MISSOULA — About two dozen people gathered in downtown Missoula on Tuesday evening to learn how the city’s new land use plan will direct growth and address the area’s critical housing shortage.
The city released the draft of its Our Missoula 2045 Land Use Plan last Friday, and Tuesday’s presentation at Goodworks Place was the first of several public events scheduled throughout the month.
The plan will guide growth and development in the city over the next 20 years, using outlined policies to inform zoning and development decisions.
“I’m excited we’re at this point,” said City Council Member Mike Nugent during the presentation. “To have a great plan and code driven by residents and users who use this every day is unique in Montana and the region.”
The city began updating its 2015 growth policy in 2022 to reflect current affordability, equity and climate challenges and modernize its convoluted development code, according to the “Our Missoula” website. The project expanded to integrate requirements from the Montana Land Use Planning Act, passed by the Legislature in 2023.
The plan will provide a foundation for the city’s new unified development code, which will bring together pieces of current code into one place to make it easier for staff, developers and residents to use, according to the city. The code will also be updated to align with new state laws and policies outlined in the land use plan, but changes will require City Council approval.
During Tuesday’s presentation, Emily Gluckin, senior planner with the city’s Community Development, Planning and Innovation Department, outlined the basis of the plan, its policy goals and implementation strategies.
Gluckin said that compared to the 2015 growth policy, the new plan’s goals are more targeted to land use and were crafted in response to current and future conditions. The policies focus on expanding housing opportunities, including a baseline change required by the Legislature to allow at least two units per parcel in all residential areas.
About 56% of the 40,254-acre study area is inside city limits, with the remainder in the county surrounding the city, Gluckin said. As required by the new state law, the draft plan takes into account projected population growth and the housing and services needed to accommodate it. The study area is expected to grow by 1.39% annually in the next 20 years, adding about 37,000 people by 2045.
The area will need an additional 22,000 to 27,500 housing units to meet population demand, according to the plan’s analysis. That includes making up for the current deficit of 2,700 to 3,700 homes needed for the current population and a healthy vacancy rate between 5% and 8%. To reach that goal, the community must build between 1,100 to 1,500 new homes per year until the deficit is reached, followed by 900 to 1,100 homes per year for the rest of the plan’s 20-year timeframe.
“Ideally the city would have a housing capacity that is three to four times our housing need,” Gluckin said. “The reason behind this is that even if a type of housing is allowed on the ground in theory, it may not happen in reality. We can’t guarantee that every property that allows a house will build that unit.”
The plan centers key values of housing, equity, climate and connectivity, and integrates public input gathered since the project launched in 2022, Gluckin said.
Major takeaways from public comments gathered at events and online include support for improving neighborhood walkability and access to shops and services; affordable and diverse housing options throughout the city; aligning with sustainability goals; and changing but not fully eliminating parking regulations, Gluckin said.
The 125-page plan outlines six land use policy themes — focus inward, housing choice and access, community and quality of life, environmental quality, health and safety and economic health — with goals the city hopes to implement.
The theme of focusing inward was carried over from the 2015 growth policy and expanded, with a goal to focus on compact development and infill within the urban area to minimize strain on infrastructure and prevent sprawl.
To reach the goal of developing a diverse, equitable and resilient housing system that meets current and future needs, the plan outlines changes to the zoning that have contributed to Missoula’s housing affordability crisis.
As of 2022, about 64% of Missoula’s residential land allows only single-family homes or duplexes affordable to about 30% of the population, according to the city’s Equity in Land Use report.
The draft land use plan suggests distributing a variety of housing types throughout all neighborhoods, avoiding concentrating development in historically low-income neighborhoods, building new housing near transit and commuter corridors, and simplifying zoning and land use regulations and approval.
The plan states that, given the limited affordability of market-rate housing, zoning reforms alone are insufficient to address the need for affordable housing and recommends implementing affordable housing initiatives and incentives.
To enable access to opportunity and amenities and promote equitable development across neighborhoods, the plan recommends zoning that increases housing in areas that have sufficient walking, biking and transit access. It also suggests focusing regulations on the form of a residential development, rather than density and use, to ensure the size and scale of projects are compatible with the neighborhood.
The plan outlines how the city will implement the policies and includes a list of more than 150 actions, most related to code changes, and their general timeline.
The strategy considers land and streets together in an effort to create accessible, walkable, vibrant neighborhoods, and encourage growth that provides diverse, attainable housing options throughout the community, the plan states. Rather than using typical land use designations, the strategy assigns “place types” and “street types.”
