Montana is not special (Missoula, Bozeman: lawyers, house, transfer)

[NYMTman]

I think that while there is a direct relationship between influx of population and development the latter isn't necessarily the natural consequence of the former. The problem here isn't people moving in from out of state, it's the development -- which includes the collective problem of people's obsession with "land rights" and the libertarian bent of letting people do whatever they want with their land. I've personally seen numerous instances where locals are outraged by the mere suggestion that they can't sell to any old developer and that not just any uncontrolled delopment can be built. Frequently, the same people turn around and express outrage at all the new people around -- who may live in one of those developments.

Yes, those pesky land rights. Who needs rights when we can submit them to the government for a greater good?

[cindy175]

[quote=dangerousdan;931846] If you don't like sprawling subdivisions and Wal-Mart, get involved in your local planning board and community organizations seeking to preserve the character and environment of the area. I think it's undeniable that many, if not most, of the developers and commissioners are locals and not the newcomers complained of.
/QUOTE]

Good idea. Asheville, NC just voted to stop all gated communities. Here in NJ some towns have fought off Starbucks and Wal-Mart and have changed zoning laws to regulate house-to-lot sizes (no more McMansions). In NYC the people successfully protested the development of the West Side Highway area . In Ct, the state is working with non-profit groups to buy up farm land and preserve it for all the people.

There are endless examples in many towns and regions where people organized to protest unwanted changes in their communities.

While we talk a lot about democracy and freedoms for other nations, we need, as a people, to take these rights to heart in our own communities and country. Local officials, who are voted in to represent the citizens, not just their favorite lobbies, will listen when we get organized and go to town meetings to voice our concerns and threaten to change our votes at election time.

We have to keep the pressure on our politicians and officials - if we don't then the groups with the big bucks and the power will continue to rule us and...ruin us!

[Nordman]

[There are endless examples in many towns and regions where people organized to protest unwanted changes in their communities.

While we talk a lot about democracy and freedoms for other nations, we need, as a people, to take these rights to heart in our own communities and country. Local officials, who are voted in to represent the citizens, not just their favorite lobbies, will listen when we get organized and go to town meetings to voice our concerns and threaten to change our votes at election time.

We have to keep the pressure on our politicians and officials - if we don't then the groups with the big bucks and the power will continue to rule us and...ruin us!]


I completely agree with the above, but I'd add or stress that local govts do have the power & capability to completely control and regulate growth, sprawl, etc.

Zonning is one or thee most powerful tool & type of law that exists and at the most local or low-level of govt - this is the intent of how our system was set up. But most localities either do not take advantage of this, try to hide or abuse it.

There can be zoning for anything, especially related to uncontrolled growth. I know of a town which zoned it off limits for outdoor clothes lines, not that I agree but this is an example of the power at the hands of local elected officials and those who live in the community. It depends much on how a community defines goals & how they want to shape their environment, and what a community decides it wants, not that it will magically appear, but it is theoretically and legally possible to have a voice and a hand in determining the future of a local community.

If a few 'local officials' are free to allow uncontrolled growth, etc to happen, then it will happen. It doesn't need to exactly be that way, not that there is a sure easy way to stop it, but there are basic laws & practices such as zoning that should be utilized and applied as a community wants them to be.

Although where I grew up, in the most rural state, we had the most extensive zoning practices & land-use planning etc process, and still that was not enough & eventually irresponsible growth as has been described here prevailed.

I think though that tools like zoning & responsible and practical planning, and other related practices if taken advantage of on the local level will make a difference and are still the key & the main tool that needs to be looked at by anyone having concerns about where their community is going - there are ways to be involved and make changes or keep something where you live from going where you dont want it to.

Most states have zoning at a county level. Where I grew up it was at a town level and that is as low a level as possible and I think a much more or the most efficient level to have such control & involvement. Yes we had our quaint town meetings, but they were often anything but. Everyone had a voice, a turn to speak, and the meeting could last for over a day if a majority thought it necessary. If you wanted to tell the local officials what you thought of them, then this was the time n place to let it all out, and, yes it did do some good & make a difference.

Most every issue determined important was brought up & debated, and then an outline or rough plan & direction decided upon by a vote was carried out. This is the way things were meant to happen in a local government & community, but I doubt they do much like this in very many places anymore.

