Crossroads: How Park County is Growing, and the Latest on Conflict Mitigation
There seems to be a lot of turmoil in our community right now. A lot of distrust, fear and frustration. Can you feel it? Debates are ensuing about how we best provide a safe and healthy environment for our children in schools, how we work with the constraints of community planning to protect what we love about our communities, our rivers, our wildlife and our public lands. Some of these conversations have been civil, but unfortunately many have been angry and accusatory, even perhaps violent.
This week, I met with a long-time ranching family in our community, and I wanted to share some wisdom that I learned.
The patriarch of the family shared that every time we come together as a community to talk about hard things, we have an opportunity to build social capital. That we may not agree, but we can show up and learn about one another.
We have been working through hard things in this community for a long time — well before my time. And I am sure that we are going to continue to have hard conversations around planning. At PCEC, we are proud that we have a very diverse membership, and I know there are a lot of different ideas about planning and what we should prioritize right now.
We believe that we can and should work to accommodate new people moving to our community and that we should work together to build the vision for the community we want to become, rather than letting growth happen to us.
You’ll read more in this edition of Crossroads about the growth trends in our community. We have seen more and more people retreating to gateway communities like ours to live near natural amenities, public lands, the Yellowstone River and Yellowstone National Park, accompanied by a boom in both recreation and residential development.
At the same time, people that have been living in our community for a long time are getting priced out. This trend has been happening for years, and with the covid pandemic, the increase is devastating our small businesses, our families and our towns.
We are grateful for the hardworking people in our community tackling these issues on the front lines — city and county officials, community board members, teachers, school staff, non-profit leaders looking for housing solutions and nurses that are rolling up their sleeves to care for everyone in our community.
My hope is that we can work through our differences with grace and patience, working to build social capital and a stronger community regardless of the outcome and that we all take a minute to find someone to thank today. We all could use a bit more kindness and gratitude.
In community,
Michelle
Next steps for Conflict Mitigation
Thank you to everyone that attended our Community Conversation about Conflict Mitigation this Wednesday, October 6th. We had a thoughtful and informative conversation with County Commissioner Bill Berg, Planning Board Chair John Heidke and Planning Director Mike Inman.
Watch Conflict Mitigation: What You Need to Know
Put simply, conflict mitigation is a tool that uses conditional use permits to mitigate impacts from industrial and commercial development. At PCEC, we are often the first ones to learn about new industrial developments coming to Park County. We have worked with our community over the past five years to ward off gold mines, asphalt plants, and tire dumps. We are hopeful that conflict mitigation will provide a local tool to deal with these types of controversial developments.
The big picture message:
"Conflict mitigation is not traditional zoning, it is simply a permitting process to ensure that commercial and industrial projects and large-scale residential projects do not degrade our land, rivers, and wildlife; do not adversely impact our residential neighborhoods; do not impair our tourism and agricultural economy; and do not lower our property values and harm our businesses."
Ways to support Conflict Mitigation:
Write a comment - Comments can be submitted to the Park County Planning Board through an online portal and to the county commission by emailing, scaldwell@parkcounty.org (Steve Caldwell); bberg@parkcounty.org (Bill Berg); and ctinsley@parkcounty.org (Clint Tinsley).
The planning board will discuss next steps and how to review and analyze comments at their October meeting. Please save the date: October 21st at 4 p.m. via Zoom. Please attend!! We need to show up in support. Next, the regulation will go to the County Commissioners for review, which will include more comments and public hearings. More fun!
Recruit friends to write comments - We need to demonstrate wide-spread support for the County’s efforts to put some safeguards in place before development directs how we grow. Let's overwhelm the County with positive supportive comment letters. Tell them that we appreciate that they are working to find a way to have more local control over new industrial and commercial projects.
Write a Letter to the Editor - Not sure what to say? Email Johnathan at Johnathan@pcecmt.org to discuss a Letter to the Editor.
Add your name to our letter of support - Just click and add your name to our letter thanking the County Commission and the Planning Board for tackling these hard issues and encouraging them to move forward.
There's been a lot of good news happening at the City of Livingston.
The City recently denied a Love's Truck Stop, made a decision that will help lead to more trail connectivity and reinforced city processes on new developments.
We are certainly stating the obvious when we say Park County is experiencing profound change.
But nailing down exactly how Park County is growing can be difficult.
There is very little oversight of development, which means there aren’t many statistics on what is being built and where. This makes getting an idea of what is happening on the ground difficult, said Mike Inman, Park County Planning Director, at a planning board meeting earlier this year.
“We do our best to get a sense of what’s going on,” Inman said. “But we don’t have a way to track what’s happening on the ground holistically.”
As the county considers adopting the proposed Conflict Mitigation Zoning regulation, which could help lessen the impacts of industrial and commercial development, it’s important to get a picture of what’s happening on the ground.
If you want to read more, head to our website!
Learn more about Park County growth trends!
Other citizen-led planning efforts across Park County:
Clyde Park Growth Policy Meeting: to learn more about where and when the Clyde Park Planning Board meets contact Rich Baerg at rbaergmt@gmail.com;
Cooke City residents are grappling with how to update their wastewater treatment. Interested in learning more? Contact Michelle Uberuaga at michelle@pcecmt.org
Livingston The Livingston Planning Board will meet on October 20th at 5:30 p.m.; for more information on other meetings in Livingston: HERE.
Gardiner to learn more about the Gardiner neighborhood planning effort contact Lynn Chan or Jen Madgic at jmadgic@gmail.com;