The Missoula City Council has moved one step closer to banning camping in city parks and creating a criminal penalty for infractions, just about four months after the city adopted its controversial urban-camping law.

Hours of debate and public comment on a series of proposed amendments to the law — and a brief power outage — Wednesday afternoon led to a 7 to 3 vote to hold an additional public meeting and a vote on the changes on December 2.

In June, the city council adopted an ordinance that bans urban camping from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and restricts people from camping within certain distances of schools, businesses, shelters and waterways. Initial violations lead to written warnings followed by non-criminal “municipal infractions” that carry a $50 fine.

The ordinance as proposed didn’t seem to please any interest group — unsheltered Missoulians, service providers, property owners — but nonetheless passed by a vote of 10 to 2 after weeks of contentious debate and late-night hearings.

Since then, several council members have said they’ve been inundated with messages from the public seeking further restrictions.

“I personally have heard from many constituents since the ordinance went into effect asking for some of the proposed changes that we are talking about today,” City Council President Amber Sherrill said Wednesday. “I’ve had 100 voicemails and countless emails about it. I believe my job is to represent all of my constituents. My job is also to understand that if something isn’t working, it needs to be changed.”

At the same time, No Camp Missoula, a non-profit neighborhood group helmed by former Republican state legislator David Moore, has distributed signs and collected signatures for a petition to ban camping in parks outright, claiming threats to public safety.

“Let’s get the homeless out of the parks for the safety of this community,” Moore said during public comment Wednesday.

Earlier this month, councilmembers Bob Campbell and Sandra Vasecka said they would introduce a proposal to that effect.

“Since adoption of the early camping ordinance, concerns have been brought forth from the public regarding enforcement of the ordinance as well as overwhelming pushback regarding camping in city parks,” said Campbell, a former Missoula police officer.

Other members of the council — Amber Sherrill, Mike Nugent, Gwen Jones and Stacie Anderson — joined the effort with their own proposed amendments to the city’s existing law, saying they want to encourage houseless people to use the shelter system.

One of the changes would reclassify violations of the city’s law as misdemeanor crimes punishable by $50 fines rather than “municipal infractions.”

City Attorney Ryan Sudbury said this recategorization would make enforcement of the law more efficient.

The city, apparently, was not expecting enforcement of the law to lead to a protracted legal process. But in one case, Brad Carlson, a homeless Missoulian who was among the first cited under the current law — and who also served on a city working group that offered policy suggestions in the run up to the city’s adoption of the law — is attempting to countersue the city and implead members of city government for alleged uneven enforcement of the ordinance.

Carlson was set to have a hearing in his case Thursday, but it was rescheduled.

Nugent insisted that the intent of changing violations to a misdemeanor is not to criminalize homelessness, though council member Daniel Carlino, one of the opponents to the initial ordinance, questioned how that could be the case when the amendment levies a criminal penalty.

“The idea that by having rules at the very end for the small amount of people who choose not to follow rules and ignore them, I don’t think that is criminalizing homelessness,” Nugent said. “I think it’s acknowledging that rules have to have some accountability. Without that, people who choose not to follow rules have very little consequence.”

The proposal would not outright ban camping on city property.

“An Unsheltered Individual may camp in a camp structure” — i.e., tent — “on City property open to general public use so long as they comply with the rules and requirements” of the ordinance, the proposed language says.

Carlino was opposed to the changes Wednesday. He noted, based on testimony from service providers, that there is very little – if, at times, any — available bed space in already-crowded shelters.

“There’s clearly not enough shelter beds for the amount of people living on the streets or in their vehicles in Missoula, and that doesn’t change the decision, which is surprising,” he said.

The city’s most recent point-in-time count, conducted earlier this month, estimates the city’s houseless population to be about 650 people. Missoula’s shelters, meanwhile, have room for 553 households, Eran Pehan, the city’s Community Planning, Development and Innovation director, told the council.

Carlino and councilmembers Kristen Jordan and Jennifer Savage voted no on the council’s motion Wednesday. If the council ultimately approves the changes in December, they would take effect in January.

One of the comments Wednesday came from Ty Powell, a longtime Missoula resident who told the council he’s been camping in Kiwanis Park since June.

“To people that put up signs that say they are concerned that I will hurt their children or their property, that horrifies me,” he said. “At a minimum, 5,000 people of all walks of life have observed me at Kiwanis Park, and not one person has had an issue.”

New Target Range subdivision approved

The Missoula County Commission on Thursday approved a new subdivision in the Target Range area following a protracted process that began in 2022.

The Creighton subdivision would include eight lots on 12 acres on the city’s edge. Developers and the county have gone back and forth since the project’s inception about how best to account for the migration pattern of the Clark Fork River, which could flood some of the proposed homes.

In September, developers said they would accept a 250-feet setback, a compromise from the “conservative yet prudent” 580-foot setback the county originally required.

The vote comes as the county undertakes the process to re-evaluate — and, in all likelihood, expand — the regional floodplain map, including in areas abutting the planned subdivision. A draft map has already been released. A preliminary map is expected in November, the county has said.

The ledger #️⃣

89

The number of new homes, plus 200 apartments, slated for the Scott Street-Ravara development on the old site of the White Pine Sash wood products facility, which the state designated a state Superfund site 30 years ago. Of the 89 homes, 47 are designated as permanently affordable and 42 are market rate. The 10-acre portion of the property now being redeveloped was cleaned to residential standards only after Northside neighbors and the city council won a yearslong battle with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. Construction began early this year, but the project partners signed paperwork last week finalizing transfer of the ownership of three acres of the site to the North Missoula Community Development Corporation, removing it “from the speculative market and held in trust on behalf of the Missoula community,” Brittany Palmer, executive director of the NMCDC, said in a press release.

The week ahead 🗓️

If you’re mailing in your election ballot, the U.S. Postal Service recommends sending it by Tuesday, Oct. 29. Otherwise, you can drop it off at the 24/7 drop box at the Elections Center at 140 N. Russell St. More info at Missoula County’s elections page.
The city council on Monday, Oct. 28 will hold a public hearing on a proposed rezoning ordinance for the planned Meadow View Homes subdivision in the South Hills.
The board of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency meets next Thursday, October 31, at noon in city hall and online.