Family Transfer Exemptions Again Center Stage At Commission Meeting
 | Author:
Linda Kent, MT43 News Staff Reporter
MT43 News Correspondent |
Family Transfer Exemptions Again Center Stage at Commission Meeting
Linda Kent
MT43 News Staff Reporter
Broadwater County’s Board of Commissioners adopted a new procedure and application for family land transfer exemption requests, including feedback from area residents. The procedures follow heightened scrutiny of the commission’s decision-making processes around allowing exemptions and plot-boundaries as well as three contentious reviews of family transfers in March.
Deputy County Attorney Kaylan Minor initially presented the procedure and revised application at the commissioners’ March 20 meeting. At that time, community members raised concerns that the procedures and applications led with the presumption that applicants were using the exemption to circumvent typical subdivision oversight. Commenters at that meeting, along with Commissioner Debi Randolph, expressed significant concerns about the personal financial nature of some of the questions.
Minor presented the revisions, which primarily included removing some questions and adding a notary block.
In public comment, Realtor Jeannie Steele argued that the procedure and application felt to her “like a restriction on growth” in an already tight housing market.
“We’re not saying no,” Commission Chair Darrel Folkvord responded. “The exemption is there for them to use.”
Steele then asked, “How many voters are asking for this?”
“That’s not the point,” Folkvord responded. “They elect us to try to solve these problems, any potential problems we see coming up. It’s our job to address them.”
Folkvord declined to go into specifics, despite Steele’s request.
Bernadette Swenson of Schauber Surveying offered a handful of amendments to the procedure, including the requirement that the landowner attend a pre-application meeting, clarification that questions raised by reviewers prior to the commission be brought to the landowner before the application is presented to the commission, and a clarification that the planning department will not provide legal advice to applicants.
Those amendments were included in the final procedure documents adopted by the commission.
During comment on the new application, Jeff Schritz requested that all questions of a yes or no nature be removed, since an error on the applicant’s part could create the appearance of attempting to evade subdivision.
Schritz also raised concerns about questions within the application intended to provide the commission with contextual information that would not necessarily lead to the approval or denial of an exemption. “I don’t see anything that should be in here, with the beginning sworn oath and the ramifications of that oath, that could be construed as a gray area,” Schritz said.
“It doesn’t really matter if he says yes or no anyway, so why ask the question,” Randolph said, asking for the removal of questions Schritz identified as intrusive.
Commissioners also approved the application with minor amendments.
