Decision-making during a housing crisis

The Missoula County Commissioners are the regulatory authority who often make the final decision on public and private land-use proposals, and many factors weigh in on their final action.

Addressing the housing crisis seen nationally and locally is not a one-size-fits-all solution but a recipe with multiple ingredients, which include careful thought, public input, considering both a community and broad perspective and, for Missoula County, a new zoning code update, a new housing plan and smart use of public land.

Recently, the commissioners considered two land proposals related to housing. The public process of the proposals highlighted the importance and growing need for more affordable housing units in Missoula County. In this episode, the commissioners talk through some of the elements that go into their decision-making and factors they consider while talking with the communities their final action impacts. 

Missoula County invites public input on the newly published zoning code draft. Community and Planning Services staff will present the updated draft virtually during the first public hearing at the Missoula Consolidated Planning Board meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 1. 

To view the proposed draft, provide comments and to find additional meeting information, people can visit www.mczoningupdate.com. While staff have already incorporated many changes into the zoning code based on the hundreds of comments received this past year, additional feedback is encouraged prior to the public hearing.

The newly adopted Housing Action Plan: Breaking Ground, is available online at  missoula.co/housing. The County developed the plan in response to the rapidly evolving housing market in the County and the growing population that has created an undersupply of housing at all price points.

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 0:09

Welcome back to Tip of the Spear with your Missoula County commissioners, I'm Josh Slotnick. I'm joined here today by my workmates and friends, Dave Strohmaier and Juanita Vero. And we're going to talk today a bit about housing, which is not a thing we talk about once a week or every once in a while on a podcast. It's something we've been talking about pretty much every day.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 0:29

One of the challenges that we're grappling with and that hopefully our housing plan Breaking Ground will help us chart a path forward on is how to identify what it is that we can do locally. That's going to be meaningful and make an appreciable difference versus those market forces that we've really seen at play during the pandemic. That I mean, this is the tough part of it is can we do enough here locally to overcome those market forces of folks wanting to move to Missoula County, Montana and willing to pay just about anything to do so?

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 1:06

I'm glad you brought up market forces. Right now, we're attempting to meet a national demand with local supply, and I don't feel like those numbers are ever going to work. If we leave this alone to the market, the market will sort it out. If there's high demand and low supply, supply will respond. We see this in the making of widgets, etc. everywhere, but we're dealing with a national demand in a local supply, and I feel like we're going to have to, and some of these are built into our plan and some more to come, some interventions, if we just let this be the problem, won't solve itself. In all seriousness, I've been asked, why do you care more about golf than housing? And then similarly, by another person who asked in all earnestness, When are you going to come, try and take Larchmont away again?

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 1:50

Yeah, I think this false dichotomy has been set up here that that it's a question of either a type of recreation versus housing when it's put in those stark terms. Of course, we'd be willing to embrace affordability in housing rather than simply something that might be seen as an amenity or a recreation. But it is not that that's not at the heart of it.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 2:20

So what is at the heart of it?

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 2:21

So let me go back and take a slightly different run at this, and then I'll I'll be sure to hit on the question. So one of the most disappointing things for me at a real personal level in this discussion, and it's been a serious disappointment for me, has been with some of my friends and folks who I've known for years, who it's as if regardless of what side of the political aisle you're on, regardless of ideology, regardless even of personal connections with folks, we in this society are so quick with a trigger finger to not give anyone the benefit of the doubt or offer any amount of generosity towards others, insofar as maybe the other party is actually given this a great deal of thought and is trying to weigh competing interests and such. And I think that's that strikes at the heart of this and that some folks who I've known for years are quick to frame it. Just as you have that man you, you must be in love with golf and not care a whit about affordable housing. For me, this comes down to a much broader question of public trust. Stewardship of public resources, public land in the case of Larchmont, for instance, and I've heard some of my dear friends and colleagues frame it in terms of, well, you willing to offer up land at the detention facility for the Trinity project at a much smaller scale. Why not be bold and divest Larchmont Golf course for a much bigger housing project? Well, first off, I think it's comparing apples and oranges in that at the detention facility, we had land in excess of our needs for the jail. It was greenfield development. There was nothing there that had been used other than literally grass. Very different at Larchmont. This this was and remains public land once it's gone. It really is gone. And is it demonstrable that what was being proposed would in actuality make a massive difference in the housing market in Missoula, such that the trade off would be worth it? And I never want to immediately bite at the slippery slope argument, but I think there's something to be said that when you start going down the path of peeling away public lands, in this case it it's an urban public land. What's to give you the assurance that your next piece of public open space land is not going to be on the chopping block? So for me, I'm not a golfer, and in purely ecological terms golf courses may not be the greatest thing in the twenty first century, but there's a lot of people who are golfers. A lot of people who love that parcel of land for the use that it's been put and it goes beyond just the sport of golf. I mean, it's a public land issue for me, first and foremost, not a golfing. And I'd say the same thing for Fort Missoula. We've invested heavily in Fort Missoula as we have at Larchmont, and I don't play all the sports that are utilized there, but it plays a very pivotal role in our community.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 5:59

So Juan, when are we going to try and take Larchmont away again?

