By Josh Margolis
HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – During a heated meeting on Thursday morning, the Hill County Commission unanimously voted to approve the Planning Board’s recommendations for the approval of a subdivision survey.
However, the developer now says he is unlikely to move forward with the project because following the conditions tied to the approval would be “economically unfeasible.”
Lodestar Land and Home Owner Mike Winchell has been wanting to create a 10 lot subdivision on 228 acres of agricultural land located east of Havre. All lots would be over 20 acres, and the location is just south of US 2, north of County Road 440, and east of 32nd Avenue East.
Thursday’s meeting grew contentious as Winchell told the Commission that as proposed, the conditions on the survey would be burdensome.
Conditions that the Planning Board and Commission put in the approval included having three of the lots served by public sewer, with all other lots utilizing septic tanks and drain fields, having a road maintenance agreement with lots along County Road 440 East, and building a cul-de-sac at the end of County Road 440 East and the road between two of the lots.
For two of the three lots that would be served by public sewer, the County wanted Winchell to have contractors bore under US Highway 2.
Winchell said these conditions, especially when it comes to boring under the Highway, could cost him tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Winchell said he had numerous bids proving the costs of these conditions would be prohibitive. Hill County Planner Amy Ferguson disagreed with some of Winchell’s assessment, leading to the following contentious exchange:
Winchell: To request lots 2 and 3 to be tied into (public sewer) ties me to an open ended liability of a minimum, bare minimum, of 30-something thousand dollars. Which, we haven’t seen anybody’s construction bids come in lower. That’s for sure. Upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m gonna say that won’t happen. This decision to require these just put an end to the whole entire subdivision.
Commissioner Diane McLean: To require this boring?
Winchell: Yes. How do you – and I don’t know, I could ask this open mindedly – how do you take on that? How do I, as an individual, say ‘Okay Let’s do it.’ You say it’s a minimum of $35,000, but they didn’t put a maximum amount. So they start boring and they run into this or run into that? One thing I thought they should have been able to find is they didn’t know which line – there’s two sewer lines on this side – one is from the lift station and one is coming in. So one’s going downhill and one’s going uphill.
Commissioner Mark Peterson: The one going uphill.
Winchell: So if that’s one worry they had, that they couldn’t find an answer to. If we start boring across there and ran into the other line…
Peterson: The one going uphill won’t go into a manhole. We know that. Because it’s a seal line all the way. So what you’re concerned about is where it’s located.
Winchell: Yeah. Are they parallel? From my understanding…I’m not a drilling expert. I unfortunately have learned more than I have ever cared to know.
Peterson: Trust me. We’ve all been in that hole.
Winchell: It’s just unfortunate. I’ve fought long enough, this has gone on for upwards of a year, of different discussions about this. Unfortunately, I’m the only one that takes on any liability with these decisions, or has any economic hardship.
Hill County Planner Amy Ferguson: And I’m just going to throw it out there that that’s what developers take on. That’s the responsibility you take on is wanting to develop something. That’s what (Havre Public Works Director Dave Peterson) talked about in the (Planning) meeting. That’s what developers do … And honestly, in the end, I guess if you can’t afford it – then yeah, you don’t do it. I mean, that’s just life. Period. Life’s not always easy.
Commissioner Mark Peterson: You talk about liability. Any time we require you to hook into our system, we’re taking on the liability of handling that sewage. So we are taking on some liability. This is something we can figure out, where the line is. If there’s one over, one under, or whatever we’ve gotta do. But I would assume, well, I’m not even going to assume.
Winchell: You can’t assume anything with that. And with the costs – the costs are never gonna get cheaper. Either I feel like if the statistic that – a septic drain field is $15,000? I don’t believe that’s accurate. We had all the time in the world that you guys could have come up with those bids. I’ve provided bids for everything on multiple occasions. I’ve never gotten any of those bids back.
Ferguson: Well, it’s not our responsibility to give you bids back.
Winchell: It is if you’re declaring that’s why you’re gonna deny this, it absolutely is. But I don’t want to fight about it anymore. I’ve read the county guidelines so many times, I’ve read the state DEQ guidelines so many times. I feel like I’ve presented that information. It’s often times ignored. It goes back and forth on whether this is under county review or under state review. I mean, we’ve brought up multiple, multiple state guidelines. Okay, are we following state guidelines, because it’s under state review?
Ferguson: No. We’re following state guidelines because we can. We can review it as a county, but we can definitely follow state guidelines as a county. We don’t have different guidelines.
Winchell: You do have your own guidelines. They are printed.
Ferguson: We do. But we can definitely follow state guidelines…That’s where your confusion is. But we follow state guidelines all the time.
Winchell: Perfect. I’m glad you stated that, because if it’s proven that it is economically infeasible to do that, and this is declined for that, I am liable. By state guidelines, I get all of my costs and time reimbursed. So I still need an answer.
Peterson: That sounds like a threat. I don’t like that. So please don’t do that.
Winchell: No. I’m not being threatening.
Peterson: Well, just please don’t do that.
Winchell: We’re up against multiple months of deadlines…
Peterson: We’ve made some moves to help you get this started.
Winchell: You’ve done nothing to help me along this process
Peterson: That does it.
Treasurer Sandy Brown: I will tell you, that after 35 years, that would be nice to have that developed. Because it has sat. The other thing is the amount of revenue off of that would be…
McLean: I think it is important that if we know that if we don’t allow it and there are repercussions that could come on the county, I do believe that that’s important to know.
Winchell: And that is information that is known. That is why we had a rush for the deadline, because that’s the same ruling as why there is a deadline to a response, that you need verified with the state. That’s why we had a rush at that meeting with the Planning Board so that we could come to the Commissioners. Because there are requirements, timeline requirements. Not all the laws are written on behalf of the state. There are some to protect the developer.
Peterson: Do you want a motion today, or do you want to wait?
McLean: I think we will go past our deadline date if we don’t have a motion today. And if we choose to not approve it…Why would we not approve what our Planning Board asked for?
Ferguson: I mean, that’s what the variance process is for. If Mike doesn’t agree with something, like he said this was going to be too much, he can get more set in stone bids, or whatever. That’s where the variance process comes in.
Winchell says the variance process is likely not suitable for the project.
Winchell said he was entered into a contract with the current land owner that would lead to him purchasing the land for this project if the project moved forward. Now that it appears that it will not, the purchase may not go through, either.
