such amounts as the City shall
determine to be an equitable adjustment for the benefit provided to the areas within such districts
by virtue of the Developer's construction of water and sanitary sewer utility facilities as required
by this Agreement.
7.5 Slorm Water,
Developer, at its cost, will construct all storm water "test Management
Prances" for water quality and quantity control facilities on the Site and off -site to the extent
necessary to support the management of storm water drainage and disposal from the Site. Such
construction shall be when and where it is deemed necessary by the City in consultation with the
Developer to assure the proper function of the storm water management system for the Site.
7.6 Beetric.
Developer, at its cost, shall install or relocate all streetfights along public streets in the
Site; and, along 13th Street east from the east exit rarn s for 1-35; and, aloe 57& Avenue north
f ,��, � p � g
o its intersection with 1 Street; and, along 13 Street east of 57o Avenue to the eastern
boundary of the East Barilla Site at such time as when street improvements east of 57& Avenue
are required.
7.7 Bicycle/Pedestrian Paths.
Developer will extend a 10 foot wide bike path on the north side of East 13th
Street from the eastern edge of the paving of the north entrance ramp for I-3 5 to the eastern edge
of the North Site.
7.8 C'v-Ride.
Developer will contribute Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) for the acquisition of
a bus and will construct drop/off and turn -around facilities at both the North Site and the South
Site, if the South Site "is developed..
7.9 Streets.
A. In ers e I-351 Ea t 13 h Street r h . Developer, at its sale cost, shall
complete all studies, designs, and construction of improvements required by the IDOT and the
F WA with respect to the Interstate_I-35lEast 13th Street interchange.
B. East 13th Street and 57e Avenue Improvements.
1, C y 1 sponsib . It is reoogni�ed that the existing two lanes of
roadway on East 13th Street adjacent to the Site, extending from the easterly most
point of the I-35 interchange ramp to the east line of the East BariUa Site are
deteriorated and in need of reconstruction; and, that the costs of that
reconstructing is the City's responsibility. It is also recognIzed that it will be more
efficient for the Developer to do that reconstruction work in the context of other
improvements to East 13th Street for which Developer has agreed to be
responsible. It has been determined by the estimates of the City`s engineers that
the cost for reconstruction of the said two lanes of East 13th Street is equivalent to
the cost of the contemplated paving of 570th Avenue north of East 13th Street to
the north boundary of the Site. Therefore, in consideration of the Developer
causing the reconstruction of the said existing two lanes of Fast 13th Street
roadway to the standards of the City, and to be compliant with the statutory
requirements for public bidding of street improvements, the City shalt, subject to
its govemmental discretion and in accordance with statutory procedures, award a
contract for the construction of the 57CP Avenue roadway to City standards for
the full width of the roadway from the north line of East 13th Street to the north
line of the Site.
2. D el r nsi ill . The Developer shall construct at its sole
expense, to the standards of the City, all the improvements stated in the Traffic
Study, plus the reconstruction to City standards of the full width of roadway on
Fast 13th Street adjacent to the Site, extending from the easterly most point on the
1-3 5 interchange ramp to the east line of the Site. Notwithstanding the foregoing,
Developer and City agree that Developer shall not be required to construct any
Fast 13th Street improvements east tram 570th Avenue to the east boundary of
the Fast Fa.rilla Site until a final plat is filed with respect to the East Barilla. Site.
However, the Developer and City agree that if development by anyone occurs on
.12.
land in the vicinity of the Site, and east of 57& Avenue, or if improvements are
needed due to road condition or traffic volume, the Developer shall proceed
immediately with the construction of the said East 13t' Street east from 570'e
Avenue to the east boundary of the East Barilla Site as an industrial street meeting
City standards, plus the improvements for that street segment detailed in the
above stated Traffic Study, upon receipt of written notice from the City to do so.
C. Developer Res onsibilit f r Tr r . By way of specification
but not limitation it is agreed that Developer, at its sore cost, shall construct all of the roadway
and right-of-way improvements specified in the Traffic Study, including, without limitation, lane
widening/reconstruction, turn lanes, and traffic signals, plus work required by the FHwA or
IDOT, but excluding work to be performed by the City pursuant to Section 7. 9(B)(1) hereof. If
the Traffic Study is modified and such modifications are approved by the City, Developer shall
be bound by such modifications to the Traffic Study.
D. East l3 h S r Access Poin s. The City acknowledges that the Developer
shall be allowed access paints for the Site as shown on Appendix E, conceptual Site Plan, subject
to the requirements of the IDDT, the City, and the FHwA.
7.10 hermits and A,nuroya lWithheld
It is understood and agreed that the City shall issue no permits or approvals with respect
to any work or installations on the Site until Developer has performed or completed all of
Developer's obligations under Article 7 or work is m" progress to complete those obligations. 1f a
permit or approval is issued by the City based on such work in progress, and such progress
should cease for any reason, the City shall issue no further permits or approvals until progress on
such work is resumed.
W
7.11 1&9er of Credit
To secure the completion of the public infrastructure requirements of Article 7,
except for interchange improvements and improvements east of 5 70'h Avenue, Developer shall
provide as a condition for approval of a final plat a letter of credit to the benefit of the City in
such amount as shall be reasonably required by the City's engineers, in a farm approved by the
City's attorney. Said letter of credit shall be maintained in effect until the said innftwMructure
requirements are completed and accepted by the City, but the letter of Credit may be replaced in
lower amounts to reflect work that has been completed and accepted by the City.
ARTICLE 8.
FEES, PERAIM, AND EASEMENTS
8.1 Righf1-.2f.Aa3:.,
Developer, without receipt of additional consideration other than the City"s execution of
this Agreement, but after it acquires title to the Site, shall grant and dedicate to the City all
additional rights of way for East 13th Street and 570th Avenue required by the City in
connection with the Project, as a condition precedent to any permits or approvals by the City.
43o,
8.2 Easements.
Developer, without receipt of additional consideration other than the City's execution of
this Agreement, but after it acquires title to the Site, shall grant to the City all necessary
easements and licenses that the City deems necessary to establish and support public
infrastructure 'improvements and facilities on the Site, as a condition precedent to any permits or
approvals by the City.
ARTICLE 9,
EFFECT of COVENANTS UPON DEVELOPER AND THE ST`TE
9.1 Covenantsa Bindin [] on Successors in Interes • Duration.
It is 'Intended that the agreements and covenants provided in this Agreement shall be
covenants running with the land and that they shall, in any event, and without regard to technical
classification or designation, legal or otherwise, and except only as otherwise specifically
provided in this Agreement, be binding, to the fullest extent permitted by law and equity, for the
benefit and in favor of, and enforceable by, the City, its successors and assigns, against the
Developer, its successors and assigns and every successor in interest to the Site, and the
Improvements erected or to be erected thereon, or any part thereof until this Agreement is
terminated, in whole or in part, pursuant to Article 10 hereof.
9.2 Ci 's Yt hts To Enf ice.
With respect to an area of land on the Site constituting the "foot print'' or parcel of a
Major Anchor Store for which the City has issued a "certificate of occupancy" pursuant to the
City"s Building Code, the obligations of this agreement shall be released with respect to that
"foot print" or parcel. In amplification, and not in restriction of the provisions of the preceding
Section, it is intended and agreed that the City and its successors and assigns shall be deemed
beneficiaries of the agreements and covenants provided in this Agreement, both for and in its
oven right and also for the purposes of protecting the interests of the community and other
parties, public or private, in whose favor or for whose benefit such agreements and covenants
have been provided. Such agreements and covenants shall run in favor of the City until this
Agreement is terminated, in whole or in part, pursuant to Article 10 hereof and such agreements
and covenants shall be in force and effect, without regard to whether the City has at any time
been, remains, or is an owner of any land or interest therein to or in favor of which such
agreements and covenants relate. The City shall have the right, in the event of any breach of any
such agreement or covenant, to exercise all the rights and remedies, and to maintain any actions
or suits at law or in equity or other proper proceedings to enforce the curing of such breach of
agreement or covenant. The City intends to preserve and extend the enforceability of the
agreements and covenants provided in this Article by riling appropriate claims in accordance
with Iowa Code Sections 614,24 and 614.25.
-14-
ARTICLE 10.
NATURE OF COVENANTS — TERMINATION
10.1 Construction rnriiin�niof Covenants.
n..�.r�rw ���rr.rr-rr�rnrr�r.rr-r�.r
The covenants contained to this Agreement are entered into by the Developer for the
benefit of the City for purposes of inducing the City to enact the Rezoning Ordinance. Nothing
contained in this Agreement shall be construed as a covenant by Developer or its successors and
assigns to conduct an active business operation, whether continuous or otherwise, on any portion
of the Site.
10.2 Conditl n Precedent to Develone r's Obli ations — T rmination for Failure to obtain
Fin,an,ciri . If by December 1, 2007 Developer fails to obtain written commitments for equity
capital and funding and financing for construction of the North Site improvements required by
4.2 hereof, and submit to the City the evidence of financing and leases required by 5.3 A and
5,3E hereof with respect to the North Site, the City may then., as its remedy for Developer's
failure of performance, repeal or change the zoning designation of the Site as the City deems
appropriate and Developer shall have no cause of action against the City for or by reason of such
repeal or change in zoning regulations.
ARTICLE 11,
REMMDIES-,
11.1 In G en r I
A. Except as otherwise specifically provided in this Agreement, in the event of a
default by either party under this Agreement, the aggrieved party may, by written Notice of
Default to the party in default, demand that it proceed immediately to cure or remedy such
default, and in any event, complete such cure or remedy within ninety (90) days after receipt of
such notice.
B. In the event that Notice of Default is given as provided above and action to
cure or remedy the default is not promptly taken or not diligently pursued, or the default is not
cured or remedied within the time allowed, then the party in default may be declared to be in
breach of this Agreement by the aggrieved panty.
G. In the event of a broach of this Agreement, in addition to such other rights as
the aggrieved party may have hereunder, the aggrieved party may institute such proceedings as
may be necessary or desirable in its opinion to cure and remedy such default or breach,
including,, but not limited to, proceedings to compel specific performance by the party in breach
of its obligations. It is further agreed that as an additional remedy for a breach of this Agreement
by Developer, the City may repeal or change the zoning designations of the Site as the City
deems appropriate, and Developer shall have no cause of action agammt the City for or by reason
of such repeal or change in zoning regulations.
r.Y5_
11.2 Other Rights and Remedies No waiver b Lela .
City and Developer shall have the right to institute such actions or proceedings, as each
may deem desirable for effectuating the purposes of this Article. Provided, that any delay by
City or Developer in instituting or prosecuting any such actions or proceedings or otherwise
asserting its rights shall not operate as a waiver of such rights or to deprive either City or
Developer of or limit such rights in any way; it being the intent of this provision that City and
Developer should not be constrained to exercise such remedies at a time when such party may
still hope otherwise to resolve the problems created by the default involved so as to avoid the
risk of being deprived of or limited in the exercise of such remedies because of concepts of
waiver, lathes, or otherwise. No waiver in fact made by City or Developer with respect to any
specific default by the other party shall be considered or treated as a waiver of the rights of City
or Developer with respect to any other defaults by the other party or with respect to the particular
default, as the case may be, except to the extent specifically waived in writing by City or
Developer.
11.3 Ri h s nd Remedies Cumulative.
The rights and remedies of the parties to this Agreement, -whether provided by law or by
this Agreement, shall be cumulative, and the exercise by either party of any one or more of such
remedies shall not preclude the exercise by it, at the same or different times, of any other such
remedies for the same default or breach or of any of its remedies for any default or breach by the
other party, No waiver made by either party shall be deemed a waiver in any respect in regard to
any other rights of the party making the waiver or of any other obligations of the other party.
ARTICLE 12.
MIKELLANEOUS.
12.1 Re r sent tiv s Not 1nd1*idu u Li bl .
A. No member, official, employee, or agent of City shall be personally liable to
Developer in the event of any default or breach by City or for any amount that may become due
to Developer or for any obligations under the terms of this Agreement.
B. No member, manager, employee, or agent of Developer shall be personally
liable to City in the event of any default or breach by Developer or for any amount that may
become due to the City or for any obligations of Developer under the terms of this Agreement.
C. Notwithstanding anything contained in this Agreement to the contrary, the
person or persons executing this Agreement on behalf of either party shall incur no personal
liability with respect to either party's performance hereunder,
12.2 Fire. Extended Coverase Insurance.
Developer shall keep in force fire and extended coverage insurance upon the Site
improvements with insurance underwriters authonized to do business in the State of Iowa. The
form and amounts of such insurance shall be approved by the City, wWch approval shall not be
-16-
unreasonably withheld. Such insurance shall be in amounts and form satisfactory to Developer's
lender.
12.3 In d em n x tyt Fees, Expenses.
Following Developer's acquisition of legal title to the Site, the Developer shall assume,
defend, indemnify, protect and hold harmless the City and its officers, employees and agents
from any and all claims, demands, actions or causes of action of whatsoever bind occasioned
wholly or In part by any negligent act or omission of Developer and its contractors, agents or
assigns arising out of or in any way connected with its possession of the Site, the construction of
the Site improvements and the development of the Site. The Developer's obligation to
indemnify and hold harmless shall include the obligation to pay all reasonable expenses incurred
by the City in defending itself with regard to any of the aforementioned claims, or in enforcing
the provisions of this paragraph, including all out-of-pocket expenses such as attorney's fees.
Notwithstanding the above, Developer shall have no obligation to indemnify the City for any
claims or causes of action resulting from the acts or omissions of the City in the exercise of the
City's rights under the easements reserved by the City for landscaping, exterior fxtures and
maintenance:
The Developer agrees that with respect to those portions of the Project that it owns and
develops to pay, or cause to be paid, all license fees, permit fees, and insurance premiums related
to its possession of the Site, the construction of the Site improvements and the development of
the Site. It is the intention of the parties that the City shall not incur pecuniary liability by reason
of Developer"s failure to comply with applicable Federal, State and local laws, rules, ordinances,
regulations, orders, licenses and permits and the Developer shall indemnify and hold harmless
the City and its officers, employees, and agents against all such claims by or on behalf of any
person, firm, or corporation, and all costs and expenses incurred in connection with any such
claim or in connection with any action or proceeding brought thereon. Nothing contained in tws
Section 12.3 shall be construed to constitute any form of agreement by Developer to indemnify
the City in connection with any third party challenges to the City's power or authority to enter
into this Agreement, the validity of the Rezoning ordinance, or any approvals required or
otherwise granted in connection herewith by the City,
12.4 Citv Not a Guarantor. Suretv or Partner.
City is not a guarantor or surety for the completion of the Site improvements nor for any
indebtedness incurred by Developer. it is mutually understood that nothing in this Agreement is
IP
intended or shall be construed as in any way creating or establishing the relationship of
copartners between the parties hereto, or as constituting Developer as a contractor, agent or
representative of City for any purpose of in any manner whatsoever.
I Time.
Time is of the essence in the performance of this Agreement,
_l,7_
12.6 Titles of .Articles and Sect'
ons$
Titles of the several sections, subsections, and paragraphs of this Agreement are inserted
for convenience of reference only and shall be disregarded in construing or interpreting any of
the provisions of this Agreement.
12.7 Agreement Bindin on Success rs in Interest.
This Agreement shall inure to the benefit of and shall be binding upon successors and
assigns of the parties.
12.8 Extensions for Non -Working Days.
In the event the last date for performing any act required by this Agreement falls upon a
weekend day or holiday, then the time for performing such act shall be extended to the next
following working day.
12,9 Notices.
A notice, demand, or other communication under this Agreement by either party to the
other shall be sufficiently given or delivered if it is dispatched by registered or certified mail,
postage prepaid, return receipt requested; delivered personally; or sent by overnight courier
service, as follows:
A. In the case of Developer, addressed to:
wolford Development Options, L.L.C.
Attention: President
Pour Squares Business Center
1200 Mountain Creek Road, Suite 102
Chattanooga., TN 37405
B. In the case of City, addressed to:
City of Ames
.Attention: City Clerk
P. o. Sox 811
515 Clark Street
Ames, Iowa 50010
or to such other address as either may, from time to time, designate in writing and forward to the
other as provided in this Article.
1110 ReCoWation.
Following the effectiveness of the Zoning Ordinance, the City Clerk shall cause this
Agreement to be recorded at Developer's expense in the land records of the Story County
Recorder's Office. A duplicate original of this Agreement and all the Appendices shall be
-18-
maintained in the Office of the City Clerk, City Hall, 515 Clark Street., Ames, Iowa, 50010. All
expense of recording this Agreement and any of the documents contemplated by this Agreement
to be recorded by City shall be paid by Developer within fifteen (15) days of notice from City of
the amount thereof.
12.11 Counter arts
This Agreement is executed in two (2) counterparts, each of which shall constitute one
and the same instrument. A copy of this Agreement, including all the Appendices shall be
maintained in the office of the City Clerk of City.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the City has caused this Agreement to be duly executed in
its name and behalf by its Mayor and xts seal to be hereunto duly affixed and attested by its City
Clerk, and the Developer has caused this Agreement to be duly executed in its name and behalf
on or as of the day first above written.
Cn 'Y OF AME S, IOWA, an Iowa
municipal. corporation
By;
---
Ted Tedesco, Mayor
B( Lane I. Vass, City Clerk
STATE OF IOWA., STORY COUNTY, ss:
This instrument was acknowledged before me on the � day of
2005 by Ted Tedesco and Diane R. 'Voss, as Mayor and City Clerk, respectively, of the City of
Ames, Iowa on behalf of whom this instrument was executed.
Notary Public in anfd forte State of
Iowa
[Page 1 of 2 signature pages]
fJILL L. RIPPERGER
COMMISSION # i46549
1v�Y C0;'►i W,1SSION F. XPIRES
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WOLFOID DEVELOPMENT
OPTIONS, L,L.C., a Nevada limited
liability company
By: .
mes L. Wolford, Chie anager
STATE OF AA
COUNTY, ss:
1
This instrument was acknowledged before me on the i�N day of �r1J2.m��, 2005
by James L. Wolford, as Chief Manager of Watford Development Options, L.L.C. on behalf of
wham this instrument was executed.
*' ` TE '•. Kota Public in and for said State
�+ of Notary
SEEI
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-20-
APPENDIX A
LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE
THAT PART OF THE WEST 1/2 OF THE SOUTHEAST 1/4 OF SECTION 31, TOWNSHIP
84 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M,, STORY COUNTY, IOWA. LYING EAST
AND NORTH OF THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 3 5 RIGHT-OF-WAY AND CONTAINING
59.72 ACRES, MORE OR LESS;
AND THE INTERSTATE MGHWAY 3 5 RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTAEMNG 21.12 ACRES
MORE OR LESS
AND
THAT PART OF THE SOUTHEAST 1/4 OF TIE SOUTHEAST 1/4 OF SECTION 31,
TOWNSHIP 94 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE STH P,M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA,
LYING NORTH OF THE INTERSTATE MGHWAY 3 5 RIGHT-OF-WAY AND
CONTAINING 39.90 ACRES, MORE OR LESS;
AND THE INTERSTATE FUGHWAY 3 S RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTAD41NG 0, 29 ACRES
MORE OR. LESS;
AND
THE NORTHEAST 114 OF THE SOUTHEAST 1/4 OF SECTION 31, TOWNSHIP 84
NORTI4� RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA AND
CONTAINING 40.02 ACRES, MORE OR LESS.
AND
PARCEL "A" IN THE NORTHWEST FRACTIONAL QUARTER OF SECTION 5,
TOWNSHIP 93 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA,
AS SHOWN ON THE "PLAT OF SURVEY (AMENDED)" FILED IN THE OFFICE OF TFIE
RECORDER OF STORY" COUNTY* IOWA, ON THE 12TH DAY OF DECEMBER, 1997,
AND RECORDED IN BOOK 15, PAGE 90-91 AND CONTAR14ING 55.18 ACRES MORE OR
LESS.
.AND
PARCEL "C" IN THE EAST FRACTIONAL HALF (E. FRL. V2) OF SECTION SIX (6),
TOWNSHIP EIGHTY-THREE (83) NORM RANGE TWENTY-THREE (23) 'LEST OF TFIE
5TH PM, STORY COUNTY, IOWA, AS SHOWN ON THE "PLAT OF SURVEY" FILED IN
THE OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF STORY COUNTY, IOWA ON THE 22ND DAY OF
J[JLY, 1997, AND RECORDED IN BOOK 15, PAGE 16 AND CONTAP%UNG 96.61 ACRES,
MORE OR LESS.
AND
PART OF THE EAST FRACTIONAL '/2 of SECTION 6, TOWNSHIP 83 NORTH, RANGE
23 WEST OF THE 5TH RM., STORY COUNTY, IOWA,4 LYING IN THE INTERSTATE
FUGHWAY RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTA qNG 10.09 ACRES MORE OR LESS.
.21.
APPENDIX E
LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF THE NORTH SITE
THAT PART OF THE WEST 112 OF THE SOUTHEAST 1/4 OF SECTION 31, TOWNSHIP
84 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA, LYING EAST
AND NORTH OF THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 3 5 RIGHT-OF-WAY AND CONTAINING
59.72 ACRES, MORE OR LESS;
AND THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY 35 RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTAINING 21.12 ACRES
MORE OR LESS;
AND
THAT PART OF TBE SOUTHEAST 1 /4 OF THE SOUTHEAST 1 /4 OF SECTION 31,
TOWNSHIP 84 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA,
LYING NORTH OF THE TATE HIGHWAY 3 S RIGHT-OF-WAY AND
CONTAINING 39.90 ACRES, MORE OR LESS;
AND THE INTERSTATE 11IGHWAY 35 RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTAJNING 0.29 ACRES
MORE OR LESS;
AND
THE NORTHEAST 1I4 OF THE SOUTHEAST 1I4 OF SECTION 31, TOWNSH PP 84
NOR.TFL RANGE 23 WEST OF THE STH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWA AND
CONTARUNG 40.02 ACRES, MORE OR LESS;
PART OF THE EAST FRACTIONAL V2 OF SECTION" 61, TOWNSHIP 83 NORTH, RANGE
23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY" COUNTY, IOWA, LYING IN THE INTERSTATE
HIGHWAY RIGHT-OF-WAY, CONTAINING 10.09 ACRES MORE OR LESS.
-22-
APPENDIX C
LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH SITE
PARCEL "C" IN THE EAST FRACTIONAL HALF (E. FRL. V2) OF SECTION SIX (6),
TOWNSHIP EIGHTY-THREE (83) NORTH„ RANGE TWENTY-THREE (23) WEST OF THE
5 TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOW A. AS SHOWN ON THE "PLAT OF SURVEY" FILED IN
THE OFFICE OF THE RECORDER. OF STORY COUNTY, IOWA ON TIE 22ND DAY OF
DULY, 1997, AND RECORDED IN BOOK 15, PAGE 16 AND CONTAINING 96.61 ACRES,
MORE OR LESS,
-23-
APPENDIX D
LEGAL DESCRIPTION OF THE EAST BARILLA SITE
PARCEL "A" IN THE NORTHWEST FRACTIONAL QUARTER OF SECTION 5,
TOWNSHIP 83 NORTH, RANGE 23 WEST OF THE 5TH P.M., STORY COUNTY, IOWk
AS SHOWN ON THE "PLAT OF SURVEY (AMENDED)" FILED IN THE OMCE OF THE
RECORDER OF STORY COUNT'", IOWA, ON THE I2TH DAY OF DECEMBEIt, 1997,
AND RECORDED IN BOOK 15, PAGE 90-91 AND CONTAINING 55.18 ACRES MORE OR
LESS.
-24-
d.1wG6Ul143\aw-ames development-wdb.do0
APPENDIX E
CONCEPTUAL SITE PLAN
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WOLFORD DEVELOPMENT
OPTIONS, L.L.C., a Nevada limited
liability company
pthes L. Wolford, Chief M aver
STATE OF��nne.S52 c ax►�t�ro COUNTY, ss: ,
This instrument was acknowledged before nee on the day of uvem6 2005
by James L. wolford, as Chief Manager of wolford Development Options, L.L.C. on behalf of
wham this instrument was executed.
*%TaE Va
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Notary Public in d for 5ald State
PIJBL1C,.� [Wage 2 of 2 signature pages)
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January 7, 2008
Honorable Mayor and City Council
P.O. Box 1997
312 1st Avenue East
Kalispell, MT 59901
RE: Glacier Town center Conditions of Approval
Dear Honorable Mayor and Council Members:
Please see the attached copy of the December Gth, 2007, memo to the Kalispell Planning
Board Members from the City of Kalispell planning department prior to their decision to
recommend conditional approval of this project. The attached memo includes ten primary
areas in which the applicant and planning department requested additional consideration by
the planning board prior to their recommended conditional approval of the project.
The recommended conditions of approval before you this evening include 47 recommended
conditions. Of these 47 conditions, we request that the City Council specifically consider six
conditions as highlighted in yellow the attached memo as dated December 6 h. we request
that you conditionally approve of this project, removing or amending these referenced
conditions.
Specifically, with regards to condition E.i.e., we request the following changes:
Pedestrian connections shall also be made to surrounding streets and the bike Math located along
Highway 93 North. A minimum of one wee connections shall be made fmm the bike path along
Highway 93 North to the lifestyle center. A minimum of one I*e connections shall be made firm
the sidewalk along Rose Crossing to the lifestyle center: Where sidewalks cross traffic lanes, either
at public or private streets or within the Marking lot, the ,cidesvalk may be at grade but shall be
constructed of colored or textured concrete, .mane or other contrasting material to visualydenote a
pedestrian way. Simply painting the walk area is not adequate.
Specifically, with regards to condition twenty-five (25), we request the following changes:
The center access off of Highway 93 serving phase 1 shall be reduced from a 1 >0 foot private road
right-of-rvay to a 50 foot private road right-of-way. It shall be designed with 2 svay — 2 lane design
avith athree-quarter C14 movement�:�t--��� access. The road deign shall support a five
foot sidewalk and a minimum 5 foot landscaped boulevard on both eider. The northern and
southern accesses along Highavav 931vi11 include signalised intersections.
In addition to this request, and in response to questions regarding the validity of the traffic
impact study, we are providing a professional biography for Kathleen Krager, transportation
consultant for the applicant.
As a point of clarification, the applicant requests the council provide additional clarification
with regards to the role the Public Works Department and the Montana Department of
Transportation in the review of the traffic impact study as referenced in condition 18.
As a final note, the applicant requests the opportunity to respond to any comment by
members of the public at the end of the public hearing.
