Unregulated Growth Could Cloud Big Sky Western Lifestyle Is Holding Out, But Development Is Encroaching
Hammers are pounding again in Big Sky, the Montana ski resort where the wealthy can ski, fish and watch wildlife without ever straying from their latte.
Builders are putting up more condos and luxury homes on mountainsides and meadows already dotted with them over the nearly 30 years since newscaster Chet Huntley and investors started Big Sky. Boyne USA is expanding its ski resort with a 222-room hotel, and other developers plan major projects nearby.
Big Sky may be Montana’s version of Aspen and Vail, but so far it has escaped the glitz and crowds of its Colorado cousins. Whether it can continue to do so is anyone’s guess. Development pressures are mounting, new wealth is surging in and the controls on growth are loose at best.
“We are a community that doesn’t have a strong vision of where we’re going,” said Bob Schapp, who operates Lone Mountain Ranch, an exclusive resort catering to cross-country skiers, anglers and nature lovers. He moved to Big Sky 21 years ago, when it had few homes and only a dirt road led to Lone Peak, where Boyne USA now maintains 80 miles of downhill ski runs.
Today, Big Sky is a series of villages 40 miles south of Bozeman.
Among these developments are hundreds of houses, condominiums and hotel rooms, and about a dozen real estate offices.
Zoning didn’t come to Big Sky until 1996, and many people built back when it was easy to skirt the original development plan. Even today, zoning exists only in the Gallatin County portion of Big Sky. The land in neighboring Madison County is not zoned.
Schapp and some others see a reluctance to protect open space and safeguard the natural amenities of Big Sky. Voters in November rejected a proposal to establish a special district to buy parkland and handle land donations.
Developers have a deep stake here, and their interests drive the zoning district, said Gallatin County Commissioner Bill Murdock, former executive for the Big Sky Owners Association.
But there are people who say development won’t reach the levels seen at resort towns in Colorado and elsewhere because of constraints written into the Boyne and Big Sky development plans and because of market forces.
The main limitation is the distance from a major population center, said Brian Wheeler, Boyne’s real estate director at Big Sky. Montana does not have a Denver or Los Angeles nearby. Billings, the state’s largest city, is 185 miles east of Big Sky.
Wheeler maintains growing too much would be self-defeating because Big Sky, with fewer than two skiers per acre of terrain and little nightlife, would lose its appeal.
“People come here because they don’t want lift lines and they don’t want the glitz,” he said. “They want the Western, down-home atmosphere.”
But more and more people are seeking a slice of the new Montana that blends the traditional West with boutiques, coffee bars and personal trainers.
Gallatin County officials estimate the equivalent of 1,500 full-time residents live in Big Sky, but many homeowners come and go with the seasons.
The Big Sky development plan adopted 1-1/2 years ago leaves open a lot of options.
The regulations leave room for Big Sky’s development to double, said Dale Beland, the Gallatin County planner. Roger Staley, his counterpart in Madison County, predicts Big Sky will look like a small city in 15 years or so, as it pulls in more of an all-seasons clientele drawn by fishing and attractions such as Yellowstone National Park, less than an hour’s drive away.
“Moneyed people will continue to come,” Staley said. “It’s not going to be a populist thing.”
Services for common folk are noticeably absent here. There is no supermarket, no library.
A service that transcends class lines, the sewer system, has been a centerpiece of the public conversation in Big Sky. Some see that system and the availability of water as further caps on growth.
With 40 million to 50 million gallons of sewage unaccounted for from leaky lagoons, the state ordered Big Sky to fix the system, and backed the order with a ban on new hookups - translated, new houses and condominiums. The ban, which took effect in 1993, got the attention of developers and work began.
The moratorium was lifted in summer 1996, when the new system kicked in, and now there’s construction everywhere.
Just a mountain away from Big Sky is the emerging Yellowstone Club, with memberships starting at $1.5 million, plus annual dues of $25,000. Palm Springs lumberman Tim Blixeth plans a cocoon with private skiing, golf and access to world-class fishing, even a helicopter shuttle service to and from private jets at the Bozeman airport.
“I’m building a safe haven for successful people,” Blixeth said. “There are very few places where celebrities can go and be away.”
xxxx CAPPUCINO COWBOYS More people are seeking a slice of the new Montana that blends the traditional West with boutiques, coffee bars and personal trainers.