By Bay Stephens EBS LOCAL EDITOR
BIG SKY – The Big Sky Community Housing
Trust held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 30 for the Meadowview Condominiums,
Big Sky’s first deed-restricted workforce housing.
Representatives from the housing trust,
Big Sky Resort Area District tax board, Big Sky Chamber of Commerce, HRDC and
Gallatin County Commission spoke in front of a Meadowview duplex drawing closer
to completion.
“You guys have a lot to be proud of here,”
said county commissioner Don Seifert. “One of the goals of government is at the
best to offer up opportunities; at the worst is not to stifle opportunities.”
Once completed, the Meadowview
subdivision will offer 52 subsidized units to a waiting list of over 60
qualified applicants.
Twelve of the buildings will be comprised
of a 352-square-foot studio and 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom condo overlooking
the Big Sky Community Park baseball fields. Phase one also includes six duplexes
with 1,000 square feet. Every unit will have its own garage.
The first units will be ready for owners
to move in mid-June, according to Laura Seyfang, program director for the Big
Sky Community Housing Trust. Seyfang expects Phase 1 to be complete by the end
of August and Phase 2 to be finished in the first quarter of 2020.
The units were subsidized by a $1.75
million appropriation from the Big Sky Resort Area District tax board in 2018,
which bought the land for the developments. Consequently, the units can be sold
for significantly less than market value, offering an opportunity to purchase
for workers earning less than the average median income of Gallatin County,
which is $69,600 for a household of two.
Laurel Blessley is one such resident of
Big Sky. She moved to the area in 1999 and has worked as a lift mechanic for
Big Sky Resort the past 16 years.
Blessley rented at the base of the
mountain and in the meadow and said she’s been lucky that none her landlords were
interested in selling her rental out from under her, or putting it on the
short-term rental market, something that’s happened to many of her friends. She
and her partner have a 5-year-old daughter and are ready to own in Big Sky.
Meadowview gives them a chance.
Currently, she is on the waitlist for a unit in the complex.
“I’d like my daughter to go to Ophir
[Elementary School],” Blessley said. “And this is the only option for us to
buy.”
Jamey Cunningham, who has served,
bartended and managed restaurants throughout Big Sky, is also on the waitlist
with her husband and their 3-year-old son. Since the market priced them out in
recent years, a Meadowview unit is their only hope for continuing to live in
Big Sky instead of commuting from the Gallatin Valley.
“We should have bought a couple years ago
and now we can’t afford anything else,” Cunningham said. “This will be our foot
in the door.”
Cunningham, Blessley and others looking
to buy a Meadowview unit were required to go through an application process
involving eight hours of homebuyer education courses as well as financial
counseling with the HRDC. Eligible applicants were then added to the waiting list
in order of first come, first served with the opportunity to buy.
The process leading to the realization of
the Meadowview condos started when the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce had a study on
the workforce housing shortage conducted. An action plan for housing resulted,
calling for nearly 500 units of more attainable housing to effectively address
the shortage in Big Sky. The housing trust was handed from the chamber to HRDC,
which bought the land with resort tax funds.
The deed-restricted units will remain
affordable compared to Big Sky’s market value by capping appreciation of each
unit at 2 percent per year, so that the subsidy is tied to the units and
doesn’t leave when the first owner sells.
“Fifty-two units isn’t going to fix our
problem here in Big Sky,” Seyfang said. “[But] it’s a great start.”
