Our Missoula 2045 Land Use Plan

I've got so many thoughts, but I have so little time. I've added a few below.

1) The urban residential low in the area bounded by SW Higgins/39th, Brooks, South, and Higgins should all be urban residential high.

2) The area south and directly adjacent to SW Higgins/39th should be residential low instead of suburban south as far as about Briggs, geography permitting.

3) The area between Wyoming, Reserve, Russell, and 3rd should be urban residential high. Between Wyoming and River Road should be urban residential low except where the flood risk is high.

4) Broadway up to Palmer should be Urban mixed use instead of suburban.

5) Target Range and Orchard Homes are not nearly dense enough. The triangle between Central, Reserve, and Spurgin should be urban residential high. The area between Spurgin, Hiberta, Reserve, and 3rd should also be urban residential high. There should be urban residential low from 3rd to Juneau in the same area. The area bounded by Hiberta, Spurgin, Tower, and 3rd should be urban residential low. And most of the rest of that area should be suburban or urban residential low.

6) I agree with the person commenting about Mullan being unsafe. There definitely needs to be some work done there and probably a reduction in speed limits.

7) The comments advocating for decreasing people and discouraging people from moving here are antithetical to Missoula's community values and from the values and policy goals of this draft plan (and literally every city planning document); are illiberal and against the spirit of Article IV, § 2 of the United States Constitution and the 14th Amendment; and violate rules 3 and 7 of this site's moderation policy. We can't stop people from coming here. Who hurt you?

8) I think we could benefit by consolidating some of the place types and increasing the flexibility of allowed uses. Suburban doesn't seem to need to exist except to decrease the efficacy of this plan. With some tinkering, we could also just have two high and low mixed uses and remove the suburban mixed use, especially if the goal is to increase density, walking, and biking throughout the city. The suburban mixed use along Reserve seems to preclude a viable pedestrian/biking/bus connection between two centers of growth in Missoula. 9) Would still really appreciate an ordinance outlawing the practice of using residential units as short-term vacation rentals. I get a previous document published by the city says it's a negligible effect, but if we're in a housing crisis, I assume every single additional unit helps. Or do I not understand how supply and demand works?

10) Everyone's freaking out about cars, but my read of the plan is that the city has no intention of completely removing parking minimums. I'm personally fine with .5 spaces, but for the sake of argument I'll concede that every household needs a car in Montana. 1 parking space per unit is plenty. How many cars do y'all need? One for each season?

11) Toward the end of the draft plan, it talks about lobbying the state legislature for some things that only the state government can do or that the state government has denied us. You might as well ask for a higher and more progressive income tax and a mansion tax so we can actually fund the services we need. To anyone who worries about snow on roads, sidewalks, and bike lanes, I suggest the city lobby the Republicans in this state to stop fiscally strangling us to pad the pockets of the rich so we can actually maintain our infrastructure.

Removed by moderator.

Thank you for this tentative plan. I am sure you are working with the transportation plan and the park plan that are happening at the same time. Planning trails and bike lanes in all areas that connect to services is crucial. I see the development west of Reserve and there are different types of housing. My concern is that the traffic situation is ridiculous on Mullan Road. Flynn Lane is dangerous as well as Mary Jane as there are not adequate stop signs, slow signs, traffic lights.
Parks with amenities within walking distances from developments are a must.

I see little to no discussion about decreasing people instead of accommodating growth. We need a campaign to discourage people from moving here and helping people who want to leave do so. It will not solve all the problems but it seems unbalanced to just look at the supply side. How can we decrease the demand is a question that is not even asked. Shoving more people up our valleys, most with one egress road that is overtaxed is just crazy and dangerous. If Grant Creek or the Rattlesnake or Miller Creek or the like need to be quickly evacuated there will be deaths. If we want to accommodate more people we need more infrastructure first, more schools, more roads, more parks, more police etc.

We can see your primary focus is how to cram more people into the same space. But there are realities we are going to run up against. One is that there is already not enough room for infrastructure. Adding bike lanes and buses may make the problem worse, but it certainly won't fix anything. The western United States is car centric, and much as the planners of a super-dense Missoula might like to fly in the face of that reality, they can't change it. Dense, congested neighborhoods become dirty, unhappy neighborhoods with more crime and road rage. People are already getting to sit through two cycles of some traffic lights, watching it tick over 3 times will improve no one's mood. You are going to make this worse when people sitting 50 cars back from the light gaze at nearly empty bike lanes that could have been used more effectively for the majority.