Sincerely,
Brent Moore, A.ICP
Senior Planner, CTA
Cc: Highlighted Memo from December 0"
Kathleen Krager professional biography
City of Kalispell
Planning Department
17 - 2"d Street East, suite 21.1, Kalispell, Montana 59901
Telephone: (406) 751-1850
Fax: (406) 751- 185 8
website: kalispellplannink.com
Date: December 6, 2007
To: Kalispell Planning Board Members
From: Sean Conrad, Senior Planner
Re: Response to the December 4, 2007 letter from CTA regarding
conditions of approval for the Glacier Town Center PUD and
preliminary plat
This memo is in response to the questions raised in the December 4th letter
from CTA after discussing CTA's November 27th letter with the developer and
planning staff. The purpose of this memo is to address the developer's
concerns regarding the recommended conditions of approval for both the
Glacier Town Center PUD and preliminary plat.
First, however I would like to address some of the general comments made by
CTA on behalf of wolford Development on the first page of the letter. The letter
states, "The applicant, Wolford Development, firmly believes that the proposed
project design has been developed to insure overall project success." However,
the letter goes on to state, "A number of the following conditions are considered
by wolford Development to be challenging to the overall project success.
Where changes to conditions are requested, the developer believes due
consideration should be given to the applicant's proven success in developing
projects of similar scope in other areas of the country."
The purpose of the recommended conditions of approval placed on the PUD
and preliminary plat are not intended to limit the overall project's success.
Rather, the conditions are placed on the project to insure the development is
designed and developed in accordance with city standards and the goals and
policies provided in the Kalispell Growth Policy. A proven tract record does not
negate the fact that what was deemed appropriate design in Iowa or Arizona
may not be found to be appropriate in the City of Kalispell.
The following conditions were included in the December 4th letter (copy
attached) from CTA with a response from the developer on why he feels that the
condition is not appropriate or otherwise unreasonable. The developer's
responses to the conditions are in italics. Any response from planning staff will
be in normal font with any recommended word changes to the conditions
placed in bold type.
Comment 2 Rekardina :: Pedestrian Connectivity in and Around the
Ll* es; a Center:
E. Kalispell Zoning Regulations, Section 2 7.1 S.o3o(13) (Conditionally
permitted uses in the B-3 zoning district)
Allows retail malls / community shopping centers as a permitted use
within the zoning district. The following conditions shall apply to the
lifestyle center and power center:
i. The two center parking aisles within the lifestyle center shall be
removed and the sidewalks be widened to provide for a more
pedestrian friendly mall.
ii. The developer shall provide the city with a pedestrian access plan
for the entire project site. Both trails and sidewalks shown on the
PUD plan and as a condition of approval shall be included in the
plan.
a. For access through the parking lots serving the lifestyle center
(phase l) and power center (phase 2) the access plan shall
include a minimum 5-foot wide walking path with
accompanying landscaping every third parking roar or Zoo feet,
whichever is less. Landscaping shall include predominantly
living material and include shade trees to be placed at such
intensity and location as to form a canopy where they cover or
line sidewalks.
b. All sidewalks located within parking lots shall have a raised
concrete surface for separation from traffic and parking.
c. Pedestrian connections shall also be made to surrounding
streets and the bike path located along Highway 33 North. A
minimum of three connections shall be made from the bike path
along Highway 93 North to the lifestyle center. A minimum of
two connections shall be made from the sidewalk along Rose
Crossing to the lifestyle center. where sidewalks cross traffic
lanes, either at public or private streets or within the parking
lots the sidewalk may be at grade but shall be constructed of
colored or textured concrete, stone or other contrasting material
to visually denote a pedestrian way. simply painting the walk
area is not adequate.
d. The plan shall be reviewed and approved by the city's site
review committee.
A licant'ss Co mime nt.
The applicant does not believe that these design recommendations will provide
any improvements to the overall proposed design. The applicant does not believe
that the recommended pedestrian ways will improve pedestrian mobility or
provide any substantial increase in improving the overall health, safety and
welfare of pedestrians. An abstract is included as attached to this letter which
references a recent study completed by the Institute of Transportation Engineers
(ITE) which examines the relationship between pedestrian safety and added
safety elements within parking lots. The following abstract summarizes the
study's conclusions:
This study examined the assumptions made by some agencies or
managements that special elements may be needed in parking lots
for pedestrian protection. It also studied the question as to whether
a safety relationship can be found between parking angle, stall
width or other variables in parking layout. Results show a very low
proportion of parking lot accidents involve injuries. pedestrian
accidents represent an even smaller fraction, and special pedestrian
protection within parking lots was not found to be justified (see
abstract for additional information).
In addition to safety related concerns, the applicant believes that the requested
increased hardscape area will not be fully utilized by pedestrians, and will
detract from. the overall design of the parking areas, including reducing
landscaping areas. The applicant has agreed to provide additional landscaped
areas within the parking areas as illustrated on the attached revised site plan,
"Highway 93 Intersections Traffic Circles." Additionally, with regard to point d.,
the applicant requests that the plan be reviewed according to the city's adopted
review requirements.
Staff ornment0
The applicant's architect submitted revised parking lot landscaping plans for
the lifestyle center. These revised plans are attached. The revised plans show
linear landscape strips through the parking lots surrounding the lifestyle
center. Another plan shows ipereased landscaping within the parking lot in
the lifestyle center itself. Staffas main concern is breaking up the large parking
lots with landscaping and pedestrian walkways. Staff would concede that the
number of pedestrian walkways may not be warranted but still believes several
walkways adjacent to or through the parking lot should be provided.
Staff Recommendation:
Staff accepts the revised streetscape plan showing improved landscaping and
pedestrian access within the lifestyle center and recommends deleting staff
condition E. i above.
Staff recommends removing references to condition E. ii. a and b concerning
sidewalks in the interior of the parking lots in exchange for an increase in
landscaping in the landscaping provision of the lifestyle center and power
center as follows:
a. Linear row of landscaping material on average every 200-225 feet
(typically every 3-4 rows).
b. The landscaping feature will include a combination of trees, bushes and
flowers shall extend the length of the parking lot and shall be a minimum
of 10 feet wide.
C. 1-3 inch round river rock is not an approved landscape material.
d. The exterior roar of parking lot islands shall be landscaped islands, not
0ust flat concrete slabs.
e.
f. The plan shall be reviewed and approved by the city's site review
committee.
With regards to condition E. ii. f requiring the plan to be reviewed by the city's
site review committee, this is how city staff would recommend reviewing such a
plan in lieu of the developer actually providing one to staff as part of the project
application.
Comment 4 Re arding Open Space and Parkland:
5. A minimum of 72.3 acres of developed open space and parkland shall be
provided within the Glacier Town center subdivision.
A licant's Comment:
The applicant is concerned that the number or recommended conditions are
reducing the availability of land for development, specifically the additional
requests for additional transportation connections. Therefore, at this time, the
applicant can agree to meeting all state and local requirements for open/park
space dedication through the subdivision review process. At no time will the
open space/park space be reduced to be less than that required in the
subdivision regulations.
In a phone conference on November 29th, 2007, City Planning staff
acknowledged the additional requests for dedicated right-of-way to increase
connectivity to adjacent parcels. In acknowledgement of these requests,
planning staff agreed to draft language allowing some flexibility for the applicant
to decrease overall parkland dedication requirements if requests for public
dedications in the form of roadways become burdensome.
Staff Co m me nt.
The open space and parkland dedications proposed by the developer are
discussed on pages 20 through 22 of the staff report. The developer is
proposing a significant amount of parkland and open space areas within the
subdivision. Not counting the. existing BPA powerline easement on the project
site a total of 65.6 acres of parkland and open space is proposed. With a
maximum potential of 632 dwelling units on the project site the minimum
parkland required by the subdivision regulations equals 13.96 acres. The
amount of proposed parkland/open space is over three times the minimum
required under state subdivision. regulations. Just meeting the minimum
required parkland as the response letter states would drastically reduce the
amount of parkland/open space throughout the project. In light of the
significant amount of parkland/ open space proposed and the developers
concern about providing both additional roadway connections and 72.3 acres
of parkland and open space, planning staff concurs.
Staff Recommendation:
Planning staff would recommend the planning board consider amending
condition 5 as follows:
5. A minimum of 72.3 acres of developed open space and parkland shall be
provided within the Glacier Town center subdivision less any additional
required right-of-ways for local roads and Highway 93 created by the
conditions.
Comment 5 RegardingRggarding lrri ation:
11. The landscaping and irrigation plans for the buffer areas along Highway
93 North, Whitefish Stage Road, and the perimeter of the project site
shall be reviewed and approved by the Parks and Recreation Department
and developed as follows:
A. Highway 93 North buffer shall include an irrigated landscaping
corridor with undulating topography and have a mix of tree
plantings with a ground cover predominately of lawn.
B. Whitefish Stage Road shall include an irrigated landscaping
corridor with undulating topography with landscaped berms a
minimum of 5 feet in height from grade and have a mix of tree
plantings with a ground cover predominately of lawn.
C. The perimeter buffer shall include an irrigated landscaping
corridor with a minimum width of 20 feet and have a mix of tree
plantings with a ground cover predominately of lawn. Buildings
shall be located a minimum of 20 feet from the edge of the
bike/pedestrian trail.
Applicant's Comment:
We request that "irrigation" be removedfrom the above statements. While the
� �
applicant intends to irrigate appropriate areas, numerous native plant species do
not require irrigation, nor is it the applicant's intent to use an excessive amount
of water in areas that would be appropriately landscaped without irrigation. The
applicant feels that this is a more appropriate issue to address during the
detailed site plan. review process, and shares in the overall concern for providing
an effective landscaped corridor where plants thrive with or without irrigation.
The approved irrigation and landscaping plans shall be installed prior to
final plat of the respective phase where the buffer is located. Round river
rock 1 "-3" in diameter is not an appropriate landscape material.
Applicant's Comment:
The applicant requests the ability to bond for the unfinished improvements of this
portion of the project prior to final plat.
Staff Comment.
The purpose for recommending a landscaping and irrigation plan was to
provide a well manicured landscaped buffer along the major roadways of
Whitefish Stage and Highway 93. Pages 22 through 24 of the staff report
provides further detail of the type of landscaping city staff is recommending in
these areas. While some areas of the perimeter buffer may not warrant
irrigated landscaping, such as the area around the Stillwater River, other areas
around the residential portion may.
Staff Recommendation:
Staff recommends the planning board consider the following amendment to
condition 11:
11. The landscaping and irrigation plans for the buffer areas along Highway
93 North and Whitefish Stage road, .
fty
shall be reviewed and approved by the Parks and Recreation Department.
Landscaping within the perimeter buffer areas of the project site
may require irrigatin where appropriate as determined by the
developer and the Parks and Recreation Department. The buffer
areas shall be developed as follows:
A. Highway 93 North buffer shall include an irrigated landscaping
corridor with undulating topography and have a rmix of tree
plantings with a ground cover predominately of lawn.
B. Whitefish Stage Road shall include an irrigated landscaping
corridor with undulating topography with landscaped berms a
minimum of 5 feet in height from grade and have a mix of tree
plantings with a ground cover predominately of lawn.
C. The perimeter buffer shall include a
landscaped corridor with a minimum width of 20 feet and have a
mix of tree plantings with a ground cover
Buildings shall be located a minimum of 20 feet from the edge of
the bike/pedestrian trail.
The approved irrigation and landscaping plans shall be installed prior to final
plat of the respective phase where the buffer is located. Round river rock 1 "-3"
in diameter is not an appropriate landscape material. Note: Due to seasonal
changes bonding is permitted for the approved landscaping/ irrigation
plans.
Comment 6 Regarding Roundabouts:
12. The following road intersections shall include engineered roundabouts as
part of phase 1:
■ Glacier Drive and Glacier Loop
■ Many Glacier Drive and the roadway serving phase 3.
■ Two roundabouts along Rose crossing at intersections to be
determined by the traffic impact study with input from. the Public
Works Department.
AuRlicant's Comment:
Each of the proposed roundabout locations have been so indicated on the
attached exhibit illustrating the overall traffic patterns within the subject
property.
The proposed roundabouts are at the following locations:
• Glacier Drive and Glacier Loop has been relocated to the intersection of
Sweet Meadow Lane and Many Glacier Road
• For a point of clarification, we understand the recommended Many Glacier
Drive roundabout to be intended for the intersection. of Many Glacier Road
and the roadway serving phase 3.
• Two roundabouts have been identified on Rose Crossing as conceptual
locations, in recognition of the condition.
Staff Recommendation:
Staff does not recommend any changes to this condition. The applicants do
propose 4 potential roundabout sites on the attached revised site plan..
Comment 7 Regarding Si na e:
14. The signs within the Glacier Town Center shall adhere to the sign plans
proposed in the application and referenced in condition 3.K. subject to
the following conditions:
A. The freestanding sign designated 1.1 of Exhibit H of the application
shall be located east of the 100 foot buffer area along Highway 93
North. The use of message boards shall be prohibited.
Applicant's Comment,,,.
The freestanding sign designated 1. I of Exhibit H will not have a message
,board. However, the signs should be viewed as GATEWAY ELEMENTS,
designed to complement and be an integral element associated with the Lifestyle
Center of Glacier Town Venter. Materials, colors, lighting and graphics will work
together and be constructed to the highest standards. In order to reflect the
proposed access changes recommended for the project, the applicant is
requesting two of these gateway elements, one each to be located at the Primary
Entrance .Drives at the North and south Primary Entrances into the project. The
intention is that they be placed on the median., a short distance from the
intersection with Highway 93, at both of the signalized entrances to Glacier
Town Venter.
E. The two monument signs designated 2.1 of Exhibit H of the
application shall be located along the eastern edge of the 100 foot
buffer area along Highway 93 North.
Applicant's Comment:
The applicant requests that one monument sign designated as 2.1 of Exhibit H
be in a like manner viewed as a GA TEWA Y rather than a sign. The
design, materials, colors, lighting and graphics, which are integral components of
the monument entrance element, will reflect the architecture of the Lifestyle
Venter. The intention is that there will he a single gateway element of this design
along the west, at the secondary entrance off Highway 93. Again, this is a
change resulting from the proposed re -orientation of the access points off
Highway 93.
Each of the changes in response to condition 14.A. and 14.B. is requested in
order to direct traffic to the primary entrances at the northern and southern
access locations off of Highway 93.
ii. wall sign area for the west, south and north facing walls of the
building shall be limited to a total of 50% of the total sign area
allowed for the lot.
A licant's Comment:
The applicant agrees to condition D. ii.
Staff Comment:
The proposed signs for the project site are discussed in the staff report on
pages 27 through 29. The purpose for limiting the signage along Highway 93 is
to maintain the visual integrity along this portion of the highway and to meet
the intent of policy 3.f of goal 1 of the Highway 93 North growth Policy
Amendment. This policy states, "Additional design standards should be
developed to insure that signage enhances development, not detracts from it.
Wall signage integrated into the overall building design is preferred over free
standing signage. Monument signs are preferred over other types of free
standing signage. where development entrance signage or monument signage
is proposed, it should be done so as part of a unified planned unit development
concept."
The planning board should note that four other PUD projects built along
Highway 93 North to the south of this project site have also had their signage
limited. In some cases it was limited much more than that proposed for the
Glacier Town center.
Buffalo commons, located in the area of Kalispell Regional Hospital, has the
following sign restrictions for the commercial/ retail/ office lots along Highway
93:
• For lots 200 feet in width or more one freestanding monument sign 24
square feet per face with a maximum height of 6 feet and oriented towards
the interior of the project site.
• wall or marquee signs shall be single faced and not exceed 24 square feet
per sign and oriented towards the interior of the project site.
Mountain View Plaza, located on the east side of Highway 93, has major
tenants such as Home Depot, Target, Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond.
The sign limitations for the center are as follows:
* wall signs are calculated at 1.5 square feet for each frontage foot of the
longest side of the building. This sign area is the total amount of signage for
the entire building. Note: The Kalispell zoning ordinance provides for 3
square feet per lineal foot of building frontage when the building frontage is
less than 200 feet. If over 200 feet the sign area is calculated at 3 square
feet up to 200 feet plus one square foot for each additional lineal foot of
frontage beyond 200 feet.
■ Two monument signs are permitted. The monument signs have a maximum
height of 5 feet and have a maximum sign area of 90 square feet and 60
square feet per side.
• Two entrance signs are permitted. The entrance sign along Highway 93 has
a maximum height of 22 feet and a sign area not to exceed 158 square feet
per side. The second sign along west Reserve Drive has a maximum height
of 18 feet and a sign area not to exceed 117 square feet per side. The two
entrance signs were required to meet setbacks from the right-of-way line per
the zoning ordinance.
ok
Spring Prairie Center, across from Mountain View Plaza, has major tenants
such as Lowe's and Costco. The following sign restrictions were applied to this
development:
• Ground mounted signs have a maximum height of 24 feet and 120 square
feet in total surface area. Only three ground mounted signs are permitted,
one for each of the three phases of the project, and the sign shall only
advertise the primary tenant of the phase and the name of the development.
Note: The only sign currently installed within Spring Prairie is a monument
sign for Lowe's. This sign is 15 feet tall and has a sign area of 51 square
feet.
* All wall signs are required to conform to the Kalispell Zoning Ordinance.
Hutton Ranch is located on the east side of Highway 93 just south. of Mountain
View Plaza. Major tenants in Hutton Ranch currently include Sportsman Ski
Haus and the Signature Theaters. The following sign restrictions were applied
to this development:
Two freestanding signs displaying the name of the development as well as
individual business within the development.
• No other detached freestanding signs were permitted along Highway 93.
• 4 monument signs are permitted within the interior of the project. Note:
The monument signs are intended to be common signs for the anchor and
major tenants within the Hutton Ranch development. The maximum height
of the monument sign is 6 1/2 feet with a total sign area for the businesses of
16 square feet.
■ All wall signs were required to meet the Kalispell Zoning ordinance.
Staff Recommendation:
Planning staff recommends amending condition 14.A and 14. B to allow the two
freestanding signs, one at Rose Crossing the other at the access road just north
of the cemetery and one monument sign at the center access. The location
restrictions of the signs should be maintained as well as sections C and D of
this Condition.
Comment S Re arding COM letion of Public Infrastructure:
2. A minimum of two-thirds of the necessary public infrastructure for
subdivisions on the Glacier Town Center site shall be completed prior to
final plat submittal for each phase and that both the water and sewer
systems serving the individual phase be operational.
A licant's Comment:
It is the applicant's intent that all improvements shall be constructed according to
state and local subdivision standards regarding construction of public
improvements and financial guarantees of improvements. A subdivision
improvements agreement will be negotiated prior to final plat approval, and will
address the portion of improvements to be constructed prior to final plat.
The following information provides additional clarification for why the applicant
believes this requirement is unusual and the difficulties that it presents, as well
as providing proposed solutions to this issue.
The following describes the anticipated normal progress of construction planned
for the Glacier Town Center. In connection with Lifestyle Center projects
comparable to the contemplated project, the developer commences construction of
the site work on the project with a goal of completing the site work and then
transferring the separately platted tracts of land to the Anchor Stores as well as
outparcel owners so that the new owners can begin construction of their building
as soon as possible. In order for all portions of all of the parties' construction to
be completed within the shortest length of time, the highest priority is to grade
the site to be in a position to deliver the land to each of the Anchor Stores in order
to commence their construction..
The customary and required process is to plat the applicable phase of the Center
in one plat. In that plat, the Anchor Store tracts will be established, and the
outparcel tracts would also be established. The plat has to be completed prior to
the conveyance of the applicable tract to the Anchor Stores.
Simultaneously With the grading, the infrastructure work is started by the
developer and is in progress. All of the infrastructure work is not finally
completed until the latter portion of the construction project. This is done to avoid
"stacking" of construction periods. For example, if all of the infrastructure were
required to be completed before an Anchor store were conveyed their platted
tract and began construction, this "stacking" of construction periods would result
in the overall construction period being so long that the project would not be
feasible or within commercially acceptable completion periods.
As the result of these requirements the developer will pursue the grading of the
site and deliver Anchor Store tracts as quickly as possible upon completion of the
grading of the site and thus very little of the infrastructure work would be
completed at the time of the delivery of the first Anchor store tract. Again, the
priority is to grade the sites, deliver the pads and have all of the construction
occur simultaneously such that there is no stacking of the construction periods.
Unlike a residential construction, the transferees of the Anchor Store tots and
outparcels tots are sophisticated parties who require the developer to complete,
before the opening of the Center, any infrastructure which is incomplete at the
time of the delivery of the parcel.
The applicant proposes that all of the subcontractors in excess of $100, 000
performing infrastructure work on the site will be bonded. The city would be
named as a dual obligee on such bonds. In addition, financing will be in place to
complete all of the infrastructure improvements prior to the request for the
platting of the property. Thus, the developer would and could provide evidence
of financing to the city in addition to the bonds in order to establish that the
construction contracts are in place and the financing for construction of the
infrastructure is in place and the infrastructure work will be completed. Such
evidence would be in the form of a letter from the bank indicating that a loan is
in place containing usual and customary terms and conditions for projects
comparable to this project. This should provide the city with satisfactory
evidence that bonding is in place and that the work will be clone and that bank
financing is available in order to complete the work. Therefore, the applicant
pplicant
requests that this condition be removed.
Staff Comment:
The purpose of this condition is to insure that the minimum amount of public
infrastructure (water lines, sewer limes and adequate road access to the lots) is
installed prior to final plat. The main reason for this condition is to protect
primarily residential lots whose future owners may want to construct soon.
after purchasing the lot. The developer has stated that due to agreements
made between wolford Development and future lot owners within the
commercial portion of the project; this is already covered between the two
private parties.
Staff Recommendation:
Staff recommends the planning board consider amending the condition as
follows*
22. A minimum of two-thirds of the necessary public infrastructure for
residential subdivisions on the Glacier Town center site shall be
completed prior to final plat submittal for each residential phase and
that both the water and sewer systems serving the residential phase be
operational.
Comment 10 Re ardi I-I1 1�r�ra Access:.
At the planning board's November 2 7th meeting the board was provided a letter
from. the Montana Department of Transportation (MDOT) regarding the
Departments thoughts on access onto Highway 93. The next day MDOT sent
another letter, dated November 28th , to CTA clarifying their previous letter
which the planning board received. In the November 28th letter MDOT states
that they have reviewed and approved the conceptual design presented to there.
on November 26th. This conceptual design includes two signal intersections on
the north and south ends of the project site along Highway 93. The conceptual
design also includes a 3/4 turn movement intersection for the main access into
the lifestyle center.
At the planning board's November 2 7thhearing several planning board
members cited the growth policy and its intent to limit or outright prohibit the
number of signal intersections north of west Deserve Drive.
Based on the discussion at the planning board hearing the developer has opted
to revise the proposed IUD site plan slightly to illustrate what the conceptual
access plan onto Highway 93 would look like. Attached is a revised site plan
showing the two primary entrance points into the project site from Highway 93
with the secondary entrance utilizing a 3I4 turn movement intersection. The
following was included in CTA's December 4th letter:
Transportation and Access onto US 93:
In addition to the above referenced comments to the planning staffs proposed
conditions, the planning board in the public hearing on November 27th, 2007)
requested additional clarification with regards to access issues onto US 93.
Attached is a letter from Krager and Associates regarding transportation
issues. Additionally, two exhibits are included which provide an illustration of
the location of access points "Highway 93 Intersections Traffic Circles", and the
overall transportation circulation proposed for the project "Conceptual Traffic
Diagram" .
The following is a summary of the proposed access onto ITS 93 and is
illustrated.` by the attached exhibit "H" 93 Intersections. Traffic Circles":
The applicant requests two pr*ma.ry access points, one at Rose Crossing,
g
and one at the Southern Access point.
o These.:proposed entrances would serve as primary entrances into
the Lifestyle center.
The applicant requests a secondary entrance as indicated on the
attached. site plan.
o In recognition of the secondary nature of this access, the applicant
wf1 red.uee this road cress -section at the secondary access point
from. a four -lane to. a two-lane facility.
An overall transportation exhibit illustrating the planning department's
recommended. conditions for connectivity in relation to the projects proposed
traffic circulation plan and access issues is also included `as attached.
Staff -comment
In review ng a d deliberating the proposed Glacier Town tenter project the
planning boarrd should consider the following with, respect to the growth policy
and access onto Highway 93:
• The :Kalispel1. Growth Policy is an official public'document adopted by the
city` of Kalispell as a guide future growth in the city.The oath olio is
policy
not a lam or regulation, but rather the adopted policy when making land.
use decisions for the community.
■ when considering coning, subdivis"ions and other development issues;
the grow rt . policy should be consulted and the development should be in
substantial compliance with the foals and policies. 3"he plan is intended
to reflect the econorrnc, social, and environmental policy of the Ci of
p Y tY
Kalispell, aria is fundamentally, a glide to the physical development of
the community.
Policy 3 under Goal .1 of the Highway 93 North Growth. Policy
amendment states the fallowing:
The fallowing design standards are intended to enhance the gateway
entrances to Kalispell
a. Access control is important along the gateway entrance roads.
b. Access should be coordinated so as to allow only collector or arterial
streets to intersect. The judicious use of right -in right -out
approaches, frontage roads and good internal development street
design should be the rule to reduce or eliminate the need for direct
access onto major gateway roads.
Hover the road access points are controlled onto Highway 93 will ultimately be
up to the MDOT. However, the number of access points onto Highway 93 is
based on internal design and the land uses within the Glacier Town Center.
The planning hoard should consider how policy 3 above should be interpreted
in making their recommendation to the city council.
The city is proposing to pursue an access control study with M D CST along the
North 93 corridor to determine appropriate locations for future access points,
frontage roads, potential junior interchanges, etc. Such a study and funding
would take a minimum of 2 years.
ra r and Associates Inc,
n Street, S u ite 210
Deny y� 03-31 4
303-446- fax 303-446-0270
Kathleen Krager is a licensed professional engineer in the states of Montana,
Colorado, and Washington. She is also a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer
(PTOE), which is an international certification for engineers that specialize in
Transportation and Traffic. She has been working exclusively in this field for over
thirty years and has been president of Krager and Associates since 1985.
Ms. Krager has a Bachelors of Science Degree in civil Engineering. from Iowa State
University and has completed advanced course work at Northwestern Traffic
Institute, University of Wisconsin, and the University of Colorado. She is a past
president of the Institute of Transportation Engineers Colo radolVVyoming chapter
and is a recipient of the Chapter ITE Professional of the Year Award and the
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Outstanding Service Award.