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 6:02

No, I think what we're also forgetting is in the in that proposal was another golf course, another community municipal golf course. And so it wasn't that golf or this style of golf was being taken away. The proposal was also included a new golf course. And so I think it was unfortunate that we didn't have the community, the golfing community, come together and dream about what that could look like. It maybe came too fast. It was like, this is a housing proposal. And then, oh, as an afterthought, here we're going to put another golf course over here. I feel like if it had been presented a different way, if we had really been able to understand like the floodplain issues were those significant, we didn't fully explore that or I didn't feel like we fully explored it. But I'm also going back to I completely agree with Dave about public land and and what we're going to do with it. But then at the same time, it's I think it's OK to have this conversation and to let Larchmont than stand on its own, and it can take that criticism and take that hard look. And we come away with it that Larchmont needs to stay as it is where it's at. And then that decision is made, and I feel like we'd be OK with that. And so when are we going to come back at it again? When are we going to take it away again? I understand the question, but it's not. It's not a complete question. I mean, yes, we're going to go through this whole process of, you know, the County. We're going to reassess and actually take a good, hard look at all county owned lands and get our arms around that and see, you know, how those lands can be managed to their best use better serve the community. And so that will inform some of our decisions. But I think it's still it's OK to ask, is this the best use for Larchmont? And right now, it seems like the best use for Larchmont is for Larchmont to be Larchmont. And I still think that it's OK that the question was asked,

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 8:04

Josh, can I take another run at the question that you ask me? Sure. So posed with the question of why I'm not embracing housing and why I'm favoring golf as a sport over over housing, as if that was the ultimate decision that we made, which it was not. It also places a whole lot of stock in this one decision. This one, this one proposal, in fact, not a proposal that was generated outside of Missoula County government, which don't get me wrong, I think our community needs more creative thinkers to pitch ideas to us. But in placing so much currency in that one proposal, you forget the other significant actions that we have taken relative to increasing housing stock. So, for instance, the area between West Broadway and Mullan Road, between the City of Missoula and the airport, what we call the Sxtpqyen (pronounced S-wh-tip-KAYN) area, BUILD Grant Area. We undertook a significant community wide planning effort to masterplan that area for thousands additional home units. Maybe some of them will not be what would be considered affordable housing, but I think many of them will be in actuality, the very sort of housing to to fill a need in the market and what we need by way of more housing stock in the community. That was not an insignificant action on our part.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 9:40

Not only was it highly significant, I think the biggest master planning effort ever in the history of Missoula County in terms of one chunk of ground. We also put $13 million towards a $13 million that the three of us and a bunch of other folks in Missoula went to D.C. and brought back specifically for this effort and estimates that 6,000 units of housing could be built there. So where are they? What's happening? Well, right now, roads, sewer, water are being installed and the table is being set for developers to do what they do next. If indeed Larchmont was, we were to snap our fingers and housing could happen there. It would happen no faster, probably no sooner than the 6,000 units that will be in the Sxtpqyen area. One one of the many negative sides to this issue is that it needs to be solved tomorrow and it can't be all solutions. All pieces of the solution are a long game. There is no way, no amount of money, no person, no sets of wonderful people could snap their fingers and have those 6,000 units ready by Tuesday. It's just impossible just to add to it. I got to throw my two cents in on the Larchmont piece.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 10:49

Please do.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 10:50

At the heart of this, for me, this was a big swath of public land and any real serious thought of selling public land demands public process. And what we had was one developer coming with a bold proposal, and I agree they should be appreciated for thinking outside the box and coming forth with such a thing. But since this was such a large piece of public land that was already loved and occupied and used. That could only be given up with a whole bunch of public process, and I believe the same process should do what we're intending to do. Look at all of the land we own and really figure out which of these pieces is suitable for housing, and we can look at our land use element and say, What are our values? We all got together over a year and a half. This was a basis for our new zoning and to say, what do we value and where and how do we want our county to look? All of that would go into this, and instead, what we had was a very tiny, specific piece and I felt like couldn't be decided wholly on its own. It's much more of a larger fabric of public land, our values. Where do we want people to live? We could say the same sorts of things. About and I get there's jurisdictional boundaries here and other legal things, but hypothetically, it could be the same question why not the North Hills? Why not the Fairgrounds, why not Play Fair Park? Why not the Peas Farm? All of a sudden, each one of those hackles will go up because each one has a constituency and the constituency at Larchmont is equal. Not necessarily a number or type of person, but a whole bunch of people in love with a specific place. And we all own those places and can't make these decisions in a vacuum. And I believe what we are asked to do in that moment was make this really big decision in a vacuum. I feel much more comfortable with. Let's do a big public process. Look at all the land we own and figure this out. The idea that it's a perishable offer, I thought, was folly. Larchmont still there, it'll be there next year, it'll be the year after if people in our shoes, if not us, decide something else has to happen there. That land will still be there.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 12:50

