Gallatin County planning has posted the final text of a proposed zoning amendment, to be heard June 13th. This was submitted by Wendy Dickson for the BCPRC (not BCPOA).
Update: The BCPOA board opposes this amendment.
You should read the full text and narrative for details, but briefly the effect is to:
- Define rentals and add them to the permitted uses in the AE and RF subdistricts (most of Bridger Canyon)
- Require a written approval from planning
- Create some standards limiting number of units, providing contact information, and documenting rules
- Make Accessory Dwelling Units rentable short or long term
File, accessed 5/8/2024, 4pm:
Direct link to the file at Gallatin County Planning Department, if you prefer:
Staff Report
The Planning Department’s staff report on the amendment is now available:
Commenting: the Planning Department has requested that comment be directed to the Director, at
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NO short term rentals. Short term rentals in the Bridger Canyon Zoning District will be damaging environmentally, for property values, and for the community at large (especially road safety for people and animals). BCPOA and the community needs to say NO for any short term rentals, and make it clear to the County Commissioners that the current zoning has successfully preserved this landscape for all, resident and non- resident alike, for 50 plus years with its GUIDED and LIMITED uses. The essentially private-public- stewardship through zoning with single-dwellings on 40 acres, or adjusted in PUD’s, with expanded accessory dwellings for family, facilitate land use practices which implement the zoning goals to preserve and sustain long term health of land for agriculture, for wildlife habitat, migration and safety with LIMITED DEVELOPMENT and use. This region is an active and critical wildlife corridor for all species except possibly, grizzly bears, and since we saw one several years ago on I90 not far from Bear Canyon, they may be here too. Other letters already sent to BCPOA state known negative impacts of short term rental situations in rural areas. News articles are out there describing the damaging impacts to wildlife/rtural regions that open up to short to rentals. The reason we still have an active wildlife corridor and healthy wildlife populations is BECAUSE of limited use, confined to single owner dwelling on specified sized acreage.
We bought land here knowing the zoning. We’ve assumed the limitations and responsibilities of the zoning for the larger goals which recognize the critical importance of preserving agricultural lands for wildlife and wildlife corridor preservation. The zoning has worked. It can only continue to work if it is honored, and not radically changed to open up to commercial land use through short term rentals. Our zoning has achieved what thousands of regions wish they had – past wisdom to PLAN through CONSTRAINT. Now other regions have degraded ecosystems in which wildlife populations are struggling or are gone. THIS is why I say in practice, we are a Private-Public contract which has worked for the larger good. Short Term rentals ARE NEGATIVELY impactful on landscape situations such as this one. FIFTY years of success shows the BC Zoning is still working for the public good, and for the community, which has a right to its road safety and neighborhood quality as well.
I have lived in Bridger Canyon since 1990. From that time until a few years ago I rented my house as a short term or long term rental. I have never had a complaint from anyone in the Canyon regarding this. I am happy to get whatever permits are required and make sure the renters are vetted. I may not rent it anymore, but I do want to have the option. It is NOT Air B&B, I always use a local property manager.
Many rentals in the past have been folks building their house in the Canyon. I have had some vacationers as well. I no longer rent to skiers as they don’t take care of the house.
I believe the new regulations are reasonable and fair, and allow people who need income a chance to have tenants in their ADU’s and thus get rent. This was the way it was done for the majority of years, before the County decided to disallow it. I hope we can get back to being reasonable and neighborly regarding this,
There are important distinctions to understand in this discussion. Renting for more than 30 days at a time, “long-term” renting has always been allowed and has an important role in the make up of community residents. It is not now or has ever been changed or threatened. At issue is “short-term” (STR) renting, less than 30 days and 99% conducted through the online platforms of Airbnb and VRBO. “Short-term” renting has never been allowed in the zoning, even though a small number of places have flown under the radar and operated as STRs for years. What happened is that two years ago neighbors in the Canyon formally complained to the County about multiple STRs operating near them after problems with STR guests. The ONLY way that the County investigates zoning issues is if a public complaint is filed. Up until two years ago, no public complaint had been filed against any of the existing STRs. The County is not disallowing STRs, it is simply (and FINALLY) doing its job of enforcing the zoning rules. This is also an issue because of the rapid proliferation of STRs, owned by non-residents, being offered year-round as pure tourism accommodations. This removes them from the pool of available housing for local residents. The proposed amendment would allow ALL of Mary’s nearest neighbors to be purchased and operated as year-round tourist accommodations.
