“The worst consequence of the [zoning] status quo is that it actually makes good development much harder to achieve than bad development.”  -- James Howard Kunstler

For the past few years, probably more, anyone attentive to Missoula’s weekly City Council meetings frequently hears, loud and clear, the message that infill housing development is one of the City’s biggest problems.  Missoula neighborhoods are being “destroyed,” “degraded,” “violated,” even “raped,” -- at least that's what the Council has been told.  These lurid descriptions seem to have convinced a number of our alder-people that it is their most emergent civic responsibility to dismantle the growth management policies concerning infill housing development. 

The most forceful voices in this anti-infill movement have come from the University Area Homeowners Association (UAHA) and the newer Save Our Neighborhoods (SON) group.  As one of Missoula’s nonprofit Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDO’s), the North-Missoula Community Development Corporation’s (NMCDC) fear is that these groups’ zeal to insure neighborhood quality of life, as impassioned, public-spirited and well intended as they feel it is, tends to privilege these homeowners' values over the needs of a much larger group of renters and homeowners from multi-family-zoned neighborhoods. 

This narrow focus also has had the effect of distracting and misdirecting community discourse away from our most serious housing issues -- especially the increasing inability of this community to provide housing average or lower income people can afford.  Even though larger and larger proportions of our population are put at risk every year, it is almost impossible to engage civil and meaningful discussions on inclusionary housing, real estate transfer taxes, or any of a number of tools other communities use to build local capacity to house it citizens.   This needs to change.

The federal government requires CHDO’s to adopt policies of “providing decent housing that is affordable and to provide for the basic needs of low- and moderate-income people.”  In addition, CHDO’s must “encourage residents’ efforts to find employment and housing.”  In an attempt to honor that mandate, the NMCDC feels obligated to engage the conventional anti-infill mind set that currently pervades a contingent on City Council.  In order to do so, the following, commonly heard, arguments need be addressed:

Missoula’s housing problems really began when “Family Definition” requirements where removed from Missoula’s zoning code in 1996.  

Missoula’s land costs (mirrored by housing costs) began a dramatic and rapid escalation more than fourteen years ago, in the early 1990’s.  The City, County and the University of Montana founded the Missoula Housing Taskforce in 1991 to come to grips with the exploding costs of housing.  Nancy Leifer, Community Housing Coordinator from 1992 until 2001 (when the position was discontinued), noted that, during her tenure, the most dramatic inflation of prices happened between 1990 and 1995.  During this period, Missoula’s housing costs came more in pace with other fast-growing Rocky Mountain communities.

Leifer recently recalled, “Unaffordability first really began to show up as a major issue around 1990.  By the end of the decade we were more in tune with other cities, like Bozeman, that had been suffering a hyper-inflation of land prices for a longer time.” The “Family Definition” was only deleted from Missoula’s zoning code in 1996 -- well after the process of upwardly spiraling housing costs had begun. In fact, Nancy has pointed out that there was some price flattening that occurred around the time of that ordinance’s rescission.

Ultimately, family definition conditions were deleted from law under threat of an unlawful-discrimination suit from the Montana Human Rights Network.  In reality, the policy was, at best, unevenly enforced and was of questionable consequence either before or after its removal.  It is likely that a similar fate would befall the introduction of “occupancy standards” in Missoula’s zoning code.

Several years ago, a study, “You Can’t Eat The View,” by The Rural Collaborative, collected housing data for Missoula.  What actually happened here in the 1990’s was that housing affordability moved out of the reach of most Missoulians.  At the time of the study's publishing, four years ago, 58 percent of Missoulians could not afford the average priced house.  Two years ago, a slight softening of the rental market reflected a dramatic increase in multiplex construction.  Even then, rents have not declined sufficiently to meet Missoula’s workforce housing needs.  The study also reported that the number of families paying too much (more than 30 percent of gross income) for their housing rose 47 percent since 1990. During the same time, throughout the 1990s, when corrected for inflation, per worker average earnings actually declined.  Residents of some neighborhoods fare worse than others.  In 1997, a survey conducted by the Office of Planning and Grants in the old North and Westside neighborhoods indicated that 67 percent of the households spent more than 30 percent of their gross incomes on housing.  Another study cited by the Collaborative shows that, citywide, housing costs increased 31 percent from 1997 to 2001, while incomes (not adjusted for inflation) increased only 6 percent. The Missoula Realtors' Association reported that the median price for house sales in March of 2007 was $224,000 -- well out of reach of the median income household.

