Montana Legislature

Proposed Bill Encourages Growth Planning

By Dan Testa, 2-08-07

These were some of the words used at a hearing Thursday to describe the growth of Montana communities through the process of subdivision review: “lengthy,” “expensive,” “contentious,” and “out-dated.”

“Contentious” came up more than once.

At issue was Senate Bill 201, which would create a voluntary city and city-county planning process that encourages zoning. Local governments that choose to zone would be able to assess a fee of $50 for residential lots and $250 for commercial lots to pay for planning.

If the city or county chooses to adopt zoning, subdivisions that meet those growth standards could go through a streamlined review process.

“Ravalli County happens to be the poster-child of non-planning,” said the sponsor, Sen. Rick Laible, R-Darby, introducing the bill to the Senate Local Government Committee. “Because we don’t have zoning in these communities they are using subdivisions as a zoning process.”

The process created by the bill is entirely voluntary and creates no new regulatory authority, Laible said.

“For those local governments that implement the zoning requirements,” Laible said. “This will streamline the planning process in the future.”

Supporters of the bill said it would encourage city and county governments to work together to plan for growth years in advance and generate some money to do so, particularly on county land adjacent to towns where so much development is underway.

A fee of fifty bucks per lot may not seem like much, said Tim Davis of the Montana Smart Growth Coalition who helped draft the bill, but in an area like Gallatin County those fees can add up to $100,000 pretty quickly.

Glenn Oppel of the Montana Association of Realtors also helped write the bill.

“Why are realtors in favor of zoning?” Oppel asked. “We believe it will create a more predictable and certain environment for the development community.”

Representatives from the Governor’s office, the Association of Homebuilders, Citizens for a Better Flathead and former county planners spoke in support of the bill.

Opponents said they fully supported the intent of the bill, but were concerned about how much “streamlining” the subdivision review process would get in certain circumstances.

Sen. Kim Gillan, D-Billings and Chair of the Committee, said she had received e-mails from the cities of Billings, Bozeman and Missoula concerned over how subdivision review would work under the bill.

Helena City Attorney David Nielsen said the bill confuses zoning and subdivision in some places. Zoning discusses how you use land, Nielsen explained, while subdivision is the division of land for use.

“I would never recommend substituting zoning for subdivision review,” Nielsen said. “Zoning will be so restrictive that it will make the innovations of developers passé.”

“Philosophically we are on board with this,” Nielsen added.

Davis said the bill’s subdivision section needed amendments to address opponents’ concerns, but that all of the changes the bill’s drafters were making hadn’t yet made it into the language.

“We had intended for local governments to decide which of their subdivision requirements they would like to bring into their zoning,” Davis said. “Just because Montana hasn’t used flexible zoning, and a lot of creative zoning, it doesn’t mean we can’t.”

Concluding, Laible said the bill needs some changes, but that the idea’s time has come.

“It’s not perfect, we knew that when we came in here,” Laible said. “Give us a little time to work on this.”

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