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Candidate urges city to cut red tape for small businesses, update master plan outreach and relax landscaping rule
Summary
Ward 3 candidate Kyle Voigtlander told the council July 21 that city permitting, landscape rules and a hard-to-navigate planning website deter small businesses; he also urged clearer outreach on the master plan the city must adopt to avoid state penalties.
Kalispell — Ward 3 candidate Kyle Voigtlander told the City Council on July 21 that onerous permitting requirements, an outdated planning website and a parks-and-rec rules against commercial rock landscaping deter small businesses and frustrate residents trying to find planning documents.
Voigtlander said the city faces a state requirement to adopt a new master plan and that failure to do so could carry penalties; he urged clearer notice and easier access to planning materials. "The city of Kalispell has to adopt a new master plan. And it's really important because they have to either adopt this plan, or they take 15 points from the state," Voigtlander said.
He described a recent small-business client who faced multiple site and code changes — moving meter pits, adding landscaping, changing parking and approaches on a state road — that together cost nearly $1 million to address. "For somebody wanting to start that boutique or that coffee shop or that restaurant, that is a crazy absurd number that we are making people jump through," he said.
Voigtlander also criticized a parks-and-rec rule he described as disallowing rock as a primary commercial landscape material except as an accent, calling rock low-maintenance compared with annual mulch. He asked the city to consider easing that restriction for existing buildings and to improve online access to planning documents and meeting notices.
He recommended weekly outreach posts and clearer signage at City Hall to help residents and business owners who are not frequent users of social media or municipal websites. City officials later noted the "Engaged Kalispell" page and email-notice signup as existing channels for planning outreach.
No immediate regulatory changes were proposed at the July 21 meeting; candidate comments were made during public comment and will be considered as part of ongoing master-plan and planning-page updates.
