Montana trying to be like Utah?

[INMT]

DNRC plan would open state trust lands to residential development

State land managers asked lawmakers to allow housing development on state trust lands. Lawmakers didn't endorse the idea this week, but it could resurface during the upcoming legislative session.

www.mtpr.org

Ugh. I don't remember seeing this being discussed during the '23 Legislative session. Something to keep an eye on.

As talked about in the "Montana's Impossible Housing Situation" thread, housing is a big issue for most folks in MT making a normal wage. But I'm steadfast in my belief that selling public lands for housing is not the solution.

 

[MThuntr]

I remember there was chatter from AG Knudsen complaining about FWP acquiring land for part of a game range 2 years ago. He was mad it could have been used for development of fancy places for people moving from CA, OR, and WA because "they don't want to live in high rise apartments".

A good amount of State Land is quite a distance from towns and there's no way affordable housing would be affordable miles into the mountains away from even the most basic of city services. Really what a few of them want is to grab a section of forested state ground and it'll become 20-30 ranchettes sold for millions...never to be affordable. That same group that would support disposal of forested land would lose their minds if they tried that with a chunk of productive farm ground.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Yeah - im at a loss here.

If its adjacent to existing developed city/town infrastructure, it goes for market price, and the money is reused to buy other state land away from existing development... id like it.

Those strings would never work though.

 

[Stone_Ice_1]

As a lowly peon that must hunt public lands I am against pretty much anything that involves selling off public land, ESPECIALLY if it includes selling it off for housing development.

Vote accordingly in a few weeks! Trouble is most people don't have a clue what they are actually voting for or how their representatives actually VOTE or behave when it comes to topics like this.

 

[rogerthat]

As a lowly peon that must hunt public lands I am against pretty much anything that involves selling off public land, ESPECIALLY if it includes selling it off for housing development.

Vote accordingly in a few weeks! Trouble is most people don't have a clue what they are actually voting for or how their representatives actually VOTE or behave when it comes to topics like this.

Or Montana like a lot of places is caught in a tough spot with national politics and unfortunately public lands don’t rate up there with other hot button issues. Down the toilet we swirl.

 

[Flynarrow]

Any land sold that is not immediately adjacent to urban areas becomes more WUI with fire and infrastructure issues. Would this land only be available for low income housing? What criteria. I'm thinking this is another ploy to create more suburban sprawl for the wealthy. About 70% of Montana is already private.....start there. Look at the proponents for a clue.....follow the money. This stinks.

 

[warmer]

Not to high jack the thread, but politicians and all the people in power want "affordable housing" for their constituents. I wish we could do that, but here in SE SD contractors are so busy building 700K on up custom houses, why would they build 150K cracker boxes? The profit is in the custom homes and I don't see that changing without some kind of subsidy from the government. No one seems to want to define affordable for fear of losing votes. Carry on.

 

[WanderWoman]

More on it. And it appears it’s already happening in/around Great Falls..

All of this seems to be pretty quiet to me.

Proposal would allow state trust lands to be sold for real estate development

Public land managers want to make it easier to develop and sell state trust lands for real estate. Lawmakers are divided on supporting it.

www.mtpr.org

Missouri River Open Lands | Missouri River Open Lands

missouririveropenlands.org

 

[Straight Arrow]

The reality is that there is only a finite amount of state and federal public land, particularly open space. In my opinion, there's not enough to provide for important open air, water quality, viable recreational activties, agricultural leases, and much more. Once sold or developed, that land is GONE! If sold or developed to mitigate perhaps a one-time housing shortage era, then future generations will lose public lands uses for healthy, viable endeavors.

Furthermore, it smells to me like a first step in lobbying for federal public lands to be given to states for sale or development. Frankly, it's a political platform goal which scares the heck out of me. Our future generations deserve better for quality of life open space and outdoor activities.

 

[Big Fin]

There are parcels within Bozeman city limits that have been annexed and are on long-term leases (I think 99 years) that already have commercial development. The process to do that was rather extensive. This seems to be an effort to make selling state lands much easier and far more expansive. Not good for access.

Rather than the approach being taken here, it should be like AZ Land Board. They have sold a lot of land around Phoenix and Tucson, yet they are require to purchase income producing land elsewhere. As a result, Arizona is the only western state that has more state land today than what they received at statehood.

The Arizona model doesn't accomplish the goals of those who want to sell accessible lands to lock up some access that state lands currently provide in some "inconvenient" places.

Utah is selling land next month as part of their ongoing effort to dispose of their state lands. They might claim these are junk land, but if you look at the pages and pages of what has been sold, it's not all parched wasteland.

Here are the current auctions. You can scroll through to see the years of prior auctions - https://trustlands.utah.gov/work-with-us/land-sale-auctions/

In the article, these Montana folks are referencing the Utah process. That should have every Montanan paying attention.