Missoula Commissioners Reject Greenough Development
Missoula County commissioners rejected the Clearwater Meadows subdivision Wednesday after nearly more than an hour of public and expert comment, most it against the subdivision.
John Richards is the landowner proposing the subdivision, which is about one mile west of Clearwater Junction, east of Missoula on Highway 200. The subdivision would border Highway 200 near Blanchard Creek and would only be a quarter mile for the Blackfoot Clearwater Game Range.
Initially Richard proposed 119 lots on 200 acres, but he recently decreased the lots to 96 in order to provide more open space and make the subdivision more attractive for the commissioners.
But the move didn’t work. In the end his mitigation measures weren’t enough.
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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.
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Live From New West's Real Estate and Development Conference
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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
Tonight on NPR's Montana Evening Edition, Whitefish, Montana's painfully high (or beautifully high, if you're selling) real estate market will be featured. MTPR's website gives a pre-cap of tonight's report:
"What was once an ordinary working class town now offers some of the most expensive real estate in Montana. In our continuing series on poverty in the state, reporter Kevin Maki visits Whitefish, a community where affordable housing is frequently out of reach - even for many of her long time residents."
The real eastate market has been on fire here for a number of years. A February Daily Inter Lake article reported that more than a billion dollars in commercial and residential property changed hands here last year, fueled by factors like population growth, investment buying and limited land supply. That was a 25% increase from just 2004.
I also read the other day that Northwest Montana houses 25% of the state's realtors. My hairspray, power-skirt-suit and Bluetooth earpiece phobias aside, that's an overwhelming statistic.
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The Flathead County Planning and Zoning Office has been working on a new Flathead County Growth Policy since late last year, holding public meetings, accumulating public input and mashing it all together into something that hopes to guide growth in the Flathead. State law requires that counties have growth policies, although the text within does not mandate or make policy. The new document will replace a 20 year-old growth policy, undoubtedly obsolete in the face of Valley population explosion in the past 20 years.
As long as we're talking population, in Flathead County it grew 26% between 1990 and 2000, led by an influx of new residents. Between 2000 and 2005, it is estimated that Flathead County’s population increased by 11.7%, for an estimated count of 83,172 residents in 2005. It's not expected to stop. In fact, it's expected to increase by at least 2% each year. [more]
In the world of urban planning and public policy in Missoula, there always seems to be one issue that comes up over, and over and over again: Infill.
Whether and how to promote building within Missoula's urban core has produced a long-running debate between those who say it's our best tool for affordable houses and sprawl-prevention and those who say such developments can erode the character of our most-prized neighborhoods.
This week, we posed four questions about the hot topic to two city council members who often fall on opposite sides of the issue. But as you can see, it's not that black and white.
These conversations with Ward 1 Councilwoman Heidi Kendall and Ward 4 Councilman Jon Wilkins preview the discussion the two will have about infill on this week's edition the Live Missoula! radio program on KGVO 1290 AM. Tune in at 10:30 on Sunday, June 18 to listen in.
Right here, read what each has to say about infill and ask them your own questions below in comments.
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