The Fight to Keep Open Lands in Missoula County

By Greg Lemon, 2-14-06

	Caption: Photo by NewWest photo editor, Chris Lombardi

Drive Mullan Road from Missoula to Frenchtown. Farm fields that were once home to grazing cattle, old red tractors and frolicking whitetail deer are now being dozed up and covered in manicured lawns, asphalt, spec homes and golf courses.

Increased pressures from development and population growth in Missoula County has led government officials, citizens and landowners to turn their attention to the land still left open. The city of Missoula has been working to conserve open space since the early 1980s, but it wasn't something the county dealt with. Now as development spills out of the city and more people look for that little piece of ground in the further reaches of the county, officials are taking on the controversial issue.

The pressure on ag producers is great, said Patrick O’Herren, chief planner with the new Rural Initiatives department in the county’s Office of Planning and Grants. It’s difficult to keep people working the land when it’s far more profitable to subdivide, he said.

And though threats to open land may vary depending on where you’re at in the valley, one threat is common:

“The rapid population growth,� O’Herren said.

Missoula County’s population is about 95,000 and is projected to increase to 125,000 by 2020, according to the draft update to the county’s growth policy.

Between 1990 and 2004 more than 14,000 acres of land was subdivided in Missoula County outside of the Missoula city limits, according to the same document.

And though many people may think of open lands as just farm and ranch land, forested land is also considered open land, and now those acres are coming under an increased threat of development as land and lumber giant, Plum Creek Timber Company, is beginning to divest of land around western Montana.

More than half of the 1,673,698 acres in Missoula County are owned by the public and essentially protected from development. These are state or federal lands. But Plum Creek owns about 26 percent of the county and is the single largest owner besides the Forest Service, according to county figures.

So what is the future of the Plum Creek lands? What is the future of Missoula County farm and ranch land since handing over the family operation has become more and more unfeasible?

These are some of the questions the Missoula County Open Lands Working Group is wrestling with. This 18-person group has two representatives from each of the county’s nine planning areas and is charged with providing the county commissioners with some clearly thought-out options for protecting open land.

The Missoula County Commissioners formed the working group because they saw the direction the county was heading and they wanted to be proactive, said Jack Rich, working group member and the owner of a guest ranch near Seeley Lake.

“It’s easier to try and get ahead of the curve rather than race along behind,� Rich said.

The group first met last June, and with the help of Five Valleys Land Trust – a nonprofit open land conservation organization – have met with landowners, citizens and stakeholders all over the county, trying to ascertain needs and concerns surrounding the loss of open land.

“We’re trying to gather as much information as we can so we can make informed decisions,� Rich said.

But what constitutes open lands?

In Missoula County the definition varies from area to area, O’Herren said.

“Open lands in the Missoula area means something completely different than up the Ninemile,� he said.

Around Missoula, open land could be river bottom or small agriculture operations. In more rural areas, it could mean forest or large tracts of pasturelands, he said.

No matter what they look like, open lands protect cultural and natural community resources, Rich said.

Cultural resources are the land use practices used in Montana for decades – logging, farming, ranching. These uses are an essential part of the multilayered and colorful fabric of life in Montana. They are what Montanans, old and new, identify with and what make the state a unique and desirable place to live, he said.

But the same lands that provide these cultural values can also be a natural resource as well, Rich said.

People and wildlife draw value from a well-managed farm or ranch, even if they can’t walk across the land, he said

“You might not be able to touch it, but it’s important none the less,� Rich said.

Still, some access to open lands is an important piece of the cultural heritage of Montana that’s also changing.

If someone buys a ranch, puts a trophy home up and doesn’t allow any public access, they’ve taken an important resource from the public, Rich said.

He doesn’t expect all private land to be open for access, by any means. But it shouldn’t all be closed off either. Trying to find the balance and incentives for landowners to work with sportsmen is part of what the group is doing, he said.

Other natural resources provided by open lands are simply the wildlife and environmental benefits, Rich said. It’s as simple as open lands provide a place for wildlife to live.

These natural and cultural resources add to the quality of life in Montana – a quality of life that’s being threatened by uncontrolled development, and must be protected now so Missoula County can continue to support a diversity of life styles and people, he said.

If you don’t protect the natural and cultural resources of the county, then it will slowly turn into a “lifestyles of the rich and famous and you lose the cross-section. That’s part of what we want to save. We want people to be a part of the community, not apart from it,� Rich said.

He got involved with the Open Lands Working Group because he cares about the future of Missoula County.

“How we grow can determine our quality of life in the future,� he said.

The group has worked up some suggestions about protect open land and directing growth and is about to take them to the public.

With advisement from people like O’Herren and the Five Valleys Land Trust representative Donna Erickson, the group has developed four sets of tools landowners can use to protect their land.

The idea behind the tools isn’t to give people one answer, but rather a complete compliment of methods they can use, O’Herren said.

The tools vary between incentives and regulations, but the goal is to provide voluntary options, Rich said.

“Incentive-based is saying let’s all come to the table and saying let’s all find a win-win,� he said.

The four tool sets are:

Rights in land, which include conservation easements, land acquisition and transfer of development rights.

Tax incentives, such as new tax programs, tax breaks or new methods of tax assessment.

Economic development, which means helping landowners and ag producers find new ways to market their products or develop coalitions and groups that will can generate new ways to keep agriculture and forestry viable ways to earn a living.

Policy and regulation, which include things like planning, impact fees and zoning.

These tools aren’t the final version, but rather a first draft, Erickson said. Now the working group is going to go back over the tool list through the filter of 15 different selection criteria such as: does the tool keep working land working, does it encourage well-planned development and does it direct development to less productive lands in each region.

“My guess is not everyone is going to agree on everything,� Erickson said.

In the end, the group will develop a list of recommended tools for each planning area, she said.

At the same time the working group is wrestling with revising the tools, members are going to hold public meetings in their respective planning areas, beginning first with a meeting Feb. 27 in Seeley Lake and another the following day in Frenchtown.

The idea is to get public input to bring back to the working sessions, Erickson said.

The first working group session to go over the tools is Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. in the C’mon Inn in Missoula.

“It’s an ongoing process,� Rich said. “There’s a whole spectrum of thought and values out there – just peoples’ perception of open space can be all across the board. We’re trying to develop a county-wide perspective.�

By June, the working group will submit a formal recommendation to the Missoula County Commissioners on tools and methods for protecting open lands.

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