ENVIRONMENT SECTION DISCUSSION CONTINUES

In December, the Community Development Board began discussions of the ENVIRONMENT section of the Environment, Natural Resources and Hazards Element of the Plan. Although discussions did occur and comments submitted, the Board did not feel they had enough time to satisfactorily discuss the plan section and take public comment, so they continued it until they had a better process for moving forward. The Board will resume discussing this section at a February 20th work session at 5PM. Staff has provided a red-marked draft incorporating public comments and suggestions from the Board thus far. You can view the staff memo, the plan draft, public comments and staff's responses HERE.

DISCUSSION OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

At the January 16, 2025 work session, several members of the Board voiced their concerns regarding the Economic Development Goals and Objectives that were presented to them at a June 2024 work session. These goals and objectives are intended to reflect an economic development element that is not anticipated for completion until later in the plan process. The Board voted to discuss these concerns as one of the agenda items at their 5PM February 20, 2025 work session. All of this is described in detail in the staff packet HERE. Visioning session responses regarding economic development or commercial uses can be viewed HERE.

At the December 19, 2024 Community Development Board Work Session, the Board expressed concerns that a monthly one hour work session was an insufficient time allotment for the level of discussion necessary for Vision Whitefish 2045. The Board delayed further discussion of plan sections to ascertain how work sessions and incorporation of public comment could occur moving forward.

At the January 16, 2025 work session, the Board decided to add an extra work session intended solely for discussions regarding Vision Whitefish 2045. This would give the Board sufficient time to consider all plan text, engage in robust discussion, and invite public comment without the need to end the work session at 6PM in order to continue forward with other items on the regular Community Development Board agenda (such as land use proposals). The Board has scheduled specific Vision Whitefish 2045 work sessions on every Wednesday the day before each regular Community Development Board meetings on the Third Thursday of every month. The first additional work session will be WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19 at 5PM. These work sessions are anticipated to continue for the duration of the plan update process. A Vision Whitefish 2045 work session is still scheduled at 5PM before the regular Thursday, February 20 Community Development Board meeting.

The Vision Whitefish 2045 update has involved reaching out to groups that might not typically be involved for better representation of the community. For the second year, Mr. Wes Webb's Social Science classes used Vision Whitefish 2045 as their Senior Project. City Staff made presentations to five different classes and attended class workdays in October, and the students wrote senior papers offering ideas and persuasive arguments related to the growth policy. Several of the students will present their ideas to the Community Development Board at the beginning of the work session AT 5PM.

Staff is completing the Environment, Natural Resources and Hazards Element of the Plan. This will be the first complete plan element chapter draft released for review! This plan element is expected to be rather detailed (30 pages +/-) and packed with information. To make it more digestible, staff is releasing it in three sections. THE ENVIRONMENT SECTION IS THE FIRST SECTION COMPLETE FOR REVEW (HERE). This draft is scheduled for a work session with the Community Development Board at 5PM on Thursday, December 19, 2024. If you cannot attend this work session, it will be streamed on the City YouTube Channel HERE.

Update: there is a revised draft posted following the November 21, 2024 Community Development Board work session. You can view the revised draft HERE.

Staff has completed the draft demographics section of the Plan. There will be a Community Development Board work session to discuss this section on THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21 at 5PM. You can see this section HERE . This section is intended to be part of the plan background chapters as shown in the plan outline HERE.

Update: There is a revised draft posted following comments after the October 17 2024 Board Work Session

A draft section on the History of Whitefish has been completed. This section will be in the introductory chapters of the Plan. You can view this section HERE, or you can always find draft sections in the "Documents/Draft Plan Chapters" in the right hand column of this website.

There will be a short Community Development Board work session on Thursday, October 17 at 5:30 PM to discuss this.

Staff is pleased to present the first draft section(s) of Vision Whitefish 2045 for review and comment! This consists of a section relating to planning framework, setting and climate.

Planning Framework is a description of the purpose of a community plan, state mandates, some of the process and how it is organized, how to use the plan, and a basic description of the public outreach process. The setting section describes the geographic location and physical layout of the City. This is followed by a brief description of the climate.

In order to provide context regarding how this all fits together, staff has also included a draft outline showing the general arrangement of the plan. Please note these are early drafts in text form only; revisions are expected, and all final drafts will be posted here and come in front of the Board in a completed document toward the end of the process. You can review the outline and the drafts as one document HERE.

There will be a Community Development Board work session next Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 5PM. The drafts discussed above will be the topic of this work session, and the public will be given the opportunity to comment on the drafts. See the memorandum HERE for a description.

It was a tremendous amount of work, but we were able to get through all the input from the four recent visioning sessions! A total of 148 people attended. Thanks everyone for participating!

There were 150 pages of handwritten comments. We reviewed all individual essay responses and entered it into spreadsheets organized by general topic and specific comments. There were 241 stickie notes on the maps with comments that we recorded. We entered all the comments as "point" data into a Geographic Information System (GIS).

You can see all this data in the "Visioning" folder in the documents at the right side of this website.

We will be discussing the results and a draft vision statement at the August 15, 2024 community development board work session at 5PM. The staff memo for this work session is posted here

From April 25 until June 13 we had four different visioning sessions in different quadrants of the city. Here is the original flyer for these sessions. These visioning sessions asked participants to tell us what is special about their neighborhood and specific geographic areas. Approximately 150 people total showed up to participate!

For those who were unable to attend any of these sessions, we have provided several of the mapping exercises online. These mapping exercises will close FRIDAY JULY 26, 2024 AT NOON. You can find the link to these exercises in the "maps" tab, or you can click HERE.

UPDATED NOVEMBER 22, 2024

The Montana Land Use Planning Act (MLUPA) has very specific requirements in regard to the economic development element. Due to the complexity of the analysis, in September of 2023 staff contracted with GSBS to conduct this analysis. This was presented to the Community Development Board at work sessions in May and June of 2024. This report, along with previous growth policies, economic studies and other data, are being used as resources for the economic development element. However, given how quickly the economy and statistics can change, and how linked economic development can be to land use, staff believes it prudent to have this analysis reviewed, and updated if necessary, toward the end of the process.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Economic development is one of the topics the Montana Land Use Act (MLUPA) requires to be addressed in a growth policy. Due to the complexity of this economic analysis, staff contracted with GSBS Consulting.

After 30 stakeholder interviews, 2 group meetings and a presentation to the Community Development Board in April, GSBS has presented the completed draft of the market study. This, in addition to previous growth policies, economic studies and other data is being used by staff as a resource to prepare the economic development element of Vision Whitefish 2045.

You can see the consultant report here, and the first part of the economic development element containing the summary and the goals and objectives have been posted on the website here. Any additional supporting information will be presented at future date with more complete drafts of the chapter. There will be a work session to discuss these materials on Thursday, June 20 at 5PM at Council Chambers in City Hall.