MISSOULA — With the City of Missoula poised to adopt its new land use plan, members of the City Council continue sifting through a number of proposed amendments while exploring issues regarding parking, densities and infrastructure, among other things.
The city is expected to adopt the plan in the coming weeks to meet the deadline set by new state law. But with adoption looming, council members explored several lingering issues including car dependency, desired densities and the role parking will play in the future.
Some have lobbied for a complete elimination of parking mandates while others see an opportunity to keep parking requirements but at a lower level.
“There was less consensus on minimum parking requirements than on housing and commercial issues,” said Laval Means, manager of community planning. “But there was clear support for some degree of lowering the existing minimum parking requirements.”
Eran Pehan, director of development, said feedback from the public stated a continued need for some parking with new development. Leaving parking to the market to provide on its own poses a number of concerns.
“When you leave parking up to the market, what you often see is that parking is built and then charged for as an amenity. Or there's no parking built at all,” said Pehan. “There's this balance of what the market can provide and what the market typically doesn't provide when left to its own devices.”
The plan currently notes that requirements around parking “complicate the development of additional housing.” But parking can also be used as an incentive related to development, and it's a tool the city would like to keep, Pehan said.
“It's one of the more powerful things we have, and there's a desire in the community to not fully give that incentive away,” she said. “The conversations we want to continue to have is how we can expand upon that (parking incentive).”
Density and infrastructure
The plan's call for infill and compatibility also remains in flux, though council members largely opposed amendments offered this week to increase densities in some areas.
City staff said the plan's recommended densities were set by weighing constraints and opportunities. Issues around emergency egress, the availability of water or the lack of infrastructure serve as barriers to greater density in some neighborhoods.
But all neighborhoods are subject to growth in the current plan, Means said.
“Every neighborhood in the planning area is experiencing a meaningful degree of change,” she said. “Even in our most constrained areas, we're still seeing significant increases in allowable homes that will help us achieve our housing goals.”
Council member Daniel Carlino sought to change the targeted densities in certain neighborhoods. He offered an amendment to change areas designated as “urban residential low” to “urban residential high.” He said the results would provide more homes with minimal impacts.
“We need to be building in and up, not out and sprawl,” said Carlino. “Where urban residential low can be built, it's not too much to allow a couple extra units on a parcel.”
But changing the place type from low to high doesn't mean the city will see more homes in those areas, according to city staff. Areas designated as low in the plan currently have a number of constraints that limit greater density.
“There are many of us on council who have voted no on adding significant densities to neighborhoods that don't have infrastructure to support those densities,” said council member Mirtha Becerra. “The proposed land uses right now are reflective of what we could actually implement.”
According to the plan's draft, the city's population is expected to grow to 116,000 people by 2045. As it stands, Missoula already faces a housing deficit of roughly 3,000 homes, and it will need to create 27,000 more housing units by 2045.
Projecting such figures is now required by state law, and those projections need to be accurate.
“By setting a place-type designation higher than what we know is feasible or is likely to happen means our capacity analysis and ratios will be inaccurate,” Pehan said. “We're required by state law to set the most accurate housing capacity as possible. We'll be graded on that.”
Pehan added that state law also limits some city goals within the plan around climate, energy and housing.
“There are changes that need to happen at the state level in state law to allow us to fully implement those,” she said. “A lot of that is waiting to see what comes out of this legislative session and continue to lobby for the changes that need to be made at the state level so we can implement some of those codes here locally that we aren't able to do so today.”
