County approves zoning exemption for new Belt dump site
County Commissioners unanimously approved an exemption on March 17 from county zoning regulations for establishing a solid waste dump site on a new property in Belt, under a lease agreement they approved last week.
The new site is on land located adjacent to the former Belt dump site, which is on private property and has been closed since December when the owner locked public access after lease negotiations apparently broke down.
The new lease encompasses less than three acres with a 20-year term that began March 11 and runs through March 10, 2045.
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The county had been publicly discussing the possibility of relocating the Belt solid waste site since July 2024 and that process sped up when the former site was closed to the public.
On Feb. 26, county public works submitted a location conformance permit application to the county planning office for the project. Planning staff determined that a special use permit would be required under the zoning requirements and notified public works on March 4, according to staff, which subsequently asking commissioner to authorize the government exemption allowed under state law for a public project.
State law requires that when a government agency proposes a land use contrary to local zoning regulations that a public hearing be held within 30 days of the notice, according to legal staff.
Les Payne, county public works director, said staff had taken this approach to expedite the process to open a dump site in Belt as soon as possible for residents.
Rae Grulkowski, former county commissioner, opposed the exemption, as did Mary Embleton, former county budget officer.
Last fall, Embleton filed a lawsuit against the county over its process to adopt new solid waste fees. A district court judge dismissed the case.
Embleton said that she researched the state statute staff cited and that it applied to foster and group homes and only actions by state agencies.
Michelle Levine, a deputy county attorney, said that the definition section of the statute included local governments and local zoning regulations.
She said that the Montana Supreme Court had applied the same statute to a local government project for a water tank in Bozeman and found that the county’s role is to hold a public hearing when using land for a public purpose contrary to the zoning rules.
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Levine said it was similar to what the county did with the Simms Volunteer Fire Department was expanding their building, contrary to zoning regulations, and commissioners approved the exemption in 2024.
She said the county was on “solid legal ground” applying the statute to the Belt dump site.
Commissioner Joe Briggs said that state statutes often require further clarification and the Montana Supreme Court decisions were the ultimate source of clarification.
Since the state’s highest court had ruled, he said he saw now issue with applying the statute.
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Briggs said that “process has to be followed, process is being followed,” and the county chose this route rather than the SUP which would have worked against private property rights and they were expediting the process to provide citizens with an open dump site in Belt.
Barbara Phillips, a Deadborn resident, said she’d heard a rumor about the Hardy Creek dump site potentially closing and was concerned if it would be a similar process to the Belt site.
County officials have been publicly discussing the potential of losing the existing Hardy Creek site, which is on state parkland, since July 2024.
Commissioner Jim Larson said that for now, the site remains, but if the state were to tell the county they had to remove the dump site, they’d have to come up with a new location.
Officials had discussed the possibility of combining the Cascade and Hardy Creek sites in the future, should the Hardy Creek site have to be closed.
Briggs said the county opened the Hardy Creek dump site when the land was owned by the Montana Department of Transportation, which had listed it as excess property to sell, but the state historical society got involved and through legislation, the property is now Tower Rock State Park.
Briggs said they’d been unofficially notified several times that the state doesn’t think the dumpsite is a compatible use long-term, so the county has been considering the possibility of a new site, or one combined with Cascade, ideally somewhere about halfway in between both.
Some community members have raised questions about Larson’s previous ownership of the now former Belt dump site.
Larson told The Electric that he had purchased the property that had been the most recent dumpsite in 1998 and sold it to Jim Bumgarner on Dec. 30, 2020.
The old county dump site had been on Willow Creek Road, northeast of Armington, which was owned by his mother, Audrey Wilson.
Larson said it was a “terribly windy site, trash was always up and down the canyon and needed to be picked up.”
In 2003, Larson said he spoke with then Commissioner Lance Olson about moving the dump site to Larson’s property on Tiger Butte Road.
He said the county was happy to have a new dump site and a lease agreement was signed for $1,200 annually. It was renegotiated in 2013 to $1,500 annually, where it remained when Bumgarner purchased the property through the lease end of June 30, 2023.
Bumgarner accepted a one-year lease extension for $1,500 through June 30, 2024, Larson said.
Larson became a county commissioner on Jan. 1, 2015.
