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the abcs of h20

In Montana, and throughout the Intermountain West, water law affects every part of our lives and communities.

Priority dates dictate the volume and distribution of water from wells and streams. Landowners must put the water to beneficial use without waste to retain their right to use the State’s water. News articles about water issues illustrate that many people are confused about Montana’s water laws, even landowners and local officials.

Here are the key points to understand the basics of Montana water law.
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New West News Brief

The sale of Yellowstone Club near Big Sky to CrossHarbor Capital Partners has fallen through, and co-founder Tim Blixseth says he'll hang onto the club, take a management role and take a break from the sales end. The failure of the deal, which was reported at more than $450 million, is further evidence that the high-end real estate market just isn't what it used to be.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle's Scott McMillion, who has been covering the recent dealings at the Yellowstone Club, including the Blixseth's divorce, the multiple lawsuits and the recent sale of the site Blixseth had planned for the world's most expensive home, reported on the deal's failure Sunday for Monday's paper.

While there were no concrete reasons of why the deal fell through, Robert Frank at the Wall Street Journal reported that CrossHarbor said it was because the firm was "unable to get adequate due diligence information."

The news came on the heels of a bad week for other, similar luxury developments in the West, including Promontory in Utah, which may be being forced into bankruptcy, Tamarack in Idaho, which is laying people off after filing for bankruptcy and the Ameya Preserve in Montana, which is shrinking after selling 4,000 acres to a neighbor.
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New West News Brief

Scott McMillion at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle has the scoop: Billionaire and Yellowstone Club founder Tim Blixseth has sold the site where he was planning to build the porported world's most expensive home (53,000 square feet at $155 million).

McMillion reports a Big Sky resident, Loren Bough bought the 160-acre parcel. Bough tells the Chronicle, “I’ve got no exciting plans for it. It is, for me, just an investment.”

The story also details some of the latest shakeups with Blixseth and the Yellowstone Club, hinting at the messiness of the divorce between Blixseth and his wife Edra (which a Wall Street Journal columnist last year called "peaceable" and said marked "a triumph of hope over history, and reason over money."), and the impending sale of and ongoing legal dealings with the Yellowstone Club. (McMillion notes that his search for records at the Madison County Courthouse also uncovered three new lawsuits against Blixseth.) Click here for McMillion's detailed story. [more]

New West News Brief

Staring at several large-scale subdivision applications and in the middle of a rewrite of a comprehensive plan, Teton County Wyoming is mulling an emergency ban on new subdivisions or zoning changes.

In a comprehensive story in the Jackson Hole News & Guide, Cara Froedge details the reasons behind the possible moratorium, including big plans for the South Park area of Jackson Hole. There, three proposals could in bring more than 1,100 new homes. [more]

April 24-25 in Bozeman

We're putting the finishing touches on the program for the latest New West conference, Designing the New West: Architecture and Landscape in the Mountain West, and it's shaping up to be an event you won't want to miss. In addition to the top-notch line-up of more than 20 speakers - including architectural luminaries from Seattle, Jackson, Los Angeles, Bozeman and Missoula - the event will feature three different architectural tours in the Bozeman area, led by Montana State University School of Architecture students. We're also delighted to announce that Vann's will host a special reception Friday evening at its "Living Kitchen" in Bozeman, with top chefs preparing food with some the best kitchen gear around.

The event has also been approved for continuing education credit: eight AIA architecture credits, eight AICP planning credits, and four mandatory Montana Board of Realty credits.

The conference will take place at the beautiful Gallatin Gateway Inn, and space is limited. Click here to see all the details, and click here to register now. Sign up soon to assure your spot, and we look forward to seeing you in Bozeman.

Eight of top Ten towns in New West Territory

Not that it's a surprise, but Outdoor Life's list of the 200 "Best Places to Live!" in the latest issue is dominated by communities in the New West.

In the top 10 alone, eight communities are in the Rockies: 2. Lewiston, Idaho; 3. Sheridan, Wyoming; 4. Cody, Wyoming; 5. Pocatello, Idaho; 6. Lewistown, Montana; 8. Dillon, Montana

From there, there are 29 others in the top 200 of "Paradise Found" and most of those are ranked in the top 50. (Richfield, Cedar City and Logan, Utah; Livingston, Helena and Butte, Montana; Fort Collins, Rifle and Durango, Colorado)

The methodology for the rankings is not just about hunting and fishing opportunities -- the magazine also took into account "quality of life" factors, including the economy, crime rates, housing prices, income and commute times. Still, the hook and bullet factors were weighted more heavily (60/40, the magazine says) to come up with the rankings.

The list highlights the issue of how the hook and bullet factor plays into the new Western economy and how, in some places, the shift is changing the character of these landscapes. [more]

Across State Lines as a regional whole

The 25 counties that comprise of the Yellowstone-Teton region of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana may be separated by state lines, but all share common amenities: high-quality natural areas, extensive amount of public lands, large wildlife populations and plentiful outdoor recreation.

But this also subjects the region’s economy to seasonal fluctuation — a shared challenge between both the rural and urban centers. How does this region, which shares similar environment and economic drives, understand and coordinate with each other in order to turn on the off-season?

The Yellowstone Business Partnership recently completed the first phase of a research project to characterize and analyze off-season assets and economic opportunities in the region. Therefore, local businesses and governments can grasp the regional growth trends and build an understanding across jurisdictional boundaries and vast geography. The recently completed report can be found here. [more]

New West News Brief

New mining claims are encroaching on the West's small cities and towns, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group and detailed today in the Salt Lake Tribune and Los Angeles Times.

The number of mining claims in the last five years has doubled, from 207,540 in 2003 to 414,228 in January 2008, according to the Environmental Working Group report. The increase, the report states, is partly due to increasing costs of copper, gold and other metals available in the region. [more]

Swallowing Elephants

Gallatin County inched closer to county-wide zoning Tuesday as commissioners took public comment and helped assist the planning department in the drafting of zoning regulations.

As the communities of Four Corners, Amsterdam-Churchill and Gallatin Gateway endeavor to form neighborhood plans, the Gallatin County Commissioners and Planning Department are tasked with establishing zoning outside those communities in a county that has never been too keen on the idea. Now, as citizens have seen what rampant growth looks like firsthand, they are pressuring the county to do something about it. And soon.

Though unanimity didn’t hold the day, the commissioners did agree to move forward with several policy decisions on zoning. The commission and the planning department both acknowledged finalizing the regulations would be a slow, complicated endeavor. By moving slowly, however, they hope to engage a more meaningful public process. Still, planner Sean O’Callaghan described said process as “swallowing the elephant one bite at a time.” [more]

ROADLESS WITHOUT A MAP

A decade after the federal government sought to ban new roads on millions of acres of national forest across the country, the future of those lands remains in question.

Despite legal battles, the Clinton administration’s roadless rule is the law of the land again. But it faces another court challenge, this time from Wyoming. Two other states – Idaho and Colorado – are proposing their own weaker rules for within their borders.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration, which sought to undo the roadless protections, is on its way out, likely to be replaced by a new administration less environmentally hostile. The result is a messy future for roadless lands across the West, and one filled with ironies in a region divided over how to care for its public lands. [more]

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