Planning in the West
RED-HOT RED LODGE
Montana Mountain Town Slated For a Multimillion-Dollar MakeoverRed Lodge has about 2,500 year-round residents, but the mountain town on Montana's scenic Beartooth Highway is growing by leaps and bounds.
The Billings Gazette has published a series of articles about growth in the town, detailing the millions of dollars of new building projects, including the addition of 600 new homes.
Construction of a new critical-care hospital, and a new senior center on the hospital campus, along with a new high school is all slated to commence within the next year. Efforts are under way to raise the funds necessary to build a tournament-sized gym and a high-quality auditorium to give Red Lodge the opportunity to host sporting events and to give local musicians and students a venue for concerts and plays.
The Red Lodge Nature Center has begun raising the $8 million it needs for its new facility, and the Carbon County Historical Society is also planning a multimillion-dollar renovation of the building it purchased a few years ago which now houses the Historical Society' Museum.
All that construction means many more workers will be coming to town, and as in other Rocky Mountain West communities, those workers won't have many options when it comes to housing. Even with the addition of 600 homes, the price of those homes may be out of reach of many of the workers, with the median price of a home already at $235,000.
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guest editorial
Ravalli County Kicks Off Countywide Zoning EffortOn August 7th and August 14th, 2007, Dr. Larry Swanson will be visiting Ravalli County to present information valuable to the countywide zoning effort. Dr. Swanson is the director of the O’Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West – a research and education program focused on exploring challenges and opportunities facing the intermountain west. His talk will focus on recent trends in the Bitterroot Valley regarding population, economics, the role of agriculture, and on the importance of grassroots involvement in local planning efforts.
The first presentation on August 7, 2007 will be held in Lone Rock, at the Lone Rock School Gym and will begin at 7:00 p.m. The second presentation on August 14, 2007 will be held in Hamilton, at the Hamilton City Hall and will begin at 7:00 p.m.
We are pleased to have Dr. Swanson in the valley, for not only is the message he brings worth understanding and appreciation, but because his arrival initiates a series of public meetings focused on Ravalli County’s countywide zoning effort.
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sopris foundation conference
Tackling the West’s Affordable Housing ProblemOne of the inescapable symptoms of the rapid growth taking place in so many Rocky Mountain communities is a loss of affordable housing. It can force every-day citizens out -- and often, the character of a place, too.
The affordable housing problem was the dominant theme during Saturday afternoon's discussion at the Sopris Foundation conference at the Wilma Theatre in Downtown Missoula.
The conference, which runs through Sunday, tackles how fast-growing Rocky Mountain communities can preserve their character and become more durable (to use a new buzz word connoting resiliency as fuel prices rise). Innovative approaches in the realms of transportation, agriculture, advanced design, community, and energy are on the table.
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Future of the Yampa Valley
Steamboat Wrestles With Prosperity
I'm headed up to Steamboat Springs tomorrow for what promises to be the first in a long series of 50th-birthday celebrations – since 50 is the new 40, the half-century mark is now celebrated by younger Baby Boomers as the passage to full adulthood rather than the gateway to middle age, it seems. The celebrant is Steven Wesley Dearborn, whose nickname in high school was "Yondu the Mountain Boy," which pretty much tells you all you need to know about what kind of weekend it's going to be.
I make it up to Steamboat a couple of times a year, and my preparations for this trip got me wondering: what's the future of the Yampa River Valley?
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Madison County Absent Planning Office
Pivotal Moment Puts All New Subdivision Applications on HoldIllustrating both the strength and potential vulnerability of planning in Montana's Madison County, the Madison County Planning Board held its last meeting with Planning Office Director Doris Fischer and Planner Staci Beecher.
Both Fischer and Beecher will effectively resign at the end of June leaving the growing county with the difficult task of finding quality replacements while keeping up with a steady influx of new subdivision applications.
Earlier this month in preparation for Fischer and Beecher’s departure, the Madison County Commission passed a resolution placing a moratorium on new subdivision applications for an interim period through September 2007.
The county, which contains the legendary Madison River Valley as well as the booming resort areas of Moonlight Basin, the Yellowstone Club and the Mountain Village in the Big Sky Resort, approved 382 new lots since 2006. At the Monday night meeting in the historic Virginia City Courthouse, the Planning Board reviewed two subdivision applications, which would add a total of 251 new lots in the Big Sky area alone.
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FAIRWAY FLAWS
Westerners Find Golf Course Homes Not All They’re Cracked Up to BeLiving on the golf course is the dream of many a duffer -- but high-tech drivers that allow golfers to hit the ball farther -- or slice it farther or hook it farther -- are creating some domestic disturbances in golf course communities from Arizona to Utah and in other parts of the nation.
