Affordable homes out of reach for many

City Council weighs several approaches to tackling problem in Kalispell

The Daily Inter Lake

The numbers stunned the Kalispell City Council.

The median house price in Kalispell is $200,000, and the median price in Flathead County is $245,000. Median means 50 percent of the homes cost more, and 50 percent cost less.

No more than 30 percent of a family's gross income should be spent on housing.

That means a family would need an annual income of $52,520 to afford a $200,000 house in Kalispell.

The 2000 federal census said 79 percent of Flathead County's families earn $50,000 or less annually.

Meanwhile, there is a waiting list of 1,100 families in Flathead, Lake, Lincoln and Sanders counties to receive federal Section 8 vouchers - several times the number of vouchers available. Section 8 vouchers are federal subsidies to families to pay a portion of their rents so they afford places to live.

Roughly 70 percent of those 1,100 - 770 families - live in Flathead County.

"Eleven hundred families - that's shocking to me," Mayor Pam Kennedy said Tuesday at a City Council workshop session on affordable housing.

Lynne Moon, city housing manager, and Doug Rauthe, executive director of Northwest Montana Human Resources, briefed the council about the affordable-housing problem and ways to tackle it.

The council is worried about numerous area homes beyond the grasp of low-to-moderate-income people.

The council wants a follow-up workshop meeting scheduled soon - inviting developers, members of the public and other public and private leaders to attend. That includes an existing informal group of business and housing interests that meets monthly - growing out of a former Flathead County affordable-housing committee that had advised county commissioners on the issue.

Council members and others said the Flathead never will be able to provide affordable housing to everyone. And they agreed a single measure won't go far in seriously tackling the issue.

But, "if we don't go down the path together, we won't make a difference," Rauthe said.

Council members and others suggested that several approaches be explored, as well as making some observations. These included:

. The Community Land Trust program, which is being tried in Missoula and Bozeman.

This program tries to take land costs - a serious addition to the price of owning a house - out of the picture for prospective owners.

Under this concept, a nonprofit organization owns the land and the houses on it. The organization sells a house, but leases the land to the homeowner, enabling a family to afford to buy and improve a house - building up equity in time.

Rauthe said that grant money - a potential source for organizations to buy land - is shrinking, and that local jurisdictions might have to take up the slack in providing funds to these nonprofit groups.

Kennedy suggested that tax-increment-district revenue might be earmarked for this approach.

. Area groups need to keep in mind that obtaining grant money from elsewhere typically depends of providing matching funds from the Flathead Valley.

. Sweat-equity efforts, such as Habitat For Humanity, should be used more.

. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a program to provide money for second-floor apartments in downtown business buildings.

. Banks could work together to create some type of community development corporation.

. Attracting more high-wage jobs to the area would allow more families to afford higher-priced homes.

. Local government regulations on subdivisions add to the costs of building houses. These include impact fees, which Kalispell has been adding to pay for the increases in police, fire, parks, road maintenance, water, sewer and drainage services needed for the new homes.

Meanwhile, cheaper houses are more likely to be built in neighborhoods where they can be concentrated more densely, said Erika Wirtala of Sand Survey.

"Most of the time [a proposed subdivision with a dense concentration of cheaper homes] is met with strict opposition from the government and bureaucracy, neighbors and neighborhood," said developer Hubert Turner. "The main thing, in my opinion, is just let us [developers] do it."

In recent months, Kalispell city staff, Planning Board and City Council - along with potential neighbors - have not looked kindly at densely packed proposed subdivisions. Owners of those subdivisions are seeking annexation because they want to link with the city's services - the same services that Kalispell is charging impact fees to provide.

The city government has been particular about traffic volumes and patterns, available park spaces, and strains on its services when it reviews applications from owners of subdivisions seeking annexation.

The city Planning Board recently told Hubert and Wayne Turner that a proposed 711-house Willow Creek subdivision on 139 acres crammed too many homes into too small a space - and requested that the Turners trim the number of residences.

The Turners contended that they needed that many homes in that area to keep construction costs and sales prices down. The Turners are expected to return soon to the Planning Board with a revised plan.

Willow Creek is just outside of southwestern Kalispell, and the Turners want to seek annexation.