Thursday, November 21, 2024
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Consider the costs of growth

by Travis Taylor
| November 4, 2024 12:00 AM

Ponder for a moment the Montana way of life. What does that mean to you? What comes to mind? Wide open spaces? A simpler, more rural, and more fulfilling way of life? A place where people still value hard work, self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual freedom? Perhaps you thought of your favorite outdoor activity; hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, skiing, all on some of the most spectacularly gorgeous public land in the world. I personally reminisce about branding day at the family ranch and watching my kids build a fort in the field. 

Whatever your vision, I’ll wager that not a single one of you imagined anything like an uber dense suburban neighborhood crammed full of cheap boxy houses built on tiny postage stamp lots. Yet that is what we see popping up all over our beloved valley. 

One particularly egregious example of which is the proposed Tronstad Meadows Whitetail Crossing subdivision. Out-of-state developers proposing to jam 355 new homes into 110 acres on a rural country road in spite of massive opposition from the affected locals. The proposal is deeply flawed and riddled with issues and yet the city of Kalispell is poised to approve it anyway. I’m not going to cover all that here though. A simple Google search will direct you to other very well written articles on the topic. 

My question to the reader is, “Why are we allowing this to happen? Whose vision of the future of our valley is California style suburbs splattered across the landscape and choking out our more rural way of life? Whether you are from here originally, or moved here from somewhere else, I assume you’re here because you like it the way it is. Why do you tolerate it being picked apart by greedy corporate development?  

We are constantly bombarded by tired trope that there is a monumental housing crisis that we must address now. But the city of Kalispell has already approved thousands of new homes in the last few years. How much more do we need? At what cost to the people who already actually live here?  How much is enough? What’s the number of homes that will end this supposed crisis? At what point do the homes become affordable again? Who determines that?  

The reality is that this place is unique and awesome, and like it or not we have been discovered. Therefore, I submit to you that there will never be enough homes to satisfy all the demand, precisely because this place is so desirable. So why are we falling over ourselves to create this exponential growth that just destroys the character and way of life we find desirable in the first place? No amount of building will substantially alter the long-term affordability, unless and until we build so much that our way of life becomes unrecognizable from what it is now and thus finally diminishes the very desirability of living here to begin with.  

All this expansion is really just creating a never-ending feedback loop. We build more houses, so we have more people. Then we build a bigger Costco and more restaurants and supermarkets and gas stations to serve all the new people. But then we need more housing to accommodate all those new workers. So, then we build an even bigger Costco and more big box stores to accommodate all those people, and on and on we go. 

Some growth is inevitable and probably even healthy for our community. But it must be measured planned and purposeful. Tronstad Meadows Whitetail Crossing is not that. It creates an island of dense suburbia that is not reasonably connected to the rest of the city and ruins the rural character of surrounding area. It will greatly exacerbate traffic issues on the north end of the city and create serious safety hazards for the locals. It’s simply irresponsible and detrimental to our way of life. 

The City Council rightfully rejected this proposal once already. But the developer just resubmitted it with minor insignificant changes and now the city inexplicably appears to be on the verge of approving it, in spite of overwhelming opposition from the public. Why? Why do they feel beholden to the whims of corporate developers over hundreds of local residents? What’s the point of having elected officials and public comments if they just ignore the will of the people anyway? Why are they so completely sold on the idea that we desperately need this infinite number of houses now, no matter the cost to future of our quality of life? Because the housing crisis narrative is the only one they have heard for years now. 

It’s time we change that. It’s time we take a stand for our way of life. We must show them an alternative perspective for our future before they vote on this proposal.  If you’re passionate about protecting this place, I urge you join your neighbors in opposition to this reckless development. Email the City Council with your concerns about this proposal at publiccomment@kalispell.com. Better yet, join us at City Hall at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 4, and voice your concerns in person. The Council needs to know that the community is not so consumed by a supposed lack of housing that we are willing to sacrifice our quality of life on the altar of progress. If enough people speak out, they will not be able to dismiss us. 

We who are here now are charged with charting the future of this great place. If we don’t protect this way of life, we will lose it forever. Once the land and open spaces are gone, we will never get it back. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to just accept that unchecked growth is inevitable. There is nothing selfish or short sighted about prioritizing the needs of the people currently living here over hypothetical future residents. In fact, that is the fairest and most reasonable approach. We must insist on more controlled, intentional, and deliberate growth that preserves the character of our special and unique community. 

Don’t wait until 10 years from now, after we’ve filled U.S. 93 with stop lights and you’re stuck in stop and go traffic, gazing out at a sea of track homes, lamenting about how wonderful it used to be. 

Travis Taylor lives in Kalispell.