MISSOULA — Calling it an innovative approach to housing and development and saying it was in the right place, Missoula County on Thursday approved the Grass Valley Gardens subdivision at the Wye.
GroundSpeed Concepts, based in Missoula, plans to break ground next fall on the first phase of the project.
The development will eventually include several hundred housing units, a mini-farm and a commercial “town center” off Highway 10 just south of the Wye.
Project member Matt Mellott said the development will include a variety of housing types across a range of prices.
“The county has done a fantastic job setting out its vision on where they'd like to see growth happen, and how they'd like to see growth happen,” Mellott said. “We've paid attention to that and have heard loud and clear what the county wants.”
Over the past two years, Missoula County has turned its planning efforts toward the Wye, including the creation of two Targeted Economic Development Districts. Its Land Use Map, adopted in 2019, also identified areas around the Wye as neighborhood residential with a dedicated commercial center.
Recent demographics suggest the greater Missoula area will need more than 8,000 new homes over the next decade to keep pace with the population growth. The county believes the Wye can accommodate up to 15,000 new homes over the coming decades.
“We must recognize that the Wye is a jobs and economic center,” said Jaimie Erbacher with the WGM Group. “We have to work together and efficiently use the land to preserve other areas from development. To do this, urban-scale development is required to generate the taxable value per acre that's sufficient to be self-sustaining for infrastructure construction and maintenance.”
The county has noted the Wye's current lack of infrastructure and has labeled it “infrastructure deficient.” In doing so, it created two Targeted Economic Development Districts at the Wye which will capture tax increment as new development moves in.
That tax increment will help fund the area's infrastructure needs. As one of the first large-scale developments to land in the area, Grass Valley Gardens has been designed to tie into a municipal or regional water and sewer system when it reaches the area.
“We'll be instrumental in building the tax increment in the Targeted Economic Development District that can be used for public infrastructure improvements,” said Erbacher. “As we develop at the Wye, the funding that's generated for the tax increment can then be applied for that construction.”As presented, the project will deliver single-family homes, condos, townhomes and other unit types at a range of prices. Mellott said the influx of new housing could help drive down or stabilize prices.
The median price of a home in Missoula County in 2020 was $345,000, according to the Missoula Organization of Realtors. It now sits at $535,000, with all housing types factored in.
The project will also include what Mellott described as a “Farm Haul,” or a gathering spot with a food venue and a variety of food and beverage options. He said future phases also include a Main Street experience, offering a range of services and attractions from galleries and restaurants to groceries and hardware.
“These are exactly the sort of changes this commission envisioned when we adopted the land-use plan for this area, and adopted zoning,” said Commissioner Dave Strohmaier. “This is a pretty thoughtful, innovative and creative approach to realizing the vision that was set out in zoning and our land-use element.”
Commissioners said that while some believe infrastructure should be in place before development moves in, that's not always financially feasible. Strohmaier said tax increment is needed to fund the infrastructure, and that requires development.
“We have this tool, this Targeted Economic Development District, that will start to generate tax increment over time. That can be plowed into those infrastructure improvements,” said Strohmaier. “But that's going to take some time. We need actual projects coming online that will be contributing increment into that.”
