Deputies Called in Somers
Flathead Planning Meeting Turns Unruly
Opponents of a neighborhood plan for the Flathead Lake community of Somers shouted down county planning director Jeff Harris at a meeting last week, and sheriff's deputies had to break up the meeting.By Keriann Lynch, Flathead Beacon, 6-21-09
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| File photo by Lido Vizzutti, Flathead Beacon | |
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Update: A group of landowners has filed suit over the neighborhood plan process in Somers and Lakeside, check out the Beacon story here.
Flathead County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a public meeting in Somers last week, after a gathering meant to provide information on a potential neighborhood plan dissolved into a shouting match.
The Somers community is in the earliest stages of considering the possibility of a neighborhood plan. Such plans act within the broader framework of the county’s growth policy to offer more detailed guidelines for growth and planning in a specific region of the county.
Flathead County Planning Director Jeff Harris said last Monday’s meeting was the third in a series aimed at explaining how the neighborhood planning process works. “We were there at the request of the community to provide information,” he said.
But after a brief introduction, Harris made it only partway through the first informational slide before audience members upset by the idea of a plan and the process interrupted. The situation quickly became unruly, disintegrating to the point of profanity-laced diatribes. A pair of sheriff’s deputies dispersed the crowd.
“That’s the worst it’s been in my time here,” Harris said. “These people were not interested in being civil; they were looking to hijack the process.”
Opponents at the meeting argued that the county growth policy states a clear majority of residents and landowners are needed to form a neighborhood plan. The number of people in Somers responding to the county’s notification, they say, doesn’t constitute that majority. As a result, opponents argue the county is spending taxpayer money on something only a few people want.
They also accused the county planning office of pushing an agenda and excluding them from the public process.
Three members of the Flathead County Planning Board – George Culpepper, Jeff Larsen, and Randy Toavs – voiced similar concerns at a meeting earlier this month, peppering Harris with questions about the county’s role and expenditures in assisting communities with neighborhood plans. They argued that the county shouldn’t get involved until there was majority support.
Culpepper and Larsen went so far as to push for a vote to suspend all planning department activity regarding the Somers Neighborhood Plan until a clear majority of supportive residents were identified and those supporters reimbursed the county money spent so far. Their motion failed 4-3.
The county’s growth policy says, “A clear majority of landowners and residents … may develop a neighborhood plan.” It also, however, outlines six steps in the planning process as “a mechanism by which if a clear majority of the landowners do not support a neighborhood plan, the Planning Board can recommend denial…” Those steps include making an effort to publicly notify all landowners; an initial organizational meeting; and base-lining existing conditions.
Where the two sides disagree is when the county’s planning office should become involved.
Opponents say the planners should leave everything to the public and not assist until the majority is clear. Harris, however, said that wasn’t the intent of the growth policy, arguing instead that the informational meetings and questionnaires being sent out in this early stage were meant to determine if that support exists.
“I believe people have a right to understand what’s involved before they’re expected to make a decision,” he said. “The county should be a resource for that information.”
At least two of the county commissioners seem to agree. At a subsequent commission meeting, Harris asked the commissioners to clarify the appropriate staff involvement in light of the Somers meeting and planning board members’ questions.
Commissioners Dale Lauman and Joe Brenneman said they both remembered discussing the planning department’s role in the process during the drafting of the growth policy. People at that time, they said, had argued the department’s involvement was necessary to ensure credibility and equal opportunity for citizens – especially opponents – to voice their opinions.
“Now, they’re saying they don’t want the county sending out mailings,” Brenneman said. “Well, they’re fundamentally saying they just don’t want neighborhood plans.”
The commission agreed to consider Harris’s draft clarifying staff assistance with the plans, possibly making a decision as soon as the next week.
As for the Somers plan, Harris said residents there had been asking the county to return for another shot at an informational meeting. “We hope that we’ll be able to go back and have a civil discussion,” he said.
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Comments
Kinda hard to do that when the zoning turns out to be rather restrictive. So I'd be a little cranky if I'd not been notified that the process was under way. Nor would I be happy if the rules about the threshold of how many desire zoning in the first place were being bent and twisted like a Slinky.
Planning has a legitimate role...that of anticipation, not prescription. The central issue here is that "planning" often becomes a political means by which certain parties seek control without compensation of other persons' property, controls which all too often result in devaluation that is not made up.
