Single-family zoning helping fuel Montana housing shortage, according to new report

 In Montana’s most in-demand communities more than 70 percent of residential areas either prohibit or penalize the building of multifamily housing, a zoning regulation fueling some of Montana’s housing shortage, according to a preliminary report released Monday by the Governor’s Housing Task Force.

While zoning laws are often left to local governments, housing task force member and state Sen. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, said if local governments don’t “step up prior to session” with a plan for reforming regulations, then Hertz said he believed “the Legislature will react to that.”