Ms. Krager is well-known for her work in access management and related
intersection design. In 1981 she directed a research project for the US congress
entitled "Access Control Demonstration Project". Many of today's common. access
management strategies were developed in this project, including the 314 deslgn
intersection. After many years of preparing specific access control plans for both
rural and urban roadways, Ms. Krager co-authored the Colorado State Highway
Access code, 1998.
With her work in access management, Ms. Krager has worked on numerous
conceptual/preliminary designs for intersections and interchanges. In 1987 Ms.
Krager provided the access control plan and conceptual interchange designs for US
85 from Denver to conifer. The initial designs included the construction of three
interchanges, which were named junior interchanges, since they did not meet
interstate standards. Those interchanges proved successful, so CDOT has added
five more junior interchanges along that section of highway. Nis. Krager has also
provided conceptual design and analysis for interstate interchanges to increase
their capacity, including 1-225/Parker Road and I-25/58t" Avenue in Denver.
Nis. Krager's private sector work has included analysis of retail, office, and
residential developments of al.1 sizes. Her recent large --scale, mined -use projects
include Centerra (680 acres of mixed -use, including a life-style center), Interquest
North and South (a combined retail/off ce park development with 2,172, 00 square
feet of floor area), and Candelas (a residential/retail development of 500 acres).
rwthleen Krager Experience
Page 2
Her national clients include Home Depot, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Safeway, Shop-Ko,
Circuit City, Target, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Starhucks. Ms. Krager has provided
Traffic Impact Studies in nine states. In Montana, she has worked in Billings,
Bozeman, Butte, Missoula, Great Falls, and Kalispell. In addition, Ms. Krager has
testified as an expert in Traffic Engineering in Montana District Court.
Good evening. My name is Bryan Schutt. I am president of the Kalispell City Planning Board. As the City
Council deliberates the GLC, I felt I should describe some of the discussions the Planning Board had on this
project. It is a very large project and it deserves a commensurate review by our local government.
One of Kalispell's advantages as we grow is that we can see hover various ideas have fared when built elsewhere.
And as you look at growth across the west, you can see the same patterns being built and how well they
succeed. Myrt Webb, former city manager of C.Falls, wrote a really good editorial. in the paper a few weeks
ago. He described how roadways are defined not by their names or highway numbers, but by their traffic
carrying -functions. From local roads through arterials up to major highways (he calls them mobility corridors), -
each road has a set of characteristics that help it fill its particular role. And a road can really only be one type of
road at any one time. The characteristics that mare a road suitable for residential use are lost when it becomes
an arterial. And a free -flowing highway does a terrible job as an urban arterial.
There are dozens of examples where perfectly good highways have been ruined by the land use decisions
around them, Drive Highway 2 east out of Spokane. Drive Highway 95 north out of Coeur -de -lane. You can
even drive Reserve down in Missoula, if you have the time. what all of those roads have in common is that the
traffic -carrying capacity was sacrificed in favor of providing more access to roadside businesses. As access
points multiplied, up went more stoplights, down went the average speeds, and those roads were no longer
efficient ways to get from Point A. to B, but rather a low -speed urban arterial serving adjacent businesses. Once
you allow urban densities of development without controlling, coordinating, and rationalizing the highway
accesses, you won't ever install enough traffic lights or add enough turn lanes. Once we give up the free-
flowing character of a. highway and replace it with an urban arterial road you will never get that character back..
Keeping highway 93 between Kalispell and Whitefish as a free -flowing mobility corridor has been a long -held
planning goal in the Flathead. Note that I am not saving Highway 93 will be free of development. There are
many good reasons for growth to happen near Ilighway 93. Utilities lines are there, compact, growth can reduce
sprawl, city services are cheaper to deliver, etc. There will be development moving north of this town_ But we
can avoid the same traffic mistakes other cities have made, and we can preserve highway 93 as the mobility
corridor that has been envisioned.
In designing the south end of the west -side bypass, II41DOT declined to put in an interchange from the by-pass
onto Hwy 93, opting instead for a traffic signal. Their rationale was that enough strip -style development with
uncontrolled access was already happening to both the north and south and a free --flowing interchange would be
a waste of resources.
We are doing a much better job on the north side of town. Between the new four -lane section coming south and
the junior interchange that will happen at Church Drive, we are piecing together the sort of mobility corridor
that was envisioned in our North 93 planning efforts. The North 93 plan is all about limiting and rationalizing
highway access while providing safe and efficient transportation to the adjoining development.
The planning board really wrestled with how to reconcile the scale of this development with that desired
character of Highway 93. At build -out, this project may generate 75,000 car trips per day. This is triple what
Main Street is through downtown today. When a project of this scale is inserted into the road network, its
traffic loads must be distributed as widely as possible. I know that Whitefish Stage Road isn't much to took at
right now, but it will eventually be an urban arterial, with intersections and signals to match. Directing more of
the Watford traffic onto Whitefish Stage would certainly help. Planning now for a new signal at the southern
access onto Reserve is in keeping with the urban character of that road, much more so than two or three new
signals on 93.
The Planning Board discussed limiting the north -bound 93 access to a right -in, right -out only. I personally felt
it would give adequate access without compromising the highway. We deadlocked on that vote. We discussed
capitulating on the access issue and accepting the two lights the developer is requesting. We deadlocked on that
vote. I guess for you that is the crux of your decision ahead. How do we handle access onto 93, and how does
this project integrate into the local traffic network?
This town has worked long and hard to get funding for the west --side bypass_ Based on getting that bypass, we
have made a great many planning decisions. we made a decision to end the by-pass at Reserve to avoid the
cost of a new bridge over the Stillwater Diver. We've made decisions about where the low -speed city streets
should end and the open highway should began. This by-pass is integral to our future traffic solutions.
Unfortunately, it has taken a long time to get this by-pass to come to be. But that does not mean we abandon it.
If a by-pass is designed to allow free -flowing traffic around Kalispell, do we really want to end the by-pass into
a string of red lights north of Reserve? That's not good planning, that's surrender.
I understand that MDOT has given its acceptance for two new lights for GLg. But we need to remember that
traffic engineers are narrowly concerned with traffic counts and speed limits, not the overall character of the
road and the city grooving around it. The city of Kalispell intentionally wrote the wolford project into the North
93 growth policy amendment so that we could have that control, so we could have some say over the character
of our grooving town. The traffic engineers in Helena do not have to live every day with the planning decisions
they make for Kalispell. The people of Kalispell do. If we don't set a line here, what do we say to the next
developer who wants to add signals out to Tronstad, or to Church Drive, or to Majestic Valley? Do the math --
if each new developer is allowed 2 or 3 signals per half -mile, there are 8-1 o traffic lights between here and the
landfill. That is poor reactions substituting for good planning.
And there must be consideration be given for how we are going to pay for the infrastructure needed by GLg. If
making growth pay for itself is more than just a slogan, GLC is the kind of large-scale project that can afford to
absorb those up -front infrastructure costs. 1, agree that it isn't fair to have the developer pay for an entire junior
interchange at Rose grossing. But providing a significant down payment on one is a reasonable request. If
one -quarter or even one-half half of the cost of a junior interchange can be obtained, this money could be
combined with some traffic impact fees, and can get us within striking distance of affording an interchange in a
few years. Remember, it will be the wolford's customers using that Rose Crossing interchange too. An
intersection that delivers his customers efficiently and safely to his lifestyle center is in his interests as well as
ours. And also remember that in part, it was the prior planning efforts by the citizens of Kalispell and the
Flathead that made this market so attractive to Mr. Wolford. As he brings growth with him, it seems reasonable
to make him (through his future customers) pay for a significant share of the costs associated with that growth.
The planning board has forwarded to this council an update to the Transportation Plan. In that draft, there is a
long list of road projects from the last transportation plan thirteen years ago. Some of those needs been
accomplished, but the majority are still undone. with the volume of growth associated with the GLC, we will
need an interchange at Rose Crossing sooner rather than later. Do we really want to add "Junior interchange at
Rose Crossing & 93" as the first new item on our next to-do list?
In a way, I am glad I am not in your shoes. You've got to actually decide what the city of Kalispell will look
like for decades to come. I understand that this is a great project, with Mr. wolford providing many amenities
and perks. But the way the GLC is currently designed is not in keeping with the spirit of our plans for Highway
93. As our elected representatives, it is up to this city council to look out for the best long-term interests of
Kalispell. I thank you for your time and wish you a good evening.
Kalispell City Council Work Session
December 17, 2007
Mayor Kennedy: The Kalispell City Workshop and I would welcome any public
comments at this time. If there is any member of the public that
would like to address the Council on any item on the agenda or not
on the agenda now would be your opportunity, other than the
developers that will be doing the presentation. Is there any
member of the public that would like to address the Council? Any
member? Any member? okay, we will close that. We're going to
go right to the presentation. It's the first item on our agenda, Mr.
Patrick.
Mr. Patrick: Your Honor, before we begin here I would ask Council's
consideration to remove the 9/ 11 update. We were asked to void
on this for the time being and bring forward another workshop in
January. So if that's okay...
Mayor Kennedy: It's removed.
Mr. Patrick: Thank you.
Unknown Speaker: It's going to be a short night.
Mr. Patrick: Merry Christmas Mayor and Council. One item on the main
agenda and one item here.
Mayor Kennedy: Very good. All right, let's go forward.
Mr. Patrick: Your Honor, tonight, Your Honor and Council tonight what we
would like to do is ask, as we do many of our developers, ask them
to, ask the developers for Glacier Town Center to give sort of a
broad overview of the project. This did pass Planning Commission
last Tuesday night. Council will be seeing it in the near future, and
we wanted to give you an idea of what was in store. Again without
getting into the details of this it's going to be more of a concept
presentation tonight and in that regard, I don't know, Chad or....
Mayor Kennedy: Is there anything that the staff is going to bring forward, or not at
this point?
Mr. Patrick: I think we would like the developers to lead here.
Mayor Kennedy: Very good.
Page 1 of 38
Mr. Patrick: Chad Wolford is the developer/owner of the project.
Chad Wolford: Hi. Chad Wolford, Wolford Development of Chattanooga,
Tennessee. I appreciate you all taking the time to review this
project this evening. If I could I am just going to introduce the
team here and then turn it over to our land planners for a brief
presentation and then we will do a question and answer session to
follow. Ken Kalvig of Kalvig and LeDuc is our legal council.
Kathleen Krager with Krager and Associates is our traffic engineer
on the project. We have Dan....
Dan: New guy on the block.
Chad Wolford: I'm just drawing a mind blank here, I'm. sorry. Dan Perkins with
Miller McCoy, or excuse me, with Morgan Construction here, our
General Contractor; Wayne McCoy with Miller McCoy, our Civil
Engineer and Ian McCaskill with Architecture Plus, our architects
on the project. We also have Wayne Freeman and Brent Moore
here too, with CTA to do the presentation. So, thank you all for
your time.
Mayor Kennedy: Thank you.
Brent Moore: Good evening. My name is Brent Moore and I am with CTA
Architects, 2 S. Main, in Kalispell.. I am just going to go through a
brief presentation, and Kathleen Krager is also going to participate
in this presentation. At the end as Chad mentioned we will be
happy to answer any questions you have about the development.
As you are aware this project is within your growth policy, future
land use map. It is designated as KN- I as approximately in this
location along US 93, West Reserve and Whitefish Stage Road.
Your growth policy identifies that area as the Kalispell North
mixed use area. Specifically, the development of an integrated,
residential/commercial development neighborhood between US 93,
West Reserve Drive and Whitefish Stage Road. So this is where
we come into play as land planners and architects. We really look
at your policy as a guiding for our plan and this is our land use
plan. If you notice, the predominant feature of the land use plan is
a Lifestyle Center adjacent to US highway 93. It is approximately
550,000 square feet as proposed. It would also have approximately
35 (thirty-five) lots around that central Lifestyle Center. Going
east on the property there is proposed to be a large park area
through the middle of the property and then there is a transition
from this higher intensity commercial uses to mixed --use patterns
along the boundary of the park in the center. In addition, there is a
Page 2 of 38
proposed community center that's approximately five acres, in this
location. There is a mixture of housing types to the north and the
east of the property. Those -mixtures of housing types include town
homes in this area, some higher density town homes to lower
density single family residences along the project boundary. It
also includes a neighborhood center at Rose Crossing.
Unknown Speaker: Sir? Are there phases involved there that we could be aware of in
that last...?
Brent Moore: Yeah. I'll get you... I have a phasing map...
Unknown Speaker: Okay. Fine. Thank you.
Brent Moore: This is again a more detailed view of the overall conceptual site
plan. Again you see the Lifestyle Center; you see the out parcels
filling up with structures. Again, the mixed use along that corridor
there and the residential along those areas. And this is a phasing
plan; it is proposed to be five phases. In total, the project would
have 632 (six hundred thirty-two) residences and approximately
1. 8 million square feet of commercial uses. The first phase as
proposed is approximately 191 acres, and would be for this
predominant commercial portion here. As you see the phases go
out to approximately 2020, so a project of this scale does have a
long-term build -out, over a 15 [fifteen] year period. This is a
central park prospective of you looking on that predominant 25
acre feature in the center of the project which separates some of the
higher intense commercial uses again from the residential uses.
This central park feature, not only is the applicant agreeing to
dedicate that portion to the city, but to make some significant
improvements to the overall central park within Phase 1 of the
project. This is the Lifestyle Center again, a more detailed view of
the site plan of the Lifestyle Center. You'll see some of the access
points that our traffic engineer will discuss in greater detail further
in this presentation. But you'll see, as proposed, the applicant has
proposed two primary intersections at the north and the south.
Again you see some roundabouts at those locations, and are
proposing a three-quarter intersection at that center location. Just a
little bit of the overall architectural character of the theme of the
project, it's generally on a western motif. The center of the project
will have a food -court and you will see a variety of architectural
themes coming from that central focus point, which would be a
central entrance into the project. Again, the center of this Lifestyle
Center is walk -able and does allow for angled parking. So you get
a sense of the character of an open air mall. Again, this is one of
the character sketches from that central food court area. Of course,
Page 3 of 38
the project also proposes to connect to your overall city system,
and there are some primary connections. Rose Crossing is
proposed within the first phase of the project, will be constructed
by the developer and it will connect US Highway 93 and Whitefish
Stage Road. There will also be a connection, as proposed, down to
West Reserve Drive. And then internal connections within the
property, larger connections- collector type connections- through
the property. In addition the applicant is proposing four
connections to the north. You will notice in your staff report, in
the Planning Board's recommendation that they have
recommended six connections. The applicant is requesting four
connections to the north and some additional connections into
these adjacent areas. I think that we'll go over a little bit more in
the planning staff s presentation that will be coming up. But I just
wanted to give a general, overall character to the proposed access
and connectivity issues. In addition, you will see there are four
locations proposed as conceptual locations for roundabouts.
Again, that was a staff recommendation and a Planning Board
recommendation that the applicant is willing to construct as a part
of the overall project. At this point in time I'm going to ask
Kathleen Krager to come up and talk a little bit more about the
transportation issues. Thank you.
KathleenKrager: Good evening Your Honor, members of Council. My name is
Kathleen Krager. I am a transportation engineer with the firm of
Krager and Associates out of Denver, Colorado. And just to
reassure you I am a registered professional engineer in the State of
Montana, as well as a professional traffic operations engineer.
This simply means that I specialize in traffic, and don't ask me to
look at a drainage study, because I would be really bad at that. I.
have conducted a traffic impact study for this site. That the traffic
impact study has been reviewed by city staff as well as the
Montana Department of Transportation. And that study not only
looked at all of the access points that serve this center, but also
looks at a number of city streets that you should be aware of.
Including the intersections of Rose Crossing/Highway 93, Reserve
Street/Highway 93, Reserve Street and Whitefish Stage Road,
Rose Crossing and whitefish Stage Road, Rose Crossing and
Highway 2. So, the study does encompass a fairly large area. It
looks at a short term analysis, basically with the Lifestyle Center
built, but it also considers long-term, which is the year 2030. It
assumes total build out of the site as well as full build out of the
Kalispell land plan in the area using numbers that were developed
for the 93 bypass study. The traffic study has the basic analysis in
it, but I wanted to sort of show it to you in a slightly different way
tonight to try to make sense of some of the access issues that we
Page 4 of 38
discussed at Planning Board and that you're going to be looking at
over the next month or so. (I've got to look at the next slide.) The
applicant is recommending access to a number of locations
including Reserve Street, Rose Crossing up to highway 2. But the
main access is to highway 93 and we are recommending two
signalized intersections; one at Rose Crossing, one at the southern
side of the site, which is called Access B, and a three-quarter
movement at Access A. The Montana Department of
Transportation is also recommending this plan. with this plan, the
numbers I am showing you are year 2030 numbers with full build
out of everything in the area. Your critical intersection for access
to this site is Rose Crossing, so I'll sort of concentrate at Rose
Crossing and 93. With the two signals and the three-quarter
movement, that intersection operates at Level of Service C, which
is a very good level of service for a long-term analysis of an urban
area. It's a ... you might not like it when your kids get a C, but C is
actually a very good level of service. It means very reasonable
delay for everyone going into the intersection. The average delay
for the p.m. peak hour at that intersection would be 28.2 seconds.
And that's the average of all movements - through, lefts, everyone.
You put them together and the typical person is going to end up
waiting 28 seconds at that intersection. Not a bad level of service
at all, something that everyone sort of lives with. Very minor Qs;
Qs are the length of vehicles stacking because they are waiting to
get through a green signal. The other signalized intersection
operates at Level of Service B, and the three-quarter movement
will operate quite well. The three-quarter movement, that's
a ... they're a fairly new type of intersection. They were actually
developed in the mid 80's, the current form of them, in the early
80's I should say, out of Denver, and the purpose for a three-
quarter movement is to take advantage of capacity prior to a
signalized intersection. And the way that you do this is that when
you have a left turn arrow at the signalized intersection, in this
case, southbound left turn, southbound left turn at Access B.
whenever that green arrow comes on for that left turn, that's
basically a green arrow also for your three-quarter movement.
And they can do it quite safely, quite easily, and it provides
actually more capacity than if we put in a double left turn lane at
this intersection. The reason for that is people tend to be a little bit
timid about using the outside left turn lane. We find that about 60
percent of the people use the inside left turn lane; 40 percent use
the outside left turn lane. So we don't get a full doubling of
capacity just because we double the number of left turn lanes. But
when you add a left turn lane prior to the signal that people can
take advantage of that signal, and quite easily see the traffic in
front of them, they're able to get just as much traffic through that
Page 5 of 38
three-quarter movement that you could at the signalized
intersection. All in all, this plan works quite well. Montana
Department of Transportation was pleased with it. However, this
was not the plan that the Planning Board recommended. Let's take
a look at what Planning Board recommended. They recommended
removing the three-quarter and putting a right -in, right -out at this
location. Doesn't sound like it's such a big deal; it's just removing
one movement. However, when you remove the left turn here at
this un-signalized intersection, that means those left turns have to
use a signalized intersection, either at Rose Crossing or at Access
B and you have to give those left turns more green time. To give
the left turns more green time you have to take the green time
away from everyone else, mainly the through traffic on Highway
93 and the result is that the level of service at Rose Crossing drops
to Level of Service D and the delay per vehicle almost doubles. It
goes up to 46 seconds a vehicle. This is what the Planning Board
recommended, but it was not the only thing they considered and
I'm sure you've listened to what the Planning Board had to say so I
want to go through the other considerations they had as well. One
of their considerations was to remove Access A completely and
make Access B a right -in, right -out access and have Rose Crossing
be the only signalized intersection. I believe the theory here is
fewer signals on Highway 93, Highway 93 will operate better.
And it seems like it should be that, but it doesn't actually work that
way. If you try to jam too much traffic into one intersection
instead of spreading it out to a number of intersections, you're
going to end up with unnecessary delays at that intersection. And
you're going to be taking a lot of green time away from Highway
93 traffic to accommodate the other turns that will occur at that
intersection. That means that all the left turns out occur at Rose
Crossing, all the left turns in occur at Rose Crossing. That
intersection ends up operating at Level of Service F and yeah, just
like I have to tell my high school aged kids, Level of Service F is
failing. From a traffic stand point we do not want to see an
intersection with a Level of Service F, particularly not a signalized
one. Delay is 10 l seconds, four times as great as it would be under
the proposal being made by the applicant and you end up with
some fairly long Qs. For example, the Q of people waiting to turn
left out at Rose Crossing is long enough that it's beginning to
interfere with the main entrance into the Lifestyle Center where
we're proposing a traffic circle. And the one thing you can't have
with a traffic circle is a stack of traffic that enters the traffic circle
because traffic circles can work wonderfully well unless you stop
in them, and then they stop in all directions. So, not a good plan
there. The right --in, right -out would also operate at Level of
Service F for the right turners out entering Highway 93 and they
Page 6 of 38
would have some fairly extensive delay. There's one more
proposal that Planning Board looked at, and that was the Junior
Interchange concept that is considered within the transportation
plan that's being considered. what I tried to do here was to
provide a conceptual design of the type of Junior Interchange that
seems to be talked about the most in this area. And that is, we
commonly call them a buttonhook design. And what this design
would do is, Rose Crossing would go over Highway 93 and if you
wanted to go to whitefish you would make a left turn onto this
buttonhook and then a right turn onto Highway 93. If you wanted
to go to Kalispell, you'd go, take the bridge over 93, make a left
turn onto this buttonhook, and then a right turn onto Highway 93.
These buttonhooks by the way can actually go in any four of the
quadrants. I put them in these quadrants because obviously one
quadrant is the Glacier Project so we know we've got land there.
And it seemed that land on the south side might be more readily
available on the other side of Highway 93 than land on the north
side, but that would be land that would have to be acquired in order
to do this concept. If you put in a Junior Interchange here, it is
reasonable to expect that you have to remove access at both point
A and at B in order to have the Junior Interchange function
properly. we try to space all interchanges at least one mile apart in
order to give proper acceleration/deceleration length on the
highway. So I've removed the access at B and A, everyone
wanting to go to 93 ends up going up to Rose Crossing. In
addition, my first access up to Rose Crossing no longer works
because it's too close to the buttonhook interchange and so I've
brought everyone out to the second one. This sort of very highly
controlled access plan ends up with some capacity problems
because you're bringing basically everyone to the same points.
Exiting the mall, or the Lifestyle Center, you end up with a very
long Q of traffic waiting to get out at Rose Crossing and make that
left turn. You also end up with a very long Q of traffic waiting to
turn left to head toward whitefish. In addition, you end up with
long Qs waiting to make the right turns onto Highway 93. These
long Qs have very long delays. A delay of this type, with this type
of Qs, you're probably looking at 15 to 20 minutes in exiting the
Lifestyle Center and actually getting onto Highway 93. Now the
advantage of this design is that the through traffic on Highway 93
doesn't have to stop. But, that doesn't help the person who is
shopping here and just had to wait on the typical night, not just the
weekend before Christmas, but a typical night, had to wait 15 to 20
minutes to get out, to get on Highway 93. It's looping at these
considerations that I think certainly brought the applicant to the
conclusion that we should be looking at two signalized
intersections and the three-quarter as the most efficient design for
Page 7 of 38
both Highway 93 and for the center itself, as well as brought the
Montana Department of Transportation to that decision. Whenever
you have an arterial street, which is what Highway 93 is, you need
the proper amount of access in order for it to function well. If you
control the access too tightly and bring everyone out at one
location, you}re going to have to have a super intersection or large
interchange to accommodate it. If we can bring people out at more
locations, but regulate where those locations are, you can come up
with the best design. (Can we go back to Figure P) This location
which MDOT has recommended, you notice has the signal spacing
equal to the signal spacing at west Reserve. This is half mile
spacing in between each of these signals, and traffic engineers
have reached the conclusion these days that for our arterial street
systems that function at around 45 miles per hour, that half mile
spacing is what we're looking for. You can achieve very good
progression of traffic, that's when you're able to drive and you hit
theoretically, all of the green lights and you don't stop at every
single one. You interconnect these lights to West Reserve, and the
majority of traffic on 93 can hit them as all green lights rather than
having to stop for traffic anywhere. In addition, it gives you
enough room for turning movements; that you have enough room
for adequate left turn, storage, that type of thing, and also the half
mile allows signal progression in both directions. Signal
progression used to be really easy when we were designing streets
where everyone worked downtown and everyone lived outside of
downtown, so they came into downtown in the morning and they
went away from downtown... our travel patterns have changed
greatly and the travel patterns on 93 really reflect that. There is not
a heavy directional traffic on 93. You get heavy traffic in both
directions in the a.m. and p.m. peak hour so you want signal
progression that is going to work for southbound and northbound
both in the a.m. and p.m. I know I've thrown a lot of information
out at you this evening and I'd be more than willing to answer
questions or, or to discuss any of the traffic further that you'd like
to talk about.
Mayor Kennedy: while you've got that up there right now, Access B...
Kathleen Krager: Yes...
Mayor Kennedy: What makes you think that that will have a... not A, B.
Kathleen Krager: Oh, sorry, this one.
Mayor Kennedy: what makes you think that will have a left hand turn lane?
Page 8 of 38
Kathleen Krager: That's going to be....because I've already recommended it and the
Montana Department of Transportation is going to, to require it.
For a signalized intersection to function properly there, we are
going to have to make improvements to 93 that are going to need -
to include left turn lanes. You cannot have a road that handles the
type of traffic that we're talking about and accommodates things
smoothly, without delays, and safely, without having left turn
lanes.
Mayor Kennedy: So there would probably be limited traffic that would be turning
left at that spot, at least in the near future, because there isn't a lot
of development....
Kathleen Krager: Well, if you were to build it right now before you put the Lifestyle
Center in, that's true. But with the Lifestyle Center, that left turn
lane will receive good volumes. You'll have people turning left
both here at Rose Crossing and Access B. And I think both of the
retail surveys and my traffic distribution shows that Whitefish area
is a major area where you'll get shoppers from.
Mayor Kennedy: Left, yes...turning into the Lifestyle Center, coming from the
north, but when you're heading this way, not...
Kathleen Krager: oh, no. That's probably...
Mayor Kennedy: Heading north, not south.
Kathleen Krager: Right. I'm sorry. That's probably going to be a T intersection at
least for quite a while unless you approve a development on this
side that uses that fourth leg.
Mayor Kennedy: So my concern is this. You're telling me that without having the
right turns in ... like the Planning Board staff is suggesting, Access
A be rights only, not the three-quarter, and you're saying that if
you do rights only it won't function as well...
Kathleen Krager: That's right.
Mayor Kennedy: ...because you will have the issue of... well, if you have the three-
quarter, I should say, if you have the three-quarter, then people will
be able to take that left when they're heading south, and head in
there because of the people that are turning with the left hand turn
to nowhere from Access B.
