Whitefish makes headway on affordable housing issue

Employers, civic and business leaders and those looking for housing in Whitefish have for years bemoaned a lack of affordable workforce housing in Whitefish.

But following more intensive efforts in the last few years to seek solutions, may be headed toward a payoff as a number of projects creating such housing have come to the forefront while others are in the works, and work by the city of Whitefish to craft policy requiring affordable housing as part of new development is being hammered out.

An update to a number of efforts to address a shortage of affordable housing were presented during a recent Whitefish Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

Kevin Gartland, executive director of the chamber, opened the event with a reminder of the overall need for housing in Whitefish. He noted the city and chamber’s housing assessment that says to fill the affordable housing gap 600 residential units are needed and another 375 are anticipated to be created by the free market to accommodate employee households through 2020.

“The city and chamber have been working hard on this for the last three years,” he said. “The chamber has been hearing in its neighborhood meetings since 2004 that there has been an inability to find workers because of a lack of housing.”

He noted that efforts are focused on creating housing for those earning minimum wage through middle income level managers who want to live in Whitefish. To keep housing affordable rent needs to be $1,000 or less per month or homes need to be purchased for less than $310,000, according to the city’s strategic housing plan.

Those involved with a number of projects in Whitefish gave brief updates during the breakfast.

Zoning

Changes to a number of city zoning and building codes to incentivize the development of affordable workforce housing is moving through the process. Those include development of an inclusionary zoning ordinance requiring that a percentage of new housing developments be permanently affordable and changes to the city’s annexation policy that would require the development of workforce housing.

Ben Davis, chair of the Whitefish Strategic Housing Plan Steering Committee, explained that the city already has a voluntary inclusionary zoning program for affordable housing through its planned unit development overlays. A developer can get a density bonus if they provide 10 percent of units as deed restricted.

“It hasn’t worked all that well,” he said. “It’s only produced about eight units. We’re looking at changing it to make it mandatory.”

The Strategic Housing Plan recommends making inclusionary zoning mandatory with a minimum of 20 to 25 percent of homes in new subdivisions as deed restricted for long-term affordability. Any changes to city ordinance on the item will have to go before the Planning Board and City Council for a vote.

Davis said the inclusionary zoning would create deed restricted housing that would be compatible with market homes in appearance and quality. Deed restricted means a purchase or rental price lower than market price, and could include a cap on the price appreciation or limit resale to qualified buyers.

“Rather than having affordable housing in one spot we’d like it throughout the community,” Davis said. “We’re working to make sure this doesn’t affect development because we don’t want to make it so it’s not profitable for developers.”

The housing plan also recommends that the city update its annexation policy regarding property owners who request to be annexed into the city. The plan recommends adopting a policy that would require 75 percent to 80 percent of homes developed on properties annexed into Whitefish in the future to be deed restricted for occupancy by local residents.

“We want to make sure we’re serving local residents who need that housing,” Davis said.

The goal of requiring local workers to own homes in developments that are annexed into the city is to combat a trend in the decrease over the last 10 years in the number of locally owned homes.

“These policies are new to Whitefish, but they are not new — these policies exist in thousands of cities,” Davis said.

The changes are expected to be in place by the end of the year.

City Planning Director Dave Taylor said work is being done to create affordable housing zoning that would provide incentives for builders who create such housing in Whitefish. As an example he listed a few items that could be an incentive, including increasing building heights, reducing setbacks, reducing parking requirements or waiving impact fees through a grant process.

“The most successful programs enable the developers to get something back,” he said. “We want to spur more affordable units.”

The key is to provide a number of options that will keep developers wanting to build in Whitefish, and thereby creating affordable housing.

“We want to compete with Kalispell and Columbia Falls,” he said. “We don’t want developers to look at Whitefish and say it’s easier to go elsewhere.”

Assessment

The Whitefish Chamber is considering a voluntary housing assessment that businesses could collect that would be similar to the tourism promotion assessment that is used to promote Whitefish.

Gartland noted that work is being done to see if the assessment is a viable alternative and that the assessment would be the first of its kind in dealing with affordable housing.

“We’re looking for a way for the business community to participate,” Gartland noted. “If we don’t solve this issue it will strangle our businesses and our city.”

Tax credit proposal

The Whitefish Housing Authority is currently moving through the process of applying to the Montana Board of Housing for low income housing tax credits to develop a planned 38-unit project off Wisconsin Avenue on Edgewood Place.

The project in June received approval to submit a full application for the tax credits by Aug. 27.

The housing authority is looking with the project to create housing to serve those who earn about $25,000 per year or less depending on the size of the household.

Whitefish Housing Authority Executive Director Lori Collins said the goal is to serve low- to moderate-income households for those who earn in a range of $10 per hour to $20 per hour.

“We’re trying to fill one small niche of what’s needed,” Collins said.

Projected rents are expected to range from $366 to $796 in the project. The average rent reported in the Whitefish Strategic Housing Plan in October 2016 was $1,275 which requires an hourly wage of $24.52 to be considered affordable.

The housing authority is requesting $6 million in tax credits for the project.

A decision from the state housing board is expected in November, architecture work and a community design charrette are planned over the winter and then construction could begin next summer.

The housing authority has partnered with the Missoula nonprofit Homeword on the project.

Snow lot

The city of Whitefish is looking at potential development of its snow lot, at the corner of Columbia Avenue and Railway Street, for affordable housing. Council this spring rezoned the property of about 1.47 acres as high density multi-family residential.

City Councilor Katie Williams said the city is looking at private and public partnerships that could be used to develop the property for housing.

“We expect details to come very shortly,” she said. “We want community buy-in on this and it to be a catalyst project.”

Williams said the vision is to develop a mixed-use project that would involve townhomes and single-family homes abutting the neighborhood, while a smaller apartment complex could be located closer to the railroad.

The city expects to soon release a request for professionals that would look to hire a consultant to conduct a design charrette to gather public input for what a housing project there might look like.

“We want to take the neighbors opinions into perspective,” she said.

The city has already begun soil testing on the property and will complete a traffic study as well.

She noted that the city is currently looking at options to relocate the central recycling site the is located on the property and plan for where it would store its snow plowed from downtown once the site is developed.

Private projects

Mention was also given to two private projects already approved by the city.

Alta Views, a development off JP Road that includes 137 new townhomes, is being developed by Mark Panissdi. Townhouses in the development are being advertised starting at $289,000. Ten of the units have also been specifically set aside as deed restricted for the Whitefish Housing Authority.

The project hopes to break ground soon, and occupancy is planned for November, according to real estate agents Mike Anderson and Jen Dolan. They said efforts are ongoing to make locals aware of the project so they can be the ones to purchase the units.

The Trail View subdivision planned near the Monegan and Voerman roads is intended to be 100 percent affordable — with homes both as traditional deed restricted based on income and homes for local workers.

The property, which is currently vacant, is planned to have 58 lots developed in three phases with single-family homes.