Under SB 382, Whitefish is required to align zoning with its Growth Policy and realistically plan for the next 20 years of housing need. That is the legal framework we are operating within. Yet the last council meeting felt less like long range planning and more like a debate about preserving existing property conditions. The conversation centered on protecting single family character and maintaining aesthetic controls in already high value neighborhoods. In the same discussion, there was acknowledgment that developers are not building anything under $1 million.
Those dynamics are connected. When housing near downtown is constrained, land prices climb, and only luxury projects make financial sense. If we design a system where only million-dollar homes pencil, it is no surprise that is all that gets built. Many of the same voices opposing modest infill are also resistant to mixed neighborhoods and neighborhood centers designed to be walkable and reduce traffic. Sham litigation and restrictive policies benefit the few, not the many. We talk about climate action, public transportation, and lowering vehicle miles traveled, yet we limit housing near jobs and services and push growth outward. The outcomes follow the rules we write.
Strong Towns has long argued that healthy cities evolve incrementally, and no neighborhood can be frozen in time. A resilient city allows small, steady additions across the map instead of concentrating growth pressure in a few places. There was an attempt to include language stating that no neighborhood should be exempt from change and none should bear disproportionate change. It failed on a 4 to 3 vote. The pattern is becoming clear. The most desirable and infrastructure rich neighborhoods remain tightly guarded while other areas are expected to accommodate the bulk of new housing.
Even the Heart of Whitefish framework acknowledges that downtown vitality depends on having residents nearby. Neighborhood centers designed to provide complementary services to both locals and tourists do not take away from downtown businesses. They support downtown by diversifying economic activity and increasing foot traffic. Restrictive zoning that limits housing almost exclusively to single family homes artificially restricts supply, drives up costs, encourages sprawl, increases environmental harm, and reinforces racial and economic segregation. Policies that prevent incremental, mixed income development conflict with the city council’s responsibility to consider the well-being and happiness of all residents.
Car centric planning that pushes housing away from jobs and services worsens inequality, lengthens commutes, and widens the wealth gap. These outcomes are not hypothetical. They are well documented and already visible in Whitefish. Choosing to preserve existing conditions and high value neighborhoods through downzoning is a losing strategy. It has failed to address affordability, sprawl, and workforce access, and it will not succeed over the next twenty years.
Neighborhoods remain tightly guarded while other areas are expected to accommodate the bulk of new housing. This may resemble how a purely market driven system handles scarcity, but a resilient community depends on participation and inclusion from all residents. In Whitefish, zoning that overwhelmingly favors single family homes has already directly fueled a severe housing crisis. We are living the consequences, and we need to do better.
With roughly 19 percent of housing units classified as vacant and an additional 8 percent licensed as short term rentals, a large portion of the housing supply is not available to full time residents. Vacancies include many second homes or seasonal units that do not house the workforce or year-round families who are part of this community. Prices have skyrocketed, with home values increasing by more than 178 percent over the last decade, far outpacing local income growth and making ownership completely out of reach for many longtime residents. Roughly 61 percent of workers commute into Whitefish from outside the city, and surveys suggest that more than a third of those commuters would live here if housing were available, representing thousands more homes of unmet demand.
At the same time, average rental listings are so high that half are only affordable to households earning well above the area median income, deepening the wealth gap and pushing members of our community out over time. These are teachers, service workers, healthcare staff, tradespeople, and small business employees who are part of this community and essential to its functioning. When housing costs exceed what local wages can support, we are not just pricing out newcomers. We are pushing our own community out of town.
With 77 percent of land historically restricted to single family use, the city effectively blocks the missing middle housing that teachers, service workers, and other essential members of the community need. The result is extreme price hikes that push more than 60 percent of our workforce out of town, with some estimates as high as 70 percent commuting from elsewhere because they cannot afford to live here. As we grow outward, sprawl becomes more expensive to maintain. Limiting density increases costs for taxpayers while exacerbating environmental harm. The system as currently designed is inefficient, inequitable, and unsustainable.
Even when multi-family housing is technically allowed, de facto segregation remains. Single family zoning drives costs so high that these units are out of reach for most people, effectively maintaining exclusion by income and reinforcing segregation. Current reforms were supposed to allow higher density and address the missing middle. Instead, last night’s conversation focused on reducing density through downzoning and protecting high value neighborhoods. This disconnect between policy intent and council action reinforces barriers to affordable housing and undermines the goal of creating a more inclusive, resilient community.
Planning for 20 years means making choices that affect people not yet in the city: future renters, local workers, young families, and retirees looking to downsize. Existing residents deserve a voice, but proximity cannot equal veto power. Whitefish’s future will not be shaped only by those who arrived earliest or own the most valuable property. It will be shaped by who we make room for next. If downtown matters, then the mile around it must carry meaningful housing capacity. That is how we balance growth, strengthen neighborhood centers, support healthy competition in both housing and local business, and build a town that remains livable for more than just those who already made it in.
Mark Dejarnett lives in Whitefish.