“Growth and development in Lakeside are absolutely exploding,” the longtime local real estate agent said. “It's been great for the developers, because we've been pretty easy prey. They've completely taken advantage.”
It's not surprising, really, that Lakeside is booming.
But the real reason behind the spasm of subdivision is “this wonderful sewer system we have,” he said. The sewer allows tighter urban densities than septic systems would accommodate, providing the pipeline for a fast flush of building projects.
And that's all fine and good, and keeps Flathead Lake waters clearer and cleaner.
Trouble is, from Young's perspective, developers have tapped into the opportunity of sewer without having to meet the responsibility of land-use planning.
“We have sewer and no zoning,” he said. “That makes us an easy target.”
But perhaps not for long.
For the past decade and more, Flathead County has not created any new planning and zoning districts.
“Zoning,” said county planner Jeff Harris, “has been a four-letter word.”
But suddenly, in just the past couple months, the county has approved two new planning districts. It's no coincidence that both are in Lakeside.
“There's a reason for that,” Young said. “People here don't think they're being protected by their elected officials in this growth and development process. So they're choosing to self-regulate by initiating these planning districts.”
Both new planning areas were grassroots efforts, driven by specific development projects, Harris said. One was sparked by a condominium project called Osprey Ridge, where high-density living raised the ire of rural neighbors.
The other was kindled by a condo development called Somers Bay Villas, 23 units on 2.2 acres, pushed hard against the Lakeside lakeshore.
Actually, that one pushed a bit too hard and ran afoul of state and county regulators when the developer dug down into the floodplain. The seasonal storm surge flooded some condos even before they were finished.
“The first clue was when they had water coming in the windows,” Harris said. “That can't be right.”
Ultimately, seven of the 23 units - priced at nearly
$1 million apiece - had to be scrapped and scraped.
“The people who live here have gotten tired of that sort of thing,” Young said. “They got tired of the greed that pushes the land too far.”
At one point, 80 percent of locals surveyed said they'd favor zoning that, among other things, regulated such high-density projects. And when a major marina expansion was discussed - and approved by county commissioners with a whopping 27 variances to the rules - a full 1,000 people in a town of 3,000 men, women and children signed petitions of opposition. The marina sank.
The Lakeside tide, Young said, is turning.
And so not only have Lakesiders now created those two new planning districts for themselves, but they've also embarked on a neighborhood-plan process, intending to better steer local growth.
They want a say in land-use patterns, in Flathead Lake water quality, in highway safety, in the future of their small sewer system.
But for some projects, Young said, it's already too late for local input.
Across the street from his office, wedged tight between U.S. Highway 93 and the lake, is a three-story hedge of high-density condominiums appropriately called Waterside.
If they're feeling generous, locals call it “Wallside.” If not, they just call it the “Berlin Wall.”
It, not the lake, is now the neighbors' view, “and it's made people quite unhappy in this community,” Young said.
Young, at Remax, once sold that property and made some money on the deal. But that didn't stop him from opposing the Waterside project.
“Of course, I'm in favor of development,” the Realtor said. “But it has to make sense, and it has to respect the fact that people already live here.”
Young sells properties, but also is a spokesman for a very small but very effective local group called the Flathead Lake Protection Association. For more than 25 years, this loosely organized assembly has quietly advocated for development that keeps the lake and its water quality in mind.
“Because the lake's obviously the economic engine that drives everything up here,” he said.
Since forming in 1980, the association has sued county government four times over development approvals, and four times the association has won.
Now Young and the association have filed lawsuit No. 5, challenging Flathead County's November approval of Eagle Crest subdivision, which comes complete with a promised golf course.
It also comes with 820 units on 740 lots on 1,300 acres, plus guest houses, all on land once owned by Plum Creek Timber Co.
The homes, Harris said, are clustered on about 780 of those acres. The rest is “common space,” but could be home to clubhouses, landing strips, aircraft hangars and other amenities.
