Outreach for Missoula's Future

June 4, 2015 Kick-off Event!

Thank you all for the great turn out at the kick-off event to inspire Missoulians to plan their future and learn how to get involved. Some 125 people showed up to hear more about Missoula's future. Meeting agenda is below.

Nationally renowned Urban Planner, Ed McMahon, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute gave an excellent and inspiring presentation on the Secrets of Successful Communities (PDF). MCAT recorded the entire meeting and the keynote presentation starts 16 minutes into the video. We have also linked to his slide presentation (PDF) (14.2 MB).

Out-and-About

Planning staff participated in various events and gave numerous presentations from June 2014 to June 2015, informing the public of the projects, soliciting interests in participation, engaging the public by sharing ideas on assets and challenges that the growth policy should address.

Listening Sessions

In September, we wrapped up the Listening Sessions, conducting 28 in total and reaching over 300 people. Notes from the sessions are posted on our Focus Group Home Page. Listening sessions were established based on the many topics that have a role/impact in shaping our community. They range from natural resources to utilities and include other topics such as housing, economic development, real estate, education, culture, arts, and history, etc. The purpose of the listening sessions were to foster open discussion with participants specifically interested in the given listening session topic. In each session the participants discussed the types of issues that should be addressed as part of this project as it relates to the session topic. Multiple sessions were planned for Economic Development and Neighborhoods in order to provide optional dates for the participants to choose from.

Community Open House (April 30, 2015)

City of Missoula Development Services planning staff along with Our Missoula Project citizen volunteers unveiled draft policy language and future land use scenarios for Missoula's Growth Policy. The open house was an opportunity to comment on the goals and objectives of the six citizen focus groups who met over the last half year to create community policy direction for Missoula city.

The focus groups as well as the Steering Committee also considered the future land use map, a state-mandated component of a growth policy, which conveys how the community would like to grow over the next 20 years. Scenarios for this map were on display at the Open House.