Columbia Falls will continue to explore affordable housing at Railroad Street

Columbia Falls City Council earlier this month gave the nod to moving forward with an affordable housing project at Railroad Street after hearing some assurances from a Habitat for Humanity representative that the houses would be affordable and would remain that way through their lifespan.

Preliminary designs have Habitat building about eight homes on the park, which is currently a baseball field. The Northwest Montana Land Trust would eventually take title of the land from the city, thus assuring a price control structure on the land itself.

In addition, Habitat requires initial homeowners to provide “sweat equity” in the home by helping build it. Habitat also places a cap on the equity in the home at 1.5% annually so homeowners can’t simply flip the home on the open market.