Governor Greg Gianforte (R) HB 819: Create Montana community reinvestment act to fund workforce housing As amended, bundles several housing investment proposals into a single bill. The information presented here is collected from a variety of sources including the Montana Legislatures public roster and its official bill-tracking system, the Legislative Automated Workflow System, or LAWS. Missoula, MT. HB819 had been returned from the enrolling process as of Wednesday, while HB817 was still being enrolled, meaning both are still awaiting action by the governor. Sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. A third bill, a major overhaul of the states land use planning statute advanced by a coalition that included the Montana League of Cities and Towns, also passed the House April 13. Tell us at tips@montanafreepress.org. This ML announces the extension of the foreclosure related eviction moratorium through September 30, 2021 and reminds mortgagees of the July 31, 2021 expiration of the foreclosure moratorium announced in Mortgagee Letter (ML 2021-15). Second, lawmakers passed House Bill 819, a compromise spending package that puts $175 million toward housing initiatives as well as authorizing an extra $50 million for low-interest loans to developers who build rent-restricted apartments. There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. The bill creates a $106 million revolving loan fund that the board of investments will invest that could go toward infrastructure development to try to create more housing with a minimum gross density of 10 units per acre; puts $50 million toward a community reinvestment plan account so community reinvestment organizations can buy down mortgages for workforce housing; sends $6 million toward deed-restricted state workforce housing near Deer Lodge and Anaconda and sites of other state-run prisons and hospitals; and adds another $50 million toward the middle-income affordable housing program through the coal trust. Lawmakers also authorized the Montana Land Use Planning Act, or Senate Bill 382, a wholesale rewrite of the land-use planning statutes that apply to towns and cities in counties of at least 70,000 people. Just drive along our roads and youll see new construction. Most Democrats ultimately supported the bill on the House floor in the sessions final hours regardless, siding with moderate Republicans to give the bill the votes it needed to pass over opposition from hardliners. The latter bill is a $200 million infrastructure upgrade package for the state prison that includes upgrades to the perimeter fence, an emergency notification system, new low-security housing and other renovations. No shouting. According to real estate website Zillow, Montanas typical home value was nearly $428,000 as of March, up from $267,000 at the beginning of 2020. As far back as last summer, Gov. At that same press conference, Gianforte argued for boosting the housing supply by making it easier to build and putting state dollars into the water lines, sewer lines and roads necessary to serve new homes. The $175 million in General Fund spending is divided into $107 million to set up an housing infrastructure fund, $56 million for a mortgage assistance program and $12 million to make more housing options available for workers at the state hospital in Warm Springs and the state prison in Deer Lodge. A second, Senate Bill 528, requires cities and towns to adopt rules allowing the construction of accessory dwelling units, or smaller housing units that share a lot with a primary home. Please contact him at edietrich@montanafreepress.org with bug reports, questions or suggestions. The bills have won bipartisan . A group of bills that would change cities' zoning regulations in order to increase housing supply are progressing through the state Legislature. News for the people, not for profit. This week, three bills making big changes in how cities handle zoning passed through the House, each with broad margins and bipartisan support. Shouts and squeals echoed across the playground behind Big Skys Ophir Elementary as some two dozen kids reveled in one of their final recesses before the big sigh of summer break. Montana Housing mails two statements to borrowers each year: Want more updates from the Department of Commerce? One of the advancing policies would allow for duplexes in areas of larger cities currently zoned solely for single family homes. The bills have won bipartisan support and are nearing the governor's desk as other policies supported by Democrats to subsidize housing costs have failed to gain similar traction. State legislators agree the cost of housing is a growing problem, but there is little consensus on how to boost the supply of affordable housing. This guide is an effort to make the quantifiable aspects of the Montana Legislature more accessible to the public by compiling information about lawmakers, proposed bills and the legislative process. Montana housing and prison infrastructure bills await governor's consideration By: Blair Miller - May 10, 2023 5:04 pm Roof joists are being prepared for a new house being built in the Ironwood subdivision in Billings, Montana. The legislature has passed several pieces of legislation which increase the length of sentences and add to the number of crimes that will relate to incarceration at the Montana State Prison, Fitzpatrick said. Utility Allowances Multifamily Coal Trust Homes Program Housing Montana Fund Fee Payment Portal Compliance Fees Annual compliance fees are due at the same time as annual owner compliance reporting Late or incomplete compliance reporting may result in late fees We prefer you pay fees or penalties via our online payment portal Submit Payment For additional information and eligibility requirements, please clickhere. Home prices and rents have soared across Montana in recent years, in part because rapid in-migration has crowded the states finite supply of homes and apartments. Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, a Democrat, has called for immediate relief for working Montanans, arguing that long-term solutions aren't sufficient to help workers struggling to find housing today. Zoning reform bills pass Montana House with bipartisan support The American Rescue Plan Act passed by Congress and signed by the president contains $9.961 billion nationwide for a Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). Posted Fri, . An earlier version of this story incorrectly said one of the bills would allow for duplexes, triplexes or fourplexes in areas of larger cities currently zoned solely for single family homes. Wisconsin governor signs affordable housing bills, Republicans approve funding. Subscribe to receive email updates here. Montana Housing with the Department of Commerce was awarded $15 million by the Economic Transformation, Stabilization & Workforce Development Advisory Commission in the Fall of 2021. News apps are nice, but how many stories might you be missing? . HELENA (KPAX) - A set of bills aimed at increasing Montana's housing supply have passed another key step at the state Legislature. How the Montana Legislature tried to tackle the housing affordability Tenants and landlords with submitted or in-progress applications should monitor their emails for status updates. The final product was a mix of pieces of bills, and there was both bipartisan support and opposition to the final measure in the end. Despite the death of Senate Bill 95 from Sen. Barry Usher, R-Billings, which would have made property theft worth $1,500 or more punishable by up to 10 years in prison and contained jail time for theft of under $1,500, several other bills that passed increase criminal penalties or add new ones for various offenses, leading Republicans to say the extra beds are necessary right now. One mobile home tenant protection measure, House Bill 889, did pass the Legislature. Whoops! More by Eric Dietrich. With the pressure those prices place on many constituents back home, housing affordability has been oft-cited as a priority for lawmakers across Montanas political spectrum as the Legislature meets this year. This story is published by Montana Free Press as part of the Long Streets Project,which explores Montanas economy with in-depth reporting. Republican legislative leaders have also expressed ambivalence about how much state action can do to shift the weight of the housing market off of cost-burdened residents and how fast the pro-construction measures theyve signed onto will shift the market, even under ideal circumstances. 2023 had already been such a success for housing reform in Montana that when CityLab's How YIMBYs Won Montana was published at the end of April and two major housing supply bills had run into hurdles, the writer still dubbed the state's overall pro-housing policy successes a "Montana miracle." By now, even those two bills have sailed . As Erickson explains, Senate Bill 382 (Create the Montana Land Use Planning Act), Senate Bill 323 (Allow for duplex housing in city zoning), and Senate Bill 245 (Revise municipal zoning to allow multifamily and mixed-use development) are the focus of Senate Republicans, laws that would help increase the housing supply in the long term. The Cost of Living in Montana - SmartAsset Abbott and Senate Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, said Democrats had hoped to have another conference committee on the bill to try to get some of their requests into the bill. In particularly tight markets such as Bozeman, its not uncommon for full-time workers to be living out of the local homeless shelter. This is a project of Montana Free Press, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit newsroom that aims to provide Montanans with in-depth, nonpartisan news coverage. This $15 million of ARPA Section 602 funds under HB 632 Section 12 (1) will ensure affordable housing in the development pipeline that has already received federal . For more real estate news, follow Patch on Facebook. Corin Cates-Carney It's legislative day 66.We're in the home stretch of the 2023 legislative session. Legislative leaders from both parties have said they consider housing spending necessary, but the active spending proposals appear to have been entangled in the politics surrounding late-session budget negotiations. That extra density, critics said, could have resulted in infill development that transforms neighborhoods and overloads existing sewer systems. The U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Moore v. Harper Tuesday, rejecting a legal theory about the constitutional authority of legislatures over election law thats been raised in a case just heating up before the Montana Supreme Court. With days to go in the 2023 session of the Montana Legislature, a months-long debate over how to put a portion of the states $2.5 billion budget surplus toward housing affordability efforts has converged on a single compromise measure. A third bill, Senate Bill 323, makes duplex housing allowable on any home lot in cities with 5,000 residents or more, preempting regulations that currently set