Well, and it's maybe not a fair comparison, but it's always striking, seeing images of Manhattan, New York City and that big swath of Central Park, which clearly could be built out and accommodate much additional growth in that community. Yet I I think how more precious that is as it is right there today in the form that it is today than if it was converted into into something else residential or commercial use. So I think it's particularly when a decision cannot be easily undone. It heightens the the value of taking a deliberative kind of more global look at at the problem.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 13:39

The tricky thing is is that there is another golf course right across the road from Larchmont, which is it's hard to to look at.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 13:45

The Country Club.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 13:45

Yeah. And yeah, so well. And but it's a different it's a public, it's not public.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 13:52

And I think that's an interesting piece that sometimes. Doesn't have enough prominence in some of these kind of either or discussions, either. Recreation, golf versus affordable housing is as we're ever more sensitized about issues surrounding equity. How does that shoot through everything that we're talking about and even equity as it relates to recreational opportunities and affordability? I I don't know what it costs to be a part of a private golf club, but I suspect it could exclude some folks who otherwise might be able to avail themselves of a public facility.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 14:33

I think you might have said it that this would have felt differently if. The Larchmont board and the general golf community had come to see us and said we can't wait to have this new golf course across the river, it's our dream come true. But we didn't hear that.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 14:49

So that's one part of the elephant.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 14:51

So there's another one. So this was I'm going to paraphrase a headline the other day, it was something like a"Once again county commissioners decide against housing, this time in East Missoula."

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 15:00

Oh yeah. Yes.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 15:03

Again, I think for the purpose of a headline that that's what you need to do as a journalist. And so I don't necessarily fault the headline or the journalists. It's frustrating because we still approved 44 units versus 59. And so I don't know if the 15 unit difference honestly made a difference one way or the other. That was a hard, painful decision discussion that we had, but I felt that in the end, we really did listen to the community, and I think that's important. I'm still not entirely sure. To me, it felt like what the community was wanting. Yeah, maybe I wasn't fully understanding, but I thought that the greater flexibility, density and the opportunity for some commercial activity would have been if we had gone back to the original zoning. But the community really felt strongly that they would prefer to have the 44 units of residential and no commercial. And so...

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 16:01

I'm with you. I mean, the community did a great job spending hours creating a vision for what they wanted. And this vision was delivered to us by the East Missoula Community Council. To paraphrase their vision, it was something like they don't want East Missoula to only be a place where people store things and sleep, but they want East Missoula to be a community in its own right, and the desire to have some neighborhood commercial seemed paramount there. And so I personally was really moved by the fact that the developer was willing to give up at least one residential unit out of the 59 and make some commercial. And I thought, Man, we have a compromise here. When push came to shove, though, the neighborhood said no. We believe that 44 and no commercial better approximates our vision than 59 with one unit of commercial. And I thought, Man, I disagree with you, but it's your this little corner of Missoula is is theirs. And it's not super connected. It's not like a transportation issue where, man, the people nearby are going to be really impacted, but everyone else is going to benefit. This was going to be felt solely by the people who live in this area. It's a very it's very much a localized issue, and it felt like I was being arrogant to say I know better than what you say, what your vision is. I understand what you mean better than you do. So although I disagreed, I went along with it.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 17:23

You recapped that much better than me. Thank you. Thank you for doing that.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 17:26

I don't know. I don't know if that's true.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 17:28

Well, yeah, it was not an easy decision, but I think we all do each other a disservice when we we don't give due weight to the consideration of those who are most impacted directly by a decision. So in this case, the while from an outside perspective, it's easy to say, well, what are those additional units between 44 and 59? It's going to make that much of a difference. But it clearly made a difference to some folks in the East Missoula community. And I'm convinced that and this is a little bit of a shot across the bow of folks out there in the development community. If you are not doing something with the community, you will be perceived as doing it to them. And I think this is a classic case where perhaps if early on in the process, someone proposing a project really sat down and worked it through with those most impacted, rather than simply crossing your Ts and dotting your Is of the regulatory process where you might be formally taking public input. But the plan is pretty well set, and my worry is in those cases that at that eleventh hour of a project, folks are just feeling as if any opposition is going to cast them as a NIMBY (not in my backyard). When you know what it's, it's that's too easy to characterize

