The Montana Land Use Planning Act (MLUPA) has specific requirements regarding economic development. These include assessing existing and potential commercial enterprises, summarizing job composition and labor force, assessing local constraints to commercial enterprises, inventorying existing and potential commercial sites, and analyzing local facilities and financial feasibility of supporting existing and potential commercial enterprises for the projected population.

Due to the expertise needed for this analysis, staff retained a consultant to complete the study. The consultant reached out to more than 30 business and industry stakeholders over a 6-month period, met with many stakeholders individually, held two group economic forums and coordinated extensively with staff. Seventeen stakeholders participated. Based on the study and the existing growth policy, Staff drafted initial goals and objectives, and these were presented to the Community Development Board along with the report in two separate public meetings - April 18 and June 20 of 2024.

In September of 2024, several members of the Community Development Board began mentioning their desire to discuss the economic development goals and objectives further. This topic was raised at each subsequent work session, although the Economic Development Element had not yet been completed. At a March 19, 2025 work session intended to discuss the Natural Resources Section of Vision Whitefish 2045, the Board again raised the economic development goals and objectives. The Board moved to put this topic on the agenda for a May 21, 2025 work session at 6PM. At least one Board member has noted their intent at this upcoming work session is to give direction to staff regarding whether Whitefish aspires to be a “rapid growth” or “moderate growth” community.

Planning Staff had initially hoped to present this draft plan element later in the process, while the land use and housing elements were underway. However, staff did not want the upcoming discussion at the work session to occur with limited information or uninformed participation, so we decided to get in front of it, finish a draft of the plan element chapter, and get it out for review so all interests were informed equally. The chapter draft was also sent out to the participating stakeholders and the consultants for comment. Please note the Economic Development Element as prepared by staff does not mention moderate versus rapid growth scenarios – it recommends strategies to increase economic diversity and access to daily goods and services - which were overwhelmingly mentioned by participants during recent visioning sessions.

HERE is the staff report and completed economic development element.

HERE are all comments on this element to date and staff's responses to the comments.

HERE is the economic development study which was completed and presented to the Board in June which was used the primary resource for this plan element.

If you have any written comments on the Economic Development Element, please submit them to Alan Tiefenbach at atiefenbach@cityofwhitefish.gov by 5PM ON FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2025.

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Staff is completing the Environment, Natural Resources and Hazards Element of the Plan. This is the first complete plan element chapter draft released for review! This plan element is expected to be rather detailed (40 pages +/-) and packed with information. To make it more digestible, staff is releasing it in three sections. The first section was the environment section, which has already been released and discussed at two separate community development board work sessions. The Natural Resources section is the next section complete for review. This section is scheduled to be discussed at a March 19, 2025 work session. Please submit any comments you may have on this section by WEDNESDAY MARCH 5 AT 5PM. The section has been posted in the documents on the website and can also be accessed HERE.

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