Kathleen gager: No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Mayor you misunderstood me. The
southbound left turn at Access B, which will be a fairly heavy left
Page 9 of 38
turn, not everyone will make the left turn at Rose Crossing because
not everyone is that well organized.
Mayor Kennedy: My concern is this, the traffic that's heading south from whitefish
to Kalispell...
Kathleen Krager: Yes.
Mayor Kennedy: At Access A.
Kathleen Krager: Yes.
Mayor Kennedy: Trying to take a left hand turn into the development, you've got
traffic that's in the northbound lanes of Highway 93, heading
straight up, and quite, accelerating fast.
Kathleen Krager: How does that work?
Mayor Kennedy: I'm afraid that what's going to end up happening is we're going to
have so many intersection accidents there with people trying to
turn left, that are heading south, that that's going to create if not an
additional signal there, really a traffic hazard.
Kathleen Krager: You know it's a common...
Mayor Kennedy: And I'm not a traffic engineer, so...
Kathleen Krager: No, it's a common concern, and when three-quarter movements
were first suggested, it was a concern of the traffic engineers that
suggested it, and I know because I was one of them. They were
first suggested under an experimental program from the federal
government in Denver and put on Arapahoe Road. If any of you
are familiar with South Deaver and Arapahoe Road, it is a very
high volume, six lane, high-speed roadway. It's rather scary. That
was where the first three-quarter movement went in and we all
went and took a deep breath. That went in, in - I have to count
back from when I was married. That went in, in 1982 and what
surprised us, and there have been lots of three-quarter movements
put in since then in Colorado, what surprised us about that first one
and continues to surprise us with the ones that were built
afterwards, was that they had lower accident rates for their left
turns than the signalized intersections did. So, it causes a traffic
engineer to scratch their head and go back and look at it and go
why is that? And it actually turned out to be a fairly simple reason.
When you make a left turn at a signalized intersection, sometimes
you get the arrow, it's nice and easy, you go in and no problem,
Page 10 of 38
but if you're like me, you pick the longest checkout line in the
grocery store and the green arrow always goes off just before I get
up to the intersections. And so I'm the person left sitting there
waiting for the light to turn yellow so that I can complete my left
turn. People are terrible about this in Denver, but you know, I
know they do it in Kalispell too. That light turns yellow and you
have to ask yourself, will two cars go through that yellow light
before I make my left turn and complete it, or will twenty cars go
through? You just don't know these days. And it's those people
that we tend to get in traffic accidents at signalized intersections
for left turns; those, and the people that we call the sneekers.
They're the ones that when the light first becomes green, they go
through real fast even if there are cars coming at them. If you're at
a three-quarter movement, you don't have that pressure. You don't
have to worry that I've got to make this turn because I'm sitting in
the intersection and the cross -traffic is going to start coming at me
soon. You can sit there and wait until you're comfortable that you
have a gap in traffic and make the left turn at that time. So when
do you get a gap in traffic? well, because you have a signal here,
you get the same gaps in traffic that this signal has. when
southbound left turns get a green arrow to go into the Lifestyle
Center, there's no traffic going northbound through on 93, they're
all stopped to let the left turners through and these folks get that
same opportunity to make that left turn then. And that's when
most of them make the left turn. Others will make it during
adequate gaps in traffic. But the history in Colorado over the last
25 years is lower accident rates at three-quarters than at signalized
intersections and we really believe that's the reason; it's because
people aren't pressured, they can make the turn when the gap is
available.
Mayor Kennedy: Those would be demand lights?
Kathleen Krager: You know, they'll be on demand as far as like getting a left turn
arrow, that type of thing, but they will also be interconnected so
that just because someone pulls up here, doesn't mean they get a
green light instantly and mess up the progression on 93.
Mayor Kennedy: Thank you.
Tim Kluesner: I think we have a three-quarter interchange already, and Tom
might be able to confirm it for me. when we're going north on 93
there between Costco and Lowe's you have that intersection that's
between the two lights that turns into the roundabout at Lowe's.
Kathleen Krager: You do.
Page 11 of 38
Tim Kluesner: And that is called a, is considered a three-quarter intersection?
Kathleen Krager: It is.
Tim K.luesner: Okay. Because I actually, I use that one largely because there's no
light. But, okay, so that one is a three-quarter?
Kathleen Krager: That is a three-quarter. It's a good modern design. You have a
really old, bad three-quarter and if you don't know that one, I
won't point it out to you. Okay, I'll tell you because it's not; it's
not in Kalispell it's in Evergreen. There is an old three-quarter
movement to K-Mart that is in a terrible location and very poorly
designed and I find that one to be pretty scary. But the one at
Costco is a modern design three-quarter and works properly.
Randy Kenyon: Thank you. Could you speak to the speed limits?
Kathleen Krager: Sure, because I think that's a really crucial thing. You, here at
Reserve you're at 45 mph, which is what you want to be at a
signalized intersection, and then currently you're going up to 65 to
70 mph on 93. The, with the signalized intersections, you want
this area to be 45 mph and Montana DOT is going to want it to be
45mph as well. That's a safe speed to go through signalized
intersections. So it is going to mean that you're going to extend
your 45mph zone for and additional mile beyond what it currently
is in order to accommodate these. However, let me tell you the
reverse of that. Can we go to Figure 4? If you put an interchange
here, and people tend to drive, most importantly, at a speed that
they think that the design is telling there to drive; so, if you build
the autobahn, but you sign it at 25 mph, forget it, people are going
to drive 100 mph because that's how you designed it. well, if you
put an interchange here, you're telling southbound traffic, hey, I'm
on a, I'm on a freeway, I'm on, I'm going, my, I've got my cruise
control on, I am driving. But they are coming very close to a
signalized intersection. By work with Junior Interchanges and
signalized intersections, would tell you, you should not have a
Junior Interchange, or any interchange this close to a signalized
intersection because you're encouraging people to speed into that
signalized intersection and that will end up increasing your
accident rates at the signalized intersection, also your severity of
accidents.
Mayor Kennedy: Hank?
Page 12 of 38
Hank Olson: My biggest desire in all of this is to get as much traffic out of there,
not on Highway 93. How much work has went into putting it into
other places? I think that's the key to this thing. If we've got 100
cars to move, or only 50, then we're better off with the 50. So, tell
me about your plans of how we're going to get that traffic off of 93
and filter into all these other roads that we have.
Kathleen Krager: You're right there. If I only had 93 as access to this area, it would
be really tough. But fortunately we've come up with a system that
I think really helps to work. We have the roadway that extends to
Reserve Street and will end at a signalized intersection at Reserve
that helps carry quite a bit of traffic. Rose Crossing will now go
across not only to Whitefish Stage, but it continues on to Highway
2, carrying that traffic. We've tried to develop basically a grid
system, if you would, so that we can take full advantage of getting
people out to Whitefish Stage, getting them to Reserve, getting
them to Highway 2 as well as getting them to 93. In addition,
we've added the connectivity so that future neighborhoods in the
area can take advantage of the street system that this developer is
putting in and have a way of getting around that North Kalispell
area besides just a single driveway that goes to 93.
Mayor Kennedy: Anything else Hank?
Hank Olson: I don't know, let us get into that a little deeper but...I think we
need to create ways to drive people off the highway, get them to go
the other directions, you know, not...I don't know how to go about
that, but my thought is instantly, I wouldn't use the highway, I'd
go down Reserve or West Reserve Drive or Whitefish Stage or
somewhere, only because I live here, but we need to help the
people that are going to cause the problem and that's the people
who don't know where else to go. Maybe there's proper signing
that can be.. . I don't know. I just think we need to move more cars
off of the Highway 93 that we can.
Kathleen Trager: This is this is a common occurrence, not just at Kalispell. But the
truth of the matter is you're right. Locals are going to be much
more likely to use Whitefish Stage or Reserve, but if you're
coming down from Canada to spend your money in Kalispell,
chances are you're on 93 and you're going to get here from 93 and
we want to make sure that we've provided for that because if I give
them signs that say, okay now, take this over to Highway 2 and
then take this to Whitefish, they're just going to get lost and drive
through your neighborhood and irritate you. So. I need a good way
of getting people on and off the highway that are truly the highway
Page 13 of 38
travelers. But the local people, I want to give them as many
options as possible to get to this center.
Hank Olson: Right.
Mayor Kennedy: Jim.
Jim Atkinson: When you did the traffic counts on the accesses onto 93, were they
considering the traffic that you considered? That you thought
would go off of Rose and the other one and Reserve? Was that
taken into consideration and reduced from that number.?
Kathleen Krager: Right. We did, we did distribute traffic to all directions based on
where we felt the population was coming from, how convenient
the trip would be, that type of thing. Typical trip distribution, so it
goes ... traffic ended up in all four directions going somewhere. In
addition we included some background trips. We connect Rose
Crossing for the first time and we're going to have some people
from the airport that use Rose Crossing to get all the way over to
Highway 93 for the first time. So we increased traffic to account
for that type of trip as well.
Jim Atkinson: Another question, on Access B you say would be signaled and
Rose Crossing would be signaled...
Kathleen Krager: Uh.hmm.
Jim Atkinson: ... on Access A you said would be three-quarter turn until, and then
I thought I heard you say, until there was such an increase in traffic
that it would need to be signalized also?
KathleenKrager: No. You would never hear me say that. one of the reasons why
three-quarter movements were developed in the first place, besides
they turned out to be a good idea from a capacity standpoint, is
they provide the maximum amount of access while assuring a
signal would never be warranted. And the reason is, is that we
warrant signals based on the uniform manual of traffic control
devices and that's based on a whole bunch of silly things, but the
one thing it all comes down to is left turns out. You have to have a
lot of left turns out at your intersection before you've warranted
signal. So if you build an intersection where you don't allow left
turns out it never warrants a signal. MDOT does not want quarter
mile spacing because it doesn't progress Well there. Chad would
buy me extra drinks tonight if I stood up here and said, yeah, that
would be a great place for a signal, but I'm sorry, it's not going to
Page 14 of 38
happen. The purpose of the three-quarter is to provide access
without ever signalizing it.
Mayor Kennedy: Randy.
Randy Kenyon: Thank you. Just a different kind of a question, are peer reviews
common in this business?
Kathleen gager: Yes.
Randy Kenyon: You know, I don't think it would be a bad idea if we spent a few
dollars, somebody spend a few dollars, to have some other traffic
consultant just give a quick review to this because it's hard for us.
You know and to be perfectly... you're being paid by the
developer, and not to insinuate that you wouldn't be unbiased in
this...
Unknown speaker: Yeah.
Randy Kenyon: But in effect somebody might, other professionals, might have a
different opinion in this and I don't think any of us here are
qualified to be very critical of, obviously a very technical business,
that none of us here are ever going to really, truly grasp. And the
one thing that I've learned over the last eight years in traffic stuff
is the concept of unintended consequences.
Kathleen Krager: That's right.
Randy Kenyon: And so ... could you speak to that?
Kathleen Krager: Sure, peer reviews do happen from time to time. I will tell you that
Chad would love it if I were a little less opinionated and just went
along with whatever he said, but I don't know, it doesn't go that
way with me. You do get peer reviews from time to time in traffic
engineering. However, I will tell you that the full traffic
engineering section from Montana Department of Transportation
in Helena has reviewed this. Not just the local office in Kalispell,
but their traffic department in Helena, and they have some
excellent traffic engineers in that section who have reviewed it. So
you probably, in this particular case, you probably already have a
very good peer review from MDOT, but peer reviews are done.
Randy Kenyon: But I was under the impression recently that the highway
department kind of left it up to us.
Page 15 of 38
Kathleen Krager: No. They've done a full review, they've asked me to address a
few things which I have done, and they are still reviewing before
they write permits to their highway. Sort of technical details on
how long the left turn lane should be - that type of thing. But no, it
was reviewed by the traffic engineering section of Helena under
their major case projects.
Randy Kenyon: I guess we haven't seen that, are not familiar with that.
Kathleen Krager: You know, I don't know...
Unknown speaker: There's a letter from Dwane K.ailey, is that right?
Kathleen Krager: That's right.
Unknown speaker: There's a letter from Dwane on MDOT letterhead stating they've
reviewed this situation and they're in support of it.
Randy Kenyon: Okay. I was just curious about the concept in general of peer
review.
Kathleen Krager: where I see peer reviews most often would be in small
communities that are unable to afford traffic engineering, a traffic
engineer of their own and it wasn't on a state highway, so it never
went into a state review and really no one other than the political
officials got a chance to look at it.
Randy Kenyon: Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Kennedy: Jim and then Hank.
Jim Atkinson: I want no more traffic lights from Reserve to whitefish. What
would it take to make that happen?
KathleenKrager: Honestly, I think the first thing it would take is for you to change
your land use plan. Because you have planned for a rather urban
area of development for a mile north of Reserve and the concept of
no traffic signals is really a very rural concept. So you're
transportation plan is then in conflict with your land use plan.
Jim Atkinson: I-5 going through Tacoma doesn't have any lights on it. That's
terribly urban.
Kathleen Krager: Yes. So...
Jim Atkinson: Explain to me what it would take as far as...
Page 16 of 38
Kathleen Tager: So what it would take, what it would take honestly. We've seen
that the Junior Interchange doesn't really work. Okay. And the
reason is, let me explain the purpose of Junior Interchanges is to
keep through traffic on the highway from having to stop at a signal
that would be considered, sort of, pop out of nowhere if it was in
the middle of a rural highway. So it would catch people by
surprise and become an accident location. That was the purpose of
Junior Interchanges, is so that you didn't have those, sort of
random signals out in the country. They're not to provide high
capacity; they don't do a good job of that. If you were not going to
have a signal in an urban area, it would mean having an interstate
or freeway design. But you can't just start a freeway in less than a
mile. So, back up and put an interchange design in at Reserve and
keep going. Because you don't want to switch from a high speed
interchange type design to signalized intersections very quickly,
because anytime we make that switch quickly, we catch drivers by
surprise. They aren't prepared for it and the accident rates go up.
Did that help you with it?
Jinn Atkinson: Well I just kind of formulated the questions now, but I caught on to
the need for maybe an interchange at Reserve, which maybe was
needed with the bypass in the first place, but that's water under the
bridge.
Kathleen Krager: And it's so far gone under that bridge that it's...
Jim Atkinson: Can you move to the Junior Interchange picture?
Kathleen Krager: Figure 4.
Jim Atkinson: I see where you have to, if you're on Rose Crossing then you have
to come down, you actually have to stop perpendicular to the road
and then either turn left or turn right or ... gain speed, etc. why
couldn't you put two roads, well, okay, going north put a road up
past that stop, I mean before the stop and so that you could come
off the highway at a rapid rate of speed and then onto the, onto
Rose Crossing. And then put a road from Rose Crossing right
down to the highway so that you could go down?
Kathleen Krager: Sure, and that would be a more standard freeway design. You're
probably talking about like a diamond interchange there which
would be a more standard freeway design. It has higher capacity;
you could put two signals at the top of the diamond to control
traffic. However, now we're talking about a much more expensive
design and acquiring right of way from the National Guard facility
Page 17 of 38
and property across the street. A Junior Interchange, we usually
hope that we can get them built for $S million, if you don't have
grades working in your favor, it may take more than that. A
diamond interchange these days, a typical interstate type diamond
interchange, you're looking at over $20 million dollars in
expenditures.
Jim Atkinson: No, I'm not talking about a diamond, maybe a half diamond
because anybody that was going from east of Rose Crossing and
wanted to go to Whitefish would go down and stop...
Kathleen Krager: Um-hmm.
Jim Atkinson: ... and then start their way.
Kathleen gager: Yes.
Jim Atkinson: So it wouldn't be a full diamond because there would be no other
ancillary roads north of Rose Crossing. of course that sounds like
$1 o million dollars and if you've got a half of diamond, right?
Kathleen Krager: Yeah, and if you have half a diamond that means that you're not
allowing traffic from one direction.
Jim Atkinson: No you aren't.
Kathleen Krager: No, a buttonhook has traffic from both directions, but if you... just
a half of diamond doesn't allow ... yeah.
Jim Atkinson: well I'm talking about a modified buttonhook rather than a
diamond.
Kathleen Tager: Yeah, which is what I've got there and you can play around with
the design of that buttonhook all you want to, but the basis is still
there. You still end up with really long Qs trying to get onto the
buttonhook and you still are facing the problem that you sort of,
you tried to do this for safety, but you defeated it because it's only
a mile away from a signal.
Mayor Kennedy: okay. Hank.
Hank Olson: Thank you. Going back to Randy's point, I think where this
council sits, we, we had all this approval when we built the
intersection at 93 and Reserve and look what a mess we've got.
It's been approved by every government agency they ever built.
And so when you say this is okay with them, we think, God we
Page 18 of 38
didn't do very good the last time, so unfortunately you're in a
position where there's more show and toll this time.
Kathleen Tager: Yeah, I know.
Hank Olson.- And I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying, and certainly we, I
don't, because ... but we can't live, we just got in a big fight over
taking some of the bypass money and help to improve that
problem. That they approved; the state did. So to tell us that it's
approved by the state scares the hell out of me.
KathleenKrager:
Hey, I, I understand...
Hank Olson:
So I think Randy's point of getting a separate opinion that would
help all of us maybe.
Kathleen Krager:
I understand completely. I know exactly what you're talking about
and...
Hank Olson:
Why do they even allow that to happen` That's the part I can't
understand. We put stop sign, or we put signal lights in and they
don't put the left turn lane in, so then we've got to call them again
and they come finally they put the turns in, and you just got done
saying they don't work unless they've got a left turn.
Kathleen Krager:
You have to ... yeah.
Hank Olson:
Somebody down there ought to know that too.
Kathleen Tager: And I' 11 tell you I have told MDOT that there are future
improvements that have to be made at Reserve and highway 93.
Now they've planned on these improvements as part of the 93
bypass, but I have informed them that these improvements are
needed probably before the 93 bypass goes in and they need to be
looking at that closely. Sorry.
Hank Olson: Yeah, We've got crazy trouble there and that's a problem.
Mayor Kennedy: Randy.
Randy Kenyon: Thank you. I read this part of the traffic, or this part of the report,
the traffic study, I didn't study it, but...
Kathleen Krager: I'm pretty impressed that you read it.
Page 19 of 38
Randy Kenyon: But I didn't see anything in here, I could be mistaken, but I didn't
see anything in here referencing the bypass in relationship here.
So did you bring the bypass in and not mention it here or is it in
here, or could you speak to the bypass and how it might relate to
this?
Kathleen Krager: It's in here, and probably the breathtaking narrative in this,
probably you just got swept up in the romance of it all and just,
and missed it. what you will find is in the description of
background traffic and how it, background traffic refers to the
traffic that's going to be using the street system except for
everyone from this development. So that's everybody else except
for these guys and to develop the background traffic for this area I
started with the traffic projections of the 93 bypass study and then
added new developments that had occurred since that model was
run and then added our numbers to it as well. So the bypass study
and the bypass model numbers were my basis for everything in this
traffic study.
Randy Kenyon: Do you see any problem with people coming off the bypass and
running into this...
Kathleen Krager: No.
Randy Kenyon: ... headed north?
Kathleen Krager: No because it would be one thing if they were coming off the
bypass in a large fly -over ramp that they maintained 5 5 mph and
got onto 93. But they don't, they're making a left turn a signalized
intersection and if signal progression is correct, they've had to stop
at that signalized intersection because signal progression allows the
through traffic to go through and the left turn stop and wait for an
arrow. So everybody corning off that bypass has come through a
signalized intersection and has at least slowed down to 15 mph to
make the left turn, so the fact that they might be reaching two more
signals is what they're expecting.
Unknown speaker: Yeah, good point.
Mayor Kennedy: The reality is that the bypass needs to be brought up to Church and
go through the Junior Interchange at Church.
Kathleen Krager: [okay, but I have to tell you, if you do that then you need to rip out
your Junior Interchange and put in a full interchange, okay? Sorry,
but it wouldn't be enough for you.
Page 20 of 38
Mayor Kenndy: Okay. Wayne.
Wayne Saverud: Well, changing the subject just a little bit, I'm concerned about
how much traffic will be added onto Whitefish Stage, especially
realizing that Whitefish Stage north of Reserve is extremely
narrow and fairly heavily trafficked already. What type of impact
do you expect this would have?
Kathleen Krager: Well, we took a very close look at Whitefish Stage because, you
know at what point do you add lanes to a road like that? What we
found was the problem with Whitefish Stage is it's narrow not
because you're driving north/south on the roadway; it's narrow
because people want to turn off the roadway and there is no turn
lane. So what we found was that we got good levels of service,
you know the kinds like, A's and B's that we want to see, as long
as we added left turns and right turn lanes onto Whitefish Stage
Road and not an additional through lane which would just
encourage speeding on that road. But if we add those left turns and
right turns at any intersection we have - including the intersection
down at Reserve - then it operates a lot better. You also increase
the safety of a road like that a great deal when you add your turn
lanes. Turn lanes are so important to that.
Chad Wolford: Just to clarify on that, I mean, I think obviously, it's probably
expected anyway, but we have no problems paying for those
upgrades, just to clarify that.
Kathleen Krager: I love to spend Chad's money, it's one of my favorite things to do.
Mayor Kennedy: Tim and then Jim.
Tim Kluesner: That was actually where I was kind of going, is that maybe that
you were going to go there, but what are the planned upgrades to
Whitefish Stage?
Mayor Kennedy: Is that further in the presentation outside of the traffic?
KathleenKrager: You know, why don't we plan on, when we present on January 7th,
why don't we plan on giving you a graphic that shows you each of
the improvements that is recommended for this developer, and then
I can also show you improvements that, you know, we're hoping
someday that MDOT would step up to the plate and do some of the
things that they need to do as well.
Page 21 of 38
Tim Kluesner: That sounds great because I think we're probably, a lot of us who
drive whitefish Stage every now and then know that it needs
improvement.
Kathleen Krager: Yeah.
Tim Kluesner: And then probably Rose Crossing as well... kind of a switchback
across the bridge. okay, thank you.
Kathleen Krager: No problem.
Mayor Kennedy: Jim.
Jim. Atkinson: I'm going to pass on that because my question was the ditches, I'm
scared to drive that road because you fall off in a ditch and get
killed.
Mayor Kennedy: So we'll gait and hear about Whitefish Stage at another meeting.
Okay, does anybody have any other questions about the traffic
issues that have just been presented to us?
Kathleen Krager: It's been a pleasure talking to you tonight, and. I know that the rest
of the team is available if you have questions other than traffic.
And ask something other than traffic and make me not feel like I'm
the only person on the spot, okay? Thank you.
Mayor Kennedy: Do you have more of a presentation?
Kathleen Krager: No, I think that finishes the formal presentation, but as I say, the
rest of the team is available for questions tonight if you have any.
Mayor Kennedy: Very good.
Kathleen Krager: Thank you.
Mayor Kennedy: Thanks very much. okay, council, other questions outside of
traffic issues about the development. They've got their whole
team here. Must have some architectural questions or engineering
questions. Jim.
Jim Atkinson: Unfortunately, I think its still traffic ... and have you speak about
the four and not six accesses to the development to the north.
Unknown speaker: well in all defense it started off with two and I said we need to
have at least four without reviewing the project, so I want to let
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them know that I did say four at one breath. Having studied it I
came back and said 16 (sixteen) and they said how about four.
Unknown speaker: We foresee, there's another 40 acre tier up here, 40, 80 120 acres
of land that butts up into Ponderosa, and then the city's kind of
done urban expansion to the north. This isn't a trust, trust, trust.
We probably envision a road somewhere along that line up here
going over to whitefish Stage. We said this neighborhood not
unto itself. This is part of Kalispell so as we breathe this way, we
should breathe that way. But you will count seven roads coming
down here- ironically- seven roads come down into here. great
circulation connection to this road, so we said why not seven roads
going north out of here. So we've been in negotiations, well how
about six? Two per quarter mile gives you about 550-650 foot
spacing. To wrap your arms around what that looks like - two
blocks of east side Kalispell is about 600 feet, 650 feet - so every
two blocks you'd have a road coming through. So we just felt that
was important. But now what we don't want to do is put all the
traffic into one area, because all the traffic comes into one area and
you tend to scare a buyer scouring a neighborhood if traffic tends
to go through there. If you present many options you have many
opportunities for people to drive through and intermingle, connect,
take a road, find the path of least resistance. So that is what we're
trying to do, create a neighborhood feeling not only to here, but up
to there. There was a concern that maybe the quality of housing
wouldn't be the same up here as down here, I suspect that the
land's going to drive a lot. So that's what we look at, we look at
creating connections all the way around. That was a very near and
dear issue to the Planning Board in terms of having that
interconnected neighborhood so that we could have relationships;
so we don't require people to drive everywhere or focus their
movement. So that's really where it came from. Jockeying back
and forth we finally said six, they said four, we said six, they said
four the Planning Board said six. So the recommendation coming
to you is six along up here. No, these are floating arrows, so as the
land develops, and this is, I think this is a phase that's five, six,
seven, eight years from now. So in one sense we're kind of
fighting a battle that's probably going to be repeated and reviewed
in the future, many years down the road. But, as land up here
develops, there's going to be those kinds of understandings.
Really it's, where they actually go, is really the first person who
starts developing the land, but right now it's a concept.
Jim Atkinson: I also saw a road going east and west between those two
subdivisions.
Page 23 of 38
Unknown speaker: Right in through here. Yeah, the idea is this whole area comes out;
right in here. This is a significant belt through the parkway. There
was some resistance about penetrating a park where there was a
trail system through here, but we still said to get around to here, to
get up over to here, we need to provide access for people to get
around. Pedestrian traffic ... we said road traffic. The same thing
happened here; this right now is the Easthaven Church. This road
parallels, so there is really no issue right here. Separate tract up
here; that is vacant access in here. Planning Board did say that
they'd like to have a road that came in here at mid -point. Planning
Board said that that would be important, but it's up to you guys to
decide if that's important. Same thing here, there's some access
points in here. This is a piece of land in here that only has access
on Whitefish Stage, we feel it needs to have access here and here
for it to function in the future. We need to be thinking of
Whitefish Stage, think of Whitefish Stage as a significant traffic
carrier in the future. So when we say they've got a single access
here, they need more than one single access for this whole
neighborhood to work. Whitefish Stage isn't going to be the
quaint, rural road that we all love today.
Unknown speaker: That it used to be.
Unknown speaker: So anyway, that's what the plan was looking at. We also talked
about more access here. This is in the SemiTool area. SemiTool
does not have a traffic light. If SemiTool came in here, found a
light, came up here, it's a major, it's a major market for these guys.
