Growth in Madison County

Madison County Planning Office Hires New Director

By David Nolt, 9-04-07

Madison County Commissioners are looking forward to getting their planning office back on its legs after hiring a new planning director last week. This June Madison County lost both its planners, which effectively put all new subdivisions on hold in the steadily growing area.

Charity Fechter will be coming to Ennis from Farmington, New Mexico to the tune of $65,000 a year, and she will face a hefty backlog of work starting October 8th. Fechter, who owns property in the Madison Valley, received her bachelor’s degree in earth science with a planning emphasis from Montana State University in Bozeman. Fechter has a masters in geography with a an emphasis in regional land use planning and resource geography. She also holds a masters degree in aeronautical science, which was not a prerequisite for the planning director position.

The commissioners recently extended a June 2007 resolution placing a moratorium on new subdivisions until September 15th. Madison County Commission Chair Dave Schulz is excited about Fechter’s hiring, but he says he expects the county will have to continue to contract out planners to keep pace with incoming subdivision applications.

“I think that our new planner has the motivation and the ability to get on track with planning in Madison County,” Schulz says. “I believe that one or two of her greatest challenges will be self-familiarization with state statutes, county sub-regs and our growth policy. Because of that and because she’s going to be starting with a new assistant, I think we will have to continue to use contract planner participation to deal with some of the backlog we’ve got.”

Schulz is adamant the commission will not re-extend the deadline on the moratorium, however.

“Developers large and small have been incredibly patient with the situation of losing our planners at the same time,” Schulz says. “Hiring the new planner has taken much longer than we anticipated. Once the new resolution deadline is up, we don’t feel we can ask people to wait any longer. But we should be able to expedite our way through that backlog very quickly.”

The commissioners are currently advertising to fill the assistant planner position, and Schulz says he expects to the commission and Fechter to begin interviews soon. In June the commissioners were exploring the possibility of implementing a third, part-time planner position to help with subdivisions in Big Sky. Much of the booming resort community falls within Madison County. Schulz says the third planner position is on hold for the moment.

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