This story is excerpted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.
One of the housing affordability ideas currently being batted around by the Legislature is a proposal, House Bill 337, that would force Montana cities to allow home lots as small as 2,500 square feet anywhere they provide municipal water and sewer access.
The current minimum lot sizes in various local zoning codes, such as Bozeman’s 4,000 square feet or Kalispell’s residential zoning districts’ 20,000 square feet, are significantly larger than the proposed size. Advocates of the reduction bill argue that these size requirements hinder development, promote urban sprawl, and compel builders to construct bigger and costlier houses.
Opponents, including the Montana League of Cities and Towns, have argued that the Legislature should leave cities alone. In a Facebook post, the league dismissed the bill’s ideas as “California solutions” and warned it would “transform our communities into highly dense, urban settings with insufficient parking and inadequate services.”
So, what does a 2,500-square-foot lot actually resemble? To provide a visual representation, we obtained parcel data from the Montana State Library’s Cadastral system and selected a section in central Helena, near the Capitol building. In this neighborhood, there is a diverse range of lot sizes, including some that are even smaller than the 2,500-square-foot limit.
Several lots on these blocks are spacious, measuring at or exceeding a comfortable 5,000 square feet. However, in certain areas, homes are situated on corner lots or narrow strips that range from 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. On 10th Avenue, there are a few modest houses arranged in rows, occupying lots that are smaller than 2,500 square feet.
This part of Helena was originally platted in the 1880s, according to Lewis and Clark County records — decades before the adoption of modern zoning codes. As such, many of these homes don’t comply with current zoning rules and wouldn’t be legal to build today without special permission from the city. The city of Helena struck its minimum lot size requirements in 2019, but still requires that buildings be set back certain distances from property lines and leave set percentages of lots unoccupied by structures.
Market-minded housing affordability advocates, like the types who lined up to testify in support of HB 337 this week, say relaxing those sorts of rules would promote the construction of modest starter homes and duplexes in both existing neighborhoods and new subdivisions. Whether lawmakers buy that logic — and agree it’s worth preempting local planning control to implement it — remains to be seen.
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