Jim Atkinson: Next question has to do with the sidewalks.
Unknown speaker: Yes.
Jim Atkinson: I understand that there was some resistance to sidewalks around,
not within, the Life Center, but around the Life Center.
Unknown speaker: Yeah. They did a really good job up in the residential areas up
here with sidewalks, with trail systems. When we got in closer to
the Lifestyle Center itself, inside the Lifestyle Center, there's
walk -ability, but this area around here, Planning Board staff raised
some issues. We actually coded a map, we don't have it here for
you tonight, but we coded a map where there wouldn't, where
there were not proposed sidewalks on one side or the other, and
went down the list with the Planning Board and said what's in
what's out, what's in, what's out? So that recommendation will be
coming forward to you. Primarily though, we said, for example on
this ring road around, we said on the inside, which is up against the
Page 24 of 38
parking lot, there'd be sidewalks on the outside. Though where
we've got business or commercial we'd like to see sidewalks, a
road like this coming in, sidewalks on both sides. In other words, a
more traditional sidewalk concept versus the no sidewalk. concept.
Again, that's an issue that was pretty darn dear with the planning
board that issue.
Jim Atkinson: Lastly, can you address the size of the parking lots in the, whatever
those buildings are on the south end.
Unknown speaker: You know this would be a typical box store like a Wal-Mart or a
Target or something like that; or a Costco. So if you look at their
parking lots out here, the Planning Board did ask for additional
landscaping in here. The applicants had originally proposed
significant landscaping on the outside, really hadn't done a lot of
definition of work on the inside. So the Planning Board, you have
a recommendation coming to you for more landscaping on the side
of these areas here. Same thing, there is going to be some more
landscaping proposed by the Planning Board in these areas here.
These are the much, much less - these are fairly significant. I don't
have that number you, it was up here once...
Unknown speaker: It's definitely a football field.
Unknown speaker: It's a football field.
Unknown speaker: So, Chad has agreed to, well Chad didn't contest...
Chad Wolford: If I might just add about that, what he's referring to, the power
center down there, that is highly, highly conceptual at this point.
We took some footprints that we knew of and kind of made a
cohesive center there based on absolutely no deals on the table that
we're working with. I mean that is three to five years out, so we
haven't even, it's all as conceptual as it can be. The condition
that's in there, I mean, I have no problem with that.
Unknown speaker: It doesn't come back to the board. It would come back to site
review and if he does subdivision in here it would come back
through the process. So we were concerned, so we put some
anticipatory conditions on it to address that in the future. This is a
Home Depot/Target size project. If you look at it, if you wanted
concept size, I would think that would probably be a good way of
explaining what you're getting your arms around in a size like that.
Jim Atkinson: And it's hard to get your...
Page 25 of 38
Unknown speaker: It's ... yeah, yeah. It's a small project and if we put it in life size it
would be like 485 acres.
Mayor Kennedy: okay, we've got Tim, Kari and then Randy.
Tim Kluesner: You were pointing up towards the north; we annexed Valley Ranch
in, so...
Unknown speaker: Valley Ranch parts right here.
Tim Kluesner: okay, that's, that's the piece where it connects.
Unknown speaker: National Guard sits, the armory sits right here.
Tim Kluesner: Because there were concerns of that about connecting roads
coming in there, so theoretically when Valley Ranch gets going,
and this going, we'll have those connecting roads and...
Unknown speaker: They could connect, yes.
Tim Kluesner: And then Valley Ranch even will go out onto Highway 93 as well,
correct?
Unknown speaker: Valley Ranch could come this way and go that way, it could come
this way and go that way, it could come back up that way and go
up that way...
Tim Kluesner: We really don't have a road system laid out?
Unknown speaker: Valley Ranch had, well it's pretty obvious that Valley Ranch goes
up to 93 up there, so that they really have, at that point, those are
the only three Ways, Valley Ranch has been told right -in, right -out
only up here. And again that was, they never went forward with it.
MayorKennedy: okay, Kari.
Kari Gabriel: Thank you. Tom, up on the top there where the four arrows are,
Planning Board wanted six, they've got four there, where would
the other two go?
Tom: We just set out a rhythm. We weren't going to redesign. The last
thing we want to do, it's a concept, pretty nice concept. So we said
two per quarter section. If you look at these blocks, that's a
quarter section, that's - there's hedges here - that's a quarter
section and that's a quarter section. We said two per quarter
section so as the developer comes in they can add or place as
Page 26 of 38
appropriate for design. We didn't say it should be here and here,
we said there should be six at a rhythm of two per quarter mile. So
there could be one right along here on the line and then there could
be in the middle, here there could be one, two, they can be just
varying. We're not going to design the project. We're trying to
get a degree out there for a concept and a rhythm. Two per quarter
section; a quarter section is a quarter mile.
Kari Gabriel:
So then with the four that are there and the difference in the four
and the two, is it because of the cost of adding two more, is it
because of aesthetics?
Tom.:
There are probably two or three reasons. one was the concern
about loss of lots, and we explained to Chad that commercial
property sells by the square foot, residential sells by the lot.
People tend to redefine, reconfigure lots. This is a normal thing for
us to see. The developer has not done a lot of residential, we see
these types of conditions all the time so it was kind of a, oh.
Second one was, you know, we're requiring to have so much open
space when you put a road access through, that chews up open
space. The extra, all the extra accesses here might be seeing two
acres. So he was concerned that that's two acres of land that's
gone. We said no, if you're putting roads in an open space area, if
you had to forgive 73 acres you'd only get 71 acres of open space.
So we're not going to penalize you doubly for putting an access in
and providing more open space. So it's more of a loss of design.
And the last one really Was just, they were really happy with their
residential design kind of going in, and they didn't want to have a
lot of extra traffic going through. our concept was if we can
spread the traffic around everywhere, we don't have a lot of traffic
going into anywhere. So some philosophical differences. I always
said this is Kalispell and this is our Planning Board and this is What
we talked about for a while. That was kind of ... I summarized
down about four months of talking.
Mayor Kennedy:
okay, Randy.
Randy Kenyon:
Thank you. Tom...
Tom:
Yes.
Randy Kenyon:
Two questions. one of theme just carve to me, how many
residences are proposed for Valley Ranch, do you remember?
Tom:
Valley Ranch was basically 300? Two hundred - probably two
hundred or so. At one point they were talking about assisted
Page 27 of 38
living. They're talking about maybe some concepts of very high
end apartment living like condos. Like in the Meadows we just
approved, some projects like that. We could see 300, they've got
80 acres and four density.
Randy Kenyon: Let's just call it 300. Do you know if the traffic ... and it's right -in,
right -out on 93 ?
Tom: On 93 they were limited to right -in, right -out.
Randy Kenyon: So if you have 300, approximately 300 homes, and a fair
percentage of them wanting to come into town, they're going to
have to travel through that northern subdivision. Do you know if
the traffic study took that Rose Crossing, took that into
consideration?
Tom: Yes.
Kathleen Krager: We included valley Ranch.
Tom: When you do that you look at the adjoining land use that you
might have and that was one of those imminent parts.
Randy Kenyon: And then switching topics, has, I just briefly read Sean's letter
responding to some concerns of the developer, could you talk to
signage for a second? Have there been any debates, is that going
to become an issue before us?
Unknown speaker: Wars have been fought over signage.
Unknown speaker: Thousand acre projects get approved, but it boils down to signage.
Tom: The applicant originally had proposed a major entrance right here
and it was near and dear that there be a pylon sign right here.
That's first issue. Well, when this became a minor and these to
lighted major intersections up here, we said, yeah, major sign here
and major sign here, it makes sense because you've got to tell the
public What's going on and where. I think this becomes a
monument sign, showing right here. And the applicant was okay
with that advertising the internal project. There was discussion
along the highway about these properties right here. The applicant
did want to have monument signs for the, let's just say that there's
- I don't know if there's ten or fifteen lots go on there, ten lots -
wanted to be able to have monument sign exposure along the
highway here. There is a hundred foot set back - landscaping,
trails a little bit of burming and stuff. Planning Board said no, and
Page 28 of 38
when you look at the other projects we've been approving, if you
look at the last project we approved, which was Costco, Lowe's,
Kohl's, there are no monument signs out there. What we did say
was that on these buildings, you could have up to - 50 percent of
your signage - could be on the building facing the highway so that
you could have highway exposure saying we're out here. The
Planning Board said they did not want to see the monument signs
coming along the highway here from that standpoint. So the
applicant asked two times and we said yep, that sounds like a good
deal. Put a monument sign here so that the major traffic can get in
and see Glacier Lifestyle Center or Glacier Village or whatever
they want to call it. That's going to be in there, with that here.
Inside here that has not been an issue? Has that been an issue
inside?
Unknown speaker: Well if I could just add just a little bit, do you want me to stand up
there... Everything that Tom has said I would agree with. What we
asked for with the Planning Commissioner, Planning Board was to
have our out partial turns have the option to have their monument
sign either on their property, thus a hundred foot plus set back
from the highway, either have their monument sign on Highway 93
or on the internal road, their choice. one or the other, not both.
And then also, so that was one issue, and to me that's not a huge
deal if they've got to have them on the interior, I'd prefer that they
could have the option since they're set back a hundred feet, but if
not that's not the end of the world to me. Where I still have a point
of disagreement on that would be in the size of those monument
signs. As you'll see in the mound of paperwork we've submitted
there, there is, per your growth policy, I believe a signage package.
As I recall, the language in your growth policy called for a unified
monument sign package. Typically in these types of developments
we would let the out partial user decide. We would put a size
regulation on it, but in terms of architecturally what that sign
would look like they would have freedom of choice to make it their
national brand type sign. In recognizing your growth policy we
decided okay, let's create the architecture for the sign for them.. So
we went through and created three monument signs. All of, for a
monument sign I think, you know, if you can have beautiful signs,
they are very pretty signs. I mean they have, you know, dramatic,
I guess a lodge -type architectural theme to them. They have stone
bases and things of that nature. I believe overall the general size of
those three concepts was S feet by 12 foot, including all of the
architectural embellishments. And I believe what was approved in
the Planning Board and what staff had recommended was reducing
those signs to six foot by six food including architectural
embellishments. The problem that I have with that is when you get
Page 29 of 38
that far back from the road you get, you know even on the internal
ring road, and all that stuff, when you talk about a six foot by six
foot sign including architectural embellishments, you don't have
any room for any writing of any size for that business to be
recognized at all. Six foot by six foot is miniscule. It just doesn't
really do any good for that tenant. So I guess our request would
be, okay if you want the signs off of Highway 93, fine, we can live
with that. If we could just have the size of the sign that we
proposed that would be something that we would see as a good
compromise, personally.
Unknown speaker: Is there going to be a sign on West Reserve?
Unknown speaker: Yes.
Unknown speaker: That's the other issue too. The west Reserve, all these monument
signs we proposed fell under one monument sign package, all the
same size. So Access A and west Reserve, there is no difference
in the size of those monument signs. So Access A there in the
middle, a hundred foot or fifty foot or whatever your code setback
for the sign. is - I can't recall - a six foot by six foot sign saying
Glacier Town Center at Access A, I mean that's just, you won't be
able to read that at all from the highway. And then west Reserve,
I think you'd have the same problem. Nobody would know that
that was, until they were right on top of it , that that was an access
road to that project if they weren't familiar with the area. But
other than that though, I mean, signage for us is, outside of just
asking to get the size we were requesting.
Mayor Kennedy: I've got two things I'd like to have addressed if I could. One
would be building height and what's being proposed.
Unknown speaker: During the time there were no exemptions or exceptions
requested?
Tom: I'm not an expert on the topic, so I might. ask Ian if he can help on
that.
Ian McCaskill: would you like me to speak just generally about the...
Mayor Kennedy: Yes, please.
Ian McCaskill: My name is Ian McCaskill from the firm Architecture Plus, from
Monroe, LA. we are Wolford's architects for the project, working
with CTA who are the land planners and master planners. The
Lifestyle Center essentially is going to have three department
Page 30 of 38
stores. Those department stores are single story buildings, they're
not double story like you do get in some malls. And generally the
parapet height is in the order of 24 to maybe 30 feet so that all
rooftop units are screened. However, at the main entrances
sometimes they have a major feature, which goes higher. But there
I think that the height that is specified is a maximum of 60 feet.
Mayor Kennedy: For the parapet?
Ian McCaskill: Yes. we did not, in any case, reach anywhere near 60 feet on any
of those. The general buildings down the main shopping street
were in the order of 22 to 24 feet and then at corners where you get
accents or special features, they may go up to 35 feet to give accent
of sort or to create a marker at a particular corner.
Mayor Kennedy: okay.
Unknown speaker: If I could, I think one of the places the 60 foot, there is a condition,
I believe allowing 50 foot buildings in certain areas of the project.
Where that came from was obviously a mixed use facility like this,
we would like to have the opportunity to have hotels and multi-
level office buildings. I think in the order of office buildings you
are talking two to three levels, but a hotel might be four levels if
it's Hilton Garden Inn or something of that nature. So that's kind
of where that came from and I think Tom was being kind of fair to
us in saying look you can't tell me exactly where this hotel is
going to go right now, so the best thing to do is put the exemption
allowing it in at this time more generally, rather than, because it
was kind of one of those things that we didn't really know how to
ask for what we were after.
Mayor Kennedy: okay. And if a 60 foot building goes in there, like a Hilton Garden
Inn, that would go before site review`
Unknown speaker: It would go before site review and architectural review as well.
And as well, the zone itself allows up to 40 feet. By condition of
use from it anywhere in this depth it can only go up to 60 feet. The
frontage along here is only to about a 27 foot height.
Unknown speaker: Correct.
Mayor Kennedy: Okay.
Unknown speaker: So it's going to be back along here. And another thing, when we
talked about height...
Page 31 of 38
Mayor Kennedy:
That was my concern.
Tom:
I know the public has a height, because this is kind of a rise up
here. How dominant, when you go through there you really don't
see past that hill right now. But they are going to take say 35 or 40
feet off the top of this hill, so when we looked it at with the
Planning Board and staff level, the top of this hill actually gets
graded down and the buildings go back up on top of it. So if you
were to kind of go out there today and look at the top of that hill,
you would probably be looking at the tops of the buildings.
Mayor Kennedy:
Okay.
Tom:
So we say that's almost a no net gain for the majority of it. So we
said what more could you ask for than that from a proJect?
Mayor Kennedy:
Okay, great. Thank you.
Unknown speaker: And just further upon what Tom said, on those Highway 93 out
parcels, those are limited by a codes, covenants and restrictions
agreement that we have tying up the entire Lifestyle Center
element. I believe there's a copy, in there Wayne, there's a copy
of that as to the out parcel codes, covenants and restrictions.
There's a copy of that in the application and that limits those
heights to 27 feet.
Mayor Kennedy: Great. Thank you.
Ian McCaskill: If there are any other questions I can answer...
Mayor Kennedy: Thank you very much. The other question that I had, Chad, was
this community has been really suffering with affordable housing,
and of course affordable housing is all what somebody wants to
claim it is. But some of the larger developments have been
working with like Habitat for Humanity, and I think eventually this
community would like to have a land trust, which we don't have at
this point. But, wondering if you had addressed any of those kinds
of needs in your development planning or talks about how you
could help contribute to affordable land in this community. For
actually being able to deal with some of the service industry
employees that can't afford homes that will be working in your
Town Center.
Chad Wolford: Certainly. First and foremost I would say, I'm not an expert on the
topic and don't profess to be. As Tom mentioned we've not been
in the housing development business in the past; we're typically
Page 32 of 38
commercial. To answer your question I would say we have
addressed it to some degree. Just with, in the mixed use areas
through apartment housing and condo housing that could be
utilized in some form or fashion throughout that. That's still in a
very conceptual phase, obviously. I think the first part of it comes
up in maybe Phase 3. So, you know, I think to some degree the
market will dictate how that goes. In terms of that, the actual
single family dwellings having affordable housing and things of
that nature in there. I'm not opposed to it, I would just say that
what I anticipate you'll end up seeing on that housing is us putting
in the infrastructure for the lots, and then partnering or selling to a
local builder with a set of design guidelines already in place on that
property as its been platted and everything for them to move
forward with. And, I think how that all pans out will determine
whether the market on this particular site can support affordable
housing options. Just to be blunt on it, I mean, I think ultimately it
will come down to the economics. If somebody who is qualified in
that field can come in and make the numbers work to do some
affordable housing there and the market's demanding it, I don't see
why it wouldn't happen.
CTA: Yeah, and for CTA as the land planners, I think its important to
recognize that there are a variety of ways to, of course, provide
housing and one of them is to respond to the market. one of them
is through potential regulations which might limit some of the
market, but the other one is through design and -- I want to go back
to the land use plan again - to talk about design. one of the things
we were looking at when we were looking at the residential
component of this project - and we really gave a lot of thought to
the residential component as well, even though it's coming in
future phases - was that mixture of use. That transition, that trans
set zone from the higher intensity, solely commercial uses along 93
and beginning to get more of a multi -family, mixed use type
product which will naturally - by design again -tend to be a little
bit of a smaller product, and tends to be in markets like Kalispell,
more affordable just by design. Not necessarily by regulations or
groups of... multi -family, again serving as a transition to this
higher density mixed use products. And then as you get further in
you get to your single family, and when you get to your single
family you're starting at 6,000 to 7,000 square foot lots, so those
are pretty reasonably small sized lots for this size project. And
again, you do have some larger lots as you get to the outer edges of
the project, in part to buffer from some of what we anticipate as
being residential uses to the north of this project that might be a
little bit of a higher density product. So, again I think to
emphasize that by design, this project has a lot of components that
Page 33 of 38
are intended to promote , over the life of the project, a mixture of
housing types, that hopefully, when they hit the market will
provide some amount of your affordable or workforce housing
products in this community.
Mayor Kennedy: okay, thanks and when you're speaking about the phasing -- could
you go to the Phase I? okay. What part, or is it everything in
yellow that will be the road infrastructure for Phase I? So in Phase
I, the middle road that goes out to Whitefish Stage, that will not
happen in Phase I? That will happen in Phase 3, is that correct?
But Rose Crossing and the road out to West Reserve...
CTA: Are both proposed within Phase 1.
Mayor Kennedy: will all be Phase 1.
CTA: Correct.
Mayor Kennedy: okay, thank you. Randy and then Jim.
Randy Kenyon: Thank. you. I want to follow up with the Mayor's question. I think
in terms of affordable housing this would be an absolutely terrific
set-up if you could have people working and living in the same
neighborhood. It would assist in the traffic issue, all kinds of
things. If you could just have affordable housing for the people
who are working in the service industry — which is going to be
literally, I don't know, 500 or 1000 people — working in all these
stores as service workers. If they could live there and ride a
bicycle or walk it would be absolutely terrific. I mean it would just
be the greatest thing. So, I would like to somehow see some kind
of a mandate or requirement somewhere here that would facilitate
that. To make that work. So, I think this is an ideal set-up and an
ideal time to go about that. Now I do have a question for Jim.
Were there any strong water, water issues at all that, controversial
or anything, or has that part been pretty slick?
Jim: I can think of nothing that's controversial or difficult that cannot
be handled with the technical resources we can throw at the
project.
Randy Kenyon: Anything like crossing the Stillwater River, or anything like that?
Jim: Those are always a challenge because you end up with permitting
and those kinds of things depending upon how you're going to
cross it and what you're going to cross it with. You know
sometimes we bore a utility... that still involves a permit in many
Page 34 of 38
cases, depending upon when we're close to the bank or not. But I
don't think that we're lacking for the resources to solve the
problems, and I think that this particular team is well aware of the
expectations of the community, with respect to ensuring we don't
have problems resulting from the work they want to do.
Randy Kenyon: okay, so we haven't run into any major issues?
Jim: So far, no. No. I think the term "river meets the road" was used
earlier. I think the "river meets the road" when the dirt starts
flying out there. That's when you figure out exactly how well the
planning you've been doing pays off.
Randy Kenyon: But so far, so good?
Jim: Yeah, we haven't moved a bit of dirt.
Mayor Kennedy: Randy, you're absolutely right. That would be a perfect spot for
like those tax credit apartment complexes.
Unknown speaker: Absolutely.
Mayor Kennedy: way of getting federal tax credits. We've got to find the right
developer to do it. Who wants to battle in, right? Jim.
Jim Atkinson: well, I certainly agree with that. I observed something this
Sunday that kind of surprised me. There are no supermarkets north
of the southern part of Highway 2. None. Everybody has to travel
all the way into Kalispell - which is great - to shop. Is there going
to be a supermarket somewhere up there?
Mayor Kennedy: We sure hope so.
Jim Atkinson: I just thought I'd bring that up for you, Chad, because...
Chad Wolford: I couldn't agree with you more.
Jim Atkinson: And he's got this grin on his face...
Chad Wolford: I try.
Mayor Kennedy: okay, council do you have any other questions for the Wolford
team? Any other questions at this time regarding Glacier Town
Center? Anything else that you guys would like to say or add to
the discussion today?
Page 35 of 38
Unknown speaker: Just thank you for your time.
`had Wolford: Yes, thank you very much, we appreciate it.
Mayor Kennedy: I'm. sure we'll be seeing you again. Sorry gentlemen, that some of
you we didn't have questions for you. You got by easy tonight.
Consider it a holiday gift from the Kalispell City Council. I want
to thank you for coming and giving your presentation tonight. I
wish you all Happy Holidays. Have safe travels back to your
homes and enjoy your family this season. See you in 2008
everybody. Meeting adjourned.
Unknown speaker: Your Honor?
Mayor Kennedy: Oh, come on. I was trying to get away with that. Okay, anything
from the council? Yes, Hank?
Hank Olson: One thing that was brought up about the impact fees on the roads
and stuff, where are we at in that process, and when we will we get
it handled so that this can be a part of that?
Unknown speaker: The impact fee committee, Your Honor, Mr. Olson, the impact fee
committee has been kind of waiting for the new transportation plan
to be released in final draft form. I think they're there right now.
It does need to be approved by council before they complete some
of those projects and cost them out and make a full
recommendation to council. But we need that plan so that we can
update the costs and then they've been looking at a couple ways of
doing it. In short they have another meeting or so that they need to
get together with our consultant and they'll bring, be bringing their
recommendations to council probably February time frame, I
would guess.
Hank Olson: Is our timing good for this project to fall under that? I mean if
talking about impact from traffic, here we go.
Unknown speaker: Right, Your Honor, Mr. Olson I think so because... again a lot of
this doesn't fall on the developer unless the developer is also the
builder. The impact fees are paid at the time of building that
issuance, and so it would fall on that specific project, not on a plan
like this. So I believe so. we're looking at, if council were to give
approval in the next several months to this project, they'd still be
in the process of moving dirt and putting in the infrastructure prior
to putting up buildings.
Page 36 of 38
Hank Olson: So you're comfortable that we've got time yet to make this happen.
Because it's just, it's that important.
Mayor Kennedy: Okay, Wayne.
Wayne Saverud: We received an e-mail today about a council workshop in Polson
on the 241h of January.
Mayor Kennedy: That's for newly elected, it's through the Montana Government
Center. If it's something that you want to attend, get hold of
Theresa and she will register you.
Wayne Saverud: okay.
Unknown speaker: It's rather spendy.
Mayor Kennedy: Anything else from the council? Jim?
Jim.: Your Honor, council, a couple of meetings ago we mentioned that
you'd like to have a public hearing on this project prior to making
a decision and so we will, unless council doesn't want us to, we
will go ahead and advertise that for the 7h of January on this
project.
Mayor Kennedy: Are we done with presentations? Or is there going to be another
presentation?
Unknown speaker: We may have a more detailed presentation at a later time. But that
would be at a formal council meeting and not necessarily here.
Unless council again wants to take that back to, back to a work
session.
Mayor Kennedy: I just want to make sure that the public has the access to all of the
information. If we hold a meeting, a public hearing, on January
7th, that's not giving the public the access to any information that
would be presented to the council. If you're saying that - unless
you're going to have the presentation first and then we'd have a
public hearing.
Unknown speaker: Your Honor, we could do that. All of the information is available.
All of this is available on our internet, on our website and it has
been for about two to three weeks. And again we've had a public
hearing at the Planning Board. our citizens have been able to go
to the Planning Board. We have these available for check out from
the council, or from the City Clerk's office. So I think the
information is available.
Page 37 of 38
Mayor Kennedy: Okay. So council's okay with having a public hearing on January
7t"? And there will be no council action that night.
Unknown speaker: This is a huge project. We need to, I mean look at this. A lot of
this, if you're not an engineer, it's going to take a long time to get
through.
Mayor Kennedy: Well we've gat three weeks to go through it now. We've got no
meetings the rest of this month.
Page 38 of 38
Montana 2Q06 Five Percent Report - F.HWA Safety http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/flvepercent/06mt.htm
Montana 2006 Five Percent Report
This report is in response to the Federal requirement that each state describe at feast 5 percent of its locations
currently exhibiting the most severe highway safety needs, in accordance with Sections 148(c)(1)(D) and
148(g)(3)(A), of Title 23, United States Code. Each state's report is to include potential remedies to the
hazardous locations identified; estimated costs of the remedies; and impediments to implementation of the
remedies other than costs. The reports included on this Web site represent a variety of methods utilized and
various degrees of road coverage. Therefore, this report cannot be compared with the other reports included on
this Web site.
Protection from Discovery -and Admission into Evidence --Under 23 U.S.C. 148(g)(4) information collected
or compiled for any purpose directly relating to this report shall not be subject to discovery or admitted into
evidence in a Federal or State court proceeding or considered for other purposes in any action for damages
arising from any occurrence at a location identified or addressed in the reports.
Additional information, including the specific legislative requirements, can be found in the guidance provided by
the Federal Highway Administration,
htt ://safe .fhwa.dot. ov/safetealu/five uidance.htm.
Montana Department of Transportation
FIVE PERCENT REPORT
Pursuant to Federal Highway Administration guidance "Highway Safety Improvement Program, 23 U.S.C. 148 (c)
(1) (1) 5 Percent Report" of April 5, 2006, the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) presents the following
information:
Montana has over 69,000 miles of roads, spread over 145,000 square miles. Its estimated 2002 population is
barely over 900,000 inhabitants. The Montana Highway Patrol records show 22,376 crashes in 2005. For 2005,
the average number of crashes on the rural off -system roads was 6 crashes per 100 miles, compared to 19
crashes per 10 miles on the rural Interstates.
