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Your guide the 2024 Montana elections
Montana politics, elections and legislative news

Bills aimed at increasing Montana's housing supply advance

New construction in Missoula Slant Street neighborhood. Missoula, MT. June 15, 2021.
Megan Johnson
New construction in Missoula Slant Street neighborhood. Missoula, MT. June 15, 2021.

A group of bills that would change cities’ zoning regulations in order to increase housing supply are progressing through the state Legislature. The three bills draw on solutions proposed by the state’s housing task force created by Governor Greg Gianforte last summer.

The bills have won bipartisan support and are nearing the governor's desk as other policies supported by Democrats to subsidize housing costs have failed to gain similar traction.

One of the advancing policies would allow for duplexes in areas of larger cities currently zoned solely for single family homes.

Ethan Hanley, with the University of Montana Students Association, said this legislation would help students struggling to find a place to live.

“This bill would allow, would allow a better housing type for students to live in, and would allow students to live closer to campus,” Hanley said.

Another bill, from Republican Billings Senator Daniel Zolnikov, aims to increase cities’ housing density by requiring local governments to allow multi-unit housing and mixed-use development.

“For every extra unit, you can add, quantities of scale, costs go down, supply goes up, we start actually talking about addressing this issue,” Zolnikov said.

Some local governments have come out against the policy saying it steps on their authority to run their towns.

The third advancing bill would require cities to create extensive land use plans to account for future population growth and the housing demands that will come with that.

Pending a final vote in the House this week, the bills will advance to the governor’s desk.

Corrected: April 13, 2023 at 10:56 AM MDT
An earlier version of this story incorrectly said one of the bills would allow for duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes in areas of larger cities currently zoned solely for single family homes.

In fact, those changes apply to duplexes, not triplexes or fourplexes. We regret the error.
Ellis Juhlin is MTPR's Environmental Reporter. She covers wildlife, natural resources, climate change and agriculture stories. She worked at Utah Public Radio and Yellowstone Public Radio prior to joining MTPR, and in wildlife conservation before becoming a journalist. She has a Master's Degree in Ecology from Utah State University and is an average birder who wants you to keep your cat indoors. Her life is run by her two dogs, one of which is afraid of birds.

ellis.juhlin@mso.umt.edu
406-272-2568
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