MONTANA ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION CENTER
Land Use Planning Under Attack by Derf Johnson
O
ne of the biggest pressures on Montana’s land and water in the past few decades has been development. The demand for additional housing and business space, particularly in western Montana, is only increasing as the population grows, in part because out-of-staters discover Montana’s high quality of life, open spaces, and the reprieve it provides from populous metro areas that were particularly hard-hit by COVID-19. The legislature is using this as justification for eliminating or reducing land use planning protections for our land, water, and communities. Notably, the laws under threat are not prohibitions on development and growth, but rather ways for communities to plan for and mitigate development in order to preserve the amenities of their area. I’d like to think that Ed Abbey was thinking about Montana’s wild places, working farmlands, and river valleys when he wrote, “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” If we don’t think about, plan for, and condition development, we will end up with spoiled water, trammeled wild places, displaced wildlife, and broken communities.
A number of bad bills this session have already died, thanks to organizations and individuals from all over Montana testifying and contacting legislators. Unfortunately, a few of the bills have “squeaked through” and will be taken up in the second half of the session. One of the worst bills is HB 527 (Rep. Fiona Nave, R-Columbus). It would prevent a group of residents in Stillwater County from creating a citizen-initiated zoning district (CIZ) to mitigate – not prohibit – the impacts of oil and gas development on the Beartooth Front. There are over 100 CIZs across the state that have already been adopted in unzoned areas in order to protect property values, local infrastructure, and water, as well as to maintain the residential and agricultural character of an area. Another zoning bill, SB 294 (Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber), purports to bring Part 2 county zoning (zoning initiated by the county itself) into compliance with Williams v Missoula County, a Montana Supreme Court decision that declared unconstitutional the delegation of “veto power” to large tract landowners. This bill does away entirely with “protest” rights and instead
Ravalli Country has 41 CIZs. Image from Ravalli County website.
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