Missoula's urban fringe: the gray amoeba
Wednesday, April 23 2008 @ 07:44 PM MDT
Contributed by: Admin
by Richard Werst
To many people in Chronicle Country, the city of Missoula is a giant amoeba that is enveloping and consuming everything around it to survive and support its infrastructure.
The growth is occurring much faster and is much different than planners expected, Roger Millar told about 20 people in Frenchtown Tuesday night.
It turns out that the amoeba is graying.
Millar is director of the Urban Fringe development Project (UFDA) – a department within the Missoula Office of Planning and Grants. The acronym for the project is pronounced “Uff da,” which is a Norwegian exclamation that expresses sensory overload; a sense of being overwhelmed.
It is a fitting name, he confided.
The housing market is changing, according to the information gathered by the UFDA project.
The new residents are “empty-nesters” moving to Montana to retire. They are not bringing children with them, and the coming demographic shift will transform Montana into one of the older states in the nation.
While half of the country's homes included children in 1960, by 2025 Montana's figure is expected to drop to less that one-third.
The number of Montana residents over 65 is expected to double by 2025, Millar said, using a chart provided by Dr. Larry Swanson, of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana.
In real numbers that increase will take the 65-plus age group from the 2005 census figure of 129,243 to a number that is closer to 247,769.
The new residents may not want large homes and large lots but smaller homes with small, low-maintenance lots.
Many of those in the older age category no longer want to be out working in their yard, cutting lawns and maintaining their property, according to Millar, and they also want to be able to walk to get to most of the services they need.
In a national survey, six out of 10 prospective home buyers chose a higher-density, mixed use community, Millar said. Another survey of AARP members revealed that seven out of 10 individuals wanted to live in an area where they could walk, or take a bus to the places where they wanted to go.
The changing demographic leads to questions as to the best way to address the future growth – whether it to promote cluster development in areas like Frenchtown, to build in downtown, or to continue with current trends that are bringing development to areas like Mullan Road.
Using census data, and population trends, they are planning for about 15,000 new dwelling units over the next 20 years, Millar said, adding that with an average of just over two people per household, the growth in that period would translate to about 30,000 additional people living in the area.
With the number of older residents, Millar wondered, who is going to move to Missoula to take over for the older generation who are going to retire?
“The numbers I've seen are not that encouraging,” he said.
The Missoula Office of Planning and Grants (OPG) describes the Urban Fringe as: “...the area inside the Urban Service Area, with an emphasis on addressing growth in the area between the City limits and the Urban Service Area boundary.”
The urban service area was defined by the City of Missoula in its long-range plan at the time they built their wastewater treatment plant. It is a line on the map that surrounds all of the areas where the city anticipated they would ever need to provide sewer service.
Although Frenchtown is nowhere near the area defined in that initial assessment, it is affected by what happens within the city and within the fringe area.
The goal of the Urban Fringe Development Area project, according to the OPG Web Site, “... is to identify where growth is mostly to occur within the Urban Fringe Area, and develop implementation strategies for addressing growth in accordance with adopted policy within growth areas.”
Frenchtown Rural Fire Chief Scott Waldron asked about the city's fire master plan. Their service area is well outside of the development area maps displayed during the presentation, and that, in order to support their growing infrastructure, they seem to be trying to annex other areas to increase their tax base.
“To the best of my knowledge there is no master plan in regards to annexation,” Millar said in response, adding that the annexations are usually in response to developers who come to the city and ask to be annexed, so that their development will have services.
In regards to a question about future development, and how to control the areas where the inevitable growth occurs, Millar said that it was better to make it easy for people to do what you want them to do--rather than trying to make it difficult for them to do what you don't want them to do.
We need to figure out what the right thing is, he said, and work from there.
The goal of the meeting was to get information about the UFDA project out to the community. The Chronicle created an audio recording of the meeting and will make the recording available in the Frenchtown community library at the high school.
In addition, the maps and the PowerPoint presentation that Millar used can be downloaded by going to the OPG Web Site: http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/ / opgweb / UrbanInitiative / index.htm, and clicking on the Urban Fringe Development Area (UFDA) Project link.
