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.

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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.

The city has scheduled the next visioning sessions! Visioning is a process by which a community forms a mental picture of the future it wants. This includes working together to recognize shared values and defining what makes Whitefish special and how to protect valuable assets.

The city will be holding four visioning sessions in different locations. These sessions will ask participants to identify distinctive areas of the city, tell us what is special about your neighborhood and specific geographic areas and discuss issues and opportunities.

We ask that you choose ONE of the four sessions based on the particular area in which you live. A flyer with a map indicating the areas is located HERE.

Dates and locations of next visioning sessions:

• April 25, Grouse Mountain Lodge, 2 Fairway Dr
• May 9, Whitefish Armory, 315 Armory Rd
• May 23, Whitefish High School Cafeteria, 1143 E. 4th St
• June 13, Whitefish Methodist Church, 1150 Wisconsin Ave

All sessions will begin at 6PM.

The Vision Whitefish 2045 team has been trying to get people involved with this growth policy update that might not typically be involved. In particular, we have been reaching out to our younger residents, as some of them may be tomorrow's leaders and using the growth policy that shapes the future of their city.

You may remember we had coordinated with the Political Science Department at Whitefish High School to use the growth policy as a Senior Project. Some of these projects were presented by the students at a January 18, 2024 Community Development Board work session.

We are pleased to announce Claire Kniveton's Whitefish High School Art Class used growth policy topics for one of their art projects! Students beautifully depicted their visions for the City of Whitefish in 2045 and provided descriptions of their work. Some of these works are on display at City Hall on the second floor near the Council Chambers. Staff invites you to drop by and see how great these are. We hope at least a few of these drawings will find their way into the final growth policy.

Thank you to everyone who showed up to the first visioning sessions. Staff counted at least 110 participants, with slightly more than 50 people present at each session. These first sessions included online polling, mapping exercises, and group discussion questions. Most of the exercises that occurred at the sessions were made available for online participation on this website. Staff has compiled the results on the Vision Whitefish 2045 website in the "Visioning" folder in the "Documents" section on the right hand side of the website.

The compilation of mapping exercises can be downloaded HERE.

The compilation of polling results, and online essays can be downloaded HERE.

A March 21, 2024 power point presentation to the Community Development Board discussing the results of the visioning sessions and the group discussion exercises can be downloaded HERE.

A video of the presentation is available HERE.

More information regarding visioning statement(s) will be released at a future date.