Missoula City Council Hears Nays and Yeas About Zoning Rewrite

By Guest Writer, 6-23-09

After more than five hours of hearing public comment Monday night, the visibly exhausted Missoula City Council sent the proposed zoning rewrite ordinance revision back to the Plat, Annexation and Zoning committee for re-evaluation.

If passed, the new zoning ordinance would replace the existing zoning ordinance, which Office of Planning and Grants Director Roger Millar described as confusing and contradictory.

“Everything we do depends on zoning, and our regulatory foundation is broken,” Millar said during his brief presentation last night. “It’s time for a change.”

Following Millar’s presentation and continuing until past midnight, about 50 Missoula residents representing commercial, organizational, neighborhood and personal interests lined up in the aisles of the council chamber and, one by one, voiced their concerns before the weary Council members, Mayor John Engen and City Attorney Jim Nugent. The meeting was adjourned at 12:30 a.m.

Among those who commented, most were supportive of the new ordinance. Others said they approved of the heart of the document but had reservations about certain sections, including the regulation of electronic signs within city limits and the provision for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU’s)—separate living areas within or detached from a primary house.

Under existing regulations, a property owner in a single-home residential area, such as the University district, would have to rezone their parcel before being allowed to construct an additional living space on their lot, a process that involves notification of surrounding property owners and review by the Planning Board. The new zoning regulations would allow a homeowner to apply for an ADU “overlay zone,” instead of having to go through rezoning. The notification and review processes are nearly identical, but construction of ADU’s in a new overlay zone must comply with more clearly-defined location, size and exterior appearance requirements.

A few came out strongly against the new ordinance. “This ordinance has been imposed from above by blatant social engineering,” said Linda Frey, a Missoula resident who claimed that the proposed new code, or Title 20, was not a rewrite of the existing ordinance but a rezone, which would require a different process to pass.

Like others, she expressed concern that the already two-year-long process is moving too quickly and not providing enough opportunity for public involvement.

“There are two worlds here,” said Millar during a short break in the meeting. “This is bipolar Missoula. There are two conflicting world views that clash from time to time.” Millar said he believes that the greatest barrier to passing Title 20 is opposition to ADU’s.

Kirk Bishop, the executive vice president of Duncan Associates, the consulting firm that wrote the new proposal, said he was heartened by the discussion. Bishop, the principle architect of the proposed zoning revisions, was present to answer technical questions when the Plat, Annexation and Zoning (PAZ) committee met this morning to begin their evaluation of the Title 20 document.

But the PAZ committee, which includes all 12 council members, failed to discuss the document during this morning’s meeting. Most of the three hours was spent debating the appropriate process for evaluating the Title 20 document. Some members only wanted to address “hot topic” issues—including minimum lot sizes and building heights. Others proposed that the committee work through the entire document, sentence by sentence, from beginning to end, a process that could essentially repeat many steps that have already been taken.

As of this morning, there was a clear 7-5 split within the Council, with the majority supporting adoption of the proposed Title 20 zoning ordinance with little revision, and the minority desiring more extensive changes.