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To many people in Chronicle Country, the city of Missoula is a giant amoeba that is enveloping and consuming everything around it to survive and support its infrastructure.
The growth is occurring much faster and is much different than planners expected, Roger Millar told about 20 people in Frenchtown Tuesday night.
It turns out that the amoeba is graying.
Millar is director of the Urban Fringe development Project (UFDA) – a department within the Missoula Office of Planning and Grants. The acronym for the project is pronounced “Uff da,” which is a Norwegian exclamation that expresses sensory overload; a sense of being overwhelmed.
It is a fitting name, he confided.
The housing market is changing, according to the information gathered by the UFDA project.
The new residents are “empty-nesters” moving to Montana to retire. They are not bringing children with them, and the coming demographic shift will transform Montana into one of the older states in the nation.
While half of the country's homes included children in 1960, by 2025 Montana's figure is expected to drop to less that one-third.
The number of Montana residents over 65 is expected to double by 2025, Millar said, using a chart provided by Dr. Larry Swanson, of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, University of Montana.
In real numbers that increase will take the 65-plus age group from the 2005 census figure of 129,243 to a number that is closer to 247,769.
The new residents may not want large homes and large lots but smaller homes with small, low-maintenance lots.
Many of those in the older age category no longer want to be out working in their yard, cutting lawns and maintaining their property, according to Millar, and they also want to be able to walk to get to most of the services they need.
In a national survey, six out of 10 prospective home buyers chose a higher-density, mixed use community, Millar said. Another survey of AARP members revealed that seven out of 10 individuals wanted to live in an area where they could walk, or take a bus to the places where they wanted to go.
The changing demographic leads to questions as to the best way to address the future growth – whether it to promote cluster development in areas like Frenchtown, to build in downtown, or to continue with current trends that are bringing development to areas like Mullan Road.
Using census data, and population trends, they are planning for about 15,000 new dwelling units over the next 20 years, Millar said, adding that with an average of just over two people per household, the growth in that period would translate to about 30,000 additional people living in the area.
With the number of older residents, Millar wondered, who is going to move to Missoula to take over for the older generation who are going to retire?
“The numbers I've seen are not that encouraging,” he said.
The Missoula Office of Planning and Grants (OPG) describes the Urban Fringe as: “...the area inside the Urban Service Area, with an emphasis on addressing growth in the area between the City limits and the Urban Service Area boundary.”
The urban service area was defined by the City of Missoula in its long-range plan at the time they built their wastewater treatment plant. It is a line on the map that surrounds all of the areas where the city anticipated they would ever need to provide sewer service.
Although Frenchtown is nowhere near the area defined in that initial assessment, it is affected by what happens within the city and within the fringe area.
The goal of the Urban Fringe Development Area project, according to the OPG Web Site, “... is to identify where growth is mostly to occur within the Urban Fringe Area, and develop implementation strategies for addressing growth in accordance with adopted policy within growth areas.”
Frenchtown Rural Fire Chief Scott Waldron asked about the city's fire master plan. Their service area is well outside of the development area maps displayed during the presentation, and that, in order to support their growing infrastructure, they seem to be trying to annex other areas to increase their tax base.
“To the best of my knowledge there is no master plan in regards to annexation,” Millar said in response, adding that the annexations are usually in response to developers who come to the city and ask to be annexed, so that their development will have services.
In regards to a question about future development, and how to control the areas where the inevitable growth occurs, Millar said that it was better to make it easy for people to do what you want them to do--rather than trying to make it difficult for them to do what you don't want them to do.
We need to figure out what the right thing is, he said, and work from there.
The goal of the meeting was to get information about the UFDA project out to the community. The Chronicle created an audio recording of the meeting and will make the recording available in the Frenchtown community library at the high school.
In addition, the maps and the PowerPoint presentation that Millar used can be downloaded by going to the OPG Web Site: http://www.co.missoula.mt.us/ / opgweb / UrbanInitiative / index.htm, and clicking on the Urban Fringe Development Area (UFDA) Project link.
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