Ok Kent.
So you say long term rentals have always been allowed by zoning.
How do you know long term renting has always been allowed?
We know that it is prohibited to rent an ADU long term because it is prohibited in the zoning text. But renting is not mentioned in the zoning text at all for a primary residence prohibited or permitted. So how do you know long term renting has always been allowed without zoning text saying it is permitted?
This is a moot point, because the MT Landlord Tenant Act preempts zoning control over long term rentals. Other parts of state law also preempt zoning control over most aspects of agriculture and mineral extraction.
Short Term Rentals do not fall under the Landlord Tenant Act umbrella, because there is an exemption for “hotels” which is a catch-all for various kinds of short term accommodations.
Wendy Dickson, there’s your answer (thanks BCPOA). This is an answer easily found in public documents and even more easily found by your own lawyer. Can you please stop repeating things that are demonstrably false. BCPOA just demonstrated that your “long-term rentals must be illegal too” is “not supported by the facts”. Your claim that the County previously allowed anything not specifically disallowed and then changed its mind is also false i.e. “not supported by the facts”, at least if you ask people whose job it is to know what is true in that regard, like the Planning Department and multiple Commissioners, current and past. And while we’re talking, please explain how you think it ethically acceptable to publish a video clip on your Facebook page of me speaking at a public meeting and recklessly and disingenuously characterize it as hypocrisy, and then BLOCK me from responding on that page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/301479186113264 Your characterization is not only a cheap shot but easily debunked. In the case of my STR it is 1: in Bozeman, not Bridger Canyon 2: In the B3 Zoning district of Bozeman where STRs are EXPLICITLY mentioned and encouraged (just like the Bridger Bowl Base Area), 3: my STR has ALWAYS been in complete compliance with the zoning and compliant in terms of the permit system of the City and State required Accommodation Licensing. Your STR is in Bridger Canyon where it is NOT allowed (as affirmed twice in the Lewis case) and has no permit to operate because there is NO permit system offered in Bridger Canyon and never has been. You have been operating your STR illegally since approximately 2008. You operated without a State-required Health Department Accommodation License until 2017 when you applied and received one, then let it lapse in 2021 and re-applied in January of 2024, according to the Gallatin County Health Department. (The Accommodation License does not convey legitimacy or supersede zoning compliance.. again, ask your lawyer). You have never produced a shred of evidence to support your claim that the County was aware of your STR and approved of it. Bridger Bowl listed your STR on their web page years ago, a fact that conveys no legality to your STR, then or now. That your STR is listed on Airbnb and VRBO also conveys no legality. In fact, the Terms of Service (TOS), an actual contract between you and those companies, explicitly requires you, the “Host”, to ensure that your property is fully compliant with all zoning and regulations which you have not done. In other words, your comparison is pinecones to pineapples. Context and facts matter. If the Bridger Canyon zoning had always, explicitly allowed STRs and you had always been properly compliant and permitted, I would be fighting hard on your side. But that is not the case. What is the case is that your crusade and your text amendment are a blatant effort to change the law to benefit yourself and a handful of other non-resident/investor STR owners/scofflaws to protect your financial interests. It’s that simple.
Hi Tom.
I have a copy of the 2023 MCA Montana Landlord Tenant Act. I understand that as State Law it preempts local zoning and HOA regulation, but I don’t know which part of the Act you are referring to that makes long term renting legal, if local zoning says it is not.
Can you please site the specific clause you are referring to.
I don’t see short term rentals listed on the exclusion from chapter. Although there was a bill the last legislative session that added short term rentals to the exclusions from chapter. It did not pass. This shows that it was contemplated by the legislature and they chose not to remove short term rentals from landlord tenant law. I would argue that short term rentals do fall under montana landlord tenant law, as there is no durational requirement for leases. Hotels are seperate definition than short term rentals. Short term rentals are not hotels.
