Whitefish, MT

[ZombieKissinger]

Hanging out here for a week, and I ate at a dive called the Bulldog Saloon tonight. Big Mississippi State flag hanging on the wall. There was plenty of other college/Bulldog stuff around, but the flag was pretty prominent. Cool to se

Edit: there was also a guy in an Arkansas hat playing poker. I congratulated him on a good win and got flagged for holding

 

[TNT.sixpack]

I’ve wanted to visit there. Let us know how are your trip goes. Tyler Childers Played there I think about a year ago.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

We love it. Roads in Glacier are mostly closed but we’re still going to check it out tomorrow. We live a pretty short drive away and will be back

 

[TNT.sixpack]

We love it. Roads in Glacier are mostly closed but we’re still going to check it out tomorrow. We live a pretty short drive away and will be back

I have friends in Stevensville outside of Hamilton. They love it. At least 2 other friends looking to relocate in that same area. You have a solid Insurance Commissioner/state auditor - Troy Downing. I work with closely with him.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Post some pics.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

I have friends in Stevensville outside of Hamilton. They love it. At least 2 other friends looking to relocate in that same area. You have a solid Insurance Commissioner/state auditor - Troy Downing. I work with closely with him.

Love Stevensville and Hamilton area. Used to spend my summers for about 12 years in Hamilton and Darby. One of most peaceful places on the planet. Haven’t been back though since the whole Yellowstone filming in the valley. I’m sure that has made it a little less quiet.

Have some friends that move to stevensville. They were planning on opening a vet clinic. Guys wife was a state vet grad.

 

[dotcomdawg]

Excellent breakfast at the Buffalo Cafe

https://buffalocafewhitefish.com

 

[Bill Shankly]

Got my first look at Montana this summer, driving from Yellowstone to Spokane. Hopefully it won't be my last.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

I drove Jackson, WY to Bozeman last fall. It was my first time seeing the northern part of Yellowstone and my first time in Montana. Bozeman is great. We flew back out of Billings which didn’t seem as cool

 

[ZombieKissinger]

Went there a couple days ago - good stuff

 

[ZombieKissinger]

Half the park was closed but was still great - will be back in the summer

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[Jeffreauxdawg]

Awesome. Looks amazing even this time of year.

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

I drove Jackson, WY to Bozeman last fall. It was my first time seeing the northern part of Yellowstone and my first time in Montana. Bozeman is great. We flew back out of Billings which didn’t seem as cool

Eastern montana is nothing but high plains. Not as pretty to me. But I did spend some time working with Crow reservation outside of Harding. One of my favorite memories was doing a thanksgiving meal with some of people from that area several years ago just a good spirited meal of good faith between people. That area suffers from a bunch of poverty. It’s not as sought after by the movie stars and Californias moving to the bitterroot valley Mizzoula and the Bozeman down to Gardiner and over to Big Sky. Although big execs having been coming in and buying the land all over.

Last time I went to part of bitterroot. One of the execs from intel I think had bought a friend of mines mother's place not far from where they are filming Yellowstone at the Chief Joseph Ranch.

 

[Car Ramrod.sixpack]

I drove Jackson, WY to Bozeman last fall. It was my first time seeing the northern part of Yellowstone and my first time in Montana. Bozeman is great. We flew back out of Billings which didn’t seem as cool

Bozeman is loosing its charm quickly. There is a growing population fleeing CA and NY right now to the point where the housing market is pushing a lot of locals out. I fish up there every other year and use the same guides that either grew up in the area or have been there 10+ years. It's interesting to ask them how quickly things are changing around there. Livingston is becoming what Bozeman was 5 or 6 years ago. Billings is just an old railroad and cattle town but you can fly in/out of there almost half as much as Bozeman.

Next time I go up there I thing we are going to N/W Montana to escape the crowds.

 

[maroonmadman]

Bozeman is quickly loosing its charm quickly. There is a growing population fleeing CA and NY right now to the point where the housing market if pushing a lot of locals out. I fish up there every other year and use the same guides that either grew up in the area or have been there 10+ years. It's interesting to ask them how quickly things are changing around there. Livingston is becoming what Bozeman was 5 or 6 years ago. Billings even though it is the capital it is just an old railroad and cattle town but you can fly in/out of there almost half as much as Bozeman.

Next time I go up there I thing we are going to N/W Montana to escape the crowds.

I have a friend who has been living in Whitefish for the past 20+ years. She made the same claims about Whitefish, too many outsiders moving in, driving real estate and housing prices through the roof and making it difficult for locals to afford to live there. Getting too crowded and putting a strain on local services, water, sewer, garbage and not to mention traffic. She bought a motor home and bailed out. Put her dinky house up for sale asking $550K, sold it for $675K. She hit the road and didn't look back.

