At the latest legislative session in Helena, Senate Bill 243 was passed which mandated that small towns across Montana allow by-right development of 60 foot (six story) tall buildings in all downtown and heavy commercial zoning districts, ostensibly to help lower housing prices. Here in Whitefish, at every City Council meeting, I walk into city hall past the old grainy photos of our historic downtown that still has some of the same facades it did decades ago, with a vibrant downtown carefully stewarded over generations. As we work through our Vision 2045 land use planning process, you can imagine how hard it is to square this latest mandate out of Helena with some of the realities of what small Montana towns really are, and unique aspects of Whitefish specifically.
For downtown, there are unintended consequences for such a tall building policy. The reality is it’s not economically feasible to build a large volume of rental apartments in downtown – the land is too expensive, the lots too small, and there is nowhere to park. Unique to Whitefish, we manage our short-term rentals (STRs) by zoning district, and downtown commercial is one of the few areas in town where STRs are allowed. It is far more likely that we end up with a large STR project that we don’t need, than rental units that we do. he proposed solution coming out of our growth planning is to bifurcate downtown zoning to separate out the historical district (Central Avenue – which is three blocks long) from other ancillary areas adjacent to downtown, to allow the taller buildings in the periphery, keeping historic downtown intact. I still don’t like it, but it’s a reasonable compromise.
For commercial zones, which may include the WB2 zoning district (a.k.a. Highway 93 South area), a similar solution is proposed for different reasons. This zoning district is uniquely large, and the southernmost portion is the furthest point from downtown that exists in city limits. Consistent with our other planning objective to prioritize growth inward, the proposal is to separate the zoning district into sub-zones to graduate the intensity of uses with smaller scale commercial furthest out and larger scale closer in. The alternative is sprawl, which nobody wants. Again, a thoughtful implementation.
It appears not everyone agrees. A long legal letter was received at the 11th hour from Senator Ellie Boldman, a state senator from Missoula, at the apparent urging of Shelter WF making legal threats to the city for “evading” the statute that 60-foot buildings must be allowed everywhere. The letter is long on “the state says you have to do this” and doesn’t address in the slightest “should or why we should do this.” That might be a fine policy in Missoula, almost 10x the size of Whitefish, and popular with various special interest lobbies. But this perspective is out of step with small town Montanans more broadly, and the citizens of Whitefish specifically. I grow tired of writing letters about the list of poorly implemented big-brother zoning mandates from Helena. There are very good reasons why city planning has always been done at the local level, and we must restore the rights of communities to control their destiny.
Ben Davis is a Whitefish city councilor.