Connect With Your Community!
Connect With Your Community!
During a public hearing on the preliminary budget for the Fiscal Year 2024-2025 at last week’s Three Forks City Council meeting, Councilmember Gene Townsend discussed the possibility of paving Railway Avenue.
Townsend said Railway Avenue is probably the third busiest street in Three Forks, with many people using it to go to the market and post office.
“There is a lot of traffic on it. It constantly needs to be graded. It’s a tough street to take care of,” he said.
According to Townsend, the City of Three Forks has gas tax money and other money that could be used for road improvements. He has volunteered to gather the landowners of Railway Avenue to discuss the possibility of paving the street. Townsend added the possibility of a Special Improvement District to spread payments over time.
“What I’d like to do is to ask them to have some ‘skin in the game.’ In other words, if the City can come up with ‘X’ amount of dollars to pave this street, would they be willing to kick in a share to help pave the street? Because I think that’s fair to the rest of the people in Three Forks that had to pay for their paved streets,” Townsend said.
During the public hearing, Townsend asked for money to be placed in the budget for the paving and was willing to sit down and talk with property owners to see what their feelings were.
“If people don’t want it, that is fine, but I think we should at least talk about it and see what we can do,” he said.
Townsend added that one of the things he noticed was that when a lot of gravel streets went away in Three Forks, they had fewer fender benders, and cars were a lot cleaner.
“I think it is one of the best things the city ever did,” he said.
CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT
Last week, the City of Three Forks approved a Conditional Use Permit for a two-building residential development on South Main Street.
The two new buildings, each containing four residential units, will be located at 410 S. Main and within the Central Business District (CBD). According to City officials, multi-family dwellings are a conditional use in the CBD. The current design for the project has garage spaces on the main level and living spaces on the second and third floors.
Ken Landgaard and property owners Chris Trent and Charles Trent submitted the application.
According to City Planning Consultant Randy Carpenter, the four lots combined are 10,500 square feet in size.
“In the CBD, there is no required lot size for residential uses, no building height limits, no lot width requirements, or lot coverage limits. However, according to the zoning regulations, because this is a proposed residential project, it must provide at least 12 parking spaces and must meet the building setback requirements. The setback requirements are 15 feet for the front yard, 10 feet for the side yard, and 15 feet for the rear yard,” Carpenter said in a letter to the planning board.
As part of the approval of the Conditional Use Permit, the applicants must have the site plan stamped by an engineer and pave the alley from the exit to Elm Street before occupation.
Townsend said the alley will have a lot of traffic it has never seen before and thinks it is a good idea to have it paved.
Councilmember Ed Tharp also spoke out in favor of paving the alley.
“I think it should be paved. It’s going to be a lot of wear and tear on the alley,” he said.