The City’s adoption of growth management policies in 1999 was an experiment in social engineering that has failed utterly; continually escalating housing costs, even in the face of the proliferation of new development, is proof of this.

Many people in Missoula are angry and afraid.  Growth, for them, is associated with horribly designed buildings, the loss of open spaces and traffic congestion.  People want to find something to blame, and there is plenty of testimony at City Council that growth management policies have thrown long-standing zoning laws to the wolves. Neighbors frequently testify that greedy developers are destroying Missoula. 

The NMCDC’s observation is that, in our service area, the vast majority of tacky, barracks-like, or out of character empty-lot infill projects have not been the result of growth management policies.  The projects which people find most objectionable are, by in large, evidence of what existing zoning laws allow.  We think a tour of infill projects, especially the “planned neighborhood cluster” (PNC) projects, that resulted from growth management policies, would lead most unbiased observers to conclude that those projects are generally of a higher quality than what is commonly, and legally, built in their stead.  We believe that the reason for this discrepancy is that growth management policies have design standards and neighborhood consultation requirements built into them.  New construction that meets basic zoning requirements is actually required to meet less stringent standards.

A uncharacteristic dip in house prices actually did occur in the first part of the current decade, contemporaneous with the advent of planned neighborhood clusters and density bonus projects. This does not mean that growth management policies could not do better in terms of design standards or neighborhood involvement but the efficacy of the growth management tools, despite heavy criticism, needs recognition .  The NMCDC urges City Council to exercise vigilance in crafting policies that ease regulatory and zoning barriers to housing creation without abandoning standards for good design. 

Property-values and quality-of-life advocates frequently argue for the adequacy of zoning’s “planned unit development” (PUD) process.  Most architects and developers, both for- and non-profit, will report that they avoid this process because it is formidably more expensive, time-consuming and risky than the alternatives offered in growth management measures.  Policy recommendations from the growth management meetings in 1998 reaffirmed this judgment and identified the PUD process as a disincentive to smart growth.  One result of rescinding growth management measures, during the planned neighborhood cluster moratorium, in areas that allow multi-family development, was to encourage allowable multi-family infill development that requires only a building permit with no higher review.  Much of this development has been the bane of many Missoula neighborhoods for the last 15 years.  Encouraging more of the same seems a heavy price to exact in order to insure the exclusivity of other single-family zoned neighborhoods.  Ironically, those single-family-neighborhoods were the least affected by growth management policies of any of Missoula’s neighborhoods.    

Housing developers, both for-profit and nonprofit, who attempt to build for moderate-income Missoulians, increasingly find themselves between a rock and a hard place -- and even that precarious space is rapidly shrinking.  On the one hand, there is enormous pressure to limit or ban small lot development.  On the other hand, to diminish housing costs in relation to land costs on larger parcels, builders naturally look to condominium or town home construction.  Now, too, this type of construction is becoming more costly because insurance companies are withholding or exorbitantly pricing general liability insurance for the developers who build them. 

