WinCo appeal withdrawn, hearing canceled; work on former Shopko site uninterrupted
Big Sky Workers Coalition withdrew its appeal of the city’s issuance of a building permit for the WinCo store at 301 N.W. Bypass.
The group, which has undisclosed membership, filed its appeal of the permit in July and subsequently withdrew it on Sept. 21.
The city had scheduled a board of appeals hearing on the appeal for Sept. 24 after it was rescheduled several times previously due to the board’s inability to get a quorum, according to city staff.
WinCo Foods submitted a building permit application in February to renovate the former Shopko space and city staff issued the permit in June, after reviewing whether it met city code, standards and other application requirements.
An attorney from Morrison Sherwood Wilson & Deola, a Helena-based law firm, made multiple records requests on behalf of Big Sky Workers Coalition throughout 2025 and 2026 related to the WinCo project.
In April, the law firm sent a letter on behalf of the coalition to city staff listing concerns that were later raised in the appeal.
It’s not the first time a WinCo development in Montana has been challenged.
In 2018, a group of local union members filed an appeal of Bozeman’s approval of a WinCo store in a case that was appealed to the Montana Supreme Court the next year and settled in 2020, according to local reporting at the time.
The coalition noted that there had been no formal public notice or public comment period before the permit was issued.
That’s standard city practice on building permits for appropriately zoned properties that don’t require conditional use permits or other variances.
In the past, such a project likely would have gone before the design review board, which was dissolved by the City Commission in 2020 in an effort to speed the development review process.
Commission voted 3-2 to dissolve city’s Design Review Board [2020]
In their agenda packet for the now canceled Sept. 24 meeting, staff wrote that the public has “no right to participate in administrative or ministerial decisions of a public entity, but there is the
opportunity to participate in the deliberations of the public body.”
The coalition submitted a formal appeal in July, arguing that certain city requirements weren’t met for the project and asking the board to set aside the building permit.
In the meantime, work has not stopped on the WinCo store.
City staff wrote in their agenda report that the coalition’s appeal doesn’t identify an actual violation of an applicable requirement.
“Instead, the allegations largely rest upon an incorrect interpretation of the city’s regulations, an attempt to apply requirements governing different types of development or infrastructure, or disagreement with technical determinations made by city staff in the course of administering the city’s adopted standards,” city staff wrote.
The appeal includes a written document from Brett Walcheck, an engineer who appears to be based in the Kalispell area based on his resume included in the appeal documents and a web search.
City Attorney David Dennis provided a document to the board of appeals on Sept. 16 requesting that it require the attendance of a coalition member at the hearing who could testify to facts establishing an aggrieved person, as required by city code and state law, to determine if they had legal standing to challenge the permit.
Dennis wrote that in its appeal, the coalition “describes itself as an unincorporated
association and community-based group composed of Montana residents” and that its members “include residents and families in Cascade County and surrounding areas who share interests in responsible development, sound land use planning, fair working conditions, transparent governmental decision-making, lawful development, and long-term community well-being.”
The coalition states that unidentified “members” monitored the project and have “concerns.”
Dennis wrote that the city requested the appeals board require at least one member to testify at the meeting to establish:
- the member’s relationship to the coalition and the dates of membership;
- the member’s legally cognizable interest allegedly affected by the permit;
- the concrete past, present, or threatened injury posed to that interest by issuance of the WinCo permit
- how the alleged injury differs from an injury or concern shared by the public generally;
- how the interests the coalition seeks to protect are germane to its organizational purposes
In its appeal, the coalition argued that WinCo’s proposed sanitary sewer improvements failed to comply with city and state requirements.
City staff wrote that the coalition’s argument “begins with an incorrect premise” and that’s its not a public sewer main, but a sewer service line connecting the WinCo building to the existing public system.
City staff wrote that the city’s applicable standards and adopted plumbing requirements account for site-specific physical constraints and for WinCo, staff determined the service line was appropriately designed.
The coalition also alleged that the WinCo project did not meet city code requirements related to a stormwater and drainage plan, which city staff wrote did not apply to this project.
The coalition argued that the city was required to complete a traffic impact analysis since the project’s peak-hour traffic exceeds 300 trips.
City staff wrote that the coalition’s “argument improperly treats the numerical threshold
as requiring a [traffic impact analysis] regardless of the nature of the proposed development or the existing use of the property” and that staff evaluates traffic impact requirements in the context of the proposed development.
Since the WinCo project is the reuse of the former Shopko building, the use isn’t expected to “create new or materially different” traffic conditions and staff determined a traffic analysis wasn’t required.
The coalition argued that the WinCo project didn’t meet erosion control requirements, to which the city argued that the applicant submitted an erosion control permit application that was approved in March.
Additional site conditions were identified and the applicant submitted a stormwater pollution prevention plan, which was approved by city staff in late June.
“None of the above allegations establish that the building permit was improperly issued. General
assertions that plans are inadequate, that a different design should have been used, or that
additional studies should have been required, are insufficient to establish that the permit was
unlawfully issued,” according to city staff.
