Session focuses on housing plan
Whitefish’s City Council and Planning Board will hold a joint work session on Thursday to discuss the city’s proposed affordable housing program.
The city’s Strategic Housing Steering Committee will also participate in a session intended to provide an overview of the city’s Legacy Homes Program, as well as summarize potential amendments to zoning and subdivision regulations to implement the program.
The work session will take place following the Planning Board’s regular meeting on Thursday, Feb. 21. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
At the center of the Legacy Homes Program, is a mandatory inclusionary zoning for the city. If implemented, inclusionary zoning would require that 20 percent of all new development be set aside for affordable housing.
The program would apply to residential conditional use permits, planned unit developments and subdivisions. Residential units allowed by right would be exempt.
The goal is to create housing for those with incomes between 60 and 120 percent of area median income.
The area median income for Flathead County for a two-person household is $53,4000. This is also referred to as 100 percent area median income.
The industry standard for affordable housing is that it should not be more than 30 percent of the owner or renter’s annual income.
In exchange for providing deed-restricted units, developers would be able to take advantage of a list of incentives designed to offset providing the housing. Those incentives could include reduction in parking or lot sizes, increase in building height, density or lot coverage, and a streamline development approval process for smaller projects in the WB-3 zone.
City Council and the Planning Board held two previous work sessions on the draft program last fall.
The Planning Board is expected to hold at its March 21 meeting a public hearing on the Legacy Homes Program and other changes to related city regulations.
Inclusionary zoning is part of several initiatives called for in Whitefish’s strategic housing plan.
A housing needs study conducted in 2016 followed by the strategic housing plan completed the next year showed that roughly 900 residential units are needed to accommodate employee households through 2020 in Whitefish.