By Jen Clancey STAFF WRITER
Standing with his family on a flattened patch of dirt off of Montana Highway 64, David O’Connor, executive director of the Big Sky Community Housing Trust, listened to speakers discuss the groundbreaking of the Cold Smoke workforce housing project in Big Sky. Daniel Bierschwale, executive director of Big Sky Resort Area District explained what made the housing project possible at the Oct. 7 event.
“Without the support of the Big Sky community, this would not have been an opportunity that is going to be multigenerational,” Bierschwale said. The largest workforce housing project in Big Sky will add 389 homes for year-round workforce to the area near Meadow Village, consisting of 264 multifamily homes for rent or purchase and 125 single family homes for purchase.
It took a legislative change for resort tax dollars to support workforce housing, a 2025 community vote, financial bonding, water and sewer reserves, rezoning and a 99-acre purchase in Big Sky to break ground on Cold Smoke. For O’Connor, the ceremony represents a rewarding shift in focus.
“Housing is infrastructure just like a water system or roads or all those things. Housing is where jobs go home at night to sleep. Well from today, we stop really talking about housing, and from today forward, we talk about homes,” O’Connor said in his speech. “… Today we start talking about the humans and the families and the individuals that are going to live in these homes.”
Interest from community members is already high, surpassing the amount of available housing, ahead of the first phase of Cold Smoke’s expected opening in spring 2028. Housing costs in Big Sky have soared since 2019. According to BSCHT, the median single-family home price is up $1.64 million over the past seven years and now sits at $2.6 million. Median condo prices also more than doubled to $875,000.
Residents, commuters and staff of BSCHT—which started in 2016—have witnessed that rise. BSCHT programs like Good Deeds, Live Local and Rent Local have assisted local workers with renting and purchasing homes. Still, a majority of Big Sky’s workforce commutes from nearby areas like Gallatin Gateway and Bozeman. Matt Kidd, president of Lone Mountain Land Company, shared how that limits a long-term future for Big Sky community members.
“Yes, it’s a beautiful day, and yes, we’re all super lucky to be able to live here, but it’s still hard … plenty of people have chosen to live elsewhere and live in Bozeman and work up here or, you know, they came in COVID and they didn’t stick around,” Kidd said. LMLC developed the infrastructure for Cold Smoke’s multifamily rentals, as well as discounted the 99 acres where the project will be built. Kidd thanked interested community members for believing in Cold Smoke.
“Thank you for being a part of the hope with us and the vision of where we can go from here,” he said. Another key player in supporting Cold Smoke is Resort Tax, which bonded just under $58 million for the project after a 2025 community vote approved the financing, as well as devoted $2.75 million for a water tank on the property. Back in 2021, Resort Tax and the Big Sky County Water and Sewer District also agreed to reserve 600 single-family equivalents, a unit that accounts for treating wastewater of single-family homes, for workforce housing.
“ This groundbreaking represents more than just the start of construction. It is years of work — legislatively, financially,” Bierschwale said. “… I’m very proud to have been able to work with you all through this legacy project.”
O’Connor began the event describing how he landed in Big Sky. In 1990, at age 21, he moved to the area and worked at Buck’s T4 as a bartender. He has lived in Big Sky ever since.
“I met the girl of my dreams, raised a family, built a whole career here,” he said. “That’s a story that really can’t exist today, and so what we really seek to do is open that same path for young people coming into the community—to be able to build a life here and to continue to build on the success that we’ve seen so far.”
