A motorsports park on the north end of the county fairgrounds might be a good idea. It would provide a convenient location close to town for people who enjoy racing.
Or it might be a bad idea. The noise alone might be enough to decrease property values of homes nearby.
It’s hard to say if a motorsports park is a good idea or a bad one, and Bitterrooters for Planning has not taken a position on this issue.
One thing we know for sure, though, is that a proposed motorsports park is just another land use conflict that pits neighbor against neighbor. In this particular case, it seems to have united some neighbors against the Fair Commission. And that, indeed, is a sad state of affairs because who wants to be at odds with the volunteers of the Fair Commission, those fine friends and neighbors who quietly go about their jobs of bringing joy to the community?
Haven’t we seen this movie before? Someone comes up with what seems to be a great use for some land, and then the neighbors get wind of it and react in horror when they begin to feel their land values and quality of life, which once seemed so assured, slip out from under them like fast ice under sharp skates. And then everyone gets to know each other very well within the close confines of the county commissioners’ meeting room, where they all go to appeal their respective cases.
These neighborhood conflicts have been going on for decades. Sometimes, the offending project falls quickly away in the face of organized anger; other times, neighbors are forced to dig deep into their own pockets for lawyers, or hydrologists or traffic studies or whatever to build their case against (fill in the blank: motorsports park, flea market, gravel pit, sawmill, cell tower, big box store, town-sized subdivision, or whatever else can show up on the other side of the fence).
Appeals to the county commissioners usually fall on deaf ears both because of their collective political temperament and because, truth be told, they’re just following the lead of the people who said, in 2008 at the ballot box, that they don’t want a county growth policy; they don’t want any planning – until they want planning for the neighbor who is using his land in a way they don’t like and can’t live with.
So again, Bitterrooters for Planning asks whether it’s time for thoughtful community discussion about establishing a county growth policy. The alternative is to rewind that reel and watch that same old movie again – different location, different actors – same plot: anything that goes anywhere will always yield community conflict. Count on it.
We think a community that cares for each other, that cares for our shared living landscape, that cares for future generations, can do better. It’s obvious the current county commissioners have little interest in such community discussion. Bitterrooters for Planning does – please contact us if you do, too.
Carlotta Grandstaff
(for) Bitterrooters for Planning