County Commission Approves 5-Lot Subdivision Near Seeley

By Stefanie Kilts, 2-21-07

The Missoula County Commissioners voted 2-1 Wednesday to approve a five-lot subdivision in a Seeley Lake area identified as a prime wildlife corridor.

County Commissioners Barbara Evans and Jean Curtiss voted for the subdivision and Commissioner Bill Carey voted against it.

Lynyrd’s Addition, a subdivision of five lots on 28.09 acres, is located seven miles north of Seeley Lake along Highway 83. The property would include two lots for duplexes and three lots for single-family homes. The north and south side of the property are bordered by residential lots and the property is surrounded by open space on the other sides.

The Seeley-Swan Comprehensive Plan recommended one dwelling per five acres and a recent draft of the plan recommended reducing that density to one dwelling per 40 acres.

In a letter sent to the county regarding the property, Missoula County Rural Initiatives landscape scientist Vickie Edwards said the land is a wildlife corridor for many species of animals, including grizzly and black bears. She said more development on the property would increase human and wildlife conflicts leading to safety issues for humans and negative effects on wildlife.

Disagreement over the property began when Curtiss made a motion to delete a provision in the subdivision plan that would have restricted where dwellings could be built to protect the corridor.

Carey disagreed with deleting the provision because the commissioners are going to have to make decisions on similar properties with important wildlife habitats in the future. 

“We need to start taking a different approach to the adverse effects of development in the area,” Carey said.

If the commissioners do not consider clustering development, Carey said, “Acre by acre, habitat by habitat, we will see the demise of all the critters in this area.”

Although Evans agreed with Carey’s concern for the welfare of wildlife in the area, she agreed with deleting the provision because she said the county commissioners had not voted this way on previous subdivisions in the area. The process of citing these wildlife crossings as a restriction for development placement needs to go through the public process, she added.

Before commissioners considered the Seeley subdivision, they also heard again from the opponents of a contentious subdivision proposed near Rock Creek.

Rock Creek Protection Association President John Menson said the landowners had not received any form of communication from the county after the planning board’s January 24 decision on density regulations in a newly created citizen-initiated zoning district in the area.

At that meeting, the planning board approved a density of one house per 15 acres, but at the time, it was unclear if that decision would stand or need to be approved by the County Commission, which was hung on the decision.

Curtiss said she spoke with the chief civil deputy county attorney over the matter and that he believes the vote of the County Commissioners overrules the planning board’s decision but is still not issuing a formal ruling.

Menson said the association is continuing discussions with Michael Barnes, owner of the proposed Rock Creek subdivision, about buying the 200-acre property at the confluence of the Clark Fork River and Rock Creek.