{"id":7785,"date":"2015-08-11T08:23:05","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T14:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7785"},"modified":"2015-08-11T16:30:21","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T22:30:21","slug":"planners-enlist-residents-to-deal-with-city-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/08\/planners-enlist-residents-to-deal-with-city-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Planners enlist residents to deal with city growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"skyline\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Planning Director Candi Millar had plenty to say about past and future growth in Billings during a recent public meeting.<\/p><\/div>\n

Candi Millar, planning director for the city of Billings, has an arresting way of describing what she calls the city\u2019s \u201cexponential growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA statistic I always like to cite is that between 1990 and 2000, we grew one square mile,\u201d Millar said during a recent meeting of the Heights Community Development Task Force. \u201cBetween 2000 and 2010, we grew 10 square miles. That exponential growth rate has continued in the last five years. Our population and city limits have both grown substantially.\u201d<\/p>\n

To deal with this rapid rate of growth, Millar and her team are redeveloping the city\u2019s comprehensive growth plan.<\/p>\n

The process started in October, when Millar began attending 35 community meetings and asking attendees to fill out comment cards explaining what they thought Billings needed in order to be a safe and successful community in the future.<\/p>\n

By the time the process was over in February, Millar had received more than 1,200 comment cards.<\/p>\n

Her staff spent several months reading through the cards and condensing the responses into six key categories that represent what Billings residents desire to see as their city continues to grow.<\/p>\n

The first of these six categories is what Millar calls \u201cplacemakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlacemakers in Billings are those places and buildings that are unique to our community,\u201d Millar said. \u201cThere were lots of comments saying that we needed to preserve our historic heritage through protecting and enhancing the places that are most important to this community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Notable placemakers mentioned by respondents included the Rims, the Yellowstone River, Skypoint and the two universities in town.<\/p>\n

Participants also mentioned the importance of protecting historic buildings. This is one of the reasons that Billings will be one of the few cities in Montana to have a historic neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Related to placemakers is what Millar calls \u201ccommunity fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look over the Rims, I see this wonderful canopy of green,\u201d Millar said. \u201cAnd I consider that landscaping and the green spaces in our community to be our fabric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millar said many respondents felt that it was incredibly important to make sure Billings continued to be such a green city. There are many ways to accomplish this goal, but one is through the continued planting of trees along roads.<\/p>\n

Heights Task Force member Roy Neece also suggested that subdivision developers should be required to develop parks. Currently, developers are required to allocate space for parks, but they are not obligated to develop them. This results in many empty and unused parcels of lands.<\/p>\n

Millar said that she has been working on ways to address Neece\u2019s concern and affirmed that parks are some of the most important parts of our community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings like parks may seem to just be amenities, but big companies want their employees to live in a nice place,\u201d Millar said. \u201cSo by improving our city through small things like parks and trees, we improve our chances of getting some of these big companies and therefore improve our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third key category is \u201cstrong neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all want a clean and safe neighborhood and that came out so strongly in these responses,\u201d Millar said.<\/p>\n

\"Candi\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Planning Director Candi Millar.<\/p><\/div>\n

During the next five years, Millar said, the city of Billings will work with its Police Department to decrease the number of traffic accidents and crimes in residential neighborhoods. Through doing this, she hopes that property reinvestment in these neighborhoods will increase.<\/p>\n

The fourth key category is what Millar calls \u201chome base.\u201d It involves making sure there are many affordable housing options in the community.<\/p>\n

Currently, only 5 percent of all rentals in town are vacant, and those that are available are often unaffordable for the average Billings resident.<\/p>\n

Millar also emphasized the importance of making sure single-family homes continue to be available as more Millennials and their families come to town.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of them want what their parents had: a nice house on a large lot and a fenced yard,\u201d Millar said \u201cWe need to make sure that we grow in such a way that we can continue to provide that type of housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fifth key category is \u201cmobility and access,\u201d which involves creating a safer and more efficient transportation system for all residents. Millar was quick to point out that this category doesn\u2019t solely apply to motor vehicle users.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to AARP, 30 percent of the general population does not drive\u2014they are either too young, too old, handicapped or choose not to drive,\u201d Millar said. \u201cRoads are incredibly important, but we also heard that there are other modes of transportation people are gravitating to\u2014not only for recreation, but also for daily use. \u2026 We need to decide how to accommodate not only the motorists, but also the people who walk, ride bikes and take the transit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last of the six key categories is what Millar calls \u201cessential investments.\u201d This means that the city needs to \u201cspend money wisely on things that will improve our quality of life.\u201d Thus, when the city invests in any of the other five categories mentioned above, it can be considered an \u201cessential investment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millar says that focusing on improving in these six areas will help make Billings a better community and one that is more desirable to the Millennial generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make this community attractive to young people\u2014not only because they are our work force, but because they are our innovators and future leaders,\u201d Millar said. \u201cThe Millennials actually choose a place they want to live, move to it, and then find a job. \u2026 Through focusing on things like parks and safe neighborhoods, we hope to make Billings a place that this age group would choose as a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, if more people continue to move to Billings, we\u2019ll have to find ways to accommodate them. Luckily, respondents had thoughts on this as well.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of people mentioned infill\u2014the process of redeveloping vacant lots close to the city center\u2014as the best way to accommodate newcomers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think most of the people we talked to realized that it is less expensive to develop in an area where you already have infrastructure,\u201d Millar said. \u201cYou already have a garbage truck rolling down the street in front of you. You already have police and fire departments nearby. Developing vacant lots is generally easier than expanding the city\u2019s boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other respondents suggested developing in the Inner Belt Loop near Rehberg Ranch. Millar says that development in that area is possible, but would come with its share of difficulties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Inner Belt Loop, we have absolutely no services of any kind except for a small sewage treatment plant at Rehberg Ranch,\u201d Millar said. \u201cWe have no water. We don\u2019t even have a road yet. So there is going to be some real cost associated with expanding in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Respondents also suggested that the city continue to develop downtown and the West End.<\/p>\n

Millar\u2019s next step involves assessing these new places where the city could grow and seeing which ones best fit the criteria featured in the six key categories. She will have a detailed report explaining the costs and consequences of expanding in each area at the start of the new year.<\/p>\n

However, Millar is currently speaking to various community groups such as the Heights Development Task Force about the six key categories and asking a simple question: \u201cDid I get it right?\u201d<\/p>\n

The consensus from the Heights Task Force was that she did, in part.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve done a wonderful job on this presentation, but I want to suggest that you\u2019re missing half of the planning picture,\u201d Task Force member Larry Seekins said at the end of Millar\u2019s presentation. \u201cThere\u2019s one thing missing up there: well-paying jobs. If you don\u2019t have that, none of this will have an impact. So in addition to focusing on the residential part of the city, we also have to focus on the industrial section of our city. \u2026 If we ignore it, we do it at our peril.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millar agreed with Seekins\u2019 assessment and affirmed that while jobs were not mentioned by any of the 1,200 respondents, they continue to be a priority of the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the value of this process is not just what people say, but what people don\u2019t say,\u201d Millar said. \u201cJobs, which used to be one of the bigger issues, was not brought up. But on the other hand, it is integral to have those jobs in this community. We can\u2019t grow with just residential areas. We need to have both residential and commercial development in order to be a thriving community for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Candi Millar, planning director for the city of Billings, has an arresting way of describing what she calls the city\u2019s \u201cexponential growth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[895,2925,896,2926,1884,39],"class_list":["post-7785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","tag-candi-millar","tag-heights-community-task-force","tag-planning-department","tag-rims","tag-skypoint","tag-yellowstone-river","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}