70-24-104. Exclusions from application of chapter. Unless created to avoid the application of this chapter, the following arrangements are not governed by this chapter:
(1) residence at a public or private institution if incidental to detention or the provision of medical, geriatric, educational, counseling, religious, or similar service, including all housing provided by the Montana university system and other postsecondary institutions;
(2) occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which it is a part if the occupant is the purchaser or a person who succeeds to the purchaser’s interest;
(3) occupancy by a member of a fraternal or social organization in the portion of a structure operated for the benefit of the organization;
(4) transient occupancy in a hotel or motel;
(5) occupancy by an owner of a condominium unit or a holder of a proprietary lease in a cooperative;
(6) occupancy under a rental agreement covering premises used by the occupant primarily for commercial or agricultural purposes;
(7) occupancy by an employee of a landlord whose right to occupancy is conditional upon employment in and about the premises; and
(8) occupancy outside a municipality under a rental agreement that includes hunting, fishing, or agricultural privileges, along with the use of the dwelling unit.
If you live in Bridger Canyon, be aware that this amendment is a BAD IDEA and it is being put forth solely to protect the business interests of a very few people, mostly out-of-state and out-of-canyon investors who want to turn the Canyon into a “neighborhood” of Airbnbs. If this passes, your neighbor’s house can become a year-round tourism accommodation, forever. Most of those tourists will be nice people but you will bear the brunt of the ones who are careless and irresponsible. And you won’t have a neighbor, just a series of strangers with no connection to the community other than enjoying the beauty that zoning has protected for 50 years. The promoters of this amendment clutch “property rights being stolen” like a string of pearls. NONSENSE. They claim that STRs are needed so people can afford to stay in their homes. This is a NONSENSICAL argument that fails the test of logic. Remember that Airbnb was designed to help Owner/Residents make additional money and meet people by renting rooms or their entire home when they were away PART-TIME. This amendment invites investor groups, “vacation home” owners, realtors and property managers to pop the champagne and promote the sale of residences in Bridger Canyon as year-round, lucrative investments. Make your voice heard to the Commission NOW! email to Commission@gallatin.mt.gov and say REJECT the June Zoning Text Amendment. And be sure to include if you are a Bridger Canyon owner/resident. The City of Bozeman rejected these investor-owned STRs and the Canyon should too.
Short term rentals have existed in Bridger Canyon for decades, with no adverse environmental impact, wildlife harm or negative effect on the rural nature of the of the area.
The zoning text amendment was filed to help return property rights of ALL Bridger Canyon residents,
The freedom to rent a primary residence allows home owners to gain passive income in case of unexpected economic challenges that the future may hold. That income would also allow for property improvements to the property, such as spraying for invasive weeds or clearing wildfire fuel.
The “not listed, not allowed” change in 2023 goes against common sense as very few land uses are specifically listed.
In a 2020 decision, the Montana Supreme court ruled that short term rentals and long term rentals must be viewed as residential use.
The reality is that adopting this ZTA will have no impact on the quality of life in the canyon. Instead, it sets standards to make sure that, if one does want to rent their home, they need to follow health rules, pay taxes and adhere to governmental guidelines.
The ZTA restricts the number of rental units to one per parcel, preserving the rural nature of the canyon.
The ZTA promotes responsible ownership by restoring financial freedom, and creates a standard that will revoke rental rights if rules are not followed. The ZTA is a positive step for the “health, safety, and general welfare” of Bridger Canyon that deserves fair consideration and support.
Presumably the MT Supreme Court case you reference is Craig Tracts Homeowners’ Association, Inc. v. Brown Drake, LLC. That’s a covenants case, not a zoning case. The court ruled that the ambiguity of the HOA contract favored permissive use. That doesn’t really apply to Gallatin Part 1 zoning, which provides an explicit Interpretation of Use procedure for resolving ambiguities. Prior to the Part 1 Admin Reg adoption, there was a corresponding procedure, a finding of “similar use” by the commission. Neither of these has ever been used in this context.
The zoning regulation never used “not listed = allowed”. Even in 1971 it provided that permits could only be issued for uses in conformance with the regulation. If an unlisted use is nevertheless in conformance, what would be the purpose of listing uses?
It is true that just one STR doesn’t have an “adverse environmental impact, wildlife harm or negative effect on the rural nature of the area”. Opening the doors to allow, literally, every home in the Canyon to be a legal STR would, IMHO, have an “adverse environmental impact, wildlife harm or negative effect on the rural nature of the area”.