 

[ZombieKissinger]

The one thing that didn’t look amazing was the way I left the bathroom at Avalanche. A lot happened in a short amount of time, but the take home message is don’t eat lunch at Vaqueros before going into the park

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

You didn't mess up your new "We're going to Montana" duds did you?

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[baddawggy]

i lived at Red Lodge Montana for a year it was really nice.

 

[Maroonthirteen]

Interesting. And just think... People haven't really started moving out of the cities in large numbers .... yet.

anyway, I've always wanted to go up there for the snow skiing.

 

[Shmuley]

Did you trek all the way up to Avalanche Lake before you desecrated the toilet? Or did this happen at the trailhead?

 

[Trojanbulldog19]

The one thing that didn’t look amazing was the way I left the bathroom at Avalanche. A lot happened in a short amount of time, but the take home message is don’t eat lunch at Vaqueros before going into the park

Makes me think of the time a bunch of the group I was with at the Grand Canyon decided to get the Navajo taco at this little restaurant on the way back from the south rim. Destroyed bathrooms every where in flagstaff

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Not saying this was the case in her town, but a lot of this is caused by protectionist attitudes in these resort towns. The big cause of driving up real estate in mountain towns is not a whole bunch of new full timers moving in, it's short term rental/vacation home owners. These towns rely on tourists dollars to survive and when times are bad they beg for more people to come and spend tons of money marketing their little town.

Once everyone finds it and and wants to come back, they ***** about it being too crowded and how they want to preserve the town as it is. There's very much a "if we don't build it" they won't come attitude. So instead of allowing for new development, the people vote against it and tourists come in and buy up the residents' housing, update it, and turn it into vacation or short term rental properties.

These are very much the "drill baby drill", just not anywhere near me or "cut government red tape" except in my town type of people.

 

[dorndawg]

Not saying this was the case in her town, but a lot of this is caused by protectionist attitudes in these resort towns. The big cause of driving up real estate in mountain towns is not a whole bunch of new full timers moving in, it's short term rental/vacation home owners. These towns rely on tourists dollars to survive and when times are bad they beg for more people to come and spend tons of money marketing their little town.

Once everyone finds it and and wants to come back, they ***** about it being too crowded and how they want to preserve the town as it is. There's very much a "if we don't build it" they won't come attitude. So instead of allowing for new development, the people vote against it and tourists come in and buy up the residents' housing, update it, and turn it into vacation or short term rental properties.

These are very much the "drill baby drill", just not anywhere near me or "cut government red tape" except in my town type of people.

#BuildMoreHousing

 

[ZombieKissinger]

Trailhead. As disgusting as national park toilets are, this one was pristine. Benefit of off season. I left it looking like I’d written a bunch of curse words in Braille

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

It's honestly not even housing itself that is the issue it's the squashing of every development like "chain" hotels or new condos in a lot of these places. We came up to do our home inspection during father's day weekend and got a room at a Holiday Inn Express for $389 per night. It's the newest hotel in town and was built in 2002. If the city/residents would let more hotels and developments come in, then not so many homes would be needed/used as vacation rentals.

In my town, they vote will completely against multifamily development or anything from a chain. It's sad how they don't understand what kind of grief they are causing for themselves. Currently we sit at 27% of housing units occupied by permanent residents. 73% are second/vacation homes. The goal is to be 40% full time and 60% part time. They are actively trying to get young families to move here vs the part timers.

 

[maroonmadman]

Not saying this was the case in her town, but a lot of this is caused by protectionist attitudes in these resort towns. The big cause of driving up real estate in mountain towns is not a whole bunch of new full timers moving in, it's short term rental/vacation home owners. These towns rely on tourists dollars to survive and when times are bad they beg for more people to come and spend tons of money marketing their little town.

Once everyone finds it and and wants to come back, they ***** about it being too crowded and how they want to preserve the town as it is. There's very much a "if we don't build it" they won't come attitude. So instead of allowing for new development, the people vote against it and tourists come in and buy up the residents' housing, update it, and turn it into vacation or short term rental properties.

These are very much the "drill baby drill", just not anywhere near me or "cut government red tape" except in my town type of people.

I'm not going to disagree JLS but from what she tells me it's kind of the opposite, too much development and it's all too expensive for any of the locals to afford and it's too expensive for folks who support these tourist to afford to live and work there. It is also putting a huge strain on the local environment in that all these folks produce garbage and cause changes to the local environment that may hamper further development.