The MDT highway program, that includes safety elements with each project, is compiled in the State
Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), that can be viewed at
www.mdt,mt.gpv/publiGations/docs/s!!p/2006stip--final.pdf -
For the 2006-2008 period, the program gives the following break down:
Construction/Reconstruction $ 376.7 Million (51.9%)
Resurfacing $ 142.8 Million (19.7%)
Rehabilitation/Widening $ 89.3 Million (12.3%)
Bridge Replacement/Rehab $ 68.0 Million (9.4%)
Spot Improvement/Safety $ 21.1 Million (2.9%)
Miscellaneous $ 28.3 Million (3.9%)
Highway safety does not involve just the Department of Transportation. Numerous agencies, Tribal governments
and advocacy groups are involved. At the Federal level, the main agencies are the Federal Highway
Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carder Safety
Administration. At the State level, the main partners, besides MDT, are the Department of Justice with the
Montana Highway Patrol and the Motor Vehicle Division, the Department of Public Health and Human Services
and the Office of Public Instruction. At the local level, Police and Sheriff Departments, Public Works/Road
Departments and the courts dealing with traffic issues participate in highway safety. In short, highway safety
involves everyone. Most of these agencies are active stakeholders in the Montana comprehensive Highway
Safety Plan, that is being finalized. These stakeholders have selected the following focus areas:
1. Increase safety belt usage to 90%;
2. Reduce statewide alcohol -and drug -impaired fatal and incapacitating injury crashes;
3. Reduce Native American fatal crashes;
4. Reduce and mitigate the consequences of single vehicle run -off -the -road fatal and incapacitating injury
crashes;
of 3 1/7/2008 2:33 PM
Montana 2006 Five Percent Report - FHWA Safety
http: //safety. fhwa. dot. gov/five perc6-nt/06mt. htm
5. Develop and implement a comprehensive, coordinated transportation records and crash reporting, data
management, and analysis system, accessible to all stakeholders, to manage and evaluate transportation
safety;
6. Reduce young driver (under age 21) fatal and incapacitating injury crashes;
7. Establish a process to reduce crashes, injury crashes and fatal crashes in identified high crash corridors
and locations;
8. Reduce fatal and incapacitating injury crashes involving trucks, and
9. Develop an effective and integrated Emergency Medical Services (EMS) delivery system.
In addition to these nine priority emphasis areas, Montana adopted three additional emphasis areas.
1. Reduce fatal and incapacitating injury crashes in urban areas;
2. Reduce motorcycle fatal and incapacitating injury crashes, and
3. Reduce older driver fatal and incapacitating injury crashes.
Figure 1 gives the number of fatalities and incapacitating injuries on Montana highways over the last ten years
1996-2OO5. Figure 2 illustrates the percent of belted injured occupants in crashes from 1996 to 2005. Figure 3
shows the alcohol related fatalities as percent of all fatalities in the 1996-2004 period. The Statewide crash rate
was estimated at 2.64 crashes per million vehicle miles traveled in 1996 and 2.00 in 2005.
As part of this Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan, MDT identified highway corridors with a combination of high
crash severity rate and high number of fatalities and incapacitating injuries per mile, based mostly on 2000-2004
crash data. The severity rate is defined as the number of crashes with a fatality or an incapacitating injury times
eight plus the number of crashes with a non -incapacitating injury or possible injury times three plus the number of
property damage only crashes per million vehicle -miles traveled.
The following corridors with highest ratings on the rural National Highways, rural State Primary and Secondary
highways were identified. These segments were based on 10 plus mile lengths, except for the State Secondary
roads were based on 5 plus mile lengths.
1-15 Boulder -Bernice
1-90 (Nest of Frenchtown to Missoula
1--90 Homestake Pass
US 2 Kalispell --- Hungry Horse
MT 2 Pipestone Pass
U5 93 Kalispell -- Whitefish
MT 78 Red Lodge - Luther
S-43O Canyon Ferry Road
S-231 Green Meadow Drive
5-269 East Valley Highway
For the urban areas on the Interstate and on the combined National Highways and State Primary routes, the
routes with the highest combination severity rate and high number of fatalities and incapacitating injuries per mile
are:
1-15 Great Falls within urban limits and
N-92 Missoula Reserve Street
These corridors are located on the attached map in blue.
MDT plans to establish a process to perform safety audits of these corridors. The intent is to develop low cost
safety improvements and pursue strategies such as enforcement activities and public education, involving the
disciplines of the participants in the development of the strategic highway safety plan.
In addition the 10 plus mile on -system segments with the greatest number of severe crashes involving an
occupant using no protective device are shown on the map in green. Another major problem in Montana is the
alcohol and drug focus area. The map illustrates the 10 plus mile segments where the highest number of drivers,
who had been using alcohol or drugs were involved in severe crashes. These corridors are depicted in red. The
identification of these corridors will allow the safety stakeholders to concentrate their efforts in these areas and
Statewide.
of 3 II712O08 2:33 PM
..,.vAI%.uA144 LVVV v IYG FIC111.:Gi[L MCA. OR ~ V171 WA warty
y
http://safety.thwa,dot.gov/fivepereent/06mt.htr
In view of the late passage of the Federal Transportation Act SAFETEA-LU and recent guidance documents, MDT
provides the latest list of Highway Safety Improvement Program projects approved by the Transportation
Commission in January 2006. These sites were selected based on high crash rates, high severity rates, high
number of crashes. Sites were also submitted for evaluation by local agencies, enforcement agencies and MDT
Districts. The projects with the highest benefit/cost ratios are distributed with the following percentages by
highway classification systems:
Interstate 8%
National Highway Non -Interstate 24%
State Primary 24%
Urban 6%
Projects on collectors and local roads:
State Secondary 30%
Local roads 8%
The attached map shows the location of the sites where the proposed improvements exceed $50,000. The
attached Table 1* summarizes the proposed improvements.
All the partners involved in the Comprehensive Highway Safety Plan hope that all these efforts will further improve
the safety an Montana Highways.
Contact Person:
Pierre A. Jomini, P.E.
Safety Management Engineer
Montana Department of Transportation
2701 Prospect Avenue
P.O. Box 201001
Helena, MT 50520-1001
pjomini@mt.gov
of 3 1/7/2005 2: 3 3 PM
Print Versir n
r•
http:Hwww.dailyinterlake.corn/articles/2007/08/2G/news/newsO I .prt
Grow with the flow
By JOHN STANG.
The Daily Inter Lake
Can Kalispell's sewage -treatment plant
keep up with the volumes it will face
during the next few years?
The answer could be yes, if Kalispell is
careful how it expands.
But lots of factors come into play, and
this is a question that has caught extra
attention lately.
On Aug. 14, Public Works Director Jim
Hansz told the Kalispell City Council
that a close eye is needed on this
issue. During the council meeting and
in a later interview, he outlined his
concerns.
"You've got to be cautious. You've got
to be mindful at the times you are
making commitments," Hansz said.
HERE IS the current situation.
Kalispell"s sewage -treatment plant is
capable of processing an average of
3.1 million gallons a day, and is
currently handling about 3 million
gallons daily.
Print Page
As sewage gets treated in a secondary clarifier at the Kalispell Wastewater
Treatment Plant last weep, a crew from COP Construction excavates a huge
hole for two new bioreactor cells that will nearly double the amount of
sewage the plant can handle. The sewage --treatment plant is nearly at full
capacity: The plant is capable of processing an average of 3.1 million gallons
a day, and currently is handling about 3 million gallons daily. The expansion
is scheduled to be up and running by June 2009. Karen Nichols photos/Daily
Inter Lake
In June, the plant began a $20.5 million expansion to handle an average of 5.4 million gallons a day by late 2008 or
early 2009. The expansion includes preliminary groundwork to enable it to expand to 7.5 million gallons a day if
needed later.
Meanwhile, Kalispell has been annexing major chunks of land on which developers plan to build thousands of homes.
These include the recently annexed 1-square-mile Starling site, where 3,000 home are planned in the next 20 years.
Then there are three chunks of land — with a fourth getting ready for annexation -- that are extending Kalispell three
miles north from west Reserve drive to Church Drive, and are adding 1.7 square miles designated for extensive
construction.
Plus, there are numerous smaller sites being annexed almost continuously.
Usually, when an annexation occurs, the city negotiates agreements that include how many homes it will allow on an
annexed parcel.
Hansz keeps tallying up those promised homes.
On Aug. 14 he told the council when the sewage plant expands to 5.4 million gallons a day by 2009, all that extra
capacity has already been promised to housing development projects on the books now.
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That led some council members to wonder whether the city government should look into drawing some lines against
other annexations. No conclusions were reached, other than this topic should be discussed more.
Defining the issue in a clear-cut way is difficult. A complicating factor is how to keep tabs on the treatment plant's
growth and Kalispell's construction plans in a relevant way.
Here are some important milestones to consider:
Planned -Unit Development
This is a contract between the city and a developer in which the government sets up the zoning and allows exceptions
to that zoning in return for the developer's promises to mitigate those exceptions. This is done usually -- but not
always when land is annexed and zoned.
This is also when the city promises to deliver services -- such as sewage treatment — to a specific number of homes
in a project.
And this is how Hansz tallies up the number of homes the sewage plant has promised to handle.
• Preliminary plat
This occurs when the City Council approves preliminary generalized plans for a project -- frequently for just one phase
of construction for a fraction of land within the overall housing development.
This is part of the sewage -plant picture because a city's approval of a preliminary plat leads to the developer sending
sewage plans for a specific number of homes to the state Department of Environmental Quality for review.
On July 25, the state sent an e-mail to Hansz to reinforce a state policy that it would not approve more homes than
what the sewage plant can handle at that time. The exception is that plans must be in motion so the city can provide
the extra required sewage plant capacity within one year of the final plat's approval.
■ Final plat
This is the council -approved detailed final plan for a project -- including the final number of homes. The state's
approval for sewage capacity is needed before the council can pass a final plat.
All this also leads to more complications on keeping tabs on treatment capacities.
For example, Hansz looked at the city's promise to the Starling project under its planned -unit development agreement
to supply sewage treatment to 3,000 homes to be built over the next 20 years in an estimated 15 phases.
But a preliminary plat has been approved only for Starling's 63-acre first phase calling for 236 homes — the only
Starling number that the state Department of Environmental Quality counts at this time.
If Starling spreads its remaining 2,800 homes across 20 years, the city is in good shape regarding the state sewage
watchdogs, Hansz said. But Kalispell would lose most of its cushion with the state if Starling chooses to seek
preliminary plats for the remaining 2,800 homes in the next year or two, he said.
CONSEQUENTLY, market forces — which govern how fast houses and apartment buildings are actually constructed —
come into play, said Hansz and City Planning Director Tom Jentz.
And nowhere is that more apparent than in the four segments of Kalispell IFs still -growing 1.7-square-mile finger of land
extending north of West Reserve Drive.
There is the 325-acre Silverbrook Estates, with the City Council approving a preliminary plat for the entire
development of almost 600 houses and townhouses two miles north of the west Reserve Drive. That preliminary plat
eventually led to the July 25 e-mail from the state agency.
Then the city annexed the 81-acre Valley Ranch and the 181-acre Village Greens sites. Neither site has a planned -unit
development agreement nor a preliminary plat, but are expected to build a few hundred homes.
Add to this the 481-acre Glacier Town Center that's expected to seek annexation within a couple of months with a
shopping center and hundreds of homes in plans that are still being mapped out.
If Valley Ranch, Village Greens or Glacier Town Center get planned -unit -development agreements approved this year,
that means Kalispell has promised more sewage treatment for homes on the drawing board for the next 20 years than
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it will be able to handle in 2009, Hansz said.
A similar scenario would unfold if the 500-plus-home Willow Creek project southwest of Kalispell ever gets annexed
with a planned -unit development, he said.
MARKET FORCES add another wrinkle, Jentz and Hansz said.
If a project such as Willow Creek, Valley Ranch or Glacier Town Center gets through the red tape and builds more
quickly than Starling, then Starling's later phases are more likely than the other projects to face vetoes from the state
over sewage -treatment capacity issues, they said.
Meanwhile, Kalispell expects to eventually expand to a 7.5-million-gallon-a-day treatment capacity.
The triggering event for the planning, contracting and construction to begin will likely be when the plant is processing
4 million gallons daily, Hansz said.
When that 4-million-gallon mark will be reached is anyone's guess.
The formula to watch is that one home equals 2.5 people, equals 250 gallons of wastewater a day.
That means 4,000 homes equal 1 million gallons of needed treatment capacity.
Since Kalispell"s growth boom began in about 2002, it has added 278 homes in 2002, 193 in 2003, 480 in 2004, 378
in 2005, and 349 in 2006.
That is an average of almost 336 new homes a year.
Jentz said the construction boom has decreased slightly. He expects Kalispell to absorb roughly 300 new homes in
2007.
Another consideration is that the number of homes counted in a final plat doesn't necessarily mean all of them will be
built. And those constructed will be likely spread across several years.
"All those projects are not going to be built out right away," Jentz said.
Also, if the current population boom wanes, construction will slow down, said Jentz and Mayre Flowers, representing
Citizens for a Better Flathead.
In fact, Flowers worries that a drastic slowdown in housing construction a few years from now could lead to an
expanded Kalispell sewage treatment that might be too big -- which would translate to today's city residents paying
more of the expansion costs than they would if new citizens did not materialize to help foot the bill.
AT LEAST three other factors come into play when linking Kalispell"s growth with its sewage -treatment plant. Although
the actual effects are difficult to determine, these factors are:
■ Rural Flathead County developers located near Kalispell usually want to annex their lands to the city to get access to
the city's sewage -treatment plant. This is a major reason for the city's continual annexations.
• A potential Evergreen Water & Sewer District sewage -treatment plant is being considered, with a feasibility study
due by December. Right now, Evergreen ships its sewage to Kalispell"s treatment plant. It is legally entitled to
682,000 gallons a day of Kalispell's plant's capacity, and actually uses 460,000 to 480,000 gallons a day.
If Evergreen builds its own plant, that would free up 682,000 gallons of Kalispell"s capacity. If fact, Kalispell already
sometimes uses some of Evergreen's unused capacity when needed.
If Evergreen builds a plant, that would nullify its current contract with Kalispell, an agreement that also forbids
Evergreen from expanding beyond its current borders. If that scenario materializes, a rural developer could choose
between hooking up to Evergreen or Kalispell.
e By 2012, the state is expected to put a limit on the amount of nutrients -- such as nitrogen and phosphorus -- that
the Flathead River can discharge into Flathead Lake. The Flathead River limit will lead to smaller limits that individual
city sewage plants can discharge into the river and its tributaries.
Kalispell's plant already discharges nutrients drastically below state limits. But increased volumes of wastewater could
trim much of Kalispell's current cushion.
If Evergreen builds a plant, that would result in recalculating and decreasing the amounts that other Flathead River
117/2008 12:12 PM 1/7/2008 12:12 PM
Print Version http:llwww.dailyinterlake.com/articles12007/08/26/news/newsO1.prt
basin plants can discharge.
Ultimately, Kalispell"s sewage -treatment plant is just one piece of the puzzle in determining what affects the city's
ability to handle growth, Flowers and ]entz said.
Other factors include the ability of the city's roads handle extra traffic, whether enough fire stations and firefighters
are in place for timely responses, the number of police officers, the availability of water, and so on.
Also, Flathead County's abilities to handle the same problems are linked with Kalispell's capabilities, Flowers said.
She said Kalispell's sewage -plant growth "is one symptom in a bigger issue. We need a comprehensive strategy
between the city and county to control growth."
Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at istang@dailyinterlake.com
1/7/2008 12:12 PM 1/7/2008 12:12 PM
Access Management
And
Land se anning PoIH'CY P,,apel
T r a it P| a n 21 - 2002 Update
State of Montana
Department of Transportation
TRAN P LAN 21
.... ............ . .... . .
Montana Department of Transportation
Access Management and Land Use Planning
Policy Paper
Table of Contents
■
I. Introduction..........................................►................................................................. I
A. Current Land Use Planning Authority in Montana .................................... I
B. 1995 TranPlan 21 Response to Land Use Planning Issues ....................... 3
C . Current Land Use Planning Activities in Montana .................................... 4
D. Current Access Management Practices in Montana ................................... 5
E. Access Management Implementation.........................................................
F. Access Management Strategies and Mechanisms ...................................... 9
II. Access Management and Land Use Planning Issues ......................... ►...............12
A. Issues Raised by the Public......................................................................12
B. Issues Raised by MDT Staff ............. ........................■....................►.........0 13
III. Policy Coals and Actions r ......... ►................ ►......... ► .. ►............................. r ........... 18
A. Access Management............................................►r...................■..■...........■ 18
B. Land Use Planning and Transportation..................................................... 19
IV. References ..........►.............................................................................................. 22
Montana Department of Transportation TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Pa e I
1. Introduction
Background on Current Land Use Planning and
Access Management for Transportation in Montana
■
This document is the TranPlan 212002 Update to the 1995 Access Management and Land Use
Planning Policy paper. This policy paper addresses access management and the broader issue of
the linkage between land use and transportation in. Montana. For both areas, the paper describes
the conclusions from the original 1995 TranPlan 21, the issues addressed in the original policy
paper, current policies and practices, the major issues raised for this update, and the
recommended policy goals and actions that address these issues.
Access management and land use planning were subject to an in-depth treatment in 1995 because
Montanans raised many issues about the impact that development was having on the
transportation system and concern that MDT's decisions were making it more difficult for local
communities to manage growth. In 1995, strong sentiment was expressed in a number of
communities that MDT take a more active role incorporating land use in highway planning
decisions. Because MDT does not have the authority over land use, the 1995 policy paper
concluded that MDT should not adopt a more active role in land use planning. Instead, the paper
concluded that MDT has a strong policy interest in ensuring that the development review
decisions and the land use planning actions of local jurisdictions preserve the efficient and safe
function of Montana's transportation corridors. This policy interest was covered in the 1995
policy paper through actions concerning access management, and coordination with local
jurisdictions' planning activities. In addition, actions addressed developer responsibilities to
mitigate traffic impacts from major new developments.
The issues addressed in the original policy paper and the conclusions arrived at still hold for the
2002 TranPlan2l Update. The 2002 update paper is consistent with the findings and direction set
in 1995. Today, the imperative for implementing access management and corridor preservation,
and for establishing close coordination with Montana's local governments, is greater due to the
continued concentration of growth in Montana's most developed counties.
A. Current Land Use Planning Authority in Montana
Before discussing MDT's policy goals and actions related to access management and land
use planning, it is important to note that the State of Montana in general, and the Montana
Department of Transportation in particular, have no enabling legislative authority relative to
decisions over land use. Land use planning authority resides at the local level. Local
jurisdictions have the authority to address land use planning through three authorities: 1) a
growth policy, 2} sub -division laws, and 3) zoning and permitting regulations. These
authorities are described below.
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1. Growth Policy
The Local Planning Enabling Act (76-1-101 through 76-1--606, Montana Code
Annotated) enables local government to prepare a growth policy and sets out the
required procedures. If enacted, the growth policy must cover the entire jurisdiction
and address all aspects that affect the community's public facilities, transportation,
parks, recreation, economy, and housing. The planning jurisdiction may focus on
incorporated urban areas or may include the entire county.
2. Sul)*Division Laws
Sub -division laws regulate the process of platting land into lots and providing public
facilities (roads, water, sewer, and storm drainage) to the lots. Before granting
approval, local governments must assess the anticipated needs of the proposed
subdivision for local services including roads and maintenance, and overall public
health and safety related to the development.
3. Zoning and Development Permitting
Zoning is a legal tool local governments use to protect public health, safety, and
welfare by dividing jurisdictions into use districts (zones), restrict various uses to
certain zones, and impose requirements that permitted uses must meet. In Montana,
three different statutes authorize local governments to enact zoning regulations;
however, zoning is not mandated.
Many planners and local officials in Montana have expressed interest in alternatives to
zoning for regulating land use. One alternative, using existing state enabling statutes,
involves development permit regulations, which affect the character and quality of
new development as opposed to zoning, which only affects the location. Development
permit regulations may be adopted under any of the three zoning enabling statutes.
Development permit regulations may be used to implement a jurisdiction's land use
plan and mitigates transportation impacts by having different requirements for
different areas in a county. For example, there could be more specific requirements to
manage growth in incorporated and unincorporated communities, and less restrictive
or speclf c standards in the rest of the county. Growth management has been a topic of
interest in recent years and usually means that a growth area is designated by a
boundary line, and within that growth area development at higher densities is
encouraged by various mechanisms such as providing infrastructure (roads, water,
sewer) to support this development. Montana's local governments have the authority
to establish goals for local growth.
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B. 1995 TranPlan 21 Response to Land Use Planning
issues
In response to the access management and land use issues evaluated in the planning process,
the following overall policy goals and actions were adopted in the 1995 TranPlan 21
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper:
■ MDT established a policy goal. encouraging local jurisdictions to establish land use
planning and development permitting mechanisms that would enable local jurisdictions
to better manage the land use aspects of transportation/land use coordination.
Since TranPlan 21 was adopted in 1995, MDT and the planning officers in many of
Montana's cities and counties have developed a close working relationship in
reviewing proposed developments within the Systems hnpact Action Process
(described later in this document) a development's impact on the safety and function
of the public roadway system may be mitigated either by conditions included in local
platting approvals or through approach permits issued by MDT -- depending on the
jurisdictional authority over the adjacent roadways. The close working relationship
between the MDT and local planning offices enables local governments to better
manage both land use and transportation aspects of development. These reviews are
limited to site impacts.
Montana's urban areas, along with other areas that are under development pressures,
also receive support from N4DT to develop transportation plans. The local government
offices manage these plans. Consequently, the urban area transportation plans are
consistent with local land use plans. However, many of Montana's local governments
are at a disadvantage because they lack resources to support local planning efforts.
The TranPlan 212002 Update retains the goal of encouraging local land use planning
with the additional specific focus of encouraging local jurisdictions to better support
MDT's corridor preservation objectives.
■ MDT established a goal of working with local jurisdictions to require developers to
mitigate the roadway systems impacts resulting from large developments by
contributing to improvements required to accommodate travel demands.
This goal resulted in MDT establishing a defensible mechanism known as the Systems
Impact Action Process. The TranPlan 21 2002 Update refines this goal by focusing
the State's permitting authority and its working relationship with local government
decision makers.
• Potential policy goals and actions that would have increased MDT's direct activity in
the area of land use planning were not adopted.
The TranPlan 212002 Update did not revisit these decisions because MDT is not the
appropriate agency for initiating or coordinating land use -related actions. Regardless
of the issue of authority, within the 1995 TranPlan 21 there was greater concern
expressed by the public over MDT's direct involvement in local land use planning. In
addition, during the development of projects, especially those that add capacity to the
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highway system, local governments normally advise and participate in project
planning including design elements that enhance local land use goals.
C. Current Land Use Planning Activities in Montana
1. Status of Land Use Planning in Montana
Land use planning is varied and inconsistent across Montana. During the 1999
legislative session attempts were made to address these inconsistencies through new
legislation that requires local jurisdictions to develop growth policies. MCA 76.1-601
states that each planning board shall prepare and propose a growth policy for the entire
jurisdictional area. Growth policies are a comprehensive development plan or master
plan that must include certain components such as community goals and objectives,
projected trends for the life of the growth policy, and an implementation strategy. The
policy may also propose ordinances or resolutions for possible adoption by the
appropriate governing body.
2. Even with the new requirement to develop growth
policies, development and application of these growth
policies has been inconsistent. No state agency
oversees or regulates the creation of growth policies
and there has been some confusion regarding the
deadlines for adopting growth policies. Coordination
of Transportation and Land Use Planning
The Transportation Efficiency Act for the Twenty -First Century (TEA-21) requires
state transportation agencies and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to
consider projects and strategies that will. "support economic vitality," "increase
accessibility and mobility options," "protect and enhance the environment," "improve
quality of life," and "enhance the integration of the transportation system." These
parallel considerations are commonly included in land use planning activities. TEA-21
eliminated any specific reference to state -level responsibility regarding land use
planning because states rarely have authority to directly make land use decisions. At
this time, the Federal Regulations interpreting TEA-21 have not been finalized and the
Federal Highway Administration has issued guidance to states to follow the statutory
language of TEA.-21. Consequently, while land use coordination is not a specific
requirement, the underlying goals of most land use plans have to be considered within
the parameters of the statewide plan.
Many regions of Montana lack current growth policies that can serve as a reference for
the statewide, policy level transportation plan. In practice, consistency between the
local land use plans and state transportation system development and management is
achieved through the Systems Impact Process (described later in this document) for
large site developments. Local officials also assure consistency with their
jurisdiction's land use plans through the project nomination process for the Secondary
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and Urban Highway Programs, in which they act as the principal project originators. In
addition, local elected officials are directly involved through advisory and steering
committees in the project development process (especially for capacity expansion
projects) including all access management for individual projects.
In Montana's three metropolitan areas (Billings, Great Falls, and Missoula),
transportation planning is conducted in accordance with Section 134 of 23 USC,
which includes the considerations for strategies and projects described above. As with
most metropolitan areas nationally, the counties and cities that comprise Montana's
three MPOs are also responsible for local land use planning. In addition to supporting
the federally -mandated transportation planning efforts in the metropolitan areas, MDT
also supports planning efforts in smaller urban areas including Bozeman, Helena,
Kalispell, and Butte that are managed by the local agencies responsible for land use
planning. Taken together, these efforts ensure coordination. between transportation
planning and land use planning in those areas where there is the highest level of
interest in, and commitment to, land use planning.
D. Current Access Management Practices in
Montana
Access management describes a set of administrative, engineering, and management
practices that preserve the safe and efficient operation of Montana's highway system. The
practice of access management addresses elements such as access spacing, intersection and
traffic signal spacing, denial of access requests, and geometric design standards. These
standards should reflect differences between urban and rural areas, as well as difference
between the hierarchies of functional classes, allowing greater degree of access on lower
volume and speed routes, while restricting access on higher volume and speed routes.
Access management is controlling the design and operation of all approaches and public
street connections onto highways. Management or control of vehicular access to the system
of state highways and arterial roadways is a practice that has gained increased attention in
recent years as a means of preserving and enhancing system performance, improving safety,
and addressing concerns such as traffic congestion and the escalating costs of upgrading
roads. Several western states, including Colorado and Oregon, have adopted very
comprehensive access management programs that go well beyond the traditional right-of-
way issues. This movement is consistent with the overall direction of transportation
agencies, which now focus as much attention on asset management, corridor preservation,
and highway maintenance as on capital construction. Many states are looking to access
management as an essential tool for preservation of the functional integrity and hierarchy of
the existing highway system.
