City planning to eliminate board, update appeals process to comply with 2023 state law
City staff are proposing to dissolve its board of adjustment/appeals, among other structure changes, to comply with the Montana Land Use Planning Act, passed by the Legislature in 2023.
Brock Cherry, city planning director, told City Commissioners during their Jan. 20 work session that the existing planning board and zoning commission are the same body, but use one name or the other depending on the agenda item.
Cherry said those boards need to be combined under the MLUPA, which is “easy,” and staff was working with legal on that process.
The land use variance process currently sends issues to the board of adjustment, which has been eliminated under MLUPA.
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Now, Cherry said, a variance request will first go to the planning director for a determination, and the applicant can appeal to the planning board, then to the city commission and ultimately district court.
The city board of adjustments has long handled appeals of staff administrative decisions, he said.
Over the last five years, 95 percent of the items before the board were variances and about five percent were general city code appeals.
The city has had ongoing difficulty maintaining full board membership and the board met infrequently.
“We’re at a crossroads,” Cherry said and the city could maintain the board of adjustment to handle administrative appeals or eliminate the board and those issues can go directly to the city commission.
Cherry said since the board meets infrequently, there’s a learning curve and staff has to explain the process each time.
Commission Rick Tryon asked what the non-land use appeals had been.
Jesse Patton, city engineer, said the last was an appeal several years ago about a fence being within two feet of a city sidewalk.
David Dennis, city attorney, said there were no pending appeals before the board of adjustment, which met on Jan. 7 to select its officers for 2026. The only other action item on that agenda was to approve the minutes from their Nov. 13 meeting which included consideration of a yard setback variance.
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Commissioners said they favored abolishing the board of adjustment/appeals and have those matters come before the commission as needed.
Eliminating the board will require city code revisions and as of Jan. 20, the board’s page states, “city staff is reviewing and providing proposed city code changes to comply with Montana Land Use Planning Act. Current board members will continue to serve as needed until the city code can be adopted to have a clear direction on the correct bodies to hear appeals.”
