City begins work to update Whitefish housing plan

The City of Whitefish is beginning work on a needed update to its strategic housing plan.

As the need for additional housing, the cost of housing and stress caused by the lack of affordable units continues to rise, city staff and officials will spend the next six months periodically working with consultants and the Whitefish Strategic Housing Committee on refreshing the housing plan.

Whitefish’s latest housing needs assessment is from 2016 and the Whitefish Strategic Housing Plan from 2017 are both due for an update. On June 27 during a special session of the Whitefish Strategic Housing Committee, the work to update both began.

To kick off the process, the city held a workshop to give the team that will be working on the update a chance to become acquainted and to introduce the consultants who were hired to assist with refreshing the city’s housing plan.

The team working on the plan includes the current members of the Whitefish Strategic Housing Committee as well as community members who represent financial institutions, developers, the Whitefish Community Foundation, Housing Whitefish, the Whitefish Housing Authority and other citizens who bring varying perspectives.

Of those selected to work on the plan update, City Manager Dana Smith says their “input expands the expertise at the table.”

The consultants, Seana Doherty of Agnew::Beck and Wendy Sullivan of WSW Consulting presented the process for refreshing the housing plan and explained it will be a six-month process, wherein they will meet twice, include the community and have a final plan presented to the city council in November.

One of the team’s meetings will be in person, one will be remote and the public is welcome to attend, but as Smith explained, the first goal is to work on the housing needs assessment and it is a data-driven step in the process.

“When we come to the strategic housing plan update, that will be the time when the public and the members of the refresh team can bring forward ideas on how to help address the new strategies that we might have available to us and what strategies we should continue working on,” Smith said.

Once the strategic housing plan is updated, it will go to the city council for approval and adoption. Then, Smith says it is possible the Strategic Housing Committee may be reworked to become a standing committee rather than a temporary one, as it is now. The city and its partners will then work together during the implementation phase.

Consultants Doherty and Sullivan explained the refresh process contains three components. They will assess the housing needs including what kind of housing is needed and how much. Second, they will develop a housing strategy plan with actions, goals and a way to track success. And finally they will outline management and monitoring tools to keep the plan flowing.

Their stated purpose, according to Doherty, is “housing that is affordable for local workers to maintain commercial and economic vibrancy, diversity and resiliency.” To that end, the elements they track are the owner/renter mix, income targeting, primary home/second home relationship and the jobs/housing relationship.