Whitefish looks at snow-lot housing project

A kick-off meetingt

The city of Whitefish invites the public to attend a community kick-off meeting at 6 p.m. Thursday at Whitefish City Hall to begin the process of creating design concepts for affordable housing at the snow lot near the train depot.

Homeword, a Missoula nonprofit community housing development organization that has been providing affordable housing across Montana since 1994, will be the consultant engaging the community in this design process.

The meeting will be followed by two community design charrette meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, Sept. 19 and 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the City Hall lobby. Once those meetings are complete and the consultants have completed their work, there will be a presentation of the design options on Wednesday, Oct. 17, at 6 p.m. in the City Hall council chambers.

Over the last couple of years, the city of Whitefish, Whitefish Chamber of Commerce and the Whitefish Housing Authority have been working to tackle the issue of affordable housing. A housing needs study was conducted in 2016 followed by a strategic housing plan completed in 2017. During that public process, the snow lot was identified as a place to develop affordable housing. This project is not a low-income housing project, but rather a project for area median incomes averaging $40,000 to $53,400 per year.