It is also important that members of the City Council understand that “affordability” is a relative term.  The NMCDC’s experience is that households with incomes under 80 percent of Missoula’s median income (now $43,600, and below, for a family of four) need the assistance of subsidies, either from government or from extended-family resources, to buy homes.  These are the people the NMCDC tries to help, but our resources allow assisting only a very small number of them.  But even those households that are middle-income ($54,500 for a family of four) have great difficulty finding homes they can afford.  It is not correct to assume that houses that cost $165,000 to $195,000 are not affordable.  Expensive as they are, by traditional Missoula standards, they are obtainable by some households, namely, some of Missoula’s middle-income families.  It is also not correct to assume that growth management policies have not made any contribution to this bracket of housing.  The NMCDC argues that City Council needs to re-evaluate growth management policies, preserve what is best about them, and look for further tools (such as inclusionary housing) to add to them.  Missoula needs to be more active in promoting the construction of homes that are available to middle- and moderate-income people, people who have, for most of the City’s history, been able to put down roots here.  

Infill development increases density and thereby breeds crime, congests traffic, overtaxes the municipal infrastructure, brings in “undesirable” neighbors, and destroys neighborhood character.

It is impossible to talk about housing in Missoula today without bringing up the “D” word.  For many, “density” has become a knee-jerk dirty word and a shibboleth for many of the protectionist homeowners that testify at City Council.  Discussions of small and non-conforming lot development can flash-over in seconds.  It is important to note that, like cholesterol, there is good density and bad density.  Everyone knows, at least anecdotally, about bad density.  The poverty associated with shantytowns or the ghetto tenement blocks of some big cities comes to mind.  This density is inimical to value.  We have even heard some of the anti-infill advocates compare Missoula’s urban growth to the human congestion seen in places “like Calcutta.”  Besides trivializing the plight of some of the world’s poorest people, this type of hyperbole is destructive to constructive consideration of Missoula’s housing problems.

There are also densely populated sections in some cities that contain some of the highest value real estate in the world.  Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Sutton Place in New York, Nob Hill in San Francisco also come to mind.  But, for many, these examples also threaten the ethos of Missoula, Montana.  Many people moved here to escape big cities, rich or poor, or remained here to partake of a small city ambiance.  Wouldn't’t any increase in density signal an undesirable “urbanization” of Missoula?  Some would even have us believe that the 5,400-square-foot single-family lot is essential to public health and welfare.  Have we thus condemned neighborhoods with smaller allowable lot sizes to ill health and an inferior quality of life?

Missoulians should understand that the city will continue to grow.  The NMCDC would like to see the core of the city grow in good ways.  Missoula is not without homegrown models of how this could happen.  The small downtown pocket-neighborhood just west of the Madison Street Bridge between Front Street and the Clark Fork River is a good example.  It developed, mostly, more than fifty years ago.  It is more densely developed than current zoning would allow.  It has small houses on small lots.  It also has some larger houses on small lots.  There is here, also, a selection of traditionally designed town homes. 

Some residences are rentals and some are resident owned.  There is a mix of incomes and ages here.  A visitor might see children chalking the sidewalk, students on their way to the University, and retired people heading down to Kiwanis Park or to walk on the City’s trail system.  Homes here are close to the public library and downtown services.  The neighborhood sees a healthy reinvestment by people remodeling houses and fixing up properties.  Crime and congestion do not seem to be hallmarks of this neighborhood. The NMCDC would hate to see Missoula’s current zoning for large-lot single-family neighborhoods enshrined to the point of prohibiting a micro-neighborhood like this from ever happening again – anywhere in Missoula.      

“Planned Neighborhood Clusters”(PNC's) breed pockets of insufferable population density in Missoula’s traditional neighborhoods.  They also enable the construction of alley houses which are completely out of place in Missoula.

PNC’s, when they are allowed (a more than year-long moratorium was not long ago rescinded) actually did not increase the density of housing units per acre allowed by zoning.  PNC’s do, however, encourage infill development by granting greater flexibility in internal setbacks and front and rear yard setbacks for properties where existing zoning allowed new construction.  They do not allow houses to be built closer to neighboring property owners than existing law allows.  They also do not allow buildings to be built taller than zoning districts allow.

