The North Missoula Community Development Corporation — Montana’s oldest community land trust — has acquired a home in the city’s Westside, bringing the total number of affordable housing units held by the trust to more than 75.

The property, located at 1520 Howell Street, was purchased by a trio of anonymous friends three years ago with the eventual goal of transitioning the home to community ownership. That became possible this year thanks to contributions from the property owners and federal Community Development Block Grant funding, the land trust said.

Representatives with the NMCDC say the property also has room for the development of additional affordable units. This meshes nicely with the city’s newly adopted 2045 land use plan, which calls for significant infill construction of housing across all city neighborhoods.

“This acquisition represents the power of collaboration and the strength of shared values,” Brittany Palmer, the NMCDC’s executive director, said in a statement. “It is inspiring to see a community-oriented vision from 2021 come to life, and we’re honored to carry this work forward for the Westside neighborhood. I also live down the street from this property and can’t wait to see more small infill homes added to the neighborhood!”

“This acquisition represents the power of collaboration and the strength of shared values.”

We’ve spilled significant ink in these digital pages about Missoula’s widely recognized housing crisis. And we’ve discussed some possible paths forward — namely, the city’s aspirations of building a whole city’s worth of market rate housing in the next two decades. But here we have something different: a model for housing that at least partially decouples the need for long-term shelter and community from the caprice of the market.

The acquisition of the Howell Street property brings NMCDC’s portfolio of homes up to more than 75, many of which the trust developed. While the organization’s efforts are centered on the historically lower-income Northside and Westside neighborhoods, it has also developed homes downtown, in Franklin to the Fort and elsewhere in the city. The Scott Street-Ravara development, located on a former Superfund site, will add an additional 46 income-restricted units, said Hannah Kosel, NMCDC’s stewardship coordinator. Builders broke ground on the project, which will also include market-rate housing and commercial space, in March.

Community land trusts work by separating the value of a piece of land from the value of the improvement — i.e., the home — that sits atop it. The trust, a non-profit organization, purchases the land but sells the home on top of it to a would-be homeowner who meets a certain income threshold. Removing the value of the land from the price of the home reduces the price — nationwide, lot values have dramatically increased in recent years despite generally shrinking in size.

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The homeowner then leases the land from the trust. The lease contains a formula that limits the potential resale value of the home, allowing the owner to build equity based on any improvements they add while keeping the home permanently affordable, at least in theory.

The first community land trust in the U.S. was Georgia’s New Communities, Inc., formed in 1969 to help Black farmers in the South gain access to land. To this day, the model is still used in agricultural contexts — including in Missoula.

NMCDC began as a coalition of Northside residents responding to Montana Rail Link erecting fencing on the train tracks that cut off the Northside from other parts of the city. In general, Kosel said, residents had seen the neighborhood as a stepping stone to somewhere else.

“The slogan then was ‘Don’t Move – Improve,’” Kosel said. “It’s home ownership as a way to create stability in communities.”

The group incorporated in 1996 and became Montana’s first community land trust in 2000, initially offering a down payment assistance program.

“Our new mission is that we’re building community power, thriving neighborhoods and community homes,” Kosel said. “And we’re expanding outside of the North- and Westside.”

The federal grant money the trust used to purchase the Howell Street property restricts rent prices, meaning the current tenants will see a reduction in their rent. And depending on their desires, they will eventually have the opportunity to purchase the home. Most homes in NMCDC’s portfolio are limited to buyers who make 80 percent of the area median income, while some homes — such as those funded with Affordable Housing Trust Fund dollars at Scott Street — are available to those making up to 120 percent of the area median income, which is about $90,000 for a household of four.

Kosel is hopeful that in the future, the development of a wave of new housing under the land use plan will reduce the need to subsidize buyers at higher incomes and preserve funding for the low-income.

“We want the market to do its work and also always ensure that subsidy remains to fill in some of those gaps as well,” Kosel said.

Speaking of the land use plan…

The Missoula City Council on Monday adopted the city’s Our Missoula 2045 Land Use Plan, setting the stage for a dramatic reshaping of the city that promises at least 22,000 new housing units over the next 20 years by upzoning most neighborhoods.

“There are little things I know some people would like to go further and there are some people who are worried that maybe we’re pushing too far, but I think that’s a sign of a land use plan that has taken all the community’s input and tried to get to a place where hopefully we can all move forward,” council member Mike Nugent said during the meeting.

The plan provides a framework for the actual mechanism of change: the creation of a new zoning map and unified development code.

Council member Daniel Carlino, a progressive who has frequently criticized the city’s attempts at managing the housing crisis as insufficient, lauded the plan but expressed concern that it would not alter the underlying reality that limits housing attainability in Missoula and elsewhere.

“Ultimately, I hope we can keep building subsidized affordable housing and real, true affordable housing as well and not be reliant on a capitalistic system to supply something that everybody needs, like housing,” he said.

The ledger #️⃣

$4.9M

The value of the settlement in a pay dispute between Missoula county, sheriff’s department deputies and detention officers, according to a scoop from the Missoulian’s Griffen Smith.