Cooney said the decision on an operator of the senior living facility would be based in part on who could build an affordable one.

"That's one of the things they look at in the demand study," he said. "They look very much at who lives here and the economics associated with it."

The West Log Yard is a Class III landfill, and it needs to be cleaned up before anything can be built there. It's zoned industrial, so that would have to be changed on the 10 acres.

And it would also require subdivision approval, said Laval Means of the Missoula County Office of Planning and Grants. Public input would be part of the process, at the neighborhood level, as well as at the county planning board and county commission hearings.

"This isn't going to happen today, it isn't going to happen tomorrow," Cooney said. "It's going to be a year of public involvement."

Cooney said he's still open to suggestions on what to do with the rest of the land in the log yard. He's not opposed to keeping it zoned industrial if that's what the community wants.

"I'd like to start working on that now, because we do need to deal with it," he said.

"But right now we have an opportunity to bring health care to this community that isn't going to be there every day, that is not going to sit around and wait. We have worked for months and months of courting these people to get them to the table, and they're there. They're excited about it."

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