WARD initiative seeks to address housing crisis

In the early 1980s, a landslide caused a breach in the Mystic Lake Dam south of Bozeman. The eventual collapse of the dam triggered a water crisis in the community that led to the development of a city water adequacy policy, according to Shawn Kohtz, the City of Bozeman’s director of utilities. 

On election day this year, a local ballot initiative aims to redefine this policy.  

The initiative — titled water adequacy for residential development (WARD) — was written in 2025 by the WARD citizen special interest group. Its goal is to create more affordable housing through a connection with developer water rights, according to Daniel Carty, a retired fish and wildlife manager and co-author of WARD. 

Bozeman’s current water adequacy policy states that any new development in the city must offset its water demand, according to David Fine, the housing and urban-rural program manager for the City of Bozeman. 

Developers can offset this water usage in one of three ways: bringing usable water rights to the city, doing offsite conservation work to get credit for their development or using what is known as cash-in-lieu of water rights. Since the early 1980s, approximately 99 percent of housing projects have used the city’s cash-in-lieu of water rights tool, according to Kohtz.

“We can’t drink money, [so] is that a good use? Is that a sustainable practice to continue to do?” said WARD co-author Natsuki Nakamura. According to her, instead of just advocating against cash-in-lieu of water rights entirely, the authors of WARD sought an equitable exchange for access to a water supply.

WARD’s goal is to limit the payout of water rights by requiring developers to make at least 33 percent of their housing affordable. The initiative defines affordability as units sold at 120 percent or less of the median area income or rented at 60 percent or less. This would apply to all residential developments of three or more units, according to Kohtz.

According to WARD’s website, as Bozeman continues to grow, water demand will exceed supply within 10 years.

Khotz said he disagrees with the rhetoric surrounding Bozeman’s water supply. “I can say, unequivocally, Bozeman is not at risk of running out of water,” he said. According to him, when a new development is proposed, the city has to ensure there is an adequate water supply to support it. 

According to Fine and Kohtz, the city has been working on solutions to the issues of affordable housing and water supply. Since 2022, 1,777 affordable units have either been built, are currently under construction or are in the pipeline. 

Many organizations — including Bozeman Tenants United and the Southwest Montana Building Industry Association — oppose the WARD initiative. Some have raised the concern that if WARD passes, housing development will be driven outside of city limits.

“There’s a narrative out there around the ballot initiative that it would conserve water,” Kohtz said, explaining that the initiative would drive housing out of city limits and into surrounding communities where water use is less efficient. 

“So, I would actually argue here that you’re increasing water use as a result of this ballot initiative,” he said.

According to Nakamura, county sprawl is already an issue. 

“The critiques that we’ve got are very much speculating the most negative outcomes in a very unpredictable time in terms of our market and climate conditions,” she said. “Because of the limited tools we have, we have to be a little more creative.”

To learn more about the WARD initiative, visit its website,https://www.wardbzn.com/.