City Commissioners voted 4-1 to set a public hearing for a proposed rezone for a 92-unit multifamily residential project off Bay Drive.

The vote came after roughly an hour of public comment and discussion on the proposal during their March 5 meeting when the action item before commissioners was only to set a public hearing for April 2.

Commissioner Rick Tryon voted against setting the hearing.

Planning director Brock Cherry said staff recognized there were neighborhood concerns about the project, but that the due process set by code and zoning ordinances at this point was to set the public hearing to address those questions.

City Commission to set public hearing for proposed Bay Drive multifamily housing project

He recommended that commissioners read the comprehensive staff report on the proposal that staff have been working on for months.

The city’s planning board/zoning commission voted 5-1 in February to recommend approval of the request to rezone about 4.46 acres at 805 2nd St. S.W. from R-1 single-family suburban. It was most recently a mobile home court that had up to 14 mobile homes at one time, according to city staff, but is currently vacant.

During the March 5 commission meeting, a number of area residents spoke in opposition to the proposed housing project.

Several said they were in favor of building new housing in the community, but not on the property off Bay Drive in their neighborhood, which they said was quiet and largely unchanged for 30 years.

Maurice Cameron said he’d lived in the neighborhood for two decades and has noticed traffic issues. He said that since the River’s Edge Trail came through the area, there’s more traffic with joggers, walkers and cyclists.

Kirby Berlin, a neighborhood resident, said the project could decrease property values for neighboring properties and that people moved into the area to have the environment created in the R-1 suburban residential zoning district.

City planning board OKs proposed 92-unit multifamily project

Commercial and industrial zoning areas are across the street from the proposed housing development.

Berlin said 101 area property owners had signed a petition opposing the project, which is included in the staff report.

He reiterated his request from the February planning board meeting that he wanted the city to conduct an economic impact study of the project.

Staff again explained how that is not part of the land use review process or required by code or state law.

During the Feb. 13 zoning commission meeting, Julie Essex, a board member, moved to deny the request because she was worried about spot zoning, but not other members seconded her motion.

Essex cited a 1981 Montana Supreme Court case that was cited in a 2021 case on zoning in Whitefish.

City staff said they didn’t believe their was a spot zoning issue, but would review the cases Essex referenced to be sure before the City Commission reviewed the rezone request.

In their memo, city staff wrote that they still find no spot zoning issues.

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Staff pointed out that since the “establishment of the Little framework in 1981, the district court in Whitefish noted that there are no opinions of the Montana Supreme Court where a zoning decision that complied with a neighborhood
plan/comprehensive plan/master plan was found to be spot zoning.”

Staff has referenced the city’s growth policy and other planning documents in their recommendation to approve the rezone request and that the subject property is adjacent to other properties with the same zoning designation and would continue to function as a residential land use, though not single family homes as many area residents said they’d prefer.

The developer’s team presented at the Nov. 8 Neighborhood Council 2 meeting but those in attendance said that not enough of the neighborhood was aware of the project so the council voted to discuss the project at a special meeting on Dec. 6. Area residents attended that meeting and expressed concerns about traffic and safety, but the council did not take action and put the item on their Feb. 13 meeting agenda, when they voted to recommend denial of the rezone request.

City board to consider 92-unit housing project off Bay Drive

Pam Wagner, a neighborhood resident, said that there are lots of apartments available in the city and suggested that commissioners table the project until April 2025.

The Great Falls Development Alliance has said for years that the city needs new and more housing and has commissioned an update to their 2022 market assessment, conducted by the Concord Group, which projected that there is demand for about 450 new housing units per year in Cascade County over the next 10 years.

Based on the expected split between owners and renters, the assessment projected that it breaks down to a need for 190 new rental units and 250 new for sale/new ownership units per year over the next decade across income levels.

City Commissioners have also said during many public meetings that there’s a need for housing and recently asked the Air Force specifically about housing needs related to the upcoming Sentinel missile upgrade project that’s projects to bring several thousand contractors to the area over several years. A half dozen Air Force and Northrop Grumman officials attended the March 5 commission meeting to answer those questions for commissioners.

