1,500 Homes Could Be Built In Bitterroot (Darby, Ravalli: condo, how much, houses)

[GiftShoppeGuy]

Ravalli County Settles Development Dispute

>>> ...While the subdivision applications were held up at the planning office, Ravalli County voters passed an emergency zoning ordinance that limited new construction to one home per two acres for a period of one year. The zoning ordinance was applied retroactively and essentially blocked the existing subdivision requests. The developers maintained if the county had been holding to deadlines, the projects would have already been far enough along in the process not to be caught by the emergency zoning... <<<


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[GregW]

Sometimes local control really works. A decade ago our town figures out that a house had to be worth over 250 K to pay for town services like fire, police and schools. We changed to 1 acre zoning and almost kept the growth from overwhelming the town government.

Without any State tax base the school costs are still way to high. Our small condo is taxed about $2500 per year. When I retire we will not be able to afford that and will have to move.

[jimj]

Originally Posted by GiftShoppeGuy

Ravalli County Settles Development Dispute

>>> ...While the subdivision applications were held up at the planning office, Ravalli County voters passed an emergency zoning ordinance that limited new construction to one home per two acres for a period of one year. The zoning ordinance was applied retroactively and essentially blocked the existing subdivision requests. The developers maintained if the county had been holding to deadlines, the projects would have already been far enough along in the process not to be caught by the emergency zoning... <<<


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Well that's an interesting way to slow things down, they talked about doing that here in the flathead (not a bad idea) to let the county catch up and really look at what is being built and where. It got killed by threat of lawsuit. The county is being overrun with building requests and can't keep up so I think that things are probably being built where they shouldn't or no plan for impacts to infrastructure beyond a brief glance which is not good in the long run. Maybe you guys will be able to slow it down a little....

[lewisia rediviva]

1500 homes will be built in the Bitterroot with or without any goofy interim or permanent zoning. I find it ironic that we are trying to save our water quality by mandating individual septics and overrunning anything that could possibly be on a centralized system and remove a multitude of the affluent. Us Rooters have never been coined as bright, I guess that is why we will continue to drink our neighbors poo poo and develop every inch of land while considerring open space to be a very large yard size not a large undeveloped space around a developed area. Imagine how much less sprawl the Bitterroot would have today if we did the opposite and forced everyone to have 2 acres or less. I will never get over how ridiculous people from this area are.

[victoriana]

But Lewisa, its all about money, don't ya know...

[lewisia rediviva]

Kind of Sort of, it's more an issue of people with money moving to Montana buying a piece of " the dream" and not wanting anyone else to get a piece of their own. ( The more homes you can put on a piece of land the more profitable and the lower the cost of housing ) Profit margin is lower on larger tracts, but the home itself cost more. Not very many natives think it a good idea to continue this sprawling pattern of two to five acre tracts, it is the out of staters. Our county has a population of 45,000 yet has about 8 times the square mileage of Los Angelos. It is an incredible waste of land and really hard on the environment to develop this way. No 5 and 10 acre parcels are not farms nor are we a rural county.

[jimj]

What we have here in the flathead is developers trying to create density which consists of something like 8-10 units per acre which is what the city wants and then you have the people that scream that it's too dense,too much like the big city so they argue that it should be no smaller than one unit per acre or two which then causes others to scream about sprawl. So my question is which is more desireable? Do you want houses packed together or far apart? Just to nip the argument that will show up in the bud, none at all is not an option. I had a one acre parcel in a subdivision that had a house on one end of it so I looked into subdividing it due to annexation and taxes. The city wanted me to cut it into 4-5 lots and the neighbors wanted it either cut in half or not at all. Who was right?

[lewisia rediviva]

I would personally prefer density over sprawl. When I was a kid you could drive between the Flathead and Darby and see distinct towns, with huge seperations of land in between. Now you can't drive between the two without seeing a house. Of course, those whom live in between love the fact that they can't see another house from theirs, but it has ruined our state as far as I am concerned. I think that putting homes on such large pieces of land has ruined the corridor visually and for wildlife.

[jimj]

Well, we currently live in a subdivision of 20-2 acre lots. doesn't seem to bother the wildlife much in fact they dine on the flowers and plants daily We have deer,elk,bald eagles,the occasional moose and all the other assorted critters that live and commute through here regularly.
As for ruining the "visuals" you can't even tell we are here as we are totally surrounded by trees and cannot be seen from any roadway until you are in the subdivision. When driving by on the main road (I hesitate to call it a highway) it looks like a forested area and that is all.
The point is you can build larger lots if it is done well, you don't have to live on top of one another....

[philtaylor]

Deer grazing on hybridized non-native flora and 2 acres of chemically treated kentucky bluegrass always a bonus.