A few weeks ago, I sat on the outdoor porch at Neptune’s Brewery on L Street, eavesdropping on a neighboring table talking about Livingston. They were a young-ish couple, FaceTiming a friend. They were living and working out of an RV and looking at houses in town.

“I’m afraid we’ll be cut off soon,” the young woman said, mentioning they’ve looked at so many houses. “But it’s hard to find a house when homes cycle through, receiving offers within days, if not hours.”

They said they would for sure head home once the fires went down, but they think they’ll move here in the next couple of months.

So these are the people I’m competing against, I thought, in my goal to buy a house. These people, being driven out of the place that they live by smoke and by COVID, want to move to Livingston and Park County.

They fit the mold described by Michael Wojdylak at a Park County Housing Coalition earlier this summer. The coalition, organized by the Park County Community Foundation, has been discussing the housing crisis that we are currently facing in Livingston, in Gardiner and throughout Park County.

This is what we’ve learned. Housing prices have been skyrocketing, especially during the pandemic. A typical house in Livingston costs more than $300,000 on average (And this will only increase). This is more than the average local worker can afford. The people moving here are often retirees or millennials that can telecommute from home. There are very few long-term rentals available. When they do become available, they are priced higher than what is deemed affordable for most workers.

This isn’t exactly new, but it has been accelerating during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wojdylak said. This underscores the need for community planning in a landscape of change.

Our recreation-dependent economy

Businesses, nonprofits, local governments and the National Park Service already are reporting difficulty in finding new employees who are able to afford living in Park County communities. Many are also investing in workforce housing for their employees.

A recent study by Headwaters Economics confirms this is an issue consistent in recreation-dependent counties across the U.S. On average, workers make less in these communities, while housing prices are often significantly more. The factors that lead to unaffordable housing include population growth, an increase in income inequality, an increase in higher-paying jobs, and an increase in overall wealth.

In Park County, the average worker would have to spend 49% of their wages on the average mortgage, and 28% on average rent, the study found.

“In growing communities across the United States, unaffordable housing has created a baseline of financial hardship that makes residents less able to weather disruptions from pandemics, natural hazards, and economic transitions,” the study said. “One such challenge is the rapid increase in home prices that results in unaffordable housing for some residents.”

The review did point to some potential solutions, such as fiscal and zoning policies that look at housing supply or second homes.

“Incentives to increase housing supply include eliminating minimum house size requirements, waiving impact fees for affordable housing units, and providing tax credits for denser housing. Regulations include required employer-sponsored housing and zoning policies to allow multi-family housing or require a share of affordable housing in every development,” the study said.

The issue of sprawl

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, economists at Headwaters Economics made a prediction: Montana would continue to lose open space, as more people moved here and built houses.

Not only has the pandemic led to an increase in home prices, Wojdylak said. People have also expressed interest in building new homes. Oftentimes, people building in Montana do so on 10, 20 or 40 acre lots. These larger homesites can harm wildlife, water quality and water quantity.

Since 1990, more than 3,000 homes have been built in Park County. Of those, 76% have been outside of incorporated areas. And since 1990, nearly 71% of homes built in Park County have been on large lots of more than 10 acres.

Today, more than 4,500 undeveloped lots exist throughout the county, and there are very few regulations guiding what happens on those lots. These homes and lots are often in areas with a greater risk from wildfires or flooding.

A changing climate

Wildfires have been burning across the West for weeks, often clouding the air we breathe here in Park County.

This also happens close to home, as we were reminded on Labor Day weekend, when the Bridgers Foothill Fire burned down dozens of our neighbors' homes between Livingston and Bozeman. A new tool from Headwaters Economics shows that communities across Park County face threats from wildfire.

Between 2000 and 2019, many communities in Park County have been threatened by wildfires within one mile of town. These include:

Emigrant - 3 wildfires

Gardiner - 1 wildfire

Pray - 2 wildfires

South Glastonbury - 3 wildfires

Houses in the Wildland Urban Interface are even more at risk than local population centers.

The most notable Park County wildfire in recent memory is the Pine Creek fire in 2012. Similar to the Bridger Foothills fire this year, on a hot, dry and windy day, at the end of August, an unintended spark ignited a fire that quickly exploded into an uncontrollable wildfire that swept through the small community in Pine Creek at such an alarming speed that many residents had to flee with just the clothes on their back and the few possessions they could grab on their way out. In less than 12 hours nearly 8,000 acres had burned and many homes and outbuildings were lost.

Livingston likely isn’t free from wildfire dangers either, according to past conversations I’ve had with local fire chiefs. The Montana Climate Assessment found that fires are likely to increase as the climate warms.

A warmer climate is likely to increase demand for groundwater because of elevated temperatures and increased uncertainty about seasonal flows. Warmer temperatures will likely lead to reduced snowpack levels and earlier runoff, leading to an increase in the frequency and severity of droughts. This will likely have significant implications for Park County’s agricultural producers and recreational businesses like fishing guides.

These impacts will be wide-ranging, and it’s possible that Park County will change as a result of receiving climate refugees, or people seeking a more stable place to live as the coastal shorelines rise, fires burn across the West and floods continue to increase.

A landscape of change: How a changing climate, COVID-19 and population growth are affecting Park County