Missoula County commissioners approved two family-transfer and aggregation subdivision exemptions Wednesday that will create new 10‑acre and 5‑acre parcels to be held for family members.

The exemptions, considered separately but part of the same subdivision‑exemption process, will allow Dennis and Crystal Blanchard to create a second 10‑acre tract from a 20‑acre parcel at 20470 Whitetail Ridge Road and gift that tract to their daughter, Kristen Blanchard, and allow Mary Anne and Eric Paul to split a 10.64‑acre parcel at 19448 King Road into a 5‑acre tract and a 5.64‑acre remainder to be retained by the Pauls.

County planners said the Blanchard request also included an aggregation exemption to resolve a deeded boundary that predates certificate of survey (COS) 2670 and that the family proposes to hold the gifted parcel in trust until the recipient reaches legal age. Patrick Swart, planner with the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability, told commissioners that the application raised only one flag under the subdivision regulations’ rebuttable presumptions — the transfer’s recipient is a minor and the application therefore lacks a current, definite occupancy plan — but that the family had submitted trust paperwork intended to hold the parcel until the child is of age.

Swart said agency reviewers provided routine comments: Missoula County Public Health noted the project is undergoing sanitation review; Public Works/Building identified an open building permit for an addition to the existing house; and the floodplain administrator said the property sits near the 6 Mile Creek floodplain buffer but topography and elevations indicate no conflict with floodplain rules. Applicant Dennis Blanchard told commissioners the trust arrangement is intended to keep the property in the family and to ensure his daughter “would have the same environment that I grew up in.”

Kevin Dantic, planner presenting the Paul application, described the King Road parcel as 10.64 acres in Lolo within citizen‑initiated zoning district 40 and the 2002 Lolo regional plan, which recommends roughly one dwelling per five acres. Dantic told the board the Pauls proposed a 5‑acre gift tract for their adult son (identified in the staff report as the recipient) and retention of the 5.64‑acre remainder. Agency comments flagged several technical items: an open electric permit for the property that needs final inspection, required sanitation review (and cesspool upgrades where applicable), and Missoula County Public Health Water Quality’s recommendation to test existing and future wells because the area can have sporadic elevated arsenic.

Dantic noted a possible evasion indicator — the original tract had been transferred to the claimants less than two years ago — but recommended the family‑transfer exemption as the appropriate avenue based on the affidavits and materials submitted.

In both matters a commissioner moved, a second was recorded and the commissioners voted in favor; the board approved the exemptions as presented. The staff recommendations and the applicants’ affidavits will be filed with county records and the approved exemptions will be subject to any remaining sanitation or building permit signoffs prior to final recording.

The approvals do not change or waive sanitation or building permit requirements, nor do they alter any floodplain determinations; county staff said required follow‑up reviews remain in place.