The New York Times reports today that 70 percent of new golf courses now being built contain housing, and with more golfers using high-tech drivers that allow them to hit the ball farther and farther, errant shots are increasingly finding their way into course-side homes and bouncing off patios.
While good etiquette requires golfers whose shots go out of bounds pay for the windows and patio doors they break, residents said few golfers actually take responsibility for their wild shots.
One resident who lives along a golf course in St. George, Utah, recounted his experience with a golfer whose drive had broke a window at his house: the golfer, who was playing in a church outing, gave him a phony name and number.
Course designers and golf course owners are widening fairways, planting trees and putting up nets to help block shots gone bad, and new companies that produce extra heavy screens for doors and windows, are also aiding in the effort to protect windows and doors.
Still, some residents said they'd caution friends who are contemplating buying a home on the golf course to just not do it.
That sentiment may ease the discontent of residents of Eagle Mountain, who bought their homes on the promise that three golf courses would be developed in their Utah community.
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Planning and Politics
Ravalli County Administrator Alleges Defamation, Sues Commissioner, Board of RealtorsThe Floodplain Administrator for the Ravalli County Planning Office, Laura Hendrix, has filed suit against Ravalli County Commissioner Howard Lyons and the Bitterroot Valley Board of Realtors claiming she has been threatened, intimidated and defamed, among other charges, over the course of the past year.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of a grievance filed by Hendrix against Lyons in early April alleging that Lyons acted with aggression and hostility toward her during a one-on-one meeting, during which Lyons allegedly accused Hendrix of interfering with real estate development. The suit is also in response to a purportedly fraudulent article distributed by the Board of Realtors in June 2006 that questioned Hendrix’s character and accused her of using floodplain regulations as a "stick to beat the people with."
The lawsuit, though specific in scope, points to a greater struggle in Ravalli County and much of Western Montana and the Rocky Mountain West between anti-development interests, pro-development interests and county governments about how land is used -- and it often leads to tension and conflict. Disputes are not always solved politely. Lawsuits are filed. Elected officials are accused of being mouthpieces for interest groups. Debates are waged through letters to the editor and mass emails. All of these tend to focus the argument on politics and special interests, rather than on smart community development and healthy growth.
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northwest land trust conference
Schweitzer on Preserving the “Most Magnificent Place”In the heyday of Montana's old economy, "Montana was the Treasure State because of the minerals in the mountains; today, the treasure is the mountains," Governor Brian Schweitzer said Friday, speaking at the 12th annual Northwest Land Trust Conference in Missoula.
"We have a responsibility," Schweitzer said, "to help find a way for private landowners to pass on open lands and vistas to the next generation."
These lands and vistas amount to "the most magnificent place left on the planet," he said. Schweitzer's boldness brought chuckles from the audience of roughly 200 in the DoubleTree Hotel. He didn't laugh, however. He even said it twice.
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Tuesday Business Roundup
‘Flipping’ a Home? Forget About ItAs foreclosure rates rise, speculators in the West who've made big money buying up homes for investment and then re-selling or "flipping" them for a profit are pretty much out of luck for this year though at least 2008. The housing bust is hitting home especially hard in places like Weld County, north of Denver, and in the suburbs of Las Vegas, until recently the fastest-growing city in the country. "A combustible mix of risky loans and risky real estate deals" has sunk the new home market and made flipping for fun and profit a thing of the past, Rick Sharga, vice president of marketing for Realty Trac, tells the Associated Press.
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Meanwhile apartment rental rates – a leading indicator of the overall real estate market – for the Denver metro area have dropped slightly, while the average vacancy rate has fallen to a six-year-low, according to a report by Gordon E. Von Stroh, a professor at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Boulder vacancy rates fluctuate with the seasons – students leave for the summer and return in the fall – so it's unclear that they'll follow the same trends as Denver itself.
In other business news: the Fraser Valley sees big development plans; beekeepers face mysterious, massive die-offs; and per capita income grows in rural Colorado.
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Can a county-wide skirmish get resolved?
Growth Compels County Discussion To Comprehend Differing ViewsPark County needs community dialogue, as it is one of the most growth-challenged counties in Southwest Montana.
Recently, the county nearly fell apart after a citizen petition suspended the four-year-in-the-making growth policy. “You are never going to get a 100 percent agreement, but finding a middle ground is important and to stop throwing rocks at each other,” said Harold Blattie, Executive Director of the Montana Association of Counties.
This week, a diverse panel of residents, ranchers, land planners, commissioners, environmental council and development consultants gathered together along with 75 concerned citizens to discuss the challenges at hand.
“Most property being sold in Livingston and surrounding areas is being sold for development reasons,” said Ellen Woodbury, development consultant, on Wednesday night.
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