In 2003, the Missoula Historic Preservation Commission voted an NMCDC built PNC project on the Northside, Whittier Court, a “New Construction In An Historic Neighborhood” award.  The project involved the remodeling of an existing house and the construction of four new single-family homes on the rear half of six contiguous lots.  The courtyard configuration of the project came from a neighborhood “design-charette.” Whittier Court contains a number of elements, any one of which, many of the people who speak regularly at City Council would refer to as being destructive of neighborhoods.

Whittier Court received PNC benefits for internal setbacks and lot sizes.  It also utilized lot line relocations and received a variance for a decrease in the amount of off-street parking normally required.  All five of the project’s single-family homes are “alley houses.”  As with a number of other Missoula neighborhoods, there are many alley houses on the Northside.  Alley houses are very much part of the standard development pattern in some older parts of the City, especially where alleys intersect cross streets.

Whittier Court could not have been built any time during the PNC moratorium and there is only a slim majority on City Council now keeping PNC’s allowable to builders.  PNC’s face an uncertain fate as Councils, at every election cycle, swing on the pendulum of affordable housing support.  When PNC’s are absent, it does not mean that a similar configuration of lots, such as existed at Whittier Court, when they go up for sale, would remain unsold and undeveloped.  The most likely scenario for such a site, on the Northside, would be, in addition to the existing house, the construction of two duplexes.  Lot line relocations are not necessary if the whole property is developed for multi-family rentals – in that circumstance our current zoning laws consider internal property lines irrelevant. 

Given the design norms of other multi-family units in this Northside neighborhood, it is highly unlikely that any organization would be stepping up to applaud this kind of new construction.  In terms of the density of units, the two alternative cases for development at the Whittier Court site would be the same: an existing single-family house with four other houses added (as was built) equals a total of five dwelling units; a single-family house with the addition of two duplexes (as could have been built) also equals five dwelling units.

Because Whittier Court was a subsidized project and is part of a community land trust, it is now, and always will be, owner occupied.  Even if a market rate developer built the same project, the PNC model would make the potential of home ownership available for the life of the houses.  The addition of more duplexes insures a future of tenant occupancy.  Again, the ban on PNC’s seems a heavy price to exact on the multi-family neighborhoods that are in great need of more home ownership.  The main benefits of the moratorium, if there ever were any, accrue solely to those more vocal and privileged neighborhoods that are zoned more restrictively.  

What’s Really Happening On The Ground?

In recent years, a great deal of public testimony has been given about the dangers of the transition of homeowner neighborhoods into rental neighborhoods.  Given the volume of this testimony from a minority of University area residents, one might assume that their neighborhood is one of Missoula’s most threatened domains for ownership.  In truth, despite the proximity of the University, the U.S. Census shows that between 1990 and 2000, home ownership in the University area held remarkably steady. 

Another less vocal neighborhood, the old Westside surrounding Lowell School, had, in 1990, a University-area-type home ownership ratio of 44 percent.  By the year 2000, however, that ratio had dropped to 35 percent.  Over this ten-year period, the Westside neighborhood experienced the net turnover to rental of only one single-family home.  One naturally assumes, therefore, that this dramatic change was due solely to the construction of multi-family apartment buildings.  A drive around the neighborhood visually, and most often, sadly (in terms of design), confirms this supposition.

And some more recently gathered data back up this impression, too.  Housing development flourished in the multi-family zoned North and Westsides between 2000 and 2004.  The Westside gained 152 multi-family housing units between 2000-2004, and the Northside gained 103. Most of these units were developed at the fringes of the neighborhood in areas zoned D (Industrial) or B (Residential). Between 2000 and 2004, 85 percent of the housing unit gain on the Westside was in multi-family, and 67 percent on the Northside. In the same period, these two neighborhoods, with 12 percent of the City’s population, accounted for 34 percent of the total gain in multi-family housing.

During the same time, the neighborhoods we speak of have seen very limited single-family construction.  The Westside gained 22 new single-family homes and the Northside only 38.  Of the Northside units, five were built by the NMCDC as part of the Whittier Court PNC development.  In another PNC development in 2005, the NMCDC added 25 more homeowner units to the Westside neighborhood (Clark Fork Commons).  These have not yet been added to the City's database. The NMCDC will break ground on another 18 units of housing in 2007, also a PNC project.