"Nor shall any state deprive any person of Life, Liberty and Property without due process of law..." (14th Amendment)
"Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." (5th Amendment)
Zoning was invented in the 1910s to stabilize and protect property values in neighborhoods of single-family homes. In the past decades of so, planners have used zoning as a weapon to impose changes on neighborhoods of single-family homes. In between, zoning has been used for all sorts of purposes, some worthwhile, but many simply drive up the cost of housing and commercial and industrial development and monopolize private property by residents attempting to be the last settlers instead of just the latest settlers.
As far as roads go. Planning and Zoning lately is used mostly to prevent additional road and street building rather than encouraging it.
Land Use Planning is not a basic function of Government. Protecting individual Liberties is. Succinct but not simplistic.
Wasn't the Homestead Act an exercise in "land-use planning."?
Land ownership does not exist separate from state power. It was the government that chased out or killed the Indians in, say, Somers and enabled the current property ownership structures. Micky's argument ultimately leads to us all standing with our own guns to defend whatever property we might able to seize by force. This is what they do in places with no government (tribal areas of Pakistan, Somalia, nice places like that).
The reason I am spending time on this argument is because this ideaology, that somehow government has no legitimate role in something as basic as land use, thoroghly confuses whatever the real issues might be.
In this case, what seems to be the question here is whether the county should be spending money to inform people about a planning process that they may or may not want to undertake. That's an issue on which reasonable people can disagree. To muddy the waters with a religious assertion that land use planning is not a function of government doesn't really advance the conversation.
"Land ownership does not exist separate from state power" is a revealing statement. The state or government is not the source of "unalienable rights to life, liberty and property" although any government worth its salt should endeavor to protect these rights. A good definition of faith based or religious belief is an opinion or belief held regardless of the evidence. Ideally, cities and counties should shut down their planning departments, phase out their zoning codes, and create a process for neighborhoods and land owners to replace zoning with covenants.
When people buy into convenanted neighborhoods, they are agreeing up front to a contract. My folks in Washington bought into a convenanted 'hood and it worked out just fine. Residents know what the limits are, and how to change them, or not.
By contrast, zoning is usually expostfacto, kinda like what might happen to the last lot buyers in the covenanted 'hood if suddenly the covenant fascists decided that those two lots over there should be a "park" or "open space."
Or let's say the 'hood has a nice view of some other property that's perfect for a sawmill, or another new 'hood. That's where the zoning game usually comes into play, as the hoodies with the free view (to which they've become accustomed and ENTITLED) want to keep it. That's where my irate friend happens to be, with his lifetime of sacrifice about to be taken from him, that is, if the "planners" and the "smart growth" advocates have their way.
I'm sorry, but if you want to control property, then by golly you should pay for, not steal, it.
You have posted a comment threatening the lives of real people. This is unacceptable.
That said, I do think it is a valid point to raise in the context of a story about a meeting which the Sheriff had to be called to prevent violence (presumably against planners). It's a fine line between metaphorical speech and incitement to actual violence.
Jonathon, I concur that the West would not have been settled without Government involvement including but not limited to the rail roads, highways, telephone lines, the Homestead Act, Reservations, and more.
Mickey's anti-government and anti-zoning sentiments are not shared by everyone in Montana. Some citizens actually want zoning and have successfully petitioned and created Part 1 zoning districts to protect their property, including in Park County, Gallatin County, Missoula County, Jefferson County, and often for the purpose of preserving their agricultural way of life. Powell County residents successfully requested County wide zoning in their County to protect agricultural lands and direct growth toward existing towns.
Property owners have the right to ask their County Commissioners for zoning to provide predictablity and protection of their property, whether for residential, industrial, commercial, or agricultural uses, or to gaurantee a certain number of development rights.
Some developers see zoning as a way to provide predictablility on how many development rights they will get in a subdivision project. Other States, including Nevada and Idaho have more predictability and local control regarding planning, zoning, and subdivision issues, which provides predictable and orderly development for new homes, roads, or industrial parks.
Montana is a land of gambling on land use. You never know what you might get on a parcel. Subdivision development is not free, either. While it generates local economic development, it is also demanding of local government services including roads, water, sewer, fire, police protection, and more, which tax payers subsidize.
Several studies have shown that subdivision developments do not always pay their own way. Many developments often cost more in services than they pay in taxes or improvements. Planning, zoning, and subdivision regulations can create a predictable framework for property owners, citizens, neighborhoods, governing bodies, and developers by which to develop and grow in a reasonable manner while balancing competing interests, property rights, and demands for local services.
