Gallatin County, population 67,831 (2000), surrounds the City of Bozeman and extends south to the borders of Wyoming and Idaho, including the western border of Yellowstone National Park. In 2003, Beyond Takings and Givings reported that there were 14 zoning districts in the County and that three of them had TDR programs. As of July 2006, Gallatin County had 20 zoning districts and five of them had TDR components. The TDR components of three of these zoning districts are addressed in Beyond Takings and Givings: Springhill, South Gallatin and Bridger Canyon. A description of the TDR program for a forth zoning district, Middle Cottonwood, is included below. The following section describes the fifth and most recent TDR program addition in Gallatin County, in the Reese Creek zoning district.
Reese Creek
The Gallatin County Commissioners adopted the Reese Creek zoning regulations in June 2006. This zoning district consists of roughly 22,000 acres of sparsely-developed land located 12 miles north of the City of Bozeman. Reese Creek and Bear Creek flow from the foothills of the Bridger Range on the east and cross this area on their way to the Gallatin River. Approximately 1,600 acres within this district are already protected by conservation easements. The eastern half of the zoning district is within the Gallatin National Forest and designated as a Public Lands zoning district. The remaining three zoning districts are the Rural Residential and Wildlife Corridor (RW-160) allowing one unit per 160 acres, the Agriculture and Rural Residential (AR-80) allowing one unit per 80 acres and the Rural Residential (RR-40) allowing one unit per 40 acres. The TDR provisions of the Reese Creek zoning regulations are designed to preserve agricultural and environmentally sensitive lands while offering landowners the flexibility of transferring development rights within and between zoning districts. Land in either the RW-160 or AR-80 districts can serve as TDR sending areas.
The RW-160 district generally forms a buffer area roughly one mile wide immediately west of the National Forest. This district is intended to create a wildlife corridor at the base of the Bridger Mountain Range. Landowners in the RW-160 may build one unit per 160 acres on site. They can also use three additional development rights on site per 160 acres under the Cluster Subdivision procedures. Alternatively, all four development rights may be transferred to a receiving site at a two-to-one transfer ratio, meaning that instead of building a maximum of four units on site they can transfer eight developments rights offsite.
The AR-80 district includes roughly 5,000 acres primarily in the western quarter of the Reese Creek zoning district. This zone is designed to preserve agriculture, scenic views and wildlife habitat while allowing limited residential development. Onsite development here can be a maximum of one unit per 80 acres or two units per 80 acres when the Cluster Subdivision process is used. Alternatively, landowners may transfer some or all of these development rights to a receiving area. Unlike rights from the RW-160 zone, the transfer ratio is one-to-one.
Transfers are subject to Conditional Use Permit approval. Receiving areas are not specified in this regulation. Instead, transfers may occur to any receiving area approved by Gallatin County as part of a contemplated countywide or inter-district TDR program.
Middle Cottonwood
The Middle Cottonwood zoning district, adopted in 1996, encompasses about 10,000 acres at the base of the west slope of the Bridger Mountains ten miles north of Bozeman. About 4,200 acres in the district are within the boundaries of the Gallatin National Forest and another 640 acres constitute the State School Section. The zoning regulation is intended to preserve groundwater quality, wildlife habitat, agricultural lands and scenic resources as well as limit density.
Land in the Middle Cottonwood District falls into two zoning districts. The National Forest lands and the State School Section to the east are zoned Natural Resource (NR) Zone. These lands were in public ownership at the time of adoption of the zoning regulations. But the NR zone is intended to preserve the environmental quality of this area in the event that any of this land is transferred into private ownership in the future. All privately owned land at the time of the zoning regulation adoption was in the second zone, AR - Agricultural and Rural Residential. (Although the TDU mechanism would apply in the NR zone in the event that public lands transferred to private ownership, this discussion is confined to land in the AR zone to reduce confusion.)
In the AR zone, maximum density is one unit per 20 acres when the TDU mechanism is not used. A Deer Winter Range Overlay Zone covers roughly 3,000 acres of the AR zone. Within the Deer Overlay, maximum on-site density is limited to one unit per 40 acres. In the Middle Cottonwood regulations, TDRs are referred to as density units and defined as the right to build a single-family dwelling unit on a parcel other than the parcel from which the density unit is being transferred. Density units may be transferred between any two AR parcels. However density units may not be transferred from outside the Deer Overlay to land within the Deer Overlay. In other words, three transfer options exist: from and to land outside the Deer Overland; from and to land within the Deer Overlay; and from land within the Deer Overlay to land outside the Deer Overlay.
The transfer ratio is one-two one except for the third transfer scenario listed above. For example, one density unit can be transferred for each 20 acres of land outside the Deer Overlay. Similarly, one density unit can be transferred for each 40 acres of Deer Overlay land when the receiving site is also within the Deer Overlay. However, three density units can be transferred per 40 acres of preserved Deer Overlay land when all three density units are transferred out of the Deer Overlay.
Up to two density units can be transferred by approval of a land use permit. However, the Planned Unit Development (PUD) process must be used when more than two units are transferred. The PUD must further the goals of the Middle Cottonwood zoning district. In addition, at least half of the transferee lot (the receiving site) must be open space. PUDs are processed under the County’s procedures for a conditional use permit.
The Saddle Peaks Estates subdivision was the first project to use Middle Cottonwood’s transfer provisions. The 520-acre receiving site was entitled to 26 lots at the baseline density of one unit per 20 acres. The developer, Bill Muhlenfeld, bought 15 density units for $20,000 each, permanently preserving 514 acres of off-site open space, which continues in agricultural use. Half of the receiving site, or 262 acres, were also set aside as open space and are leased to a local farmer. The PUD allowed the reduction of the average lot size from 20 acres to 6.3 acres. The development is reported to have received no opposition from its neighbors and Muhlenfeld states that Saddle Peaks Estates is very successful from a financial as well as a design perspective. It has “succeeded beyond our wildest expectations” Muhlenfeld is quoted as saying. “I think it [TDR] is a wonderful tool and wonder why there have not been more transactions of this type.”
