Creating a Legacy of Investment

By Richard Martin, 10-06-06

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.

That includes Flathead County, according to Jeff Harris, a Montana newcomerwho has been head of the county's planning and zoning office for a little over a year.

"Flathead has planned individual subdivision by subdivision," Harris told the 300 or so attendees. "There's been nothing comprehnsive, nothing long range. On a weekly basis we're approving subdivisions, and the cumulative effect is dramatic."

What's needed is a comprehensive, consensus growth policy that matches communities' shared goals and values to practical regulations, said Nick Kaufman, vice president and principal of WGM Group.

"You need to adopt a growth policy, have good public involvement process, and then implement it," Kaufman asserted. "In Montana we tend to adopt a lot of policies but implement few."

All five panelists agreed that the goal is to promote denser "cluster" developments that allow for the preservation of open space while minimizing the need for long drives, sprawling retail outlets, and extensive infrastructure construction. Equally important, said realtor of Collin Bangs of Coldwell Banker, is finding a way to create and retain affordable housing.

"Decent affordable housing, I would argue is essential for healthy communities and benefits us all," Bangs said. "And it's escaping us by leaps and bounds. The irony is that the more successful the area, the worse the problem is."

Having studied communities around the West, Bangs said, he has failed to find a workable model for providing and maintaining affordable housing. Two models are happening by default in the pricey, desirable towns of the Northern Rockies: the resort model, in which "you don't build anywhere, except for a few people who have lot of money."

The second is the sprawl model, where workers are pushed farther and farther away from their places of employment. "There's got to be something in between the two," Bangs added. "We haven’t invented it yet, but I think we can."

Even creating an updated set of regulations and policies is not enough, said Steve Duerr, vice president of ANB Financial and the former executive director of the Chamber of Commerce for Jackson Hole.

"What if we go through this lengthy two-year process of creating public zoning laws, and then get 16 years down the road and look around and ask, 'How did this happen?'"

The longer term answer, Duerr said, is "a forum that's outside the formal process, where you can gather community leaders in informal meetings to create a shared vision."

Making these challenges less daunting, the panelists agreed, is the new assets in both human capital and financial wealth that are flooding into the region.

"The challenge," said Duerr, "is to understand the opportunity and the window of time we have in the 21st-cent New West, as we attract these huge amounts of wealth, to make sure that the legacy of conquest of the Old West becomes a legacy of investment."

Click here to listen to audio from this panel. [End of article]