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Jeni Dodd said she doesn’t live in the neighborhood but was concerned that residents weren’t having their concerns addressed.

Lawrence Gadbaw lives at the corner of the property proposed for the housing project. His parcel is not included in the rezone request.

He said that the area is known as the Garden Home Tracts and that name doesn’t lend to apartments.

Gadbaw said it “doesn’t make sense to me to turn it into something like this. Yeah we need housing, but seems like we’re struggling to take care of what we already have. If we keep adding more, how will we keep up with it.”

He said he wasn’t against the property owners doing something with their property, but was opposed to apartment buildings.

Cheryl Schmidt said, “we do not want our quiet tight neighborhood disrupted for one person to gain.”

She said if the property was rezoned to M-2, there could be more development in the area and suggested they look somewhere else to develop.

The developer included land restrictions in their voluntary development agreement that were allowable in the M-2 district but they wouldn’t consider. Those include:

• off-site liquor sales
• vehicle services
• warehouse
• animal shelter
• educational facility, K-12 or higher education
• instructional facility
• telecommunication facility, concealed, unconcealed co-located facilities
• bus transit terminal
• heli-pad
• parking lot, principal use
• parking structure
• railroad yard
• taxi cab dispatch terminal
• contractor yard, Type I and Type II

The draft agreement is included in the staff report and the finalized agreement would also be a public document.

Brock Cherry, city planning director, said during the Feb. 13 planning board meeting that the city can’t restrict land uses on a property that are allowable in a zoning district, but a property owner can do it voluntarily.

Jake Clark of GFDA said that the proposed location is beneficial as infill development that will use existing public infrastructure and city services.

He said it’s an aspirational project similar to what was envisioned in the Missouri River Corridor Plan.

“The city has hoped for development along the river and put that forth in planning documents,” Clark said.

The property is located within the primary impact area of the Missouri River Corridor Plan. The area includes lands  with “strong relationships to the river that are most central to the corridor plan. The plan identifies appropriate riverfront uses that reinforce the vision for the Missouri River corridor. The listed uses within the plan include two to four story rental apartments and town houses,” according to the staff report.

One goal of the plan is to remove barriers, one of which was identified is the lack of mixed-use/multi-use zoning districts or options in local regulations appropriate for riverfront redevelopment, according to the city.

In response to that plan, the city adopted mixed-use transitional zoning along Bay Drive in 2005.

During the March 5 commission meeting, Mayor Cory Reeves asked the legal staff if they’d reviewed the cases Essex cited about spot zoning and if they could share their findings.

City staff included a memo on their legal analysis and copies of the associated court decisions in the staff report that were publicly available on Feb. 29.

City Attorney David Dennis said that spot zoning was not the question before commissioners but that staff had concluded the proposed rezoning was not illegal spot zoning.

Commissioner Susan Wolff said that she had sent a long list of questions to city planning staff earlier that day from going through the neighborhood and reading the staff report.

During a February meeting, Wolff said that during their January retreat, they said they wanted to look at infill projects rather than expand city limits. She said that they’ll get differing opinions on those projects.

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Commissioner Rick Tryon said they should table the action.

“I don’t think we’re ready to make a decision. It’s far too weighty of an issue,” Tryon said and that he’d rather wait for the growth policy to be completed, which could be several years.

He said he thought the April 2 public hearing seemed rushed.

For much of his time on the commission, he has said the city needs to cut red tape and make it easier for development in Great Falls.

He said he didn’t think he’d seen any other issue during his time on the commission with as much public input.

Reeves asked, “would it behoove us to have a two hour meeting” with neighbors and staff.

City staff has been to the neighborhood council three times and the rezone was considered by the planning board during a nearly three-hour meeting.

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Cherry, city planning director, said that the commission has an adopted zoning ordinance with a specific process.

He said that if commissioners are tabling the matter, staff needed to know why.

Tryon said he didn’t think they’d be ready by April 2 but didn’t mention any specific questions or concerns during the meeting.

Tryon voted against setting the hearing.

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Commissioner Joe McKenney said they should set the public hearing and at that point, they’d still have the option to postpone a decision on the rezone.

He said that the city advertised that they’d be setting a public hearing at the meeting and that they should take that action.