Scott Street Parcel Project

Project Summary

This project on Scott Street helps the City of Missoula to meet our housing goals and includes the largest permanently affordable housing ownership project ever in Montana. The City of Missoula is working with Goodworks Ventures (under the business name of Ravara Development), on a project that creates permanently affordable homes, contributes to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and considers the infrastructure needs of the neighborhood. Ravara will act as the master developer for the project and shares the same goals as the City in creating livable neighborhoods with services people want while respecting neighborhood character. The project includes housing and neighborhood commercial development from Ravara, a community land trust, and a joint conceptual design process.

Ravara Parcel

The six-acre parcel will be sold to Ravara and developed at a market rate. The exact sale price will depend on how much land can be developed and how much is needed for infrastructure like streets and sidewalks. The proceeds are estimated to be around $1.6 million, which will go to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. The parcel will include:

• Housing – innovative housing types to maximize density while retaining neighborhood character
• Neighborhood commercial – opportunities for food and beverage business such as a tap room and restaurants
• Purpose-built space for day care provider tenant
• Employment center opportunities – potential commercial building with City Public Works as tenant

Community Land Trust Parcel

A three-acre parcel will be used for permanently affordable home ownership units.

• Target buyers with an income at 120% or below the Area Median Income
• Community land trust model will provide access to and create a limited equity model that will keep units permanently affordable
• Anticipate approximately 70 home ownership units, creating the largest permanently affordable home ownership development in Montana history

Conceptual Design and Public Process

Together with a consultant, Ravara and the City will conduct a public process to create a conceptual design for the property. This process will also identify the infrastructure needed to service this development and other recent development in the area.

• Letter of intent establishes a minimum of 24 units per acre. Existing zoning provides for a maximum of 43 units per acre
• Intention to provide innovative housing types to maximize density while maintaining neighborhood character
• Conceptual design for adjacent City property to ensure transitions between uses and opportunities for shared spaces such as parking

Housing and Growth Policy Goals

The Our Missoula growth policy and Missoula’s housing policy, A Place to Call Home, outline goals and strategies to help us meet our housing needs. This collaboration with Ravara brings us closer to some of those goals.

• An estimated 70 permanently affordable Community Land Trust homes will be constructed. This, is in addition to the seven units constructed as part of The Reed Condos, meets 77% of our five year goal.
• An estimated $1.7 million dollars into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, for a total of $2,450,000 committed in fiscal year 2021.
• The construction of innovative and sustainable housing types to meet a range of needs.
• The creation of a planning process that serves as a prototype, informing future city-driven development.
• A child care facility to address a pressing need.
• The addition of commercial use to serve as community gather spaces, which may include food and beverage establishments.

Background

The City purchased the Scott Street LLP parcel at the former White Pine Sash Company site on August 14, 2020. Located just to the north of the City's White Pine Park, this parcel has been a vacant lot for more than two decades. For years there has been a strong neighborhood and community desire to develop this parcel of land into housing that Missoulians can afford. However, because it is a State Superfund site that is still navigating the process to clean up hazardous materials located on an adjacent parcel, it is a uniquely challenging site that requires careful partnership between the City and the community. By purchasing the parcel and working to remove barriers to redevelopment, the City will serve as the necessary catalyst to transform the parcel. The City goal is to see housing built on the east half of the property, while realizing a series of efficiencies and realignments of City programs on the west half of the property. This is exactly the kind of transformative project that the neighborhood and the City can complete in partnership, using tax increment funds (TIF) and other tools from our Housing Policy toolbox. Purchase of the Scott Street Parcel continues a twenty-year effort by the Northside neighborhood and the broader community to develop this vacant lot into housing that Missoulians can afford.