The long-awaited update to the city's tangled development regulations won't be the last word on "granny suites" - or many other ideas near and dear to the 10 candidates running for contested seats on the Missoula City Council this fall.

One wants affordable housing, and another wants farmland preservation. One wants riparian protection. Another wants to make sure investments people made when they bought homes in the University Area aren't washed away. Of course, the accessory dwelling units - granny suites or mother-in-law apartments - continue to be alternately desired and feared.

"One thing I would have liked to have seen is the option for ADUs in all districts, and not just multi-family districts," said Ryan Morton, a candidate in Ward 1.

The project to update the city's clunky zoning rulebook, Title 19, kicked off in 2007. A lawsuit on the project was decided Friday. Councilman Bob Jaffe earlier said he expected the council will adopt the new rules, Title 20, if the judge's decision favored the city. And it did.

"I'm going to guess that it's eight to four," he said of the pending vote - which could come at Monday night's council meeting.

Then, perhaps a deep breath will be in order. Dealing with growth and development in Missoula is a task that's never done, though, and council candidates offered priorities and visions beyond the rewrite for the kind of Garden City they want to create.

Ward 2 hopeful Roy Houseman is the candidate who brings up agriculture. He said areas west of Reserve Street are good for homes, such as the Hellgate Meadows and Pleasant View subdivisions.

"That is a natural location where development needs to go," Houseman said. "It's also some prime agricultural land, and I think the city needs to be smart on its annexation to provide for that type of traditional farming that's been done in the Missoula Valley for well over a century."

He's been knocking on doors, and said he hears concerns about the granny suites. Residents worry about the appearance of the small homes on backlots, and also about enough parking for their residents. More people also bring more traffic, a concern he hears and wants to address in places such as Mary Jane Boulevard.

His opponent in Ward 2, Councilman John Hendrickson, said he plans to support the zoning rewrite as long as the city won the lawsuit against it. He supports most of the update.

"I plan on voting for Title 20 in some shape or form," Hendrickson said.

As for the future, the incumbent said he wants to be sure the rights of property owners are protected. If an entire neighborhood, such as all of the Westside, reaches a consensus to allow granny suites, he's open to the notion. But he said the few don't guide the lives of the many.

"If they decide as a group that they want to go a certain direction, then that's their prerogative," Hendrickson said. "But don't take a two-block area and destroy it."

Ward 3 candidate John Quandt shares those concerns, and said he fears an attempt to allow mother-in-law units in the University Area and other established neighborhoods.

"You don't want to disenfranchise the people who have invested an awful lot of money to live there," Quandt said.

He likes the idea of a mix of residential and commercial spaces in new developments, but doesn't want existing commercial buildings totally taken over by homes.

Quandt said he wishes the Old Sawmill District near McCormick Park was to remain industrial so businesses could offer more jobs. Since it's going to have much residential, it's one area he'd like to see filled in, even if it won't be the kind of development he prefers.

"I think the houses crammed in next to each other are a bit of an eyesore, myself, but I'd rather they make the best use of the property," Quandt said.

For Ward 3 incumbent Jaffe, affordable housing is a priority after the council completes its work on the zoning rewrite.

"We never really addressed some of the real affordable housing issues, and a lot of those are related to density," Jaffe said.

But he said talking about affordable housing in the context of the zoning rewrite seemed to put the entire project at stake. So up ahead, he'd like to see such policies debated on their own merits.

"What I want to do is open it up to have some of the folks who have actually developed affordable housing come talk to us," Jaffe said. He wants them to answer a question: "What have the regulatory impediments been?"

Maybe it's parking requirements, heights, setbacks. Or maybe it's fees, in which case he said subsidies may be in order.

"The folks that do this work, they've got a list of what they'd like to see different," Jaffe said.

In Ward 5, candidate Mike O'Herron points to one thing he'd like to see stay the same, at least in the short term. O'Herron said he generally agrees with the growth mapped out in the Urban Fringe Development Area plan, and wants to see it used as a guide.

