We concerned citizens call on the Flathead County Commissioners Planning and Zoning board to vote no on the proposed zoning changes requested for the Montarise development.

Why Stop Montarise?

- Montarise will NOT provide affordable, workforce, or entry-level housing. It only promises more housing at market values. A resort RV park will only attract visitors vs. creating long-term housing. In response to addressing our need for affordable housing, Montarise representative Apec Engineering stated, “…increasing supply, i.e., housing inventory, can serve to fulfill the demand, and eventually reset the ‘affordability.’” This thinking does nothing to help working class Montana families keep the ability to live affordably in Flathead Valley.

- The Montarise development only benefits this out-of-state developer at the cost of Flathead taxpayers. Plain and simple, this is spot zoning and violates Flathead Valley County Growth Policy. Their plan acknowledges the need to improve roads, add a stop light on Hwy 93, add more school buses while it also further strains our already short-staffed fire and sheriff departments with added population. HOWEVER, their plan doesn’t include provision to pay for any of that. So, who will have to pay? Taxpayers. If the commissioners allow this spot zoning to pass, they will have no choice but to approve every other development to avoid lawsuits and our rural community will become an endless flow of urban sprawl.

- Montarise development will create unsafe living and traffic conditions. Traffic onto Highway 93 from KM Ranch Road is already unsafe and will worsen. Adding 3,000+ daily vehicle trips (DVT) will make the KM Ranch/Hwy 93 intersection dangerous and wait times untenable. The proposed development is located in a Wildfire Urban Interface (WUI) area, a mixed-to-high severity class of wildfire. High- density housing would endanger public safety in the event of wildfire or other emergencies because of limited exits, narrow roads, and increased traffic on KM Ranch Road.

- The Planning and Zoning Board lacks crucial information to review the impacts on traffic, water, septic, and air quality to make an informed decision. Notably, The plan proposes using community water, tapping major wells from the underground aquifer. The developer has NOT given assurances that surrounding neighbors’ water source will not be depleted or cause the landfills' leachate contaminants, that previously leaked into the ground water (Daily Inter Lake February 4, 2015), to spread into the aquifer and sicken our community.

About the Montarise Development 

- An out-of-state developer, Montarise LLC, seeks to rezone 155.9 acres of natural forest from SAG-5 (5+ acre lots) to R-1 (1+ acre lots) with a Mixed-use Planned Unit Development (PUD) overlay that will create high density housing on less than 1 acre-lots and 3 lots for significant commercial enterprises.

- Montarise, LLC wants to build 268 residential units, a 73-stall resort RV park, a church, private school, and convenience store with no commitment to affordability.

-  Primary access to and from the development will be off the winding, two-lane KM Ranch Road with no plan to remedy the road and intersection improvements needed to accommodate the additional traffic caused by their development.

- According to a US Census average of 2.6 persons and .35 factor for students per HH, Montarise will add approximately 850 residents to our community and 93 children to the Whitefish School District.

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