City to explore code incentives to drive affordable housing

Martin Kidston

(Missoula Current) The city will explore tweaks to city code that could help incentivize the construction of affordable housing, with recommendations expected by winter.

The Missoula City Council's Land Use and Planning Committee this week approved a resolution directing staff to begin the effort, which includes developing targeted code incentives for both income- and rent-restricted affordable housing.

“We are not talking about creating broad-based incentives to package,” said Eran Pehan, director of Community Planning and Development. “This is a targeted attempt to look at some specific regulatory and building standards that we think can be tweaked to better support deed-restricted affordable housing.”

The city adopted its newest Land Use Plan in 2024 and recently completed its new Unified Development Code, which could help streamline housing construction. The plan looks to develop a diverse, equitable and resilient housing system.

That includes affordable housing supply, housing choice and housing diversity. To aid in the effort, the city already has reduced both parking requirements and setbacks, and now allows for smaller dwelling units.

Pehan said the new effort will study incoming projects to see where additional code changes can be made.

“We're looking at a couple of projects coming across our desk and learning how the new (Unified Development Code) applies to them, and learning in real-time where small tweaks could be made in the regulatory environment to help those projects move forward,” Pehan said.