In that plan, the Office of Planning and Grants documented where growth was happening - and recommended where it should and shouldn't happen based on things like whether buses were available or if an area had a lot of wildlife and open space.

He said the council should measure future development proposals against it: "I think we have to take it on a fairly case-by-case basis, and see what's proposed, and leverage the UFDA."

As for the zoning rewrite itself, O'Herron said people who use the regulations likely will have ideas for improvements once they've had time to work with them: "I think we should let the dust settle and start implementing the new rewrite, and see what surfaces as unintended consequences."

Councilman Dick Haines, the incumbent in Ward 5, is one of three councilors who sued the city and lost over the zoning rewrite. He has said the update is needed, but also has continued to speak against the outcome.

At a recent council meeting, Haines mentioned the rewrite to some members of the public who said they didn't like being surprised by changes to their street. He suggested the zoning rewrite held similar shocks.

"There are going to be a lot of surprises in that, too, and I'm sure you'll enjoy every minute of it," Haines said.

He addressed the question of growth at a recent candidate forum, too. People tell him they don't want to be able to knock on their neighbor's door through their own window, he said. They want some space and privacy.

In town, he said there's a problem of filling up open spaces with building units. And he said some growth will take place outside the urban area: "We're going to extend our city limits, I don't care if we want to or not."

Seeking another term for Ward 6, Councilwoman Marilyn Marler said in her area, people have liked homes on smaller lots: "A lot of friends and people my age buy those little houses on little lots, and they have improved some blocks in the neighborhood."

In the zoning rewrite, she would have liked granny suites to be allowed in single-family districts. At the same time, she heard enough concern about them that she believes it was better to gain agreement for the update.

The mother-in-law suites can be discussed more later on, she said, as can other areas. For instance, by default, many municipal codes emphasize green lawns, even in this dry climate, Marler said. She'd like to make it easier for people to mulch and landscape with rocks. Still high on her list of priorities is preserving riparian areas, a topic that turned out to be beyond the scope of the rewrite.

"I wanted to talk about riparian setbacks, and riparian protection as it relates to subdivision law," Marler said

Kathy Greathouse, trying to oust Marler, isn't as big a fan of UFDA, although she doesn't have a problem with planning. But she doesn't want government to discourage building outside the urban area.

"It is market driven," said Greathouse, a builder herself. "We don't really have the ability to tell people where to live. We shouldn't."

People themselves will choose whether they want urban lifestyles, she said. If people want to live on a quarter-acre, that's what they are going to purchase. Greathouse said she wants to know whether members of the public really want future updates to the growth policy to look like recommendations in UFDA.

As for granny suites, Greathouse said they should go in places where they don't create parking problems and challenges for trash pickup: "Corner lots, if you're going to do an ADU, is the way to go."

For Ward 1 Councilman Dave Strohmaier, the focus is on downtown Missoula. A cultural district is one of the long-term projects he'd like to see brought to fruition. And while the land isn't immediately available, he likes the idea in the Downtown Master Plan of putting homes on the railroad property between the tracks and Interstate 90.

"It's something that was identified as a real possibility to add to our downtown," Strohmaier said.

In the short term, he hopes the simplicity of the zoning rewrite is an incentive for people who delayed more difficult projects because of the ambiguity of the current rules.

"My hope is that (new regulations) would give property owners and would-be investors a sense of security that they might not have had right now," Strohmaier said.

Opponent Morton, who wants to bring granny suites up for discussion again, believes architectural, parking and other standards can alleviate people's concerns about the small homes.

"I would probably bring it back up and start addressing through performance standards the issues people are concerned about," Morton said. "They wouldn't fit into every lot."

As for future growth, he said areas such as the Lower Rattlesnake are appropriate for growth, but not the Upper Rattlesnake because traffic would become too congested. He'd like to see more small grocery stores in neighborhoods, too.

"It makes a neighborhood a destination, not just a place for people to live," Morton said. "You can explore."

Reporter Keila Szpaller can be reached at 523-5262, keila.szpaller@missoulian.com or on MissoulaRedTape.com.