MDT is not new to access management; the department has been involved with access
management initiatives for several years:
* 1992 Access Management Plan
The Montana Highway Commission adopted an Access Management Plan developed
by MDT staff. That document mainly clarified the process by which an access control
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regulation could be modified to allow access at points not granted at the time access
rights were originally acquired.
s Access management in the 1995 TranPlan 21
The original TranPlan 21 Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
identified the state of access management and land use planning in the state, at that
time. Through the policy paper, MDT adopted policy goals and actions aimed at
strengthening access management including:
-- The establishment of a classification system for access management.
-- The inventory and refinement of methods to ensure that there is adequate
authority to manage access in Montana.
The work to communicate the performance benefits arising from an access
management policy.
The 1995 issue identification process, further confirmed by the TranPlan 21 2002
Update analysis, found that almost all Montanans believe that the highway system is
basically complete, and that the focus of attention should be on maximizing the
productivity of the existing infrastructure, and preserving and maintaining current
facilities. In addition, it has been noted by MDT staff that enhancement of access
management standards, and more rigorous enforcement of those standards, is desirable
from the Department's standpoint of maintaining safety and system performance.
The 1999 Montana Department of Transportation Access Management Project
Final Report
The 1999 Access Management Project Report provides a detailed description of access
management and its benefits for Montana. The issues identification for that study
reiterated the need for access management in Montana.
The conclusions from the 1999 Access Management Project included:
-- Develop and implement an Access Classification System.
... Develop and implement access management guidelines.
• MDT's Systems Impact Action Process
The 1995 TranPlan.21 established policy direction and a mechanism to hold private
developers responsible for funding improvements to the transportation system required
by the increased traffic demands generated by their development. The policy provides
a mechanism to ensure that improvements are able to keep pace with growth. Paying
for the new infrastructure necessary to maintain safe and efficient levels of
transportation service in Montana's fast growing areas is one of the most consistent
and difficult challenges facing MDT and local jurisdictions. In order to implement
TranPlan.2 1's direction, MDT developed the Systems Impact Action Process.
MDT's Systems Impact Action Process provides a coordinated review of projects
initiated outside of MDT that may significantly and permanently impact the
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transportation system's safety or functionality. Through this process MDT coordinates
with the local agencies that have land use authority. The process provides coordination
within MDT and with other state, federal and local review and permuting agencies.
As part of the development approval process, either local jurisdictions and/or MDT
have authority to require developers to mitigate transportation system impacts,
Mitigations can include the developers paying for the design and construction of traffic
signals, turn lanes, and improved roadway geometric designs and surfaces. Direct
authority to require these improvements may reside in the local government platting
approvals and/or MDT granting of access permits for developments crossing state
right -of way. To ensure a comprehensive traffic impact review, developers are
responsible for traffic impact studies for all developments greater than a particular
size. These are then comprehensively reviewed for technical accuracy and the
appropriateness of the mitigations suggested by the developer.
The goals of this process include:
Provide a one -stop process for private developers to request access to and from
the state highway system.
-- Facilitate a timely review of the developer's request by a varied group of MDT
technical offices.
— identify reasonable accommodation of the developer's project needs.
-- Preserve the safety and efficiency of Montana's transportation system..
-- Protect taxpayer investments by recovering costs from developers for their
project's impacts to the transportation system.
— Ensure MDT permitting does not precede an environmental process
(NEPA/MEPA).
A large number of projects go through the System Impact Action Process. In the spring
of 2002, MDT has 45 projects at various stages of review, including the following:
-- Bozeman Home Depot, a commercial development in Bozeman. The developer is
paying for traffic signals and geometric improvements.
--T Elk Grove Development, a residential development requesting access to US-191.
The developer is responsible for paying to install a turn lane and widen the road,
including the purchase of right-of-way.
-- Bull Mountain Rail Spur, a 27--mile rail spur from the Bull Mountain Mine to the
BNSF main line near Broadview. The mine is responsible for constructing grade
separated highway crossing at two locations: US-87 and MT-3.
For MDT, the most effective method of addressing transportation issues related to new
development is the System Impact Action Process. The process provides a coordinated
review that protects the taxpayer's investment in the transportation system while
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allowing the development of private property in accordance with local land use
planning decisions.
E. Access Management Implementation
The 1999 Access Management Project established a new access classification system for
Montana's National Highway System and Primary System. The classification system
distinguishes between four major categories of roadway.-
0 Rural very low volume
• Rural
Intermediate
• Developed access
The classification system provides a framework for managing access onto the roadway. For
each of the categories, the Access Management Project developed access guidelines that
recommend:
• Minimum unsignalized access spacing.
• where non --direct access will be sought. (This includes instances where direct access
would be denied when other access is available.)
• Median opening spacing.
• Signal spacing and bandwidth.
The overall approach for implementing these guidelines involves consistent application of
the access management classification system. The guidelines provide a clear set of access -
related objectives for Montana's roadways that N MT can plan for and design consistently.
1. Implementing Mechanisms
The basis for implementing the access classification system has applied the following
mechanisms*.
• MDT review, refinement, and adoption of the access guidelines as the statewide
access "plan" or objectives for the National Highway and Primary Systems.
Completion of access control projects using the access control resolution process.
• Update and amendment of the 1983 Driveway Approach Standards to establish
the guidelines as standards that apply to issuing driveway approach permits.
Application of the access guidelines governing driveway spacing and other
design criteria in projects that are subject to access control resolutions.
• Improvement in communication and coordination with the appropriate land use
planning authorities.
Ensuring MDT employees in headquarters and the Districts are trained in and
consistently apply the access guidelines.
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2. Implementing Authority
The access classification system would be implemented using MDT's existing
authority. This is consistent with how MDT has applied standards in the past. Through
its general police powers and responsibilities to protect the public health, safety, and
welfare on state highways, MDT and the Transportation Commission may implement
appropriate engineering standards and procedures to manage, by regulation, access on
highways. MDT's current approach to regulating driveway access is specified in the
Administrative Rules of Montana (Chapter 5, Preconstruction Bureau, Sub -Chapter 1,
Highway Approaches).
F. Access Management Strategies and Mechanisms
The specific methods and criteria for determining how much access to provide, and how to
physically provide or limit access, are the elements of an access management strategy.
Successful access management strategies include:
• A classification system, defining the `access class" for each facility in the state system.
• Guidelines for determining the level of controls that are appropriate for a given area
and facility type.
• Criteria which define the preferred characteristics within an access class; examples
include criteria for minimum intersection and driveway spacing, installation of barrier
medians, location of median breaks, turn prohibitions at intersections and driveways,
use of frontage roads, traffic signal spacing, etc.
• Procedures for handling requested variances.
Additional components might include a permit or fee system, guidelines for
"grandfathering" existing access, and administrative responsibilities. other than the traffic
engineering tools noted above, other techniques that a state may use to effect access
management include the following:
• Statutory Access Control. The Montana Transportation Commission may designate a
roadway as a "Controlled Access Highway and Facility" in order to facilitate the flow
of traffic, preserve the public peace, support health and safety, promote general
welfare and efficient travel, and to otherwise facilitate implementation of the purposes
and intents set forth in Montana Code Annotated 60-1- 101 and 60-1-102. Access
rights may be controlled and/or limited by the State either through exercising its police
power, or, if it is determined that the police power does not apply to an individual
parcel, through eminent domain.
• Acquisition of Access Rights. The State has the power to purchase access rights or
restrictions. These may be used to control the location and number of access points to
a given parcel, as well as to limit changes in the use of an access point if that change
would generate additional demand on the arterial roadway.
Subdivision Regulations. The State has no authority to review subdivision plans,
which are reviewed at the local level. This strategy allows local government to ensure,
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for example, that the development has adequate internal circulation, setbacks, and no
direct access onto highways from individual lots.
• Driveway Permit System. The State (as well as lower levels of government) has the
authority to require a permit for construction of a private driveway onto a public road.
This authority may be used to prevent further access from the same parcel (restrictive
covenant).
• 4ffitcial Mapping. By officially mapping a future transportation corridor or
improvement, the State and most levels of government have the authority to retain full
access control over the planned facility. Limitations may apply to Montana's ability to
officially map a state highway improvement until alignment studies and environmental
analysis has been completed.
• Corridor Planning. Multi jurisdictional planning efforts, authorized by state and
federal statutes, may be used to develop corridor plans. The plans could include
specifics as to how corridor preservation and access management will be achieved, and
the type and scale of development that will be encouraged through specific access
locations, frontage roads, and other physical techniques. MDT's corridor preservation
report, "The Preservation of Right -of -Way for Transportation Corridors," provides a
good starting point for this type of approach in Montana.
■ Land Use Planning and zoning. This is predominantly the domain of local
government. However, MDT controls access to state facilities, and thus exerts some
influence. The State, through a technical and policy support role, can impact the
development of land use plans and zoning ordinances to favor access management.
The potential value of a supportive role, rather than a regulatory one, should not be
dismissed. The most damage can be done, or the most benefit can be had, during early
stages of development before a locality has the expertise or resources to define access
management strategies. By providing model ordinances, site design and access
guidelines, or even review of applications, the State could affect important
development decisions in critical "formative" years of a corridor's urbanization.
Many of the potential strategies noted above for access management may also be applied to
corridor preservation efforts;
s Land Purchase. Many techniques are available to help ensure that land is available for
additional right -of --way when and if needed. These include outright purchase, purchase of
easements, and land -banking. Disadvantages include the difficulty of predicting with
accuracy the final alignment of a transportation project, and the inefficiency/unpopularity
of committing scarce funds for projects with such a long-term payback..
• Official Mapping. As rioted above, official mapping of future transportation corridors
may be necessary to effectively prevent development from taking place within the
corridor. To avoid acquisition battles, and other property rights challenges, some care
must be exercised in the timing and duration of such techniques.
• Setback Standards. These must be used with care to reserve land for future expansion of
existing facilities, including frontage roads. Setback standards that promote public safety
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and welfare (for example, safety buffers of sight clearance) do not require compensation of
landowners. Conversely, setbacks for the sole purpose of reserving land for future roadway
widening will generally result in a "taking" action requiring compensation.
• Dedications. Dedications are typically requested at the state level only when a
development has access onto a state facility. Local government may use this technique
liberally in exacting land for necessary improvements. However, a recent ruling of the
L.S. Supreme Court places more stringent burden of proof upon government in
establishing proportionality and nexus between the impact and the dedication.
The 1999 Access Management Project provided a comprehensive set of recommendations
and an implementation plan for improving the productivity of the current highway system
and improving safety through strengthened access management. The recommendations
specified the following key elements. -
Is A classification of roadways to target effort where it is most needed.
• New approach standards with minimum driveway separation.
• Strengthened procedures for the consistent application of approach standards when
permits are issued.
• Guidance for undertaking access control projects to purchase access rights and
preserve critical corridors.
The Montana Transportation Commission endorsed these recommendations; however,
MDT has not implemented them due to a lack of resources.
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II. Access Management and Land Use Planning
Issues
■
Access management and land use planning issues were identified through open house forums,
mail -in and telephone surveys with the public, and through discussions with MDT staff. It is
important to note that the State, and hence MDT, has no authority over land use planning and
MDT's actions must therefore be limited primarily to access management and the close
coordination with local governments responsible for land use decisions.
A. Issues Raised by the Public
Despite the limited experience with land use planning in Montana, there is growing interest at
the local level, especially in the faster growing communities, in using land use planning to
manage growth, preserve the quality -of -life, and protect the environment. This interest is also
reflected in a range of general transportation -related issues identified for the statewide plan.
The public and stakeholder involvement conducted as part of the TranPlan 21 update found
that many of the 1995 issues remain important. These issues included:
Concern about the increasing demands placed upon the highway system because of
new development patterns.
0 Recognition that current development patterns, access management practices, and
sometimes weak land use planning reduces the effectiveness of the transportation.
system..
• Resistance, on the part of some, to address increased transportation demands through
increased highway capacity.
• Desire to see transportation system management, demand management, and other
modal options pursued to meet increased transportation demand. This concern is often
linked with a reluctance to increase highway capacity.
• Recognition that land use decisions affect transportation system performance.
In addition to the above, public involvement and stakeholder meetings conducted for the
TrantPlan 212002 Update identified the following related issues:
Strong interest in MDT being more proactive in corridor preservation by purchasing or
protecting right-of-way in advance of construction projects in key corridors.
• Concern over the increasing costs of right-of-way in many corridors.
Recognition that local jurisdictions and MDT need to coordinate planning.
• Concern over the function and design of highways through urban and developing
areas, including amenities related to local land use goals, which are considered
generally under the heading of "context sensitive design."
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In several communities, issues were raised about the function and design of major state
highways as they approach and pass through communities. In some communities these
issues are characterized as "context sensitive design." The issue raised is that MDT
needs to work with and involve local communities to an even greater extent in design
decisions that are made for state highways that pass through these communities. The
issue is a planning issue because MIST needs to find a way to move traffic through and
into growing communities on the state's major highway corridors. The land use
planning, development approval, and street planning decisions that local communities
make determine how effective MDT can be and the options open to MDT in meeting
these demands. Context sensitive design issues arise when there are competing and
different goals and objectives for particular highways and transportation corridors.
Because of their importance, these issues are addressed in the Roadway System
Performance Policy Paper.
B. Issues Raised by MDT Staff
Interviews with MDT staff identified several issues arising from the current conditions and
practices of access management and land use planning in Montana.
1. Access Management Issues
Incomplete implementation of prior access management processes and
actions.
Despite the 1999 Access Management Project final report, access management in
Montana is not implemented to the same degree as it is in several states with
more aggressive, proactive programs.
• Lack of consistent rigorous application of access management policies.
On the Interstate Highway System, complete control of access is federally
regulated and achieved through strict geometric design standards. Not only the
design of interchanges, but also the spacing between interchanges is specified for
urban and rural conditions. On state arterial highways, however, it does not
appear that the Department's policies are uniformly or rigorously applied
throughout the state.
Lack of consistency in application of access management standards.
There is a lack of consistent statewide application of uniform access management
standards. Further, Department staff report that it has been difficult to enforce
access controls unless there is a clear safety problem directly addressed by the
proposed control. Denial of access, or conditioning of access, is difficult if the
principal benefits are preservation of capacity and system functionality or
performance.
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Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
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• Limited tools for preserving corridors in current access management
approach.
The 1999 Access Management Project final report provides detailed direction to
MDT for strengthening access management practices. The Montana
Transportation Commission and MDT management has approved
implementation of these recommendations; however, there has been only limited
progress implementing them due to a lack of resources. The recommendations are
to improve safety and the productivity of the current highway system. Current
practices do not provide specific criteria or a system classification specifically for
access management.
Need to involve other jurisdictions in addressing corridor preservation and
access management.
As recommended in the 1.999 Access Management Project, it is crucial to involve
metropolitan planning organizations, counties, cities, and other jurisdictions in any
comprehensive attempt to manage access to the system of principal and minor
arterials, as these jurisdictions make the land decisions that give rise to the problem.
It is important to balance land use objectives of communities with the State's
mission of preserving the integrity and safety of the highway system. However,
because of the importance of highways to Montana's communities and
businesses, MDT should strive for a reasonable balance, as opposed to simply
preserving flow on the roadways.
Importance of demonstrating the benefits of access management.
The 1999 Access Management Project and national research shows that
successful access management will enable Montana to increase the use of
existing infrastructure without adding capacity. This is an attractive proposition
and the benefits of access management need to be communicated to local
jurisdictions and the business community.
Increased importance of corridor preservation.
Montana's growth and development patterns will continue to result in the greatest
concentration of growth in the valleys and highway corridors that provide
mobility into and through Montana's high -growth areas. These development
patterns increase the importance of preserving these corridors through such
techniques as right-of-way acquisition, local ordinances requiring set backs, and
access management. without these techniques, it will become increasingly costly
and extremely disruptive to accommodate growth.
Once an area has begun to develop, it becomes increasingly difficult to remedy
the problems associated with unmanaged access. It is easier to prevent problems
through proactive, judicious allocation and management of access to the highway
system through the planning process in coordination with local governments
responsible for land use decisions.
ACCESS POUCY.DOC
DYE MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC.
Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Page I5
2. Land Use Planning Issues
0 Growth management and land use planning issues.
Parts of western Montana continue to experience rapid growth. This growth is
geographically concentrated in a small number of counties. Growth rates are most
pronounced in Gallatin, Flathead, and Missoula counties. The population
forecasting conducted as part of the statewide planning process indicates that
Montana can expect to see a continuation of these trends, although the rate of
growth will be less than in the 1980's and early 1990's.
This population growth has been partially accommodated by residential
development in the form of new subdivisions or the permitting of new development
on larger parcels of land. New development has resulted in highly visible changes
in land use, especially in rural areas. This has generated citizen interest in land use
planning and concern about some of the negative impacts of growth.
In general, the growth outside of the urban areas is most visible and gives rise to the
greatest concern, because this growth results in the most visible changes in land
use. There is concern that parts of Montana are now experiencing a cycle of
development and associated land use change similar to that in many other areas of
the west. This cycle involves new residential development adjacent to established
urban areas, which then creates the market for development to accommodate retail
and other services.
It is not the responsibility of the Montana Department of Transportation to
control or manage local growth and land use development. , The authority to
establish development goals lies at the local level. However, the consequences of
local land use decisions often affect the demand for transportation. For example,
few of Montana's new semi -rural subdivisions are linked to other neighborhoods
through a platted grid roadway system. Rather, they are cul-de-sac developments
with entry to their internal road networks via one or two points of access onto a
collector or arterial roadway. By necessity, all traffic to or from the development
will be along the adjacent arterial or collector highways where intensive points of
traffic conflict and speed differentials may be created — thus creating safety and
operational issues. MIST therefore is interested in local jurisdictions managing
the development review process and performing land use planning that helps
preserve transportation corridors and avoids these safety and capacity problems.
Growth boundaries are omen suggested as solutions to local growth concerns.
However, in some urban areas of the country that have established growth
boundaries, development has leapfrogged beyond the boundary and resulted in
longer commuting distances and more developmental pressures on communities
down -stream from the boundary.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
2age 16
Lack of corridor planning or management continues to affect transportation
system performance.
Cities and counties often allow land development to occur in close proximity to
existing corridors or within the probable right-of-way of future transportation
corridors. This pattern of development makes it significantly more costly to
provide transportation services because of the costs for right of way. These
development patterns are creating additional access demands and foreclosing
future options for roadway improvements. The potential use of Federal -Aid
Highway funds to preserve corridors is dependent on advance acquisition of
right-of-way with state funds. Limited state resources create problems in long-
term preservation of corridors using advance acquisition. Local planning actions,
such as set -back ordinances or zoning to limit development within probable
future highway corridors, are difficult to consistently apply.
• Land use patterns affect the attractiveness of different transportation modes.
Montana's existing and future land use patterns affect transportation demand and
influence the relative attractiveness of different modes. Travel demands that
result from low -density residential development and subdivision development in
outlying areas tend to be most readily met by the automobile. Montana is one of
the most sparsely populated states in the country, with a population density of
approximately six persons per square mile, but there has been significant progress
addressing these transportation needs in some corridors with transportation
demand management (TDM) and the expansion of van pools and bus service
along commonly used commuter corridors. For example, the Missoula-Ravalli
Transportation Management Association (MR-TMA) provides vanpool service
between Hamilton and Missoula.
Montana's trends in land use are not likely to decrease the rates of single
occupancy vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled. For example, in 1990 just
under eight percent of the population in Montana walked to work. There is little
evidence to indicate that new development will increase or maintain this rate.
Should Montana's communities wish to encourage the use of non -single
occupancy vehicles and other modes, the effectiveness of many strategies may be
enhanced through land use planning. Nationally, some states and local
jurisdictions are attempting to affect the demand for transportation and improve
the attractiveness of non -single occupancy vehicles as part of their land use
planning. This is usually achieved through zoning policy, which aims to
concentrate commercial development in certain locations and restrict the sprawl
of low -density residential development. Zoning authority is usually vested in
local units of government.
• Complexity of relationships between transportation and land use and
development.
Travel or transportation demand is altered by land use. Travel occurs where land
uses are separated by distance. The amount and purpose of the travel are related
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
DYE MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC.
Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and .hand Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 17
to the use of the land. Different types of land use generate different traffic rates;
for example, conversion of agricultural land to residential or commercial
development increases the demand for transportation. Commercial activities
generate more trips than residential activities. The cumulative effects of land use
change affect the level of service of the existing transportation system.
Transportation investment decisions made to maintain existing levels of service
that address these travel demands can in turn have impacts on land use. Addition
of capacity, or the construction of a bypass, increases the "highest and best use"
of land that was previously less accessible. In slower growing areas, this usually
results in the relocation of business from one part of the community to another
over a number of years. This increases the market demand for highway -oriented
development. When access to outlying areas is improved, development pressure
in the surrounding area is increased subject to the local land use regulations.
Where there is economic growth, there is a direct relationship between improved
highway access and development pressure.
This type of development places significant impacts on the transportation system.
The best locations for new residential, and especially commercial development, are
those with access to the arterial system. Without access management policies, these
market trends can severely reduce the function of the arterial system.
• Limited capacity at the local level to undertake land use planning.
A fundamental transportation issue relating to land use in Montana is that there is
little land use planning in place outside the urban areas and rapid growth areas with
which to coordinate transportation planning. This lack of land use planning
adversely affects the ability of state and local transportation systems to anticipate
and plan for new travel demands. Local units of government, cities, and counties
have the authority to undertake zoning and regulate development. However, these
jurisdictions have limited resources and technical knowledge with which to
undertake land use planning. MDT does, however, frequently provide funding in
support of transportation planning activities for small urban areas.
The state's interest in preserving the safety and functional capacity of corridors is
achieved most practically through access management planning which necessarily
includes the involvement of local governments.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 18
ill. Policy Goals and Actions
N
This section outlines updated policy goals and actions for access management and coordinating
land use planning and transportation.
A. Access Management
Access management is considered an important component of the overall transportation
management effort, in support of MDT's and the TranPlan 212002 Update overall system
management and preservation objectives. Considerable net benefits will derive from the
implementation of MDT's unproved approach to access management as detailed in the
1999 Access Management Project final report.
POLICY COAL An. Improve corridor level access management to
preserve the highway system -
The primary purpose of this policy is to maintain the functional integrity and safety of the
highway system through access management and corridor preservation. The tools available
for access management are the acquisition of access rights, the consistent application of
approach standards, the establishment of limited access facilities, the issuance of approach
permits, and coordination with local jurisdictions.
Action A.I. Establish an MDT Access Management Manual.
This action will document in one place MDT's policy, administrative, and technical
approach guidelines for access management. The manual will be comprehensive,
incorporating results from the 1999 Access Management Project, updating the 1992
Access Management Plan, and including design elements and guidelines, and policies
and procedures.
Action A.2. Develop and implement approach standards as identified in
the 1999 Access Management Project final report.
As a complement to the access classification scheme, MDT will continue to develop
and implement new approach standards governing the issuance of approach permits.
These standards will require technical and management approval for their
implementation. The action will involve modernizing the 1983 Approach Standards
for Montana Highways. These standards are established through MDT's administrative
rule making process to which their update must conform.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation -- TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Pa e 19
Action A.3. Establish an Access Management Plan that identifies and
helps preserve priority corridors.
The intent of this action is to establish a consistent approach to access management in
MDT's corridors that are now experiencing, or that are forecast to experience, the
greatest degradation of level of service. The action will ensure that improvement
projects consider access management and that access is managed consistently on these
corridors. This action will also result in stand-alone access management plans on
corridors under pressure from growth and land use change. The action will be
coordinated with Actions B.3 and B.5 in the Roadway System Performance policy
paper and Actions B.2 and B.3 in this paper.
Action A.4. Communicate the performance benefits arising from an
access management policy.
This action addresses the need to ensure that local jurisdictions, through their
development approval and permitting authority, and the general public understand the
safety, mobility, and financial benefits that Montana will realize through successful
access management. Developers, merchants, and others in the business community, on
a case -by -case basis, need to be shown how access management is good for business
and economic development.
B. Land Use Planning and Transportation
Local land use planning decisions clearly impact the safety and functionality of the
transportation system. MDT coordinates site impact reviews with local governments
through the Systems Impact Action Process. In addition, local governments are stakeholders
in the development of TranPlan 21 and are commonly involved especially through advisory
committees, in environmental documents related to the addition of highway capacity. Local
governments are also commonly involved in the design of state highways that lead to and
travel through their communities. These project -specific discussions often result in the
addition of design elements such as bike and pedestrian facilities, landscaping, and other
community beautification. while the amount of interaction with local governments
regarding the linkage between land use and transportation has increased in recent years,
improvements and refinements would be beneficial.
POLICY GOAL A: Provide technical sup and leadership to encourage
local jurisdictions to support transportation corridor preservation
and management through their land use planning and
development permitting authority.
This policy goal recognizes the unique role MDT can play in providing leadership in the
preservation of transportation corridors and the importance of local government decision -
making in the development of the Secondary and Urban Highway Systems. The aim is to
ensure local governments have the technical support necessary and state encouragement to
undertake transportation corridor preservation, system management, and demand
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - T'ranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 20
management, with the goal of reducing overall infrastructure costs. For example, if local
jurisdictions enact setback ordinances, this can reduce greatly the future costs of
transportation projects, such as right-of-way acquisition costs.
Action A.I. Work with local jurisdictions to create a `tool kit" of actions
they can take to support corridor preservation through their
development review and land use planning authority.
This action involves MDT establishing a working group involving local jurisdictions
to identify and develop specific tools that can be used by Montana jurisdictions to
support corridor preservation and management. These would be tools that local
jurisdictions can consider for implementation. Part of the action would involve making
the "business case" for the use of these tools.
Action A.2. work with local jurisdictions in the early identification of
urban and rural corridors under development pressure.
The intent of this action is to ensure close coordination with Montana's local governments
to protect the safety and capacity of corridors likely to be under pressure from future
development. Identified corridors would be potential candidates for stand-alone access
management plans or other actions consistent with underlying local land use goals and
plans. This action will be coordinated with Actions in the Roadway System Performance
Policy paper and Action A.3 of the Access Management Policy Goal.
Action A.3. Continue to support local government transportation
planning activities and ensure new urban areas have transportation
plans to guide system development.
The intent of this action is to ensure adequate support for transportation planning
activities within Montana's urban areas and those non -urban areas under pressure from
population growth and land use changes. The action includes data collection and
dissemination, development of traffic models, financial and administrative support for
local transportation plans, and support for the existing multi -agency planning processes.
This action does not suggest the use of highway trust funds for general land use planning
activities. However, MDT will continue to insure that local officials responsible for land
use planning tape the lead in developing local transportation plans.
Action A.4. Maintain MDT's capability to provide land use driven travel
demand forecasting for M130s.
