“The entire process was a new approach,” said Steve Thompson, “but until today it was only on paper. This is finally the first step to implementing our ideas on the ground.”
Thompson heads a group of Whitefish locals who for several years have been negotiating with land managers at the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
But the locals rely upon that same moat for jobs and for recreation, for timber and hunting and hiking and biking. The state lands literally define the community, creating a public-land boundary around the town and a forested foundation for private property values.
The compromise - five years in the works - involved untold scores of people but hinged, finally, on one man: Whitefish philanthropist Michael Goguen.
On Monday morning, the state Land Board unanimously approved a land swap with Goguen.
The DNRC will turn over 435 acres to Goguen, who will swap out 570 acres of his own.
The 435 acres is adjacent to Goguen's private property, so will round out his ownership. The 570 acres connects a larger block of state lands. In addition, Goguen is tossing in a nearby 30-acre parcel, which provides DNRC with frontage on U.S. Highway 93.
He also is trading a commercial building in downtown Whitefish and promising rental income there for a full 10 years.
“This is not your grandfather's economy,” Thompson said. “In today's world, it makes sense for DNRC to have highway frontage and a downtown townhouse.”
Agency head Mary Sexton agrees, and in an interview with the Missoulian last month said DNRC's “primary focus, in the last four years, has been looking to the present and to the future. How are things changing? How do we blend the traditional with the new?”
This week's unconventional land swap is one way. Another is with land banks, or conservation easements, or commercial leases. Yet another is with a neighborhood plan, like the one that led to the Goguen exchange.
“This is an era of change,” Sexton said, “and we're constantly analyzing different ways to meet our mandate.”
Much has changed since statehood, when Montana inherited millions of public acres. Those lands, which today total about 5.1 million acres, have for decades been logged and ranched and farmed and even mined. They're held in trust for state schools, and education has benefited greatly from the proceeds.
But in recent years the value of timber forests and farming fields simply could not keep pace with real estate prices, and DNRC - mandated to generate money for schools - began considering new options.
In 2003, the agency came to Whitefish with an interest in selling off a good chunk of the “moat” around town. Locals were alarmed, however, saying a sale would prove penny wise but pound foolish, and within months a precedent-setting effort was under way to collaboratively craft a “neighborhood plan.”
At the time, DNRC called it an “experiment” that, if successful, could perhaps be implemented in other Montana communities.
The result - the Whitefish Neighborhood Plan - attempts to generate perpetual revenue for DNRC, while at the same time benefiting the locals. Central to the effort is creation of a recreational trail that winds through the moat, linking federal, state and private lands.
Not a few of those private acres are owned by Goguen, who has long had an interest in acquiring 435 acres of neighboring state land. Turns out, he also had an interest in trails, and in his hometown, and so the Goguen land exchange became central to implementing the overall neighborhood plan.
He would turn over his acres - which came with conservation easements - and would voluntarily place easements on the lands he would receive. He'd allow public access across his place, and even pay to build the trail there. In fact, Goguen promised more than $3 million for trail building and forest land conservation.
The result, Thompson said, is a brand-new way of managing state lands. The DNRC will receive more money, over time, than if it simply sold the property outright. The community keeps its character and its jobs, and gets a brand-new recreational amenity. Goguen finally owns the state land next door, “and so everyone wins,” Thompson said. “It's pretty amazing, really.”
In this case, he said, a wealthy landowner made the deal possible, but in other towns a similar model could be funded by open space bonds or federal land grants or local land trusts - so long as people are willing to put in the time required to hammer out the details.
“Instead of taking the short-term approach, with immediate real estate revenue, the state has decided to take a more conservative long-term approach, with perpetual income,” Thompson said.
Communities looking to follow the Whitefish lead must understand “there's a price of admission that has to be paid,” but if the state's fiscal needs can be met, “then it's absolutely possible to benefit everyone involved,” Thompson said.
More important, he said, the path now has been paved for future collaborative efforts, which can perhaps be expected as DNRC continues to explore what Sexton called “a wholesale, substantial shift in the way we treat state lands.”
State staffers, in their professional report on the land swap, conceded that the opportunities and obstacles presented in Whitefish “have not been traditionally encountered in managing Montana trust lands. DNRC staff fully expect that our toolbox will have a few non-traditional tools in it upon implementation.”
Which, after all, was the point all along.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@
missoulian.com.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)