Another reality I keep seeing ignored around Densetown is parking. You can't get rid of the cars. Go ahead and try. And people need a place to park them. I was recently driving down the newly paved Dakota St. just off Russell and you got rid of the parking that used to exist there. This is madness. We can hope the cars in Missoula go electric soon, but we cannot hope they disappear. Stop eliminating parking spots and lot requirements!

Please try to remember that weather is not going away. In fact, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, not less. We don't know if Missoula will become more like Seattle, but cold, or more like Utah. When you get rid of all the space people used to put snow, what's your solution going to be? Everyone has to buy a vehicle to haul it away? Oh, wait, there's no parking, anymore. What's the solution? When heavy snows can't be plowed anywhere, what's the plan then? Maybe Missoula city planners should plan snow days for everyone while the city pours money down the drain scooping and hauling snow from every dense little alleyway and street.

Making space that encourages people to move to a place with not enough space is just not practical. In exchange for your density, you are telling every Missoulian to forfeit their way of life and make way for newcomers.

I have a specific concern regarding the land between Kendrick Place and Technology Court within the Development Park. Lots 10, 11, and 12 are only accessible via Kendrick Place, which the plan designates as a residential street type. This creates a potential conflict, as both industrial users and residents would be using the same street, which is not ideal for either group and could negatively affect the marketability of the industrial lots.

First, I want to commend the planning staff for developing an overall thoughtful and well-designed land use plan that reflects a balanced vision for the area. To address the specific challenge with this section, I recommend exploring one of two potential solutions:

Introduce Zoning Flexibility: Adjust the zoning to permit some multifamily residential development within the industrial place type, creating a more compatible land use mix.

Change the Place Type Designation: Reclassify lots 10, 11, and 12 to allow for multifamily or "missing middle" housing. This would create a thoughtful transition zone between the single-family neighborhoods to the east and south, and the industrial operations (e.g., Peterbilt) to the west and north.

These changes could help reduce conflicts, improve marketability, and enhance the long-term functionality of the area for both residents and industrial users.

Thank you.

This draft plan presents an optimistic vision for the future of our City. However, it doesn't adequately describe how safe, connected mobility will be achieved. While the Plan highlights the need for prioritizing walking and biking, there are few practical details about how to protect pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair users while also enabling them to travel between neighborhoods and to access amenities. The proposed Street Types don’t include any plan for cyclist, pedestrian, or wheelchair infrastructure beyond sidewalks, which are missing from many Missoula neighborhoods. The Plan has no provision for how sidewalks that do exist would be maintained in the winter, which is crucial to making them functional for pedestrians and wheelchair users. There is no provision for safe bicycle infrastructure, because sidewalks aren't safe for cyclists and our "Greenways" have too many fast-moving cars. And the Street Types and the accompanying map do not envision how residents will travel farther than one block. There are more than 42,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. each year and the number of pedestrians struck and killed by vehicles is higher now than anytime in the past 40 years (Smart Growth America, “Dangerous by Design 2022”). In Missoula alone, there were roughly two crashes involving cyclists or pedestrians every week between 2013 and 2018 (Montana Department of Transportation's Fatality Analysis Reporting System). We need to be more flexible and creative in thinking about how to provide infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair-users that will connect neighborhoods and connect neighbors.

page 95, column 3: "Current distances
between destinations and existing infrastructure until
the city becomes more urbanized, services are closer
to homes, and density supports more frequent and
reliable transit service."
Problem: This is not a complete sentence, and doesn't actually say anything.

Obviously, a lot of thought and planning has been done to draft this plan to deal with the ever increasing population and housing deficit in the Missoula area. I am a resident of the upper Rattlesnake neighborhood and we had a general meeting of the neighborhood last spring, in which the Office of Emergency Management presented several emergency evacuation scenarios. Depending on the situation, it could take up to 6 hours to evacuate all residents of the Rattlesnake. Since the Butler Creek Fire or the Spring Gulch Fire from this summer could have resulted in evacuation protocols (thank goodness for quick response to both of these fires) for our neighborhood, I would ask that these factors be taken into consideration when looking at density of an area. There are only 2 roads out of the Rattlesnake neighborhood and getting residents out quickly and safely should be a consideration. Thank you for your work on this document.