“These developers say they want to do things right and build quality projects,” Young said. “And maybe they really do. But it seems like sometimes they don't know what right is for a small town.”
Harris, the lead planner for Flathead County, recognizes that “Lakeside is a pretty busy place these days.” And due to the boom, he said, the town can be “pretty contentious between residents and developers.”
The Eagle Crest project was “hugely controversial,” Harris said, but he added that, with no land-use controls in place, county government and local residents were “pretty much at the mercy” of the development.
In his experience, the most contentious proposals always fall in un-zoned areas of the county.
“In places where land-use planning is in effect, we never see that level of disagreement,” Harris said, because those neighborhoods have been thought out before they're fought out.
“We really try to encourage progressive and creative planning design,” Harris said, “but because so many large areas of the county are unzoned we have very little control, or even incentives, to encourage more modern types of subdivision.”
Types that cluster homes and leave big patches of open space. Types that build in high-tech stormwater systems, or avoid septic systems.
“But we really don't have any standards beyond encouraging,” Harris said, “and so we end up with all kinds of old-school developments.”
A recent Lakeside flurry centered on a proposed gated community called Bear Mountain, 26 lots on 160 forested acres once owned by Plum Creek. It is the vision of former Canadian hockey player Lanny McDonald, 16 years in the National Hockey League and captain of the Calgary Flames in 1989 when that team won the Stanley Cup.
McDonald's been coming to the Flathead Valley since 1974, and his family has owned a place here since 1979. Around these parts, that nearly makes him an old-timer.
Asked about his Bear Mountain project, McDonald said, “We're having a little bit of fun with that one.”
Not everyone, however, is enjoying it.
“There definitely have been a couple of issues with that project,” Harris said, “even though it's not that big.”
It's 160 acres, subdivided into lots of about six acres on average, with no dedicated public or open space. It's behind a gate, above the lake, on the other side of the highway, with a shared lake access, in good wildlife habitat, with questionable emergency roads, built with individual septic systems.
“It was fought pretty hard,” Harris said, “and we don't really try to encourage that type of development at all. It's steep with very thin soil, not a good place for septics. But the county commission has given it approval, and it's moving forward.”
A lot in McDonald's exclusive neighborhood runs more than a half-million dollars, but buys big lake views, as well as access to the Flathead's best golfing, several miles distant. It also promises a berth in Bear Harbour, a marina the project advertises but which does not actually exist yet.
“We're working on that,” McDonald said. “We're in the middle of that process.”
“Actually,” Harris said, “we've had no real formal talks about that. And getting a marina is by no means a simple deal. If that's what they want, it's going to be a very involved process.”
More involved, perhaps, if the neighborhood plans and lakeshore protection plans and other land-use plans now proposed are put in place any time soon.
But McDonald says he's OK with that. He calls himself a “an old farm boy from Alberta, with a love and an understanding for the land.” His project, he said, “will be first-class. We want to do it right.”
On the project Web site, he tells the story of watching a sunset from “yet to be developed” Bear Mountain, when he “felt an incredible pull to the land and a duty to protect the integrity of the mountain.”
That, McDonald said, is why his subdivision roads will be invisible from the lake. That is why so many trees will be left standing. That is why he's cleaned up debris left by old logging operations. That is why lot sizes are big enough to allow for wildlife. And why lots are very carefully situated - “so if you don't want to see your neighbors, you don't have to.”
Still, not seeing your neighbors and living behind a gate is “not what Lakeside is all about,” Young argues.
“But Lakeside is the biggest and the busiest place in Flathead County in terms of subdivision,” Harris said. “It's going to be up to the community itself to find its own future. Hopefully, the neighborhood plan will help them grow into the kind of town that everybody still wants to live in.”
And that's exactly what Young hopes, too.
“You're going to see a lot more community involvement in planning from Lakeside,” he predicted. “Because this town is taking itself back.”
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com
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