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Planning and development
Missoula Commissioners Reject Greenough DevelopmentMissoula 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.
Live From New West's Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies Conference
Creating a Legacy of InvestmentCurrent 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.
Live From New West's Real Estate and Development Conference
Q&A: Dennis Glick, the Sonoran Institute
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?
Real Estate
Report: Missoula Housing Market Not Following SlumpWhile 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.
Putting a Dollar Amount on an Ecosystem
Flathead Lake’s Economic Worth Estimated Between $6-$10 BillionThe 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.
Missoula Open Space
Group Recommends Tools for Saving Open Space, Implementation KeyThe 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.
