City OK’s housing study
High density housing butts up to commercial use on the west end of Columbia Falls.
The Columbia Falls City Council last week formally adopted a new Columbia Falls housing study.
“We have a Senate Bill 382 compliant document,” city planner Eric Mulcahy told the council.
SB 382, also known as the Montana Land Use Planning Act, dictated, among other things, that most cities do a housing needs study. With partial funding from the state, the study is one of the first steps in the city crafting a larger land use plan.
A few people spoke on the plan. One resident worried about short-term housing rentals in the city. The study found there are 83 currently in the city limits and 237 in the 59912 ZIP code.
But the perhaps the biggest takeaway from the study was the large gap between what houses cost and what people can afford to either rent or buy. The study found that the current median sale price of homes in the Columbia Falls area was $575,000, which is 85% higher than in 2019, when it was $310,000. Homes below $300,000 made up 48% of sales just five years ago. Last year, just 7%.
Meanwhile, most working families, the study found, can afford a house that’s about $250,000-$400,000, with $500,000 being the upper end at current interest rates.
Daniel Sidder, executive director of Housing Whitefish, a nonprofit housing agency in Whitefish, suggested the city consider its infill options and possibly local government support of affordable housing projects.
But Mayor Don Barnhart said some of the studies numbers were skewed in the sense that it only looked at the city and the 59912 area.
Unless a developer asks for annexation, there isn’t much the city can do. Infill, for example, is up to private developers and landowners.
The city could, however, address short-term rentals through zoning and other means. Right now, they’re allowed throughout the city through an administrative conditional use permit and a county health inspection. Other than that, there are no restrictions. Some sections of neighborhoods will sit virtually empty in the winter months because of short-term rentals.
The council took no action on the matter, however. But having said that, as new developments come on board, the city planning commission and the council both have added restrictions on short-term rentals.
The vote to adopt the housing study was unanimous.