Planning issues heat up near C. Falls

Ten acres of land with suburban agriculture zoning south of Columbia Falls' old Red Bridge will go to the City Council meeting June 5 with a recommendation to rezone it for one-acre residential lots.

The Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board made that decision Tuesday night when they approved Timothy DeReu's request for his property. It lies at the top of the steep hill on Columbia Falls Stage Road, just south and east of the abandoned Red Bridge gravel pit.

Although his current request is only to change zoning, DeReu reportedly is interested in developing infrastructure and homes on the site.

The steep, wooded slope dropping down to a pond on the north and the 200-foot Bonneville Power Administration easement to the south will be natural limitations on what he can do with the land.

The zone change comes after the city's growth-policy designation for suburban residential development in that area.

Traffic appears to be the biggest potential issue. Columbia Falls Stage Road bears between 1,000 and 1,200 vehicle trips a day, City Manager and Planning Director Bill Shaw said. Much of that feeds onto the narrow, winding River Road - a county-owned road that provides the most direct access to town - which, during the past two years, logged between 2,300 and 2,500 trips a day.

DeReu was not present for Tuesday's public hearing, but Shaw displayed photographs taken from DeReu's access drive to the north as cars climb the steep hill and from his access drive to the south along the more-level stretch of Columbia Falls Stage.

Neighborhood landowner Luci Yeats, however, reported that she did her own visual check and discovered that cars approaching from the north are not visible to DeReu's access for a stretch near the bottom of the hill. The speed limit on the road is posted at 35 mph, but Yeats and another neighbor said most people drive 45 mph or faster.

Besides traffic safety, Planning Board members wanted to know whether input had been received from the River Road Neighborhood Plan steering committee. The group of neighboring landowners is working on an addendum to the growth policy for planners to use as a guide in developing the area.

Yeats said the 10 acres lies within the plan area, but conceded that the steering committee did not exist when DeReu applied in November. She said this rezone should be considered in light of Robert Burke's preliminary plat request for eight lots on 8.6 acres to the south, which was pulled from Tuesday's agenda. Burke wanted time to reconfigure the plan according to Shaw's proposed changes and align it with the neighborhood plan.

Yeats and Eileen McDowell, both on the steering committee, were present at the meeting but did not speak for the committee about DeReu's rezone.

McDowell, however, told the board that the steering committee hopes to have the plan finished by August.

In the final vote to recommend the rezone, Russ Vukonich cast the board's lone dissenting vote.

"With the cascade of projects coming to the county and to us," Vukonich said, "River Road just has to be addressed."

The 20-foot road does not sit entirely on the county's own right-of-way, and it presents safety problems in its winding path.

"How do we as a board continue to take these little slices of the pie," Vukonich asked, "knowing eventually the road won't be able to handle it?"

Board member Dave Renfrow followed with a broader concern covering the area to the south and east of the river.

"I think our plan is flawed," Renfrow said, referring to the growth policy. Specifically, he said, "I don't like the platitudes about a wildlife corridor," something which needs a clear-cut definition for that particular area.

Later, Shaw gave the board printouts of a court decision and definitions of wildlife corridors elsewhere, potentially to be used as a starting point for Columbia Falls.

"I think we seriously need to revisit our plan in that area. I want the public to have some passion in a civil way about that area."

Renfrow cited last month's contentious decision to recommend approval of Twin Peaks Farms 10-acre rezone, a request from Idaho developer Ron Mayhew to go from 10-acre suburban agricultural zoning to an urban density that would allow as many as eight units an acre - more than in most city blocks in Columbia Falls.

Effects on groundwater, wildlife and neighborhood character were some of the hot-button issues from nearby landowners opposed to the idea.

On a split vote, the Planning Board forwarded Twin Peaks to the City Council with recommendation for approval despite misgivings of their own.

Renfrow urged the public to attend the June 5 council meeting, when public hearings will be held on DeReu's and Mayhew's requests.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com