Rattlesnake subdivision takes step back (zoning)

Missoulian ^ | 10 February 2004 | Rob Chaney

[Lorianne]

City Council sends apple orchard development back to committee

The "character of a neighborhood" would either be boosted or blasted by a proposal to put 49 new homes on an apple orchard in the upper Rattlesnake Valley, speakers told the Missoula City Council.

Supporters and protesters of the Applegrove subdivision spoke for more than two hours Monday night about how it would affect the valley. The council is considering a complete package of street designs, lot sizes and annexation of the county island into the city limits. It took no vote Monday, sending the matter back to committee for more debate.

"It makes very expensive land more affordable to more people," developer Joe Easton told the council at the start of the meeting. "It's five minutes from downtown, five minutes from wilderness, on bus line and near a school."

The project needs approval of a planned neighborhood cluster design for a mixture of lot sizes and a density bonus for five extra lots. Those are two of the most contentious growth policies in Missoula today, and many speakers harangued the City Council and Mayor Mike Kadas for inflicting them on city neighborhoods.

"Tonight the loose ends of these in-fill tools sort of meet," former City Council member and real estate broker Cass Chinske told the council. "It's all about density. Why do we have a density policy? New urbanism- a social-engineering experiment incorporated in Growth Management I."

Other critics argued the project would put too much traffic on Rattlesnake Drive, the only main street out of that side of the valley. They challenged whether the city's planning staff used a legal method to grant the density bonus or allow smaller-than-usual lots for some of the houses in the center of the property. They also questioned why owner Patricia O'Keefe was reserving about six acres of the 22-acre area for her own home, and whether there was any way of preventing her from developing that portion at a later date.

But supporters countered that the design had much better open space and public amenities than the developers were legally required to have. Several homeowners on Lincoln Hills remarked how they wished they could have homes with sidewalks and a variety of lot sizes instead of the more isolated sites on their side of the valley.

While the council took no action on this annexation, it did approve annexing another housing project on the city's western border.

After several contentious council and committee meetings, the council voted 10-1 in favor of annexing 30.45 acres along Flynn Lane. The Pleasant View subdivision there is expected to add 115 new homes near Hellgate Elementary School.

Council members had argued over the location of a park in the project and how it might affect the elementary school with new families and traffic. Ward 5's Bob Lovegrove cast the lone dissenting vote, and Ward 1's Heidi Kendall was absent.