Missoula News

real estate & development in the northern rockies

Panelists Wrangle (But in a Good Way) Over Growth and Planning

By Jessie McQuillan, 10-25-07

From left to right, Jonathan Weber, NewWest.Net publisher and CEO; Perry Ashby, Wesmont Builders & Developers; Bill VanCanagan, Datsopoulos MacDonald & Lind; Carlotta Grandstaff, Ravalli County Commissioner; and JP Pomnichowski, a Bozeman legislator, during a panel discussion on at the NewWest.Net Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference Thursday.

Conferences aren’t known to be rowdy affairs, but a lively afternoon panel discussion Thursday at NewWest.Net’s second annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference in Missoula came close. And while the repeated comparisons participants made to the Jerry Springer show may have been made in jest, there was no mistaking the contentious air. The topic, not surprisingly, was growth and land-use planning, and in particular, Ravalli County’s recent experiences with both issues.

Moderator Jonathan Weber (NewWest.Net’s publisher and CEO) kicked off the roundtable discussion with Perry Ashby of Wesmont Builders & Developers, Ravalli County Commissioner Carlotta Grandstaff, Bill VanCanagan, an attorney with Datsopoulos MacDonald & Lind, and Bozeman legislator JP Pomnichowski, by asking Ashby to discuss his experience with his controversial Aspen Springs subdivision, which is under litigation after being rejected by Ravalli officials. 

Ashby described his Aspen Springs proposal, a 400-acre project proposed near Florence that included some 650 clustered residential units, 160 acres of open space, and community services. He said it was designed to offer entry-level, affordable units in dense clusters to reduce land costs and allow for community open space. Such developments, he said, are necessary and rational responses to expected growth in the Bitterroot Valley and the United States as a whole, which is expected to grow from about 300 million to 600 million by 2040. 

“In the big picture, it’s not that complex of an equation—simply put, human beings need housing,” he said. “A rational community builder like myself pursues the most rational thing.”

But when it came to Ravalli County’s approval process, Ashby said, Aspen Springs was uniformly rejected by neighbors and officials alike. He said officials didn’t use rational reasoning in their evaluation, and that the process was disheartening, fragmented and frustrating. 

Weber shifted the discussion to Grandstaff, asking why the project wasn’t popular politically, as evidenced not only by Aspen Springs’ rejection but by Ravalli voters’ November 2006 passage of a countywide zoning referendum that limits density to one house per two acres. 

Grandstaff said the proposed subdivision was rejected because Ashby didn’t provide adequate road infrastructure to accommodate the dramatic growth.

“If you’re going to put 600 homes in the middle of nowhere, you’ve got to build roads to them somewhere,” she said. 

Aspen Springs aside, she said, the issue has been a catalyst for Bitterrooters who’ve long been averse to zoning, and even though last year’s referendum isn’t a long-term answer to inevitable growth, it was a way for residents to at least slow growth temporarily while developing better tools to manage new and proposed subdivisions. 

VanCanagan, who represented 14 developers that sued Ravalli County in the wake of the 2-per-1 referendum ( although the case was ultimately settled out of court), weighed in from a lawyer’s perspective. He said the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act both guarantee fair and equal treatment for those applying to build subdivisions.

“There has to be predictability in the application of the laws,” he said, and Ravalli County has struggled with that. 

Grandstaff questioned whether it was practically possible for county officials to follow state law in evaluating a subdivision, reject it with sound reasoning, and not be sued.

“It seems like [litigation] is just part and parcel of the whole subdivision review process,” she said. 

Bearing Ravalli County’s case in mind, Weber asked Bozeman’s Pomnichowski to explain how Gallatin County has managed to deal more effectively with its growth than Ravalli. 

She said rapid growth in the Bozeman area in recent years first prompted piecemeal citizen-initiated zoning districts, but countywide zoning is now on the table. Commissioners there are working closely with small communities that feel threatened by the move, she said, to explain how zoning will allow predictability for everyone and protect residences from developments like gravel pits. 

Grandstaff said Ravalli County has made a lot of progress on the land-use planning issue within the last year, and took issue with Weber’s characterization of the Bitterroot as a “mess.” She said a slew of developments such as the recently approved $10 million open lands bond, the launching of a development impact fee committee and a streamside setback committee all show that the county’s been proactive.

“We don’t think we’re a mess at all—we think Ravalli County could serve as a model for other counties going through these growing pains,” she said. 

Ashby countered that none of Ravalli’s recent developments address the need for significant numbers of affordable housing units in the valley. Those who provide the essential services for residents—such as firemen and teachers—simply can’t afford to buy homes with land, and no one’s talking about their needs, he said. Grandstaff fired back that “I’m not buying a land speculator [like developer Ashby] is concerned about affordable housing,”

“I just have a proven track record,” countered Ashby, who developed Missoula’s Canyon Creek subdivision. 

Weber brought back the discussion to Grandstaff’s list of ongoing efforts to improve growth planning in Ravalli County, asking Ashby whether the changes will create a better, more rational process in the future. 

Ashby responded that while many of the changes—creation of the impact fee advisory committee, and contracting a countywide zoning consultant, for instance—are in the early stages, they’re good steps in a “fantastic” direction. 

“It’s not just predictability for me—it’s for the neighbors, for the regulatory officials…it helps all of us understand what is going to happen next door,” Ashby said. 

In the end, VanCanagan said, it will take effort from both the public and private sector to move toward a more rational growth and planning regime. Planning officials and developers need to work together, he said, because “both of these views are going to have to find a meaningful middle ground.”

It was a heated talk between disparate camps, but hopefully a productive one, and perhaps it will lead to another.

Stay tuned to NewWest.Net/RealEstate for more coverage from the second annual Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies conference.

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