Of the 60 single-family homes added to these two neighborhoods from 2000-2004, 70 percent were PNC's.  Again, that’s 70 percent.  Yet if one is influenced by the people who testify against infill and the decrease of regulatory barriers to build affordable homes, one is harking to the same voice that decried PNC’s as destroying neighborhoods when, in fact, they were building them.. 

The NMCDC is not anti-renter.  Almost half of Missoula’s citizens rent.  We understand the need for quality rentals.  We do, however, continue to support home ownership and its stabilizing effects in the community and in the neighborhoods' schools.  The organization understands the neighborhood protectionists' mission to preserve and increase home ownership.  But it is also important to understand that the big picture of housing in Missoula requires an examination of what is happening in all of our neighborhoods.  The community needs to adopt and perpetuate judicious growth and zoning policies for all of our neighborhoods – housing policies that create opportunity and promote justice. 

We need to ask why some on City Council continue to give so much credit to the voices of negativity.  What benefit is it to this community to selectively target some neighborhoods for the development of rental units while denying them the tools for home ownership?  What benefit is it to this community to continue to listen to the same people who have bitterly fought every single affordable home ownership tool that this community has tried to explore?  Why have these nay sayers never contributed even one realistic, pro active, suggestion to help working Missoulians achieve home ownership?    

Conclusion

In the mid 1990’s, the City, as part of its growth management discussions, conducted a “scenarios project” where a diverse group of Missoula “stake-holders” participated in creating a variety of stories for Missoula’s future.  One of the most reviled scenarios, even by the people that were tasked with crafting it, was of rampantly escalating land costs that translated into a City of “gated” neighborhoods, with home ownership only possible for the City's most affluent.  This storied Missoula would be largely bereft of a middle class and have only two tiers, one made up of well-to-do property owners and the other comprised of low-income service workers and students in overcrowded or subsidized rental housing, distant from the elitist single-family zoned areas.

The NMCDC hopes that all Missoulians still find that scenario as unattractive today as it was twelve years ago.  However if Missoulians don’t continue to take up the heavy lifting necessary to promote the housing and economic needs of all of our citizens, the City will fall into a trap of unwittingly building walled and gated neighborhoods -- not with bricks and mortar, but with zoning regulations.  No matter how historic and venerable some of our more pricey neighborhoods are, their preservation should not be at the expense of other neighborhoods.  If this happens, Missoula will not only destroy the character of neighborhoods but also the character of the community as a whole. 

The NMCDC recommends the following:

• Restore the position of City Housing Coordinator.  Make this office a repository of the best, most current and most accurate housing information.  Rumor and misinformation hurt us all.  Authorize the coordinator to recommend to City Council consideration of a “best practices” list as used to promote affordability across the country.
• Allow small lot development, with design standards, in the neighborhoods that can most benefit.
• Create a venue that will bring SON and UAHA members together with other neighbors, including renters, and housing providers to continue a discussion of housing issues where all sides are heard.
• Make sure there is adequate municipal, and other, support to fund home ownership and financial fitness classes in the community.
• Re-engage a civic dialogue designed to develop strategies to upgrade incomes for low- and moderate-income Missoulians.
• Recognize City Council’s history in the disbursement of government funds in the support of nonprofit housing development. Encourage continuance of this investment.  And encourage City Council to ease regulatory barriers and fees for nonprofit developers.

For the interested reader, there are many web sites that make an argument for embracing quality infill housing and equally address some of the misconceptions surrounding such development.  One is available through the California Department of Housing and Community Development:

http://www.abag.ca.gov/services/finance/fan/housingmyths2.htm

Another from The Urban Land Institute:

http://www.nmhc.org/Content/ServeFile.cfm?FileID=2977

And another from the American Institute of Architects:

http://www.architects.org/emplibrary/fearandloathing.pdf