In Europe & the 'EU' there are over 400 million people. I've read reference to 'green belts' etc that dont work... well maybe not in the US but this & much more does work in the EU & they have a lot less land than we do, go figure. I have lived in Europe & I think one main difference is that people there are involved in local & other government or community planning. You dont find irresponsible & destructive growth there, probably because they know what the outcome would be.

Good luck to us all, I plan on keeping my voice & influence active out there to support what I consider to be sustained growth & a sustainable local environment.

[jimj]

while I agree you have to stay involved there are a couple of problems that lead to the end result I will explain further down.

Problem one: Several of the groups that protest growth (at least here) shoot themselves in the foot by doing wacky things and making wacky statements so they get labled (to borrow a phrase) "left wing loons" instead of basing their argument in fact they sometimes make things up.

Problem two which is the biggest one: most people for whatever reason find it eaisier to complain about what is wrong isntead of joining together to affect change (or stop it as the case may be).
Here in the Flathead there has been an out of state developer trying to build a mall for the last 2 years or so. 2 groups went after him to stop it and they both lost mostly IMO because of problem one, also because this person had way more money and attrorney power than the groups.
Then you have Walmart, wanted to build a bigger store in Polson and was protested very loudly. Needless to say they lost.
I was once told by a developer (when he took me aside at a council meeting)who we opposed and by we I mean 600+ people that he has the right to build and after all the lawsuits and courts, we would be poorer by many thousands of dollars and in the end he would still build and make money, maybe less than before court but oh well. He said it would be much better for us if we negociated with his company for what changes or things we wanted or we could keep fighting and get nothing. He asked if we needed anything for the schools like a new field,computers etc. and everyone blew him off. We found that about the only way to stop a developement was by citing environmental concerns and as long as those are remidied there is little else. Now this guy was putting a HUGE apartment complex smack dab in the middle of several middle to upper class homes. We didn't want the noise,traffic,runoff,light pollution and crime that tends to go along with packing that many people into a small space. Needless to say it was built. That was my education into the fine art of developers.

[JoeJoeMan]

Sorry to disagree but the public will lose everytime.....even when they think they win....Why because when it comes to the art of negotiation, the corportation and their lawyers are light years ahead of the public.....
A good example was the baseball field they shoved down the throats of the Missoula town's people.......
The baseball people negotiate from the perspective of...."what is it that you don't like about us putting in the stadium and what can we do about it...." meaning while they've already stack the deck with ficticous demands, things they don't really want that they know they will negotiation away....They will even start their negotiation asking to put a studium in a place they know they don't want, just so they can negotiate to the place they do want latter....in the end they will say...."there we listened to the public and comprimised" mean while they got just what they want.
The real negotiation should have been directed at the stadium people as "We want you to put the stadium out by the airport and now what can we do to address your dislikes"......not the other way around.....so the public was setup to lose right from the start.
The baseball stadium town meetings were a farce, people were getting up in opposition of the stadium, 100 to 1, and some local politicians actually went on the record saying "I don't care what the public wants, I'm voting for the stadium, and I don't care if I get re-elected"......they whole thing was a joke. I watched other stuff go on too that I just couldn't beleive was happening or people were saying. How the mayor at the start of the whole process when it was initialy voted down, took it upon himself to say...."well let's just leave it open for a while to discuss when we have more time"..............I thinking to myself...."what ! didn't they just vote this think out"..........what a low life that guy was, he pulled other crap like that too.
The only way you'll ever defeat those people is if the politicans and officials actually with any say in the matter are completely against it, and if they can't be bought out (lots of luck, don't forget they got into politics for personal gain in the first place). The developers have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves, like dangling construction contracts in front of the right local people, getting money to the right local business for....feasability studys, stuff like that..
Yea the community can win sometimes, but they have a better chance of a metorite hitting the city hall to stop the process....you want proof....look around, what do you see......

[Todd Ryder]

So you say MT is not special but you want to live here (or WY). WTF? I am sitting on the 3rd floor of my George Appleton granite mansion smelling the scent of pine and sage from Mt Helena wafting on the summer breeze (hoping for quick thunderstorm). I bought for $235K in 2002. Last year it appraised for $465K. So you are probably too late. You should have moved in 2000 after the dot.com crash, before the whole printing-press (low rates) sub-prime, free-money, real-estate bubble really took off.

