As in much of the country, Missoula, Montana is facing a severe shortage of housing. Its population growth has fast outpaced inventory, and development efforts have encountered extreme bottlenecking at the permit office. Addressing the crisis, the city recently overhauled its zoning code, and as it worked to finalize reforms, the Missoula Organization of REALTORS® conducted a high-level workshop to review the proposed changes. The four-hour event was so effective that participants clamored for another. A Housing Opportunity Grant from the REALTOR® Party helped make it possible.
Jeff LeRoy, the Missoula Organization’s Interim CEO/Public Affairs and Data Director at the time, explains that there was nothing adversarial in the reform process – just a lot of cooks in the kitchen. “The City had hired a consulting firm from outside Montana to help draft the new code, and several municipal departments were also involved. Fortunately, we have great relationships with our elected leaders and with the City’s Director of Planning. They were open to feedback and wanted to know what the local real estate industry thought, so we proposed a workshop that would bring together planning leaders, industry specialists, and local officials to take a close look at the draft.”
Just twenty days before the public comment period began, the REALTORS® gathered members of the City planning staff, Missoula Public Works, and the Parks & Rec Department; representatives from the Missoula Building Industry Association; local architects, engineers, and major builders; and several of its own affiliates and Government Affairs Committee members – about forty participants – in a big conference room at the public library. Following a welcome by the City’s Land Use & Planning Committee Chair, who happens to be a REALTOR®, a consultant-facilitator led break-out groups through four different case scenarios addressed in the proposed code updates. Walking through the plans together allowed for meaningful discussion, questioning, and poking holes in some doubtful new regulations, reports LeRoy, such as a requirement that all entry doors must face the street, and that trees be planted at eight-foot intervals of sidewalk.
“In a process like this, there’s bound to be some friction, but in the end, the only way to achieve positive change is to put people in a room to engage in dialogue,” he notes. “No will get 100% of what they want, but with some work, everyone gets something. One local builder at the first workshop told us that he’d once bought a parcel of Missoula property for townhouses, and in the two years it took for permitting, the final sales price went up 30%. That kind of outcome doesn’t benefit anyone.”
City officials already looked to the REALTORS® as their trusted resource for housing information and data, says LeRoy, and these workshops further established REALTOR® leadership as they helped to refine the proposed reforms, with an eye toward further streamlining the zoning process. Two REALTOR®-backed City Council members played a key role in advancing the updates, he adds, and REALTOR® members were actively engaged in the public comment period. The new code, unanimously adopted in January, is now considered a living document that can be changed as needed, he says, and should expand development opportunities throughout the city. While its effect remains to be seen, the REALTORS® are optimistic – and grateful for the boost from the Housing Opportunity Grant. “We’re not a huge association – about 800 members and a staff of four – but we’ve used a number of the REALTOR® Party resources,” says LeRoy. “They are all user-friendly and they always make things easier for us.”
To learn more about how the Missoula Association of REALTORS® is working to address the region’s housing affordability crisis, contact CEO Jeff LeRoy at jeff@missoularealestate.com or 406.728.0560.
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