Opinion: How NIMBYISM chokes off affordable housing even in Big Sky Country

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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Opinion | How NIMBYISM chokes off affordable housing even in Big Sky Country

By Kendall Cotton
June 9, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT



The view from a hiking trail in Missoula, Mont., in 2019. (Tailyr Irvine for The Washington Post)

Kendall Cotton is president and CEO of the Frontier Institute in Helena, Mont., and member of the State Policy Network.

Fifty years ago, my grandfather scraped together $15,000 to buy a small “shotgun”-style house on a tiny lot in the middle of Missoula, Mont. Adjusted for inflation, that would mean about $105,000 today. Yet the median price for a single-family home in Missoula now is more than $550,000. ... We often hear about the fading dream of homeownership for millions of Americans — especially young people hoping to raise a family — in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities. But the problem extends from coast to coast, with Missoula as a telling example of why there simply aren’t enough houses to meet demand. The shortage drives the cost of existing homes to levels that are prohibitive for countless low- and middle-income Americans.

President Biden’s recently announced Housing Supply Action Plan reflects a growing political consensus that an intervention is needed. People of all political stripes can unite around pro-housing reforms to give landowners more freedom to build new homes where they are needed most. ... The Biden administration’s housing plan calls the lack of available and affordable land through exclusionary zoning regulations, such as minimum lot area requirements, parking mandates and prohibitions on multifamily housing, as “one of the most significant issues constraining housing supply.”

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Exclusionary zoning practices reserve vast portions of cities for single-family homes and prohibit building denser multifamily homes, such as duplexes and triplexes, that are more affordable by design. Other regulatory layers drive up building costs and can effectively prohibit multifamily homes when the requirements (see minimum lot areas and parking mandates above) can’t be met in the existing space.

In emerging housing markets such as Montana’s, we are seeing the pain caused by exclusionary zoning firsthand. A pandemic property gold rush coupled with low housing inventory has pushed median home list prices in some of the state’s fast-growing cities over $800,000. The organization I lead, the free-market Frontier Institute, recently published a Montana Zoning Atlas report on how exclusionary zoning worsens the housing shortage: More than 70 percent of primary residential areas in Montana’s most in-demand cities either outright prohibit or penalize affordable multifamily housing development.

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[jimfields33]

1. Lots of Californians moving to Montana and idaho

When you sell your home for a million plus, 500K sounds like a deal.

[MontanaMama]

2. I don't know what the answer is.

It’s not like there isn’t building going on everywhere. Yes there is zoning but it is not prohibiting new construction. I just remodeled a tiny 9’x5’ bathroom and we’re in the 7th week of that project because getting sub contractors is almost impossible. If I didn’t have a neighbor who is a general contractor, I’d never have found a sheet rock guy or a glass guy. My neighbor is too busy to take my project on but thank goodness he is advising me. I still had to install my own window and do the painting and baseboards.

Lots of people moved up here during Covid and they brought big money with them. I’m not exaggerating when I say that every house that hits the market here in Missoula ends up being an auction. Buyers are wielding huge sums of cash, forgoing inspections and financing. I have a good friend who bought her home 5 years ago for $399K…a fair price for the home at that time. This past January, she listed it for $720K and sold it in 3 days for $905K cash, no inspection, to a couple from Seattle.

There’s a house around the corner from me…they’ve got a little ranch style house…similar to mine…4 beds/2 baths built in the 50’s…they listed it for $724K and sold it for $812K cash, no inspection…and two week closing. The people buying these homes at these prices are not Missoulians. They’re coming from other states. Most folks don’t make that kind of money here. Hell I don’t make that kind of money.