A good read on this type of stuff is 'Collapse, How societies choose to fail or survive' by Jared Diamond. He has been fishing up there since the 70s and has a cabin up there. He writes about the changes he has witnessed. He also discusses how other cultures have either made it or died out. Some unsettling similarities between what is going on there now and what has gone on to failed societies in the past.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

When there is too much development, that will drive the market down would it not? What I am seeing happen is the only thing anybody in these towns want build is single family homes on big lots of land to "preserve" the character. Well, if you own an acre of land and can build one house on it would you put up a 1250 square footer to rent out for cost to lower income families or would you build a 3500+ square footer that could put half a million in your pocket the day it was built. We just had this very thing happen in my town in August. A developer wanted to buy up some land and start building a bunch of ****. Including some affordable stuff. But the town killed it faster than you can blink, because its public access land where they go pick their huckleberries or some ****.


This is what happens in these little mountain towns. Check out these 2 articles from Whitefish. I just looked this up and its exactly what I mean. Please read them both completely. It explains what I am talking about. They fight every damn thing that comes along.

https://flatheadbeacon.com/2021/10/...t-project-confronts-whitefishs-growing-pains/

https://whitefishpilot.com/news/2021/oct/27/volume-comments-pushes-planning-board-decision-lar/


Article 1 from October 18 2021 shows a Whitefish housing development proposal for 318 housing units, 32 of which will be deed restricted for local residents that only make 60-80% of the areas median income. Quote : “In the Whitefish 2007 Growth Policy, it says we need a place for teachers, police officers, firefighters, sales and servers — the people we depend on,” Barnett said. “I can prioritize rent for those who work in Whitefish, because we (AMG) manage our own rental communities.”

Article 2 from October 27 2021 shows that the zoning board had to push the meeting because of the "volume of comments" against the proposal. The biggest complaint... Traffic. So instead of being able to zone the housing for affordable condos and townhomes, the residents will fight it. As one of the commenter says, the developer will instead build multimillion dollar vacation homes if they don't approve it.


I don't doubt your friends take, but the reality is these people have lived in a bubble. Maybe it's the Texas in me, but I am used to the city rallying behind developers and usually giving tax incentives when they want to build some ****. Whitefish has a population of 7,000ish. A 300+ home development will make a dent. Yes its high density housing, but that's what affordable housing looks like today.You sell bonds to improve infrastructure or privatize the services. It's honestly no different than any other town in the country faces during growth.

ETA. Not arguing Madman. I think it's a matter of perspective. Coming from an area (Texas) that embraced and supported growth, its almost comical to see people fight it so hard. Then I think about a place like Mississippi that is dying to grow and imagine how much they would support it.

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I can see this happening. I've got close family with a vacation house in Truckee, California. Having spent a couple holiday weekends in the Lake Tahoe area and seeing the traffic between there and the Bay Area, it reminds me of the comments here about traffic between Destin/Pensacola/Orange Beach and Mississippi.

 

[maroonmadman]

Thanks for the reads JLS. The thing my friend is concerned about didn't seem to get much mention in the article. Traffic is one of the big concerns but another big concern is can the local environment sustain the additional folks? Water, sewer, garbage and the like have to come from somewhere local and to some of the locals there is already a big strain on these services.

The big question I would ask is "Do these municipalities have the right to restrict growth so as to keep things from getting too big?" There does come a point where you can outgrow what is sustainable. A lot of the locals feel as if they
have reached what is sustainable and are being priced out of their own town. I see the developers are including affordable housing (for locals) in the plan but some of the locals feel that what is being offered won't meet needs.

It will be interesting to watch this play out.

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Its fascinating for sure. Ironically I was talking to my neighbor last night, he's in the process of building 3 houses next to me. He was telling me about the new city planner we have is actually trying to encourage new construction, but for a decade it was a constant battle.

His permitting costs on each house were over $33k (2500 sf) because the city uses permit costs to fund the entire building, planning, and zoning department. He also said it took 4 months to get approval to cut down any trees over 12 inches in diameter on the lots.

He also had to hire an engineer to work with the sewer district to make sure the houses wouldn't overburden the existing system. Doesn't that seem like something that the sewer district should be able to provide?

For $20-30 million the city could double it's sewage capacity. Nobody would ever vote for that bond though. But we did just give $5 million dollars to expand and spruce up the public library (in 2021 mind you.) That bond got 80% approval.

It's never going to be as cheap to live in the mountains. Everything is more expensive because of how remote it is and all of the costs associated with managing the snow and cold. But they really do step on their own peckers a lot.