Montana Kaimin
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
Ravalli Republic
Associated Press via Flathead Beacon
Current land-use regulations and policy frameworks fall woefully short of promoting sustainable, healthy communities in the West, according to a panel of financiers, planners and activists at New West's conference on Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies today.
The panel, on "Policy Challenges: Making Growth Work," focused on ways to restructure zoning and subdivision regulations and approval processes to create incentives for denser residential development with fewer impacts on the natural environment in the region.
Cities in the Northern Rockies have "regulations drafted in the 1920s and 30s," said Tim Davis, director of the Montana Smart Growth Coalition, "with codes that are too restrictive, and don't allow flexibility." Counties, meanwhile, "have very few standards, whether to protect open space or deal with impact."
The result: "Cities have been pushing development out in many ways. The counties are gobbling it up, but most haven’t been prepared for it.
Described by Todd Wilkinson, who introduced him at today's New West conference on Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies, as "having one of the most diverse backgrounds of anyone I've ever known," Dennis Glick has been a Peace Corps volunteer, a World Wildlife Fund official working to help create sustainable natural preserves in Latin America, and an activist with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. Now, he's the regional director of the Sonoran Institute, which works to help communities in the Rocky Mountain West manage and shape rapid growth.
This dialogue is compiled from Glick's responses to questions from Wilkinson and from New West's Richard Martin, following his presentation.
New West: If I'm a realtor, a developer, or a landowner, and I want to do the right thing in terms of innovative, sustainable development, what do I do, and where do I go? We've all heard these horror stories about developers trying to do innovative things who get jerked around by their county or city government, to where it ends up costing them a lot of money and they often end up punting on the project. Those kind of encounters breed hostile relations between developers and the people guiding development. What do you say when you hear those horror stories?
While more than half of the nation is experiencing a "contracting" housing market, the Missoula housing market is holding steady, according to a report released today by the Missoula Organization of Realtors.
Citing research from David Lereah, the chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS, the organization's report shows that Montana is in the 31 percent of the nation that is actually in an expanding housing market.
The war between development and environment tends be too simplistic and trite in the Flathead these days. That's why, just maybe, a report by a UM economist may add a more interesting facet to the debate.
On July 5 the Bigfork Eagle published a story highlighting the work of Jack Stanford, director of the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS). Stanford, who has done extensive work on the biology and ecosystem of the Crown of the Continent and its "Crown Jewel," Flathead Lake, said that a UM economist estimates Flathead Lake's economic worth between $6 and $10 million dollars.
The Missoula County Open Lands Working Group released a detailed 127-page report to the Missoula Board of County Commissioners on Monday recommending ways in which Missoula County can preserve its “open land and county character” in the face of relentless development pressures.
The report, culled from 15 months of research and citizen outreach by 18 landowners (two from each of the nine planning regions within Missoula County) facilitated by the Five Valley Land Trust, outlines “tools” Missoula County citizens can use “to protect agricultural lands, timberland, open space, wildlife habitat, wetland and riparian resources, or public access” – simply, the very things that make Missoula County a wonderful place to live.
On Monday night, at a potluck on Denny and Charlotte Iverson’s ranch in Potomac, the Working Group officially presented its findings to the Board of County Commissioners. “It takes this kind of effort,” beamed Missoula County Commissioner Bill Carey, the group members and county commissioners sitting at picnic tables and on hay bales.
The Bitterroot Team aspires to build a family-friendly recreation venue that is accessible to and benefits all members of the Missoula and Bitterroot Valley communities. Bitterroot Resort is designed to be a year-round recreation destination with alpine, snowboard and cross-country ski venues, signature golf, fly-fishing, mountain biking, ice skating and other amenities existing alongside a four-season resort village and residential community.
Bitterroot Resort has recently submitted a special use permit application to the forest service requesting 1,680 acres of federal land, adjacent to the Maclay Ranch in the northern Bitterroot Valley, be designated as part of a destination ski resort. This proposal represents only a small portion of the envisioned 12,800 acres of potential skiable terrain on Lolo Peak and Carlton Ridge.
Show your support and sign the Bitterroot Petition online.
11/21/2008 - 9:00 AM - Venue: Body and Soul Missoula
11/21/2008 - 9:30 AM - Venue: See Description
11/21/2008 - 10:00 AM - Venue: Currents Aquatics Center
11/21/2008 - 10:30 AM - Venue: Missoula Public Library
11/21/2008 - 11:00 AM - Venue: University of Montana
11/21/2008 - 11:00 AM - Venue: Missoula Art Museum
11/21/2008 - 11:30 AM - Venue: Lewis & Clark School
11/21/2008 - 12:00 PM - Venue: University of Montana
11/21/2008 - 12:00 PM - Venue: University of Montana
11/21/2008 - 12:00 PM - Venue: Gallery Saintonge
New West Publishing LLC
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