LOCAL

Housing trust launches deed restriction program

BY BELLA BUTLER

BIG SKY – While national headlines point to low inventory as one of the major drivers of a widespread housing crisis, community leaders say that isn’t entirely the case for Big Sky. The units are there, it’s just a matter of who they’re available to. A new housing trust program aims to change that.

As homeowners in the area continue to transform local workforce housing into lucrative short-term rentals, the Big Sky Community Housing Trust will launch the Good Deeds program which will pay homeowners for permanent deed restrictions to curb the loss of inventory.

“We have sections or parts of the community that are more appropriate for the local workforce than they really are for vacation rentals,” said Laura Seyfang, executive director of the housing trust. “And we have many parts of the community that are way better suited to be vacation rentals and not places for workers. So, we really just need to kind of rebalance things.”

The Good Deeds program is modeled after the city of Vail’s InDeed program, which launched in 2017. Since then, Vail’s model has spent $11 million to purchase 162 deed restrictions and house 362 local workers.

The value of each deed restriction will depend on the property’s compatibility for local workforce housing, Seyfang said, pointing to factors like location and number of workers it can house. Since the housing markets in Vail and Big Sky are similar, she says deeds will likely cost around what they have in Vail—10-15 percent of the appraised home value.

Like real estate values, comparables will be a big part of how the deed restriction’s value is assessed, Seyfang said, but until the housing trust is able to further establish the program, it will look to Vail’s model to help determine starting value.

Between 2014 and 2017, short-term rental units in Big Sky jumped from 14 to 855, according to AirDNA data obtained by the housing trust. The housing trust launched a program last August to chip away at this challenge by offering cash incentives to landlords for renting to local workers long term. Since August, Rent Local has awarded funds to 48 properties, which are currently housing 99 local workers, according to Seyfang. Good Deeds will complement the Rent Local program by giving participants an opportunity to test the waters with Rent Local then transition to a permanent deed restriction.

“Ultimately if a person is committed to this concept of creating workforce housing, we can just go for the long haul and get the permanent deed restriction,” she said.

The housing trust hopes the Good Deed program will also address locals’ inability to purchase homes in Big Sky. According to housing trust data, 95 percent of recent home sales have been to nonresident buyers. Seyfang says one of the challenges keeping locals from homeownership opportunities is the cost of a down payment on increasingly expensive homes.

In Big Sky, the median cost of a single-family home in 2021 was over $2.5 million, according to a PureWest Christie’s International Real Estate market report, and the median cost of a condo was $822,000.

“What we’re ideally looking to do is not only stop the exodus of units into the vacation market in our target areas, but we also have been struggling for a while to figure out how can we get down payment assistance money to local buyers in a market rate housing climate.” Seyfang said. “…One of the things we love about this new program is if it’s the buyer that agrees to the deed restriction, they will get the cash that can then be used as their down payment assistance, which is the number one thing that prevents local people from buying.”

A committee of housing trust board members and additional community members will evaluate each application for the Good Deeds program. Seyfang said housing trust general funds will kick off the program, which already has one applicant, but the organization will seek additional funding from sources including resort tax, individual donations and philanthropic gifts.

“It’s not the solution, it’s one of the solutions,” Seyfang said. “But we think it’s a really necessary part for protecting the exodus of units.”

Between 2014 and 2017, short-term rental units in Big Sky jumped from 14 to 855, according to AirDNA data obtained by the housing trust. EBS will continue to report on the developing Good Deed program as well as other housing challenges and solutions in the Big Sky community. To share your story, contact Managing Editor Bella Butler at bella@theoutlawpartners.com.

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The bridge that unites us Notícías Montaña brings trusted news to Spanish speakers in Big Sky, establishes equitable access to community

BY BELLA BUTLER

BIG SKY – Since learning her first word of English, Samantha Suazo has been serving the Spanish speakers in Big Sky by connecting them with information. Seven years after learning those first words, she’s built a trusted news source she hopes can be the foundation for more connection, not only to information, but to community.

Proportionately, Big Sky’s Hispanic population exceeds that of both Madison and Gallatin counties as well as the state, yet Suazo learned through individuals’ stories that this population was underserved in Big Sky when it came to communication. Suazo launched Notícías Montaña, or Mountain News, in 2020 to provide the Latino community in Big Sky and the greater Gallatin County with news, connect them with resources and tell their stories.

Suazo, now 19 and a senior at Lone Peak High School, moved with her parents from Honduras to the U.S. in 2014, first to New York and eventually to Big Sky. As a 12-year-old, it was the first time she was surrounded by people who didn’t speak her native tongue.

“Once I arrived here, it became my goal to learn to speak English because my parents didn’t know how to speak English,” she said. “Somehow we had to get around town and I was the only one in school. So, it was kind of my responsibility to become that connection for my family to the outside world.”

As she learned English, Suazo quickly became a resource for other Spanish speakers in Big Sky, translating in court rooms, at the school and the hospital, among other places, not out of obligation but out of service.

“Everywhere I went I would also serve a bigger community … get around and really try to get through the needs that they have,” she said. “Once I started speaking the first word of English and started using it … it became kind of like a growing community around me that needed more help.”

In 2020, Suazo took an internship at the Lone Peak Lookout through the Big Sky Youth Corps. Over the course of a summer, she was charged with identifying an underrepresented community within Big Sky to report on. For two months, Suazo told stories for and about Big Sky’s Hispanic community, reporting on everything from immigration experiences to profiles to translation resources.

In connecting with these sources during the reporting process, she began asking people where they got their information. Their response: they didn’t know.

“From that, I realized, wow, there’s a lack of information and that’s a real problem,” she said.

