The Gallatin Association of REALTORS strongly opposes the Water Adequacy Ballot Initiative. GAR asks that the City Commission reject placing this measure directly on the 2025 ballot.

Bozeman has housing availability and affordability problems as well as water supply issues. Tangible, actionable solutions are necessary to provide Bozeman residents can purchase homes; live, work, and raise families in the community without significant housing cost burdens; or fearful of their potable water running dry. GAR supports efforts to identify and leverage all possible solutions to these problems that do not negatively impact the housing supply and growth management toolkits.

The Water Adequacy Ballot Initiative will effectively place a moratorium on all types of housing development for a minimum of 99 years. Though the intentions of this initiative—which seek to address affordable rent and for sale housing options, and water availability issues—are seemingly healthy, the short- and long-term effects will do the opposite of this measure’s stated purpose.

This measure is an overt, explicit attempt to stop any new housing type being built in Bozeman. 33% affordability is an arbitrary figure, with no factual evidence, a feasibility study, or otherwise that supports mandating 1/3 of new units being “affordable.”

There are 1,005 new units in the pipeline, created by the AHO that meet the 60% and 120% AMI criteria outlined in this initiative. In the last decade, more than 4,500 units have been put on the market. With a vacancy rate of 9-12% in Bozeman, there are nearly 1,000 vacant units in the city limits. That does not mean, however, demand has decreased, rather that supply is catching up.

Demand for housing in Gallatin Valley will not cease. If this initiative is passed, Bozeman will have no ability to build housing units to support housing the community’s steady demand and tax revenue from any new development—throughout the income scale—will disappear entirely. Stopping the creation of all types of housing units from being built will exacerbate affordability issues, not solve them.

Bozeman’s water is not a finite supply, and the city’s supply capacities are not tapped out. This effort will not solve water supply issues, doing away with cash-in-lieu of water rights does nothing to provide the city more capacity. Importantly, all this “stick” will do is remove the ability for Bozeman to generate revenue from this legally available tool to create affordable housing units.

GAR supports all efforts that address affordable housing and water supply issues that present economically sensible, forward-thinking options. Placing the Water Adequacy Ballot Initiative directly on the ballot is a mistake. We urge the City Commission to reject this proposal, request WARD to collect more data, and educate voters being asked to sign this petition about the intended and unintended consequences of this Ballot Initiative. GAR believes in and would like to see a continuation of levering the tools in the current and proposed Integrated Water plan, the current and proposed UDC, AHO, TIF, LIHTC, NCOD, Urban Renewal Districts, and all other existing and available tools designed to create affordable housing and add water to Gallatin Valley’s closed basin system.