If you move here, try Billings. You will find work. You can rent in Laurel or some other outlying town for less than $1000/mo and you can (hopefully) build a nest egg to help decide where (in MT, WY) that you really want to live. I grew up in Laurel/Billings and I damn sure prefer Helena/Bozeman/Missoula/Big Fork/etc. but you can't afford it any more. Of those I just mentioned, Helena is still cheapest, but why live in the Valley on well and septic (environmental catastrophe in the making).

Conclusion: you might be better of where you are (Amish country). So if you do move here, do it carefully and strategically. Don't borrow major amounts of money (hopefully that's all over now anyway with rates rising more every week). Live like the Amish, either where you are or here -- simple, clean, small -- and you will be happier. The future is small and it is local/communal. City+Suburbs = Death. Think this way and you will be fine wherever you live.

[IdaClaire]

Personally, I'd like a Montana native to tell me the exact year after which people who moved there should have stayed where they came from. 1953? 1984? 1850?

We lived in both Missoula and Bozeman for a few years in the early-mid 1990's and decided to settle in North Carolina. Though we met some wonderful people and enjoyed the wilderness, there were few jobs in our chosen fields and we weren't willing to work for $8 an hour at a Missoula bicycle shop. There were a few openly rude natives, but it's easy to ignore them and just go about your lives. There are enough newcomers in many of the more desirable cities that you can just make friends with them and refuse to let the nastiness of some of the locals bother you. I understand WHY the natives feel the way they do, as my family is from Vermont and we've experienced the same influx of newcomers from urban areas, and many of them tend to try to come in and try to change everything, but what are you going to do?

I'll issue the same old cliche- change is inevitable in geographic locations, it's useless and impossible to fight it, and one either has to suck it up and deal with it or move somewhere else. Walking around angry and red-faced doesn't seem like a viable solution. And unless you are a member of a Montana tribal nation, someone in your not too distant ancestry came to Montana from somewhere else, so it's just silly to make a fuss over it.

[dangerousdan]

Originally Posted by jimj

Problem one: Several of the groups that protest growth (at least here) shoot themselves in the foot by doing wacky things and making wacky statements so they get labled (to borrow a phrase) "left wing loons" instead of basing their argument in fact they sometimes make things up.

So join the groups and set them straight! Or is the problem that people would rather sit by and whine about development because they would rather let everything go to **** than be labeled a "liberal"

I just don't have much sympathy for people who complain and blame but refure to even TRY to participate in our democracy. It's one thing to try and fail but another to never even try based on the assumption that everyone is helpless. This is a bit of a tangent but it bugs me when people do not vote or participate in the process then complain about government. It's sad that men and women die to protect our democracy that so many people take for granted.

[JoeJoeMan]

Idaclair wrote:

Personally, I'd like a Montana native to tell me the exact year after which people who moved there should have stayed where they came from. 1953? 1984? 1850?

OK, I will - after 1990, how's that ? Why because that is when a dramtic change began to take place. I'll spare you the details of the change, I grow weary, and others probably do to of repeating them......since roughly speaking 1990 the quality of life in montana, western montana in particular has really taken a turn for the worse, if life, growth and developement around here was similiar to that of pre 1990, I woudn't give a hoot who moved here.....but when the rowboat starts tipping it's time to say...."would you really mind finding a different boat" And I don't say that with any disrespect, anomosity or vengence towards anyone, rather as just a simple bit of what should be common sense advice.

dangerousdan wrote:

I just don't have much sympathy for people who complain and blame but refure to even TRY to participate in our democracy.

I couldn't agree more, but now you must eat your medicine and stop your own complianing.......
Also please tell me who wrote that rule that says 'if you didn't vote you have no right to complain'............? so who wrote that ? or is that some law that I'm missing.... I'll bet Plato would argue, 'if you particapate in something and don't like the outcome -don't compalin about the results' meaning if you vote, quit complaining !

[dangerousdan]

Originally Posted by JoeJoeMan

Idaclair wrote:



dangerousdan wrote:

I couldn't agree more, but now you must eat your medicine and stop your own complianing.......
Also please tell me who wrote that rule that says 'if you didn't vote you have no right to complain'............? so who wrote that ? or is that some law that I'm missing.... I'll bet Plato would argue, 'if you particapate in something and don't like the outcome -don't compalin about the results' meaning if you vote, quit complaining !

I'm NOT complaining about anything. I love it here And I vote and am active in my community. But I haven't been here since 1990 so apparently I don't count.