In November 2020, Suazo published a story in the Lookout announcing the creation of Notícías Montaña. “I have again and again learned about three crucial factors which impact the Latino experience: the power of connection, the lack of information, and the challenge of communication,” Suazo wrote in the announcement. “My conclusion from my reporting: A local information system for Spanish speakers could be the most impactful way to help Latinos succeed.”

Today, Suazo estimates that Notícías Montaña reaches 2,000 readers, delivering news written in Spanish on community resources, events and individuals. By providing Spanish readers access to the same news English readers have, Suazo believes that Notícías Montaña is uniting all parts of Big Sky through common news that impacts everyone.

“I think that specifically here in Big Sky,” she said, “this is one of the things as a community we’re trying to establish [is] that everybody is part of the community, we’re all welcome here, and Notícías Montaña has also served as the bridge to unite both of us together.”

Renata Garrett, who is originally from Mexico City but has lived in Big Sky now for five years, is one of Notícías Montaña’s loyal readers.

“[For] a lot of the communities, it’s the way they know what’s happening here,” Garrett said. “All the programs, the great advice, the great news. So yeah, it’s important for the Spanishspeaking community.”

Garrett currently works at the Big Sky School District as a liaison between the school and parents who don’t speak English. Recently, Garrett vpartnered with Suazo to translate the school’s newsletter to Spanish and publish it in Notícías Montaña.

This addition has looped Spanish-speaking families, Garrett said, into important dates and events at the school they may otherwise have been unaware of.

In addition to creating Notícías Montaña, Suazo also started a Spanish club at the high school as well as an initiative called GLAM, or Great Leaders Achieving More, which collects clothing donations on an annual basis to send back to Honduras.

This spring, Suazo will graduate from LPHS vand plans to continue her studies in college but is undecided where. She and the Notícías Montaña’s editor, local Barbara Rowley, are currently working on what the future of Notícías Montaña will look like, but Suazo hopes she’s built a solid foundation with the work she’s started. More so, she hopes she’s inspired the Spanish-speaking community in Big Sky.

“People have seen that … anything is possible if you really put your mind to it,” she said,” [and that] has served as an example for other Latinos, other Spanish speakers who have arrived here in the community, to do the same.”

I think that specifically here in Big Sky, this is one of the things as a community we’re trying to establish [is] that everybody is part of the community, we’re all welcome here, and Notícías Montaña has also served as the bridge to unite both of us together.

–Samantha Suazo, founder of Notícías Montaña ”

Lone Mountain Land Company to provide space for nonprofits to occupy former American Bank ground floor

YELLOWSTONE CLUB COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

BIG SKY – The Yellowstone Club Community Foundation recently finalized a lease agreement that will build capacity within our local not-for-profit sector by providing much needed office space for several Big Sky nonprofit organizations in the community. Lone Mountain Land Company leased the 3,000-square-foot ground floor of its former American Bank building at 1700 Lone Mountain Trail to YCCF, which, in turn, will outfit the space with furniture and equipment to serve as a co-working Social Impact Hub for local nonprofits. LMLC is funding the buildout of the space and subsidizing 100 percent of the rent for all of the nonprofits.

The office space is part of the new RiverView development project that also includes workforce housing. Approximately half of the ground floor will be home to a new program of YCCF; The Big Sky thrift store and the other half will be used as dedicated and shared office space for a handful of our local nonprofit partners, including but not limited to: Gallatin River Task Force; Montana Land Reliance; Sustainability Network Organization; Wellness in Action (formerly Women in Action); Eagle Mount; Gallatin Invasive Species Association; Professional Ski Instructors of America; Morningstar Learning Center; Moonlight Community Foundation; and Spanish Peaks Community Foundation.

“Nonprofit organizations have a difficult time finding affordable office space to operate out of in Big Sky, with so little commercial space available,” Ciara Wolfe, vice president of Philanthropy at YCCF said. “We’re thrilled that Lone Mountain Land Company is making this space available, giving the thrift store and others a place to call home as they work to fulfill their mission and enhance opportunities in the community. This shared working space not only frees up funding for these groups to focus on direct program services, but also creates an environment of collaboration and innovation by bringing the groups together under one roof, therefore we are referring to it as our Social Impact Hub.”

“We’re thankful YCCF has taken the lead on this initiative and we are happy to support these local nonprofits,” Matt Kidd, managing director of LMLC said. “Community engagement is an integral part of our company’s values – we are constantly looking for other opportunities to help make Big Sky a vibrant and sustainable place to live and work.”

LMLC closed on the former American Bank property in late 2020 and is collaborating with the Big Sky Community Housing Trust to develop a new workforce housing complex on the property as part of a comprehensive, multiyear community effort to address Big Sky’s housing shortage.

The new RiverView development project will offer affordable rental units exclusively for local workers. The development will include 100 rental units, with one-, two- and threebedroom apartments, as well as shared living suites.

Since closing on the property, LMLC has allowed the Big Sky Community Housing Trust to use the ground floor of the former American Bank building for its office and the Big Sky Resort Area District to use the building’s drive-thru as a community COVID test distribution and collection site, both rent-free.

Buildout of the new office space is expected to begin soon, with nonprofit organizations moving in this summer.

About Yellowstone Club Community Foundation

Yellowstone Club Community Foundation founded in 2010 connects our members and community through programs that promote philanthropy, volunteerism, and capacity building for local organizations that are addressing the area’s greatest needs. For more information, visit yellowstoneclubfoundation.org

About Lone Mountain Land Company

Lone Mountain Land Company was formed in 2014 by CrossHarbor Capital Partners to manage the planning, entitlement, building, marketing, operations and the sale of premier real estate in and around Big Sky, Montana. Today, LMLC is focused on the world-class hospitality, residential, and ski and golf clubs of Spanish Peaks Mountain Club, Moonlight Basin, and additional projects worldwide. For more information, visit lonemountainland.com.

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