Bozoulian | Column by Pete Talbot
Missoula’s Hottest Button: Infill
By Pete Talbot, 3-10-06
In Missoula, housing infill has set neighbor against neighbor. To some, infill evokes quaint, European-style cities with shopkeepers living above small, family-owned businesses, and densely developed neighborhoods surround parks or squares or common areas. To others, infill means squalid eyesores – tenements foisted on unsuspecting traditional neighborhoods – and more traffic, undesirable neighbors and noise.Political fortunes have been won and lost over the infill debate. It is probably the single biggest hot button issue that Missoula has faced in over a decade and municipal candidates often campaign exclusively on the infill issue.
The idea behind infill is that density in the urban core is preferable to sprawl in outlying areas. Also, because infrastructure like roads and sewers is already in place, the tax burden to citizens will be less than when you have to start from scratch in a new subdivision. The need for more fire stations, new schools and increased police protection is also reduced.
That's what the folks in Missoula thought when the city developed its comprehensive plan over a decade ago. The devil is in the details, though. So when a big, boxy apartment building went in the backyard of a small bungalow-style home in the historic university neighborhood, for example, folks got upset. Or when a bunch of homes were shoehorned into a half-acre lot on the Southside, neighbors weren't happy. Or when a boundary line was redrawn to allow for more homes on a Northside lot, some people got nervous.
One of the ironies of development is that some of the most desirable neighborhoods in Missoula, like the university area or the lower Rattlesnake Valley, are also some of the densest neighborhoods in town. If you were to try to zone for those densities in the outlying neighborhoods the hue and cry by surrounding homeowners could be heard in Idaho.
This is where the term “design standards” comes in. Good design standards for Montana cities should really be neighborhood standards. These standards should encourage neighborhood input on scale, style and character. This could, at the very least, mitigate some of the problems associated with infill.
You see, I'm a proponent of infill. What Missoula failed to do was set up any sort of serious design standards to go along with its infill policy.
Now I'm just an armchair planner but here are a few suggestions. When building on a lot behind an existing, historic home, the footprint of the new structure shouldn't exceed the footprint of the existing structure. There should be rules governing setbacks from the street and proximity to neighbors. The design of new homes should mimic, as closely as possible, the character of the existing homes in the neighborhood. And in our automobile-obsessed culture, make sure there's enough parking for everyone.
In urban subdivisions, include open space and attractive landscaping. Encourage some small-scale commercial development so that people don't have to drive five miles for a quart of milk, a DVD rental or a slice of pizza. Stay away from cul-de-sacs, and make sure the development is bicycle and pedestrian friendly. Consider alleys so that garages can be placed behind homes. And in place of that ubiquitous street-facing garage, how about a front porch so that neighbors can chat with neighbors as they go about their business on a warm summer evening?
Missoula is still trying to sort out these issues and there's no quick fix on the horizon. So Bozeman – be very, very careful when you start discussing infill as a tool for managing growth. Good luck and keep Missoula posted.
[End of article]
Boulder has some interesting infill developments lately. Holiday and Prospect spring to mind. Holiday even has a sizeable permanently affordable housing segment.
http://www.holidayneighborhood.com/
http://prospectnewtown.com/
Pete, you're spot on. My favorite dwellings in Missoula have been the ones with nice deep porches. Porches with room for a rocker, or a couple of chairs and a cribbage table! I've also been struck by the home dwellers loss of status to the automobile. At one time, People lived on the street, and the horses were stabled out back. If you were of sufficient means, perhaps the servant's quarters were back there as well. Now we live out back of our cars!
Comment By touchstone, 3-10-06Hm. I live in an infill with a nice, deep porch...
I live in the area south of 3rd between Russell and Reserve, the densest neighborhood in Missoula, where the infill fight is probably at its shrillest: there's a ton of infill. Most of it is good, but Talbot is right, there needed to be more input from the neighborhood on what should go up...
Luckily we've got a great council rep -- Marler -- who is both an advocate of smart growth and conscious of the neighborhood's preferences...
I agree with Pete. One of the best things about Portland are the quarky neighborhoods which have prospered under the urban growth boundary limits on sprawl. Redevelopment in urban neighborhoods created a diverse community where everything you need is accessable by a short walk or bike. But he's also right that design standards are needed. A big, new, clunky apartment building in a historic district is just as much an eyesore as sprawl into the forest along the edges of town!
Comment By Sarah, 3-13-06Thanks for your comments, Pete. Well stated.
The frustrating thing for me is that most Missoulians agree on the big issues, yet we really get hung up (and sometimes nasty) about this one.
I think Missoulians agree that we want to protect open space, and we value the more rural areas on the outskirts of town. We also agree that we'd like to minimize property taxes. In my mind, this means that we build in town, and use the current infrastructure.
Can we come together as a community to create design standards that we can all support?
Sarah,
I wish all the players in the infill debate were as insightful as you. Unfortunately, the issue has become so polarized that it's going to take some real leadership, and perhaps a growth crisis, to get us moving in the right direction. Thanks for the comment, though. We need to stay optimistic and involved.
Pete
Pete is as insightful as he is handsome. ...
I live in Colorado Springs, a city that has spread in a god-awful wave east, north and south from its original downtown under the shadow of Pikes Peak. The city now has the footprint of Detroit, but with a population of just 350,000. That suburban growth has created numerous problems: a demand for k-12 schools to serve ever-outlying areas; traffic communing nightmares; no easy access from east to west because older neighborhoods resist in-city freeways; and infrastructure that is failing because there is simply too much of it for the city budget to maintain. Most importantly, the sprawl has contributed to a loss of cohesiveness in the community, as we all drive miles and miles each day to take shelter in our ticky-tacky subdivisions. The developers love it, of course - it's far easier and more profitable to grade a nice big patch of ground and put up 300 homes than to find creative ways to build fewer homes that fit into exisiting neighborhoods.
The battle between those alternatives is, I'm afraid, over in Colorado Springs. But Montana cities still have the time to study the failures of cities like mine - and the successes of other places - before they allow growth willy nilly.
Bill
Missoula does have great examples of well done, high density infill. I live in such a development. The University of Montana recently built the Lewis and Clark Village, student apartments, next to the Lewis and Clark neighborhood on S. Higgins. The 480 unit village was developed with transit service in mind. One of the great things about urban infill/density is the ability to serve alot of people effenciently with city services. From L&C;Village a bus leaves every 10 min to the university. Mountain Line route 6 comes to and from downtown and the mall every 30 min, and route 12 serves every 30 min to the university and downtown at peak hours. If you live in a development like this, you can get anywhere in town without a car. The village's look and feel pleasant as well. If Missoula's growth were concentrated into multimodal transportation oriented dense neighborhoods and villages within the urban core, instead of out Mullan Road, traffic congestion like we see on Reserve/Mullan would not be a problem.
Comment By Kimberly James, 3-16-06Sarah, I agree with you, but I'm also an "infiller" (gasp) like Touchstone.
How do you all expect to both prevent sprawl and block infill? Especially with the housing market as wacked as it is up here. As a newcomer we had the choice of either run-down POS housing in the "right" neighborhoods, new housing out by the airport, or a new home (1 of about 20) just below South Hills.
Missoula jobs (including the U where I work) don't pay well enough for us to have bought one of the Mansion Heights homes that's wrecking the views of Sentinel and Deanstone. (And like I'd ever buy a house in such a pretentious sounding development anyway!) Or a home up one of the canyons or an established home in good shape in Farviews or in town.
Thanks for the warm welcome! (Yeah, just a bit sensitive am I.)