What, exactly, is the best way for a city to grow? The answer to this question is crucially important – particularly for a small town set for lightning-fast growth.
East Helena last updated its growth policy — a planning tool prescribed, but not required, by the state — in May, 2021. That document, 35 pages long with 200 pages of appendices, broadly anticipated considerable housing coming to the former ASARCO smelter lands. “It is important for the City of East Helena to continue to plan for the development of these areas to protect the character and identity of the community,” it stated.
But that was over four years ago. The size and scale of the looming residential developments — and associated infrastructural, environmental and economic challenges — have since come into somewhat clearer focus.
Mayor Kelly Harris says the city will update the growth policy next year. In the meantime, though, the Montana Business Assistance Connection (MBAC), a non-profit economic development outfit, is launching what it calls a community review. This six- to eight-month-long initiative aims to encourage residents, business owners, and officials to identify East Helena’s needs, challenges and opportunities — and spur action to address them.
The goal is to “create a playbook for the community,” says Katherine Anderson, MBAC’s economic development program manager.
MBAC’s review, conducted with the University of Idaho, the Western Community Assessment Network and the Montana Economic Development Association, which provided an $8,000 grant, stresses local inclusivity and insight and starts with community input.
This week, MBAC is set to mail all East Helena residents a project overview and link to an online survey. People also can complete the survey in paper form at City Hall and the East Helena branch of the Lewis & Clark Library.
The survey, which will be open until Jan. 31, asks residents to assess a wide range of public services and amenities, including schools, housing, roads, garbage collection and Internet service. It also explores the quality of civic engagement, asking whether people are effective in working together to solve community problems.
In late December MBAC will form a “home team” — a diverse group of community leaders and activists who will spend several days in January or February touring East Helena and organizing listening sessions to collect and gauge local views on the city’s present and future.
This will form the basis of an initial report identifying key issues, which will in turn inform a second round of conversations meant to surface relevant courses of action. MBAC and its partners completed a similar community review for Broadwater County in 2023.
Over eight listening sessions with property owners, youth, seniors, educators and more, they focused on three questions: What do you not want to see happen in Broadwater in the next five years; what do you want to see happen; and who, what, and where are the assets that can benefit the county?
Six areas of focus emerged: housing, trails, development of a community center, broadband access, senior citizens, and child care. Another round of community sessions brainstormed ideas for each area, including projects to support aging in place, land trusts, tiny home development, housing cooperatives and trail development plans, and committees emerged to pursue action.
Work is furthest along on child care and trails. The child care committee conducted a survey to better understand the experiences of child care providers and gaps in coverage, and MBAC and MSU Extension secured grants to support child care development. Anderson says two additional child care providers have launched in the county, and Townsend School District has expanded its summer program to offer full-day care.
The trails committee, meantime, has developed a comprehensive trail plan for the community, has held listening sessions to gather more community input, and is now gearing up to apply for funding to support trail development.
Perhaps by this time next year, East Helena will be putting into action some of the plans outlined by MBAC’s community review, and incorporating its findings into an updated growth policy.
The East Helena community review survey can be found on this site. For more information, contact MBAC’s Katherine Anderson at kanderson@mbac.biz.