Preserving the natural environment, recreation  and  housing affordability all ranked high in a community survey on Columbia Falls’ new land use plan.

But how to achieve those goals in today’s expensive housing market while still maintaining the city’s small-town charm and hospitality could prove challenging, to say the least.

For example, of the 347 people who took the survey, a full 83.7% said preserving the natural environment was very important and 61.5% said housing  cost was very important as well. Public safety was ranked third, at 56% and recreational opportunities ranked fourth at a little over 51%.

Having said that, 70.8% favored single family homes, 37.2% favored mixed use (apartments above commercial space) and 35% favored townhomes and about 32% favored apartments or duplexes and triplexes.

The latter use the least amount of land while serving the most people.

On short-term rentals, about 53.8% said the city has too much of it and 22% said it has the right amount.

When it comes to businesses, just under 61% wanted more full scale restaurants or other full-scale commercial shops, like bakeries and coffee shops. The city already has two bakeries.

On environmental issues, protecting floodplains and water quality was tops with 89% favoring that. About 82.6% said preserving open space and wildlife corridors should be a priority and 45.7% said promoting sustainable development should be a top priority.

The city contracted with Cushing Terrell to crunch the data and create the report. All of the stats  are available on the city’s website as part of the Jan. 26, 2025 joint city council and planning workshop packet.

The city’s planning commission and city council went over the survey and discussed it as part of a joint workshop last week.

The survey results and accompanying supporting data brought some surprises. Mayor Don Barnhart said he was surprised that about 1,755 people commute to the city for work, while about 1,537 commute from the city to other locations for their jobs. Just 379 actually work and live here.

Others noted some obvious contradictions in the survey. New single family homes at today’s market are largely unaffordable for the working class in the city. The city’s median home price in 2024 was $575,000, which is higher than Kalispell.

Meanwhile, even jobs in health care and other solid industries have an average annual salary of just $44,000 a year.

Councilman John Piper noted the city could use some heavy industry, which traditionally has provided good-paying jobs.

Shirley Folkwein of the Upper Flathead Neighborhood Association said she was encouraged by the survey.

“We support sensible development,” she said. “... This process could to lead toward that.”

It’s important to note that about 42.5% of survey respondents lived outside the city limits.

Longtime city resident Becky Williams noted some issues with the survey. She said that single family housing east of the Flathead River contradicts calls for land protection in that area and she also noted the problem of short term rentals in her own neighborhood, where one home near the river is an rental that hosts eight people and another one down the  street hosts 18. 

“We’ve lost two (long-term housing) in five houses,” she said. “They’re just rentals now.”

Longtime real estate agent and developer Charles Lapp also offered some perspective, noting the only way to ensure affordable housing is to work with nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity because they control the equity. He noted that independent developers he’s worked with in the past may say they want to build affordable housing and even if they do, with the market being what it is, they rise in price almost immediately.

City planner Eric Mulcahy also offered some perspective, noting that the Montana Land Use Planning Act, which is driving cities across the state to rewrite their land use plans, now requires that multi-family housing be allowed where previous zoning may have only allowed single-family homes.

He also stressed that the Land Use Plan is a guiding document. It’s not regulatory. The actual regulations come in the final zoning and subdivision regulations when the city finalizes the process to comply with state law.