Andi Armstrong

If you live in Missoula, you have likely driven down Reserve Street—or perhaps walked or biked along the River Trail—past Orchard Gardens. With solar panels on the roofs of multi-family rental homes and farms and gardens woven throughout the property, this community shows what is possible when affordable housing, climate solutions and local agriculture combine to create a healthier, more vibrant community.

Given the real need for more affordable housing in Missoula, it’s tempting to think of elements like energy efficiency and green infrastructure as luxuries we can’t afford. In fact, the opposite is true.  As climate impacts accelerate and budgets continue to be stretched, Orchard Gardens remains a shining example of how we can build the future we all want, with affordable, healthy and safe homes.

Mixed-Use Agrihood

Orchard Gardens was developed in 2006 by Homeword, a Missoula-based nonprofit that strengthens community by combining housing counseling and education with building safe, healthy homes Montanans can afford. Orchard Gardens’ 35 sustainably-built apartment homes and rowhouses are income-restricted for people living on low to moderate incomes.

The first thing you may notice about Orchard Gardens is that it shares space with urban farming and community gardens. Nearly half of the property’s 4.6 acres is devoted to agriculture. Rows of crops cover the southeast quadrant of the property, with community garden plots tucked back alongside the farm. Fruit trees stand in neat lines, a beautiful buffer between the homes and busy Reserve Street.

This space is an intentional effort to build a deep connection between community and sustainable food systems. The farming and gardening operations are administered by Garden City Harvest, another Missoula-based nonprofit aimed at connecting everyone to healthy, local food. This supports environmental health and local food security. As an “agrihood,” Orchard Gardens reduces the distance food has to travel to reach people in our community, lowering transportation-related carbon emissions.

Garden City Harvest maintains a food pantry at the property, making fresh produce available to residents, and the shared gathering spaces and gardens create opportunities for residents and neighbors to connect.

Building Efficiency

After the crop rows, fruit trees, garden beds and greenhouse, you’ll likely spot the large south-facing solar panels on the roof of Orchard Gardens’ main building, angled to meet the sun’s rays.

Like the food grown on the property, the connection between sustainability and community can also be seen in Orchard Gardens’ design and construction. In addition to solar, it features a range of sustainable building elements, including solar hot water systems and heat pumps.

The rooftop solar and solar hot water systems on Orchard Gardens’ main building provide clean energy and preheat domestic water so the water heaters use less energy. This greatly reduces operational costs for Homeword, allowing us to maintain lower rents, with utilities included, and more stable housing expenses.

Likewise, Orchard Gardens’ ground-source heat pump systems allow us to provide energy-efficient heating and cooling. Heat pumps are highly efficient, producing three to four times more energy than they consume, significantly reducing climate pollution in the Missoula Valley.

These systems, however, are not “set it and forget it” solutions. Like any long-term investment in sustainability, they require care and strong community partnerships to maintain.

Case in point, when the solar arrays at Orchard Gardens stopped functioning in 2024 due to faulty inverters, Homeword partnered with Climate Smart Missoula’s Catalyst Fund to repair them. The project was funded through a $10,000 donation from Climate Ride, along with community contributions and a River City ROOTS Festival offset. Together, these efforts made it possible to install four new inverters, getting the solar energy output—and lower energy bills—back on track. It was a reminder that maintaining sustainable infrastructure often takes a community effort.

The same is true of many of the other improvements across the property. Recent upgrades made possible in partnership with the City of Missoula through federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding included replacing aging heat pumps. Systems like these often carry higher upfront costs than traditional gas furnaces, standard electric heaters and air conditioners due to the complexity of the equipment and installation. In the long run, however, the energy savings and protection of our valley air quality far surpass the initial investment.

Like the heat pumps, other sustainable building practices are often more expensive initially but provide meaningful environmental and economic benefits over time. In the construction of Orchard Gardens, Homeword used sustainably harvested lumber from Montana, roofing made of 30% recycled metal and pulverized recycled glass for the road base.

Parts of Orchard Gardens even feature load-bearing straw bale construction. There’s a tiny door in an interior wall of Orchard Gardens’ Community Barn that opens to reveal the tightly packed straw inside. This kind of construction uses this renewable and locally sourced construction material and reduces dependence on nonrenewable materials such as concrete or brick. It also provides excellent insulation, fire resistance and durability. Anyone who remembers The Three Little Pigs might initially be skeptical, but our development team says it is remarkably effective.

Sustainable Communities for All

Sustainability at Orchard Gardens is about more than solar panels or the types of building materials we use. Many of its most meaningful benefits are less visible, and at its core, sustainability is deeply interconnected with community.

In addition to our collaborations with other nonprofits like Garden City Harvest and Climate Smart Missoula, we deeply value and depend on community partnerships to continue to care for Orchard Gardens. This spring, volunteers from Windermere Real Estate will refresh drought-resistant plants, plant trees and complete other projects at Orchard Gardens. Efforts like these help maintain healthy green spaces while reducing water use and creating a more welcoming environment for residents.

For Homeword, sustainability is ultimately about creating healthy, resilient spaces where people can thrive. It is about investing in community in a way that supports both people and the environment for generations to come.

Although rising construction costs, supply chain challenges and higher interest rates have made many large-scale features more difficult to include in affordable housing developments today, sustainability remains a priority at our organization. Even when more ambitious elements are not feasible, upgrades to insulation, windows and heating systems, for example, can significantly reduce energy use and improve long-term affordability.

Orchard Gardens remains a powerful example of what is possible when we think of sustainability as a commitment to building stronger communities as we move forward. When we invest in affordable homes, local food systems, energy efficiency and shared stewardship, we create places where people and the environment can flourish.

Visit https://www.homeword.org to learn more about Homeword. For more information about Orchard Gardens, go to https://www.homeword.org/orchard-gardens.

Andi Armstrong is the Communications Manager for Homeword.  Climate Smart Missoula brings this Climate Connections column to you twice per month. Learn more about what we do, sign up for our e-newsletter, or support our work at missoulaclimate.org.