Shelter WF Offering Thousands in Prize Money Through AARP-Supported Housing Design Competition

Shelter WF is offering thousands of dollars in prize money for the winners of an AARP-funded competition to design “missing middle” housing — like duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses and cottages — that could provide accessible and affordable options for Whitefish residents, including those who might otherwise be forced to move as they advance in age.

The competition marks a first for the nonprofit, which formed in 2022 to advocate for more affordable housing in Whitefish. The city faces an ongoing housing crisis exacerbated by limited housing inventory, high cost of housing, and the rising cost of living. It also comes at a time when the City of Whitefish continues to work on Vision Whitefish 2045, which is the campaign name for the ongoing effort to rewrite the city’s growth policy. The city’s growth policy is a document focused on growth and development that is intended to help guide decision-makers in the city for the next 20 years.

“We’re really excited. We haven’t done anything like this before and it’s kind of different than what we normally work on with policy and legislation and stuff like that,” said Kendall Schneider, Shelter WF’s coordinator. “And it’s just kind of a different way to get the community involved, and just a different way to do education about housing.”

In the context of this competition, AARP defines missing middle housing as “a set of residential building types that exist in the middle of the continuum from detached single-family houses to large apartment buildings.” On an informational web page about missing middle housing, AARP argues that zoning constraints, car-centric development patterns and the challenges of financing multi-unit dwellings have all contributed to a lack of missing middle development since the 1940s. That’s something that AARP, a nonprofit which advocates for Americans over the age of 50, says has limited affordable housing options for people of all ages, including older adults.

“When we kind of bring up building new infrastructure in Whitefish, people kind of get nervous and scared, especially when you mention any type of density word,” Schneider said. “And so we kind of wanted to show people how we can create more infrastructure in Whitefish, and how it can work, and how creative it can get.”

Already, Shelter WF says the competition has garnered interest from architecture firms, professional architects, and students. About eight to 10 groups are involved to this point, including one made up of landscape architects, but Shelter WF is continuing to try and get the word out and encourage more participation, especially collaborations between students and professionals. Competitors can be individuals or teams. Officially called the “Design Our Future” AARP Community Challenge, the competition is not restricted to Montanans living in the Flathead Valley, but Shelter WF does prefer that participants have some sort of applicable professional background, or that collaborative efforts involve someone with professional expertise. To help encourage student participation, Shelter WF has also reached out to the University of Montana and Montana State University.

There are two design challenge options for competitors to choose from. In the individual plot design category, competitors are tasked with designing housing that adheres to current zoning regulations in one of two common Whitefish zoning districts, either WR-2 (two-family residential) or a WB-2 (secondary business), with high potential to create more housing options close to downtown. For the WR-2 zoning, competitors will have a 6,000 square-foot plot to work with, whereas the WB-2 plot will be a minimum of 10,000 square feet.

For the neighborhood block design, competitors can ignore current zoning limitations, and are encouraged to be innovative and “potentially paradigm-shifting” in their approach to designing an entire neighborhood block.  

“We wanted to give an option for people to kind of use the parameters of community and accessibility to try to create affordability within the laws that already exist,” said Mallory Phillips, who sits on the Shelter WF board and is also the nonprofit’s treasurer. “And then option two is really trying to show what could be.”

One winner in each category selected by a panel of judges made up of a Shelter WF board member, and representatives from different Flathead Valley organizations will receive $2,500. Additionally, a community vote for the top winner in each category will earn winners $1,000 each. Community voting for winners will open up in early October.

Participants are being asked to submit a landscape-oriented presentation board with sketches, renderings, plans, sections, elevations, and diagrams, as well as a 300-word summary of the design and its potential impact on the community. Competitors can also submit an optional 30-second to one-minute explanatory video showcasing the design, which could be shared on social media. Submissions are due Sept. 20.

Winners will be announced on Oct. 14, and an awards ceremony is planned for October 22. Additionally, Shelter WF plans on using a portion of the grant funding it received from AARP to design and produce a magazine highlighting the top designs from the competition. The idea is to create a physical collection of the competition’s best ideas that can be a useful guide for designing missing middle housing not just for the Whitefish area, but also across the Flathead Valley and the state. Phillips encouraged anyone interested in helping financially to reach out.

“When it comes to the magazine, and any kind of tangible things, we’re pretty limited in budget. So that budget will determine how many copies we can make, how far in the state we can get it out there,” Phillips said.

Shelter WF learned in May that it had received the $15,000 competition grant, but was embargoed from sharing the news until June 26. Of that pool of money, about $7,000 is going toward prizes, while the remainder is allocated for paying staff, marketing and production of the magazine.

For the time being, it’s free to participate in the competition, but Shelter WF does plan to start charging a $50 submission fee for those that officially express interest in joining the competition after Sept. 1.

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