“The way we talk about land use today is really focused on density,” Gluckin said. The 12 place types take into account an area’s street types and block design, parcel size and coverage, land use and density, range of housing allowed, scale of commercial allowed, building form and development constraints.
The lowest intensity rural residential place type allows for two units per parcel, as required by new state law. Suburban and urban residential place types allow for three to eight units per parcel, depending on the type. All residential place types allow small-scale commercial development.
Downtown, suburban and urban-mixed use allow a variety of commercial and residential uses, with safety determining the total number of residential units allowed rather than a specific cap.
Non-residential place types include civic, industrial and employment, open and resource, parks and open space.
The plan also includes eight street types that consider context beyond traffic volume, unlike current classifications.
All parcels and streets were assigned a new place or street type and mapped accordingly. Within the city limits, 67% of the area’s current zoning is inconsistent with the plan, mostly because the place types allow more development, according to the document. Consistent areas tend to be those with some constraints to development, a strong tie to natural or cultural resources, or long-established industrial or civic areas.
Following the presentation, attendees discussed initial thoughts with city staff. At one table, Lower Rattlesnake resident Lisa Bao voiced concerns about her neighborhood’s designation as “urban residential high.”
While most of the place type’s description applies to the neighborhood, it is not well served by transit, Bao said. The roads and sidewalks are not adequate to serve a large bump in population and need improvements before density is added, she said.
“I’m broadly supportive of growth and density,” Bao told MTFP. “I’m happy to see the plan to build more housing and more mixed-use.”
Aidan Shackleton, who grew up in Missoula, said that he wants the city to grow in a way that’s sustainable and maintains its character, but that he hopes to see changes to make it more walkable.
ProHousing Missoula member Jana Richter said the plan outlines changes needed in the community. ProHousing Missoula is a group of organizations and individuals interested in the city’s code reform who advocate for a pro-housing policy.
“I’m excited to see how the plan translates to code to bring about a more connected and affordable community,” Richter said. “This plan brings us closer to a pro-housing vision and will bring about more equity in the community.”
While protecting neighborhood character is important, changes are necessary and inevitable, Richter said.
“When we think about building climate-focused, connected communities, that comes with leaving behind older ways of understanding Missoula to be a single-family-home town,” they said. “We need to center housing infrastructure to meet the needs of every Missoulian.”
Following a Wednesday presentation to the City Council, staff gave more detail on how place types were determined.
Planning Supervisor Ben Brewer said the starting point was the area’s designation in the current growth policy. Staff also considered current and desired development patterns, he said.
The city took into consideration area constraints, such as infrastructure and environmental hazards like the floodplain, said Eran Pehan, Community Planning, Development and Innovation director. Along with equity and housing capacity, community feedback also weighed heavily into place-type decisions, she said.
“The overarching motto is more homes everywhere,” Pehan said. “How many more depend on those constraints in terms of infrastructure, existing infrastructure, and the ability to continue to build out, and environmental constraints that exist.”
Regarding the plan’s goal to increase housing equitably across the city, Council Member Mirtha Beccera asked what it means for an area to take its fair share of housing.
Pehan said the city requires more housing capacity, and staff looked to assign place types that allow neighborhoods to have more homes than today in a way that fits within the overall context of that area. That includes considering connectivity, infrastructure, environmental constraints and neighborhood character and feel, she said.
What the plan means for the code is still to be determined as staff and consultants work through the updates over the next few months, Brewer said.
“We don’t expect a 1:1 ratio of these place types to how they are applied,” he said. “I would expect to see a suite of different flavors of zoning districts within some place types. Based on how we calibrate these and the different realities on the ground, there may be different aspects we need to be looking for compatibility with as we look at the code.”
Public comments received during events and online by Oct. 31 will be considered by staff as they update the plan. Comments submitted after the end of the month will be considered by the Missoula Consolidated Planning Board and City Council during the adoption process.
The planning board will hold a public hearing on the draft plan on Nov. 19. The City Council will consider it for adoption in December. Work on the unified development code updates will continue into the spring.
The land use plan is intended to provide expectations and options for what could be built in certain areas, predictability and a vision for growth, Gluckin said during the Tuesday presentation. It doesn’t tell people what will happen, what they have to do with their property and it won’t override market pressures and realities, she said.
“We want to provide the community with an aspirational and realistic vision for growth,” Gluckin said. “Unfortunately, this plan cannot solve all of our community’s problems, but it does take a step in the right direction.”
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