On page 69 of the Land Use Plan, which discusses Urban Residential Low, the comparable city zoning districts need to include R5.4 and RT5.4 given that 5400 sq ft is the "typical parcel size" found in the area of the city designated as Urban Residential Low and given that much of that area (specifically the Lewis and Clark neighborhood) is currently zoned R5.4.

Working toward greater housing density makes sense ... until you get to the parts about not accounting for parking. Even people who walk or bike to work (or are retired) own cars to go camping and hiking. I do not think that the most robust public transportation system imaginable in Missoula will convince many people to give up their cars. No one is going to take the bus to Costco to shop for a family, for example; nor will they take a bus, if one even existed, (along with tent and stove and kids and dogs...) to Rock Creek to camp for the weekend. People who live in Missoula need parking. And will continue to need parking for many, many years to come. Refusing to acknowledge that will lead to neighborhoods that are unlivable.

Thank you for all of your work on this. Missoula needs a user/sales tax to accommodate the wishes that the full community has. We can no longer put the bill on the backs of property owners alone. Everyone in the community; including home owners and renters need to take financial responsibility for Missoula improvements especially for changing roads, expanding/improving outdoor and recreational spaces. Please bring a sales tax to Missoula so that we can accommodate growth.

Really excited for more housing options and mixed-use density inwards. I would love to see fewer spaces for cars in downtown, since even with the bike lane on Higgins, it can get pretty scary trying to turn left or go forward when a car wants to turn right.

I'm hopeful that we can narrow the streets across town, especially in the U-district since cars go so fast down those blocks, even with the new-ish roundabouts that have been put in place. I really appreciate the recent bump-outs around Bernice's, and hope we can narrow more roads in that fashion, as well as increase the diameter of some roundabouts if road-narrowing (sidewalk-widening) isn't feasable. Additionally, I have to point out that there's a lot of missing curb cuts throughout the city, making it difficult for many members of our community to get around. While I would love to see continuous sidewalks, I would settle for consistent curb cuts.

I'm also hoping that the Mountain Line will run with higher frequency and later into the night, especially on weekends. I love that it's free, but I would gladly pay for a monthly pass if that would get frequency up.

I'm looking forward to the missing middle housing. I never want to see Missoula turn into high-rise buildings, but I would love more housing right around 4-stories or so. I love Missoula so much it hurts, and it's a city I want to stick around in and hope I can financially do that. The housing is one of the most challenging things about that, so I'm really appreciative and optimistic for the future.

Attended an event, and by far from the pins and comments left it was clear those participating wanted more density across the board. I appreciate the desire to build inwards, and the forethought put into creating an already bikeable city. Recognizing the issues brought with even more cars from more urban houses, I am hopeful that commuting possibilities outside of cars continue to be pushed for the benefit of relieving pressure to our car lanes, and creating healthy and sustainable transportation opportunities. Use these modifications to density to also include the completion of sidewalks as well as bike paths throughout the city. Not sure what to do with the enormous amount of cars brought into Missoula from outside the city and their use of our city services, perhaps raising a few more parking structures and parking fees would help them towards paying their fair share, while minimizing the sprawl of their SUV's.

Place types“We need safe, multi-modal connectivity east-west and north-south across the Plan boundary; neither the Street Types nor the Street Types Map provide for protected corridors through all neighborhoods." Background: The Street Types and the accompanying map do not envision how residents will travel farther than one block. If a cyclist needs to commute from a "Community Residential" street to a "Neighborhood Residential", what happens when the bike lane ends? While a "Community Residential" street might have some sidewalks, what happens when they disappear at alleyways or are blocked by snow and ice? We need to be more flexible and creative in thinking about how to provide infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair-users that will connect neighborhoods and connect neighbors.

The urban high density plan for Franklin-to-the-Fort does not work without a parallel plan to expand parks and green space within this community to accommodate the increased density. There is aready a shortage of parks and greenspace in this neighborhood. Without first addressing that problem before encouraging greater density of people, we exacerbate inequities that currently exist in Missoula. In addition, a N-S running neighborhood greenway is essential on Kemp Street to close the gap in safe bicycle infrastructure west of Johnson St that is essential to creating a contiguous safe bicycle commuting network that can plug into the Milwaukee Trail.