aside some areas for only single-family homes. It also contains one of the more contentious pieces of law from the whole session the $8 million in funding over the biennium to house up to 120 Montana prisoners which in the final days of the session was removed from and added back to bills several times, then saw the requirement the contract go to private prison company CoreCivic removed from the language. Resource: Connect with a HUD-approved housing counselor. I think getting the task force together was really a way to crystallize this as a big priority for the Legislature for both parties, said Cotton, who served on the group. The three bills draw on solutions proposed by the state's housing task force created by Governor Greg Gianforte last summer. Contact Information Montana Housing MONTANA DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 301 S. Park Ave. PO Box 200528 Helena, MT 59620-0528 Send us an Email P: 406.841.2840 F: 406.841.2841 TDD: 406.841.2702. That funding will help Montana Homeowners, and homeowners across the country, remain in their homes. Lawmakers and the governor have had a harder time garnering the votes necessary to shepherd many other housing affordability efforts toward law, however. It's time to debate changes to Montana's Constitution. Became Law Proposed Introduced Mar 1 1st Cmte. Rents have also risen enough in many communities that employers report having an increasingly hard time hiring employees to staff their businesses. In exchange for the low-interest loan, developers agree to price the resulting apartments at rents that are considered affordable for lower-income families. Lawmakers from both parties have acknowledged the shortage of prison beds in Montana, but there has been disagreement for months as to whether additional beds were needed or if tweaks to community corrections programs and other diversion efforts could alleviate the backlog of more than 200 people awaiting transfer from local jails to prison. Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. For every extra unit, you can add, quantities of scale, costs go down, supply goes up, we start actually talking about addressing this issue, Zolnikov said. I think that by removing and streamlining regulations for housing, thats going to bring costs down as a builder, she said. This helps everyone and its a great opportunity for us to look at our constituents when we go back and say, Ive done something; weve done our part. Prior to starting an application, Montana Homeowners can take several actions to prepare, including: The purpose of the Montana Homeowner Assistance Fund, in accordance with federal legislation and U.S. Treasury guidance, is to mitigate financial hardships associated with the coronavirus pandemic by providing funds to prevent homeowner mortgage delinquencies, defaults, foreclosures, loss of utilities or home energy services, and displacements of homeowners experiencing financial hardship after January 21, 2020. Advanced Mar 30 House Passed House Apr 4 Senate Passed Senate Apr 28 Reconcil. A Financial Hardship means a material reduction in income or material increase in living expenses associated with the coronavirus pandemic that has created, or increased, a risk of mortgage delinquency, mortgage default, foreclosure, loss of utilities or home energy services, or displacement for a homeowner. (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan). Gianforte signs Missoula lawmaker's zoning bill, slew of other housing That bill would stash a chunk of the surplus in the states coal trust, where it would be used to offer low-interest loans for projects that build rent-restricted housing intended to provide affordable homes to low-income Montanans. The bill requires that state officials ensure that projects benefiting from infrastructure loans are subject to provisions to preserve long-term affordability of the housing.. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window). But spending bills have a less certain road. About Montana Housing; Montana Board of Housing; Meetings, Events, and Training; Housing Coordinating Team; Resources; Investors; Montana Legislature Considering Historic Package of Pro-Housing Development Bills, Montana's affordable housing crisis: Many proposed bills and lots of disagreement, Assistant or Associate Professor of Urban Planning, PD&R Quarterly Update on Office-to-Residential Conversions, New Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs Now Available, Call For Nominations: HUD Secretarys Award for Excellence in Healthy Homes, Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools. We want to encourage smart, denser housing development using incentives, Gianforte said at a press conference April 6. (Photo by Darrell Ehrlick of the Daily Montanan) Contact your mortgage servicer and determine whether there are other loss mitigation options available to you, based on the investor / insurer of your loan. Following the close of public comment, the Montana HAF Plan was finalized and submitted to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 28, 2021. Two of the biggest legislative priorities to start the 2023 session in Montana addressing housing and prison space and upgrades came down to a flurry of work done in the final days to try to find compromises, though leadership from both parties said they feel the body could have done more specifically to try to fix Montanas housing issues. Funds will be available to a homeowner with respect to qualified expenses and hardship related to the homeowner's primary residence.