If the majority of land owners in an area want planning, zoning, and subdivisions to be done in a predictabile way, let them at least have the conversation about their options without being harrassed and bullied and without threatening planners. Planners work at the request of elected governing bodies and implement adopted regulations and operate within the confines of state law. If citizens are unhappy -- take it up with the commissioners. Try to change the regulations or the laws. All of this can be accomplished in a civil and respectful way.
I must take offense at your tone, saying that a "majority" of land owners should hold sway. If you are one substantial owner against a rackful of small-lot owners, where are your rights in that case?
Consider two players in this Somers/Lakeside fiasco...an amenity retiree who's moved in since 2000, who set up the secret closed website; and a family that has been in the area since before my family moved to Lakeside in 1972, still owns quite a bit of ground, and doesn't have any other investment on the magnitude of their long-held land. They have not been kept in the loop at all, in fact it appears to me they have been actively kept out. That bothers the tar out of me, and it should upset your sense of justice as well.
Planning, whether you like it or not, should at all times be conducted openly and honestly, with a honest balancing of the rights of all parties who stand to gain or lose. The trouble is, I see dang little honesty and a lot of manipulation of the process. That is wrong by any means.
Dave Skinner brings up an interesting story about an old acquaintance of his who was a dissenter. How would this fellow react if a neighbor decided to put an X-rated video rental store, hog farm or a nudist colony? These developments would undoubtedly cause the value of his property to drop, his new neighbors effectively "taking" value from him. I imagine he wouldn't be pleased and would perhaps even reconsider his dissension. Zoning isn't black and white, it takes some rights but it can protect them as well.
What is most disturbing about the disruptions at the meeting in Somers is that it was strictly informational. Are opponents of zoning so afraid they won't even have a civil discussion about it?
Listen, zoning isn't appropriate for every place or for every situation. Id bet many communities have heard the dog-and-pony show about zoning or conservation easements or other forms of land use change and decided it wasn't for them (I've sat in a few of them).
It seems that in Somers, there are a significant number of residents with concerns about the future of their community. I'd simply hope that dissenters talked with the neighbors about options. It would be interesting to see the dissenters in Somers organize a discussion about the downsides of zoning or the benefits of neighborhood covenants, for example.
If you were going to steal my stuff, or vandalize it to reduce its value, would I have to be civil about it? Is that the expectation? No, if I catch somebody in the act, or have conclusive evidence, I'll reciprocate their bad manners.
My apologies if I offended. In bringing up the case that you mentioned, I simply meant to point out that property owners become accustomed to neighboring land use. When that changes to something they dislike or potentially harms their property value, that's when discussions of zoning tend to arise. But I shouldn't have used your personal example to illustrate this. My fault.
-Beer
None of us have a right not to be offended. Otherwise that "rainbow parade" thing in Kalispell would have been prohibited, for example. So those folks had a right to offend...civilly, of course, I guess.
No apology needed or wanted.
I do want to raise your issue of being "accustomed" to something. Sure, I am accustomed to seeing a green field or nice trees or something positive on adjacent property. But someone else is paying taxes on that adjacent ground, and I'm not paying him or her a dime.
Being accustomed to a free amenity is not the same as owning it. You may FEEL you have a "right" to that view or whatever, and you may choose to play the zoning game to claim that right. But the bottom line is that enshrining that right in "law" is nothing more than theft. Talk about pig farms doesn't change the heart of the matter at all.
And please stay away from "externalized" impacts as a point of argument. Your house on the slope (theoretical, of course) is a blot on MY viewshed, no matter what color it is. But I realize that my karmic state as I gaze upon the vista containing your domicile is not objectively worth more than your sweat that goes into your place. And I can't afford to pay you for it...but gee, since I'm a self-righteous control freak, maybe I can get you ZONED. Bwahahahahaha!
Only if there is a genuine health or safety issue should regulation come into play. It's like the gravel wars. Everyone wants pavement, or solid foundations, but nobody is willing to concede stuff has to have a point of origin. Everyone wants bacon, and a fair number want "buy local" organic bacon, yet they will raise a literal stink about the organic buy local pig farmer? And if he installs "Stink-Prufe" technology, is he still organic? Or will his o-so-sustainable "whozyerfarmer" customers take the pass-through in price, or leave him bankrupt?