Your STR operated under the radar of Code Compliance for 16 or more years of great income. If you have actual evidence that the County approved your STR, you should provide it. Bridger Bowl listing your property as a courtesy for skiers is not evidence. Nor is the presence of other non-compliant STRs, no matter how long or pleasantly they have existed. The fact is that STR numbers in the Canyon have grown substantially (ten in the last 3 years) mirroring a problematic national trend for all attractive locations like Bridger Canyon.
You state that the ZTA was filed to “return property rights of ALL Bridger Canyon residents”. No property rights were taken, so how can they be returned? At least three past and current County Commissioners say the claim that somehow the county changed the rules and took away property rights is demonstrably false. Sean O’Callaghan says that the claim of changes in the rules is “not supported by the facts”. You’ve built up a straw man as the core of your argument. The 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump and the property rights of Bridger Canyon property owners have not been stolen. What the ZTA does is protect your financial interests under the smokescreen of “property rights”.
This canard is especially disingenuous:
“The freedom to rent a primary residence allows homeowners to gain passive income in case of unexpected economic challenges that the future may hold. That income would also allow for property improvements to the property, such as spraying for invasive weeds or clearing wildfire fuel.”
First: NONE of the current STR operators are using their own residence as an STR. You and the group of STR operators pushing this ZTA either live out of state, out of Canyon, out of County or do not reside in the property being rented. EVERY one of the STRs in question is a rental of the ENTIRE home. How do people residing in their home “gain passive income” without going and living somewhere else? In a tent in an open field near Lowe’s? In fact, a more logical solution to making income with which to address “unexpected economic challenges” would be a regulation limited to homeowners who STR their home for a minor part of the year, like is done in Bozeman. If only actual RESIDENTS could STR, limited to a minor part of the year, it would solve the “economic challenges” concern you raise while saving the Canyon from unfettered, investor-owned (non-resident) STRs.
“The “not listed, not allowed” change in 2023 goes against common sense as very few land uses are specifically listed.” You do not understand how zoning works. First, it is just false that there was a change from “not listed, allowed” to “not listed, not allowed”, just ask a County Commissioner or the County Attorney’s office. Your argument is yet another “straw man”. And “common sense” says that it is impossible to anticipate and list all things that are allowed. New things, like cell phone towers and STRs come along. The “common sense” approach is to disallow unless explicitly mentioned and then develop a legal pathway and regulations to allow a use when the community supports it. There is a path available to you that you have ignored, asking for a hearing on “similar use”. That is how uses are added to the list of accepted uses, how cell phone towers were added to the regulations. The common sense interpretation of the BC Zoning is to look at the Bridger Bowl Base Area, where overnight accommodations, including STRs, is an explicitly recognized use and has been since 1971. Then ask yourself.. why didn’t they make overnight accommodations/STRs an explicit use in the rest of the Canyon? And the common sense answer is that they DIDN’T WANT tourist accommodations scattered around the Canyon.
“The reality is that adopting this ZTA will have no impact on the quality of life in the canyon. Instead, it sets standards to make sure that, if one does want to rent their home, they need to follow health rules, pay taxes and adhere to governmental guidelines.” Many Canyon property owners would beg to differ with that first line. The reality is that to “follow health rules, pay taxes” is already on the books and only one STR in the Canyon has ever done that. The ZTA has very fuzzy, unenforceable guidelines with no mechanism to enforce “adherence” to the guidelines.
Furthermore, making ADU’s rentable is a HUGE step backwards. The only reason that ADUs were accepted by BCPOA (in the zoning update) as an acceptable use and substitute for the previous “guest house” and “caretaker’s residence” was the condition that ADU’s would NEVER be rentable. Making them rentable, especially rentable as STR’s, is a huge incentive to build them and run them as a business. Greater density ensues.
The “property rights” concern you wrap around your ZTA is lipstick on a pig. The ZTA is a very transparent effort to change zoning to financially benefit a tiny portion of property owners, virtually all of whom are non-resident property owners. If it walks like “spot-zoning”, and talks like “spot-zoning”.. it’s “spot-zoning”.
Please respect the intelligence of the Canyon Community and stop claiming your STR has always been legal, unless you can provide actual evidence.
And please be honest about your motivation in submitting the ZTA.
My reply to Albert’s comment is below. “It is true…”
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