Like animals sensing an oncoming storm,
area landowners are getting ready.
Not for inclement weather, but for Californians,
Washingtonians and Coloradoans expected to blow into the Helena
Valley.
To prepare for their landing, elected officials
approved subdivisions covering 3.4 square miles in Lewis and Clark
County. In 2005, plans were drawn up for 1,581 houses. Expect more
in the coming year.
To be sure, just because land is
subdivided doesn’t means homes will spring up overnight.
It
may take years: location, price, surrounding land uses and the free
market will all have a say. But add hundreds of home sites approved
in 2004, 2003, 2002, and so on, and we’ve got quite a
bundle.
But other than perhaps a case of speculative fever,
who’s telling whom there’s a boom? (Though perhaps not in rhyme.)
You might ask developers, since they’re the one
putting up the cash for roads, sewer systems and other niceties
required by law.
Chuck Reppas and Jeff Rhoads usually plan
projects with thousands of homes.
The Washington state- and
Nevada-based developers are shepherding a Helena project through
regulatory hoops.
Artisan Park will be smaller than what they
usually handle, proposing less than 800 homes and a few businesses
on the old Schatz Ranch, which lies in the fields near Fort
Harrison.
The project is a planned development with an
emphasis on front porches, alleyways and trails. Builders will have
to follow specific design standards.
Reppas’ and Rhoads’
target market is precise: middle-agers from urban areas with home
value appreciation. Artisan Park isn’t a community for the
“uberrich,” like Big Sky, they say. But Helena has “intrinsic
character” and can attract those with means.
Not only do
Reppas and Rhoads think they’ll be able to find builders willing to
construct 100 homes annually (and 100 people to buy them) for the
next seven years or so, but their market research indicates the
Helena area could support a similarly sized project. Or two. That
would create synergy, they say, and choice.
“We’re seeing
folks who want to live here,” Rhoads says. “It’s a small market but
a viable one.”
“We think there’s room for us,” Reppas
says.
Sound a little bullish for a town that once banned
shopping malls?
A recently updated area transportation plan
predicted a more pedestrian estimate of 400 to 1,500 new residents
per year. That information was gleaned from service providers, like
utility and cable TV firms and the U.S. Postal Service.
But
University of Montana economist Larry Swanson says we’re
overshooting in the housing market now, because it took so long to
believe the growth and to respond to it.
Swanson makes other
interesting points.
He predicts the cry for affordable
housing should lessen after Baby Boomers vacate their big three-,
four- or five-bedroom homes and downsize. But until they do so,
there will continue to be a “bottleneck,” impeding first-time home
buyers.
And there could be another “baby boom” of sorts
coming, although a “baby rebound” might be a better
term.
Birth counts have stabilized in Montana’s larger
cities, including Helena, Swanson says.
So while the number
of school kids will continue to drop (and confound school-funding
solvers) for now, that count will rise over the next 10
years.
Sounds like 2006 is a year for babies and
middleagers.
“On the Record” appears on Mondays. It’s online
companion, “The Town Blog,” appears sporadically and perhaps
coherently at www.helenair.com/blog/record/index.php.
Reporter
Jason Mohr can be reached at 447-4075 or helenair.com">jason.mohr@helenair.com.