This action involves MDT keeping abreast of the state -of the practice. MDT has
upgraded travel demand forecasting capability and now uses TransCAD to support the
coordination between land use and transportation planning. MDT will continue to
work with local governments responsible for land use planning and provide technical
support to their transportation planning.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Lard Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 2 1.
POLICY GOAL 8: Consistently apply M Drs Systems Impact Action
Process to ensure developers equitably mitigate their impacts to
the highway system.
Action B.I. Provide technical support to local governments in
developing funding partnerships to accelerate project development.
Because of funding constraints and the short planning horizon for most developers, it
is often challenging to ensure that those urban corridors identified by local
governments for economic development activities have the infrastructure in place
before new businesses open. This action entails updating the Transportation
Commission Guidelines on Partnering and Cost Participation for Project Acceleration,
developing cost participation agreements with local governments and private
developers as opportunities arise, and providing technical support for corridor plans.
Examples of corridors developed through corridor planning and funding partnerships
include North Reserve Street in Missoula and North 19th Avenue in Bozeman. In both
cases, cost participation by the businesses locating along the corridor was assured and
the infrastructure was in place before travel demand increased.
Action 13.2. Explore and develop tools to equitably distribute
improvement costs on developing corridors regardless of sequencing of
the developments.
This action recognizes that as developers enter an area, the existing system can often
safely accommodate early developments. As system impacts accrue, later developers
will likely have to mitigate their impacts. while much of this can be overcome with
corridor plans, such plans are not always possible. Because an equitable distribution of
responsibility is essential, this action commits MDT to exploring and advancing
defensible approaches to the distribution of cost responsibility.
Action 8.3. Provide training and support on application of access
management and Systems Impact Action Process to local governments
and MDT staff.
The intent of this action is to increase the consistency in the application of the System
Impact Action Process and to encourage local governments to coordinate development
reviews early in their platting process. This action will entail developing training
materials, scheduling work and information sharing sessions, and coordination as
necessary with the Montana Association of Counties and the League of Cities and
Towns.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 22
IV. References
■
Approach Standards for Montana Highways, 1983 document prepared by MIST and adopted by
the Transportation Commission.
1992 Access Management Plant, prepared by the MDT Right -of -Way Bureau.
Land Use Planning and Regulation for Local Governments, 1994. Montana Department of
Commerce, Community Technical Assistance Program.
Scenic Byways Feasibility Study, 1994, Montana Department of Transportation.
Access Management Project Final Report, 1999, prepared by Dye Management Group, Inc. for
the Montana Department of Transportation.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Polio Paper
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Status and Disposition of
Original TranPlan 21 Policy Goals and Actions
1 "5 TranPlan .21
Policy Goals and Actions
Status
Disposition In TranPlan .21
ement and Land Use
Management
Access g
20p2 U date
p
Planning Policy Paper
Access Management POLICY GOAL A.
Retained.
Improve corridor level access
management to preserve the highway
system.
Action A. L Establish a classification
Not
Retained and increased in importance
scheme for access management that
implemented.
as A.1.
defines the appropriate level of access
and access control for different classes
of state roadway according to
functional classification, existing level
of access, and surrounding land use.
Action A.2. Inventory, refine the
Completed.
New action to implement results of
methods, and ensure that there is
1995 Action A.2.
adequate authority to manage access in
Montana.
Action A.3. work to communicate the
Retained.
performance benefits arising from an
access management policy.
Access Management POLICY GOAL B:
Not retained.
Not needed for MDT's access
Establish and fund a level of travel
management program.
demand forecasting that will support an
access management program.
Action B.I. Use the state travel
Not retained.
Not needed for MDT's access
Highway Information System, the
management program.
TranPlan 21 travel forecasting method,
and. the Congestion Management
System to anticipate areas and
facilities in need of access
management actions.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
DYE MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC.
Montana Department of Transportation - TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
P e 24
1995 TranPlan 21
Policy Goals and Actions
Status
Disposition in TranPlan 21
Access Management and Land Use
2002 Update
Planning Policy Paper
Action B.2. Encourage improvement
Not retained.
Not needed for MDT's access
of the condition of travel demand
management program.
forecasting at the metropolitan
planning organization level to better
anticipate and identify problem areas,
and to link access management policies
to local land use policies.
Land Use Planning and Transportation
Revised to
Policy Goal A: Encourage responsible
better support
jurisdictions to establish land use
MDT's corridor
planning and development permitting
preservation
mechanisms to manage transportation
objectives.
demand by building their planning
capacity.
Action A. I. 'work with local
Revised.
Revised as Action A. I to develop the
jurisdictions to establish and
specific tools that can result in
implement a consistent approach for
improved corridor preservation.
including land use and access
management strategies in urban area
and metropolitan planning organization
plans receiving state funding.
Action A.2. work with the
Not completed.
Not retained, no longer needed to
metropolitan planning organizations
support policy goal.
and urban areas to develop consistent
land use driven travel demand
forecasting capability.
Action A.3. Participate in a working
Completed.
group of the Department of Commerce
and representatives of affected
jurisdictions to develop and propose
legislative recommendations for the
55th Legislature.
Action A.4. Consistently apply
Retained and
Retained and updated as Action A.2.
existing development review authority
updated.
to ensure that new development
contributes to the cost of resulting
transportation system improvements.
ACCESS POLICY.DOC
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Montana Department of Transportation -- TranPlan 212002 Update
Access Management and Land Use Planning Policy Paper
Page 25
1"5 TranPlan 21
Policy Goals and Actions
Status
Disposition in TranPlan 21
Access Management and Land Use
�
2002 Update
P
Planning Policy Paper
Action A.S. Encourage the Department Completed.
of Administration, the Long Range
Building Committee, and State
agencies to consider transportation
demands when locating new capital
facilities and leasing new property.
Land Use Planning and Transportation
Policy Goal B: As part of the
development review process, provide
authority to enable local jurisdictions
and NIIDT to require developer
contributions to improvements that
accommodate new traffic demands.
Action B.1. Establish a defensible Completed.
mechanism for determining the costs
of transportation improvements to be
paid by the developer.
ACCESS PGLICY.DGC
DYE MANAGEMENT GROUP. INC.
Dear Kalispell Planning Board and Kalispell City Council,
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mall/Town Cen-
tg�' and the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
Ci Keep Kalispell to Whitefish 5nfe &Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for
limited access on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character
of , our volley. Require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access
Vin his corridor.
Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concur-
rent with needed transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road
ri
ems in the Kalispell area covered by the new Transportation Plan.
support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Additionally:
Sincerely,
)14� V_ k� J/10 I � 0 ve,
Signature
Name Printed
Address City/State/ ZIP
Dear Kalispell Planning Board and Kalispell -City Council,
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mall/Town Cen-
`t and the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
Keep Kalispell to Whitefish Safe &Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for
limited access on US Hwy 93. Presgrve its safe and efficient operation and the special character
of our valley. Require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access
in this corridor.
Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concur-
rent with needed transportation 'infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and rood
systems in the Kalispell area covered by the new Transportation Plan.
�!I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Additionally:
S riGere y. .,
7. f/'
Signature Name Printed Address City/State/ ZIP
Dear Kalispell Planning Board and Kalispell City Council,
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mail/Town Cen-
ter and the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
X Keep Kalispell to Whitefish Safe &Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for
limited access on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character
of our valley. Require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access
in this corridor.
� Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concur-
rent with needed transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road
systems in the Kalispell area covered by the new Transportation Plan.
% I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Additionally:
Singer ly, I 1 �{
iV
signature
Name Printed
. 13 41 '0�
_ZL� I
Address
57 n
City/State/ ZIP
Dear Kalispell Planning nrd{and Council,
Please make my comments part of tRp u hearing record for both the Glacier Mail/Town Cen-
te"nd the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
Q' Keep Kalispell to Whitefish Safe &Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for
limited access on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character
of our valley. Require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access
in t is corridor.
Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concur-
rent with needed transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road
rI
ms in the Kalispell area covered by the new Transportation Plan.
support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Additionally:
Sincerely,
�litrn,� JJ0.v�D�M�! ��713oXyoZc// slIA7"�C�Gi�
Signature
Dame Printed
Address
City/State/ ZIP
rage I of I
Theresa white
From: John de adeneeuegyahoo.coml
Sent. Friday, January 04, 2008 8:27 PM
To: citycouncil@kalispell.com
Subject: Keeping the flow of hgh 93
Citizens for a Better Flathead got it right when they commented that we only have one chance to keep
the flow of the highway and it is now. And unfortunately it concerns the mall again. This land use
decision that has allowed them to build here has sure caused a lot of problems for the citizens of the
Flathead. Lets not let it also stop the flow of traffic on hwy 93 too! Take your time and do the right
things for our hwy. Don't relenquish to all the pressure
from the mall developers... This is our valley and town and we have to live with the consequences. So
please don't allow anymore traffic lights on 93. That's what the master plan says. thank you for your
time and work. John de Neeve
Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
117/Zoo8
Page 1 of 1
Theresa White
From: heidi fehlhaber [heidijanef@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 2:20 PM
To: citycouncilkalispell.com
Subject: Stoplights on 93?!!
Dear Kalispell City Council Members,
Please continue to oppose the installation of ANY more stoplights on highway 93 in conjunction with the
development of the Glacier Town Center/Mall! ! (or Riverdale, for that matter.) I commute regularly on HIGHWAY
93 to FVCC, and my husband also does for work. Now that the HIGHWAY is being vastly improved in terms of
flog and SAFETY, let's not backpeddle with a short-sighted show of weak leadership and clutter the HIGHWAY
with miscellaneous traffic lights! The Town Center - what an oxymoron!! - is not a public facility, and citizens
should not be forced to submit to its overreaching influence on our main arterial HIGHWAY. I also believe that
more stoplights will create a significant safety hazard for motorists traveling at HIGHWAY speed. I suppose we
could turn the entire stretch of HIGHWAY 93 into a 45 mph zone... please don't! Drawing from experience at 93
and Reserve, any accidents will be deadly and essentially close the entire thoroughfare to traffic in both
directions. I call that unnecessary risk and self-defeating. Please remember that the operative word here is
"HIGHWAY 93 not "Wolford Lane," and that citizens, businesses and EMS/fire/police all rely on a functioning
connector between our communities and resources. I trust you will stand your ground on this issue.
Respectfully,
Heidi Marcum
Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista@ + Windows Liver'". Start nova!
11712D08
Page 1 of 1
Theresa White
From: Jere Jobe [JereAJobe@Dhotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 10:43 AM
To: citycouncilgkalispell.com
Subject: Highway 93 Traffic Plan
Dear City council Members,
My wife and I are not residents of the city of Kalispell. However, we are residents of the Flathead
Valley and your actions have a major bearing on our lives. Please consider the REAL ramifications
of the traffic plans that are being proposed by all of the developers of property along Highway 93
North of town.
It is not to late to hire knowledgeable and UNBIASED, experts to look at the whole situation
before jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
A bit of wise planning now can prevent a disaster in the future. If this mail is delayed by a few
months or even a few years, it will not create a true hardship on anyone. IT IS BETTER TO DO
THINGS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME THAN TO SPEND GENERATIONS TRYING TO FIX SIMPLE
MISTAKES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
The city leaders of Ames, Iowa have the right idea. Let's hope that Kalispell's leadership has as
much wisdom.
Melinda & Jere Jobe
Somers, Montana
1I71 2008
Page l of 1
Theresa, White
From: Hitchcock, Julie ghitch@montana.edu]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 8:44 AM
To: citycouncilkalispell.com
Subject: Comments on KTP
Dear Council:
As a landholder in Flathead County, please make my comments part of the public hearing record
for both the Glacier Mall/Town center and the new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
• Please review the Ames Iowa mall development carefully, including the conditions set for the
developer, and find out why the deadlines for meeting those conditions has passed.
• Keep Kalispell to Whitefish stoplight free. Uphold current city and state policies for limited
access on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character of
the valley. Require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and
access in this corridor.
• Put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concurrent with
needed transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road systems
in the Kalispell area covered by the new Kalispell Transportation Plan
• I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
• I support and call for an independent review of the mall traffic study and bringing in an
expert to review possible solutions (can the Western Transportation Institute at
Montana State University do this?) for the keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you
reach a decision on the mall.
) LA�e H'btc kkc c0 Z
Bozeman, MT
1/7/2oos
Page I of I
Theresa White
From: Stan Makman [makman@centurytel.net]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:20 AM
To: citycouncilPkalispell.com
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mall/Town center and the new
Kalispell Transportation Plan.
• Please support and call for an independent review of the mall traffic study and bring in an expert to review
possible solutions for the keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you reach a decision on the mall.
Keep Kalispell to whitefish Safe and Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for limited access
on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character of our valley. Require
interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access in this corridor.
• Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concurrent with
needed transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road systems in the Kalispell
area covered by the new Kalispell Transportation Plan
• I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions and options
BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Makman
233 Terrace Rd
Kalispell, MT 59901
756-945 2
1/9/2008
Theresa White
..................... .
From: Marshall Noice [mnoice@centurytel.net]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:26 AM
To: citycouncil@)kalispell.com
Subject: glacier mall comments
Dear Mayor Kennedy and Councilmen,
I wish to comment on the proposed Glacier Mall.
I feel Bucky's traffic study is not adequate to be considered in it's current form and believe our city should have it reviewed
by an independent expert. I believe Kalispell to Whitefish should remain without stoplights. other mall use interchanges
and we have several planned for the bypass. Is this not a better solution? I feel Kalispell must have impact fees in place
prior to this project gaining approval.
Additionally I feel the city council should, before final approval of the project, recieve full committment from major anchors
for the mall. require Bucky to obtain full title to the property, and obtain full financing for the project. The last thing se need
is to overbuild more retail and office space. If this is to go forward let's get some assurances that it will go forward
successfully.
respectfully yours,
Marshall Noice
Yage 1 of I.
Theresa White
From: Marilyn LaSorte [mlasorte sd6. k 12. mt. us
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 9:27 AM
To: citycouncil kalispell.com
Subject: Independent traffic study review for Glacier Mall
Council Members:
At a recent City Council workshop on the proposed Glacier Mall, many City Council members
expressed concerns with the mail's proposed transportation plan including:
• The need for an independent review of the developer's traffic impact study,
• Concern with the potential impact of stoplights on US Hwy 93 and on their impacts on
existing traffic problems in the area and on the Kalispell Bypass,
• Desires to see the new Kalispell Transportation Plan and impact fees in place prior to
annexation of the Glacier Mall,
• Concerns with the developer's traffic consultant's assertion that a junior interchange or
overpass would not work at the mail location despite the fact that the Kalispell Bypass calls
for seven overpasses. The Montana Department of Transportation is also installing an
overpass at Church and US Hwy 93, and they are being successfully used in Washington
State to serve retail centers there.
Please require an independent review of the traffic study and bring in an expert to review possible
solutions for keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now before you reach a decision on the mail.
Marilyn LaSorte
1/r7/2008
Theresa White
..... ....................... .
From: john rodwick [braddahjohnnyl @yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 10:10 AM
To: citycouncil@kalispell.com
Subject: Glacier Mall/ Transportation Plan
Dear City Council Members,
My wife and I are long-time valley residents and not opposed to reasonable growth. However, the transportation and road
congestion piece of the mall development north of town concerns us greatly. Please adopt the proposals made by the
Citizens group that I have pasted below. There is absolutely no reason to rush into this and when I read in the paper that
we owe it to Mr. Wolford to get this done I can't believe that anyone would say that and jeopardize the quality of what we
have here in the valley so that he does not get angry, frustrated or whatever.
Thank you,
John Rodwick
Holly Hand
Whitefish Stage Rd
Kalispell
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mall/Town Center and the new Kalispell
Transportation Plan.
* Please support and call for an independent review of the mall traffic study and bring in an expert to review possible
solutions for the keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you reach a decision on the mall.
* Keep Kalispell to Whitefish Safe and Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for limited access on US
Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character of our valley. Require interchanges and similar
solutions for growing land use demands and access in this corridor.
* Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concurrent with needed
transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road systems in the Kalispell area covered by the
new Kalispell Transportation Plan
* I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions and options BEFORE
development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.
http ://www. yah oo . com/r/hs
Theresa White
From: Johanna Bangeman [montanalakevacation@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 11:45 AM
To: citycouncilkalispell.com
Subject: Public comment for tonight's meeting
Dear Mayor and City Council Members,
I live at 45 E. Wyoming Street in Kalispell and cannot attend tonight's meeting because of a previous commitment, but I'd
like to comment about the access to Glacier Mall and other transportation issues. As a resident in the "east/north" area of
Kalispell near Lawrence Park, I find it hard to get across Idaho to get to downtown Kalispell or to get up to the hospital and
medical offices or anywhere north of town walking or on a bike. True I can go to 3rd Ave E. or Main and Idaho to catch
stoplights, but they don't last long enough at Main and Idaho to get across and people in cars don't pay attention to
pedestrians. Since 1 st Ave E. N. is a straight shot to 1 st Ave. E., I like to walk on it to get to the library or anywhere else
downtown and it is dangerous crossing by the old Sportsman Ski Haus and out of the way to go up to 3rd Ave. E. by
Smiths. I think we need more careful planning to make our community walkable and safe.
Sunset Blvd. is dangerous to walk or bike along and there is no path designated for either, yet it is used a lot by people
going to the Salvation Army or wanting to access other businesses and services north of town.
As a driver, I am overwhelmed by all the lights just to get to reserve. I have had friends get in accidents there because the
lights are bright, blinding, and drivers hurry through after the light has changed. So I urge you to take more time and please
support an independent review of the mall traffic study and bring in an expert to review possible solutions for the keeping
Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you reach a decision on the mall. I have 4 videotapes available for your viewing by Dan
Burden called Walkable Communities, Designing for Pedestrians.
Also I believe we should keep Kalispell to Whitefish safe and stoplight Free. Please uphold current city and state policies
for limited access on US Hwy 93. 1 want you to preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character of our
valley. You should require interchanges and similar solutions for growing land use demands and access in this corridor.
Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concurrent with needed
transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road systems in the Kalispell area covered by the
new Kalispell Transportation Plan.
Not everyone wants to drive, so make plans for trails to connect any new development that walkers and bikers can use
and make the developers pay for it.
I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions and options BEFORE
development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Thank you for your consideration, Johanna Bangeman
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/,_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
Page 1 of z
Theresa White
From: Kevin Coyle chester_pearlgyahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 12:15 PM
To: citycouncil@kalispell.com
Subject: Glacier Town Center/Mall
Dear City Council Members,
I would like to bring to your attention the following information for you consideration regarding the
Glacier Town Center/Mall.
• Please support and call for an independent review of the mall traffic study and bring in an
expert to review possible solutions for the keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you
reach a decision on the mall.
• Please provide the leadership to keep !Kalispell to whitefish Safe and Stoplight Free. Uphold
current city and state policies that call for limited access on US Hwy 93. Preserve its safe and
efficient operation and the special character of our valley by requiring interchanges and
similar solutions to handle growing land use demands for access along this corridor.
• I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify transportation solutions
and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
• I do not support the Montana Department of Transportation's current position that more
stoplights can be allowed between Kalispell and whitefish. This position is not in accordance
with city planning documents or state policy. A better solution is needed!
A similar project in Idaho where reasonable demands were placed on the developer are here for your
review:
Ames Iowa holds Bued mall there
The Ames mall was proposed almost seven years ago at the same time as the Glacier Mall here,
and has been equally controversial there. For an almost identical mall proposal in Ames,_Iowa,
developer Bucky walford is being required to meet a series of conditions before the City of
Ames will further process his development application. They set these conditions two years ago
with a December 2007 deadline for compliance, all of which must be met. Mr. wolford just recently
failed to meet all of these conditions and is asking for more time to do so. The conditions included
• To secure full commitments from major anchors and other retailers for 330,000 square feet
of retail space, a percentage of which must be new to Ames.
• To obtain full title to all property included in the development proposal.
• To obtain full financing for the project.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Kevin Coyle
120 Marvin's way
Kalispell MT 59901
1/7/2008
Page 1 of 1
Theresa White
From: CEF [citizens(�Dflatheadcitizens.org]
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 2:41 PM
To: citycouncil@kalispeli.com
Subject; Cheryl Lee comments on Road Sense
I am writing from work but am making these comments as a private citizen.
(1) 1 drive Whitefish Stage every day --it is a skinny little road with no shoulders in case of emergencies! It will not
bear the extra traffic of a huge commercial development and all the housing that is planned for north of Kalispell.
As far as I know, there is no immediate plans and NO MONEY to widen Whitefish Stage --even to a decent two
lane road. We cannot even afford to keep the roads striped here so we can see where we are going, let alone
widen roads for the immense developments being approved every day. MAKE SURE that plans are in place for
traffic mitigation before saying YES to any more large-scale development. Have you driven down Whitefish Stage
before 8 am lately --lots of traffic even now --and Reserve ---WOW!! Kalispell now has its own little rush hour --is this
what we want? I just lived on the West Coast for ten years --it can be ugly.
(2) The existing Rose Crossing will also end up being a feeder road for the Mal! -it is a narrow road with a steep
hill which all those people buying into the huge new subdivision planned at the bottom of the hill will be using as a
main thoroughfare anyway. Are there any immediate plans to widen Rose Crossing? It may be on the boards, but
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
(3) About a week or so ago when the roads were VERY slippery (which they often are in the winter here) I saw a
man driving a truck try to stop at the stoplight on Rose Crossing and HWY 2. He started to brake and just kept
sliding --barely missing a car crossing Hwy 2 on Rose Crossing. A second's difference, the car would have been
broadsided by the out -of -control truck. Luckily, he just missed him and kept sliding until he got the truck under
control. Traffic lights on high-speed roads ---like Hwy 2 and Hwy 93 are dangerous because people are really
speeding trying to make the green light, and if there is an accident, the damage can be extensive --or tragic. An
overpass is much safer.
Cheryl Lee
Private Citizen and resident of 946 Trumble Creek Road (two blocks north off Rose Crossing)
117I20a8
Theresa White
From: Shannon Harper [shanyblaster@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, January 97, 2908 2:51 PM
To: citycouncil@kalispell.com
Subject: comments
Please make my comments part of the public hearing record for both the Glacier Mall/Town Center and the new Kalispell
Transportation Plan.
Please support and call for an independent review of the mall traffic study and bring in an expert to review possible
solutions for the keeping Hwy 93 stoplight free now, before you reach a decision on the mall.
Keep Kalispell to Whitefish Safe and Stoplight Free. Uphold current city and state policies for limited access on US Hwy
93. Preserve its safe and efficient operation and the special character of our valley. Require interchanges and similar
solutions for growing land use demands and access in this corridor.
Also, please put into place standards to ensure that new development moves forward concurrent with needed
transportation infrastructure to ensure safe and efficient highway and road systems in the Kalispell
area covered by the new Kalispell Transportation Plan I support the need for the city and the state to plan for and identify
transportation solutions and options BEFORE development applications are considered for subdivision review.
Watch "Cause Effect," a show about real people making a real difference.
http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?,
1/7/2008
Kalispell city council —
citycou nci I @ kalispe ll .com
This is input to be considered for the glacier town center project Kalispell public
hearing 1/7/2008.
It seems that too often, projects in the city and county are approved only on the
impacts of the immediate project, not the impacts on the surrounding area, and how
this new project will impact foot and vehicle traffic patterns. 1 feel that all infrastructure
needs to be considered when new development occurs - sewer, water, roads,
pedestrian/bicycle access, etc.
In the past few years hwy 93 was widened to 5 lanes north to west reserve drive with
a separated from hwy sidewalk/bicycle lane on the east side. The west side
separated from hwy sidewalk/bicycle lane was to be installed as development in
section 30 occurred. hwy 93 has been widened from west reserve drive north 10
miles to whitefish, except for a few mile gap by majestic valley arena, without a
separated from hwy sidewalk/bicycle lane. I suspect this was because nobody
expected the city of Kalispell or large commercial development to occur north of west
reserve drive a few years ago. but now with residential and commercial acres
annexed to the city several miles north of west reserve drive at church drive, and
glacier town center all but approved 112 mile north of west reserve drive along hwy
93, the infrastructure for these projects are not in place. If the city is requiring these
developments to extend sewer and water to the new development, and wants to
keep efficient, quick moving traffic between Kalispell and whitefish along hwy 93, I
think we need to think in the short and long term for vehicle and foot and bicycle
traffic movement- for the city and the county.
1 think as glacier town center is considered for approval, the developer should be
required to put in a separated from hwy sidewalk/bicycle 8-10 foot wide lane from
hwy 93 and west reserve drive intersection at least as far north as their development,
and also along west reserve drive from hwy 93 east to whitefish stage road. They
are creating an attractive nuisance and they should provide the infrastructure for the
public to safely access their development.
as the Montana department of transportation considers completing the last portion of
hwy 93 in front of majestic valley arena from 2 to 5 lanes, I think that project should
also include putting in a separated from hwy sidewalk/bicycle 8-10 foot wide lane on
both sides of the highway 93 from west reserve drive north 10 miles to whitefish. The
project should also assess the volume of traffic and speeds of traffic at the hwy 93
and west reserve drive intersection, and how foot and bicycle users can safely get
across both hwy 93 and west reserve drive at this intersection. Do the city and
county and Kalispell school district want to encourage people on foot and bicycles to
walk from residences to get to home depot, target, costco, and lowes shopping and
Page 1 of 2
the new glacier center mall? do we want to encourage high school students to safely
walk and ride bikes in dark snowy winter weather from whitefish stage road along
west reserve drive and then across hwy 93 to get to the new glacier high school?
(The new high school was built without adequate sidewalk infrastructure too) I think if
we really want to encourage people to safely walk or ride bikes at the hwy 93 and
west reserve drive intersection, we need at least a foot/bike overpass over each of
these roads. We also need an overall assessment of the Kalispell and county needs
for foot and bike access for the city and the adjacent 3 to 4 miles of surrounding
county lands, so when county land is being considered to be annexed into the city,
ALL infrastructure, including foot and bicycle access is included as a cost of the
project that the developer, city, county, or state pays up front, and not to delay it to
some future date. If the project can't afford to install ALL of the infrastructure, maybe
it should not just be built until the project can afford to pay for it. I think the Kalispell
City Council, the Flathead County Commissioners, the Montana Department of
Transportation, and the Technical Advisory committee that advises them on traffic
should all play a part in making any projects as accessible and safe for motorized
and non -motorized use in the short and long term.
Dale Luhrnan
169 Trailridge Road
Kalispell, MT 59901
dick @ d igisys. net
Cc: Tom Jentz, tjentz@kalispell.com
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