Letter to the Editor: Bozeman’s Water, Bozeman’s Choice: Why WARD Belongs on the Ballot

The Bozeman Water Adequacy for Residential Development (WARD) ballot initiative secured the signatures of more than 15 percent of registered voters in the City of Bozeman. Now, developers and city officials are running scared. 

The Bozeman City Commission adopted an operating budget for fiscal year 2026 that included $50,000 of taxpayer money for “ballot education regarding the Water Adequacy Ballot Initiative.” The Southwest Montana Building Industry Association (SWMBIA) published a fear-mongering ad in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (BDC) on June 14, complete with a hyperlink to a “No On Ward” webpage containing a remarkable lack of statistics. 

You know what they say: If developers are against it, it’s probably good for the people.

If you are confused about the state of Bozeman’s water supply, you aren’t alone. The city itself has published an impressive collection of conflicting information within the past two years. In 2023, the city published a Water Conservation and Efficiency Plan, which stated that due to the rate of growth in the city: “More people will need more water, and eventually these supplies won’t be enough. Without water conservation, Bozeman could be facing a water shortage within the next 10 years.” 

However, on June 17, Mayor Terry Cunningham and the four other city commissioners published a guest column in the BDC, notably reaching a quorum without public notice. “Bozeman is not running out of water. We can accommodate new residents with the water rights we have,” they claimed. Moreover, SWMBIA’s ad claims that WARD is “no solution for real water needs.” Despite these vague statements and changing narratives, Bozeman’s rapidly growing population relies on a very finite amount of water.

Both Mayor Cunningham and SWMBIA have also claimed that WARD “would make it nearly impossible to build in Bozeman,” with SWMBIA’s ad going as far as to claim that WARD is a full-fledged moratorium on development. 

In reality, WARD addresses just one way in which developers can access city water: Paying the city cash-in-lieu of water rights. 

Under WARD, developers with an aversion to building affordable housing are still able to transfer their own water rights into city ownership or implement onsite water conservation measures to reduce the amount of water rights needed to be transferred. 

Moreover, research published in 2024 from a Kansas urban planning professor has shown that targeted policies like WARD can be a helpful market correction tool when there is a sufficient supply of housing, but a lack of housing that is affordable. WARD does not prohibit, or even deincentivize development; it simply requires developers who wish to benefit from the city’s finite water supply to provide some benefit to our community.

Many self-proclaimed economists have also insisted that WARD could restrict housing supply, thus increasing housing prices and preventing development from being profitable. Although this is an excellent interpretation of a basic supply-demand model, the housing market does not follow the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market due to a variety of complex factors, including housing heterogeneity, imperfect information and transaction costs.

Nevertheless, WARD is focused on increasing the stock of affordable housing available. Currently, the vacancy rate in Bozeman is approximately 21.8 percent in multifamily developments built after 2020, which constitutes nearly 50 percent of Bozeman’s multifamily home stock. This vacancy rate is also concerningly higher than the national average of 4.8 percent. As such, WARD focuses on increasing the availability of affordable housing by utilizing these otherwise vacant units.

Ballot initiatives like WARD are an incredibly powerful tool for citizens to directly participate in local decision-making. By investing $50,000 into anti-WARD public education, the Bozeman City Commission is effectively suppressing the voices of Bozeman residents. Why is the commission spending this money on advertising, rather than contributing to projects that support the affordable housing goals they claim to champion?

By getting WARD on the November ballot, Bozeman residents have expressed their discontent with sky-high housing prices and the near-constant prioritization of the interests of the ultra-wealthy. Bozeman residents deserve to have a legitimate say in how these issues will be addressed, without the interference of those with more power and resources. Let direct democracy do as intended: let the people decide.