C-Falls works with land trust on affordable housing

The city of Columbia Falls and the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust are hoping to bring more affordable housing to Columbia Falls by the end of the year.

The Columbia Falls City Council approved a memorandum of understanding at its April 6 meeting to provide $120,000 to the land trust through the federal Home Investment Partnerships Program (HOME), which provides grants to states and communities to fund a wide range of activities including building, buying, and/or rehabilitating affordable housing for rent or homeownership or providing direct rental assistance to low-income people. HOME is the largest federal block grant to state and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low-income households.

“We are very excited to be working with the land trust to put together a project to bring more affordable housing to Columbia Falls,” City Manager Susan Nicosia said. “We think with the model that the land trust uses and the experience they have, this $120,000 will greatly help this community.”

According to Nicosia, the money for the project is leftover funding from other affordable housing projects the city has been involved with on Mitchell Way and Teakettle Vista.

“We don’t want to have to give the money back to the state, so working with the land trust made the most sense as we were looking to find a way to best use the money to ensure affordable housing in Columbia Falls,” she said.

According to land trust coordinator Brian Parker, the land trust is hoping to be able to purchase one or two city lots for the project with the intention of building one to four new housing units or remodeling and refurbishing existing ones.

Parker said the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust wanted to get the project going in Columbia Falls while it could still afford to.

“The city has been great in working with us and has been wanting to get an affordable housing project going for a while,” he said. “Columbia Falls is changing very rapidly and the cost of living is going up very quickly. We want to get in there before the market gets out of control and there is nothing available for us to work with.”

With 54 homes in Kalispell, the Columbia Falls venture represents the first expansion outside of Kalispell for the land trust, which has been striving to provide affordable home ownership opportunities for low to moderate income families in the area since 2010. According to Parker, the homes built by the group in Kalispell range from $80,000 to $190,000, making them affordable to those in the area making 120 percent or less than the local median income, depending on family size.

Under the community land trust model, the homebuyer owns the home while the land trust retains ownership of the land on which the house is located. The homeowner and the community land trust enter into a 75-year lease agreement of $25 per month for the land, allowing the homeowner opportunities that would not be available to renters.

According to a press release, the land trust’s program in Columbia Falls could not come at a better time for those in the area seeking affordable housing. According to the release, the Zillow Home Value Index shows a 33 percent increase in the median home price in Columbia Falls over the past five years, while the U.S. Census Bureau reports only a 3 percent increase in the median household income in the Flathead Valley over the same time period.

The average building cost on single-family housing projects in the last fiscal year was around $191,000, according to Nicosia. In the current fiscal year, through February, that number has risen to an average of $272,000 per permit, with two permits issued in the last month for single-family building projects of more than $500,000. Nicosia said they were the largest such permits the city has ever issued.

To qualify for the Northwest Montana Community Land Trust program, homeowners must make 120 percent or below of the median family income for Flathead County of $55,700 per year for a family of four or $50,150 for a family of three, according to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Applications for prospective homeowners can be found on the program’s webpage at www.nwmtclt.org.

Governed by a volunteer board of directors that includes public officials, community leaders and community land trust homeowners, the land trust is currently searching for property to purchase in Columbia Falls and is hoping to have the new homes available to the public by the end of 2020.

Reporter Jeremy Weber may be reached at jweber@dailyinterlake.com.