City will continue to explore affordable housing at Railroad Street

The Columbia Falls City Council last week gave the nod to moving forward with an affordable housing project at Railroad Street after hearing some assurances from a Habitat for Humanity representative that the houses would be affordable and would remain that way through their lifespan.

Preliminary designs have Habitat building about eight homes on the park, which is currently a baseball field. The Northwest Montana Land Trust would eventually take title of the land from the city, thus assuring a price control structure on the land itself.

In addition, Habitat requires initial homeowners to provide “sweat equity” in the home by helping build it. Habitat also places a cap on the equity in the home at 1.5% annually so homeowners can’t simply flip the home on the open market.

Habitat  builds bungalow-style homes that cost about $300,000 that have a garage and a small yard.

“They would be permanently affordable,” MaryBeth Morand, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Flathead Valley said.

She said the development, if it comes to fruition, would be similar to one recently completed in Somers.

“We give a hand up, not a hand out,” Morand said.

The majority of council endorsed the idea, but Mayor Don Barnhart suggested a middle ground, where the city uses existing right-of-way it owns near the park to build two homes, but retain most of the open space. He also wanted to see the park improved.

But the remaining council wanted a larger development.

“I would love to move forward with this project,” councilwoman Jenny Lovering said. “I think it’s a home run.”

City manager Susan Nicosia said the development would still retain a park, just not as large of one. There was an initial controversy over the loss of the baseball field, but School District 6 said the league can use a field near the junior high for free, and others could be developed on other School District 6-owned land.

Still, not all neighbors are happy and they submitted a petition urging the city to preserve the park and its open space.

While council had mixed emotions, it leaned toward the housing project and noted the subdivision would still have to be vetted through the city’s planning process.

“This is affordable housing,” said councilwoman Kelly King. “This is what we’ve been striving for.”