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 18:59

It as such a great reminder of, you know, nothing about. About you or about them without them, and we just I don't know how to get that message out. What we really do need to on the front end, have the courage to talk to the neighborhood, the community that is that's involved, and we got to be better about sharing that message

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 19:22

In the meeting. Paul Forsting said something I thought was really smart and that everybody says they want housing, but nobody wants it next to them. He's right and there there are developments and transportation and infrastructure developments where the people nearby really take it in terms of an impact. Yet the greater good is served. I don't think this was one of them, I feel like the impact and the good was all localized. It isn't as if people who live in every part of the county, we're going to be affected if it was like a major intersection or something. This was a case where I believe the weight really needed to rest with the residents in that area.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 20:01

If you're requesting folks to take one for the team, you better be prepared to really show that the team is going to benefit in a demonstrable way.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 20:11

And that was it wasn't the case in this. So if I understand it right, if the developer in East Missoula decides to just sit tight and do nothing. And the zoning we're contemplating right now, and it will go through a whole lot more public process ends up approximating eventually what it looks like right now. That specific parcel in East Missoula, the developer could build 59 units on it. Now he or she will have to service some debt. Until then, it isn't. It isn't quite the same thing, but eventually it could very well be what they want. So I'm only bringing that up because this new zoning is a really big deal in terms of housing. We are breaking some new ground.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 20:50

So I think one of the exciting things about this, and maybe it's just because we're kind of wonky and the roles that we play that we find this exciting. But I do think it is, and that is that we went through a long process to update our growth policy. You might have heard this referenced as the land use element, which is essentially an update to our growth policy for the urbanising area around Missoula. And there was a long public process looking at what do the individual communities and neighborhoods want in terms of the vision of their community by by way of growth, types of uses, density and such? That's the growth policy that really is the bedrock upon which everything else planning wise is built and what oftentimes happens in communities across the state of Montana is the next step is never taken. We flinch, and zoning is really the way from a regulatory standpoint to implement your growth policy, in this case, the land use element. And so this is what's I think one of the interesting things in this zoning regulation update that we're doing is the idea of having zoning focused on the form, a form based code that is less concerned about maybe what goes on in a building, whether it's commercial or residential, although there's still that aspect of it. But recognizing the important role that design plays into the look and feel and functioning of your community, and this is what I think is one of the groundbreaking aspects of this

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 22:34

Have this new zoning attempts to address some housing issues by using a form based code as opposed to the traditional? I don't remember what the traditional code is called Euclidean geometry. And here here's how basically you could in certain areas, you could build multifamily and single-family and neighborhood retail. It isn't about what we're going to segregate these things and put all the multifamily over here, all the single family over there. You can build them wherever as long as they're built to the right standards, which is a version of incentivizing more multifamily housing and smaller housing. You can build them anywhere.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 23:08

There was a time when Euclidean code was, I mean, we've evolved and I want to I don't want to just dish on Euclidean code because it had a, you know, there was a purpose, sure. But we've evolved now and this form base code is is is where we are in 2022, and it really gets to the the need for human scale development. Absolutely. That's well said, and it's not entirely going away. There are pieces of this that certainly will remain. You're not going to be able to put a casino next to a house. This code also addresses AG land preservation and looks more carefully at riparian areas than we ever have before. And I believe we make some headway on wildfire, too in some places with design and in some with incentives. But never before has zoning attempted to address these things, and I'm personally really excited about the headway that we've made and that people will be able to get to comment on and speak out.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 24:02

Yeah, I think between this, our housing plan that we just adopted and rolled out just a little over a week ago, these are not insignificant steps, and that's why it's, I think, so important to place specific projects, whether it's East Missoula, whether it's Larchmont. In this broader context of what we're doing because it doesn't boil down to a couple decisions on our part, it's a whole narrative of what we're trying to do to move our community forward and provide affordable housing options.

Commissioner Juanita Vero: 24:36

And we haven't even gotten to partnerships with financial institutions or housing trusts or deed restrictions like all these other tools. So there's a couple of websites here that we want you guys to check out. The housing piece is called Breaking Ground, and that's missoula.co/housing Zoning, so that's mczoningupdate.com. We really look forward to your comments on that.

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 25:01

So we will talk to you again next week.

Commissioner Dave Strohmaier: 25:03

At another edition of

Commissioner Josh Slotnick: 25:04

Another edition of Tip of the Spear.