A 2023 state law requires 10 municipalities to update their land use plans before the end of this May. These plans detail how communities want their growth and development to look over the next two decades.
Whitefish is the only resort community included in those 10 towns that are required to prepare for growth. Issues with housing, affordability, transportation and pressure for development in the region were spurred by the 2020 pandemic. One economic survey found 76 percent of Whitefish’s workforce does not live there.
City staff spent two years compiling community input to develop a draft plan. It then went to the local Planning Commission to review and revise. That draft was reluctantly approved last week.
Resistance to the plan’s approval came from concerns over revisions, including the removal of goals to review zoning to help mitigate sprawl.
Mallory Phillips sits on the Whitefish Planning Commission. Phillips also works with housing advocacy group Shelter WF and nonprofit Livable Flathead. She was the only commission member who voted not to approve the draft. She says change, especially around zoning, needs to come to Whitefish.
"Here we hear that growth is going to change the rural characters a lot, but what ends up happening, at least from my perspective, is that then the growth happens on the outer edges of town, where there is really true more rural features in the land."
The Whitefish city council began reviewing the land use plan on Monday.
