The ‘Montana Miracle’ lives on
Clancy Kenck grew up idolizing his two older brothers. They were men of action, brave soldiers who fought for their country in Vietnam and were always there to stand up for their baby brother. Now that his brothers are getting on in age, Clancy sees it as his duty to return the favor and do what he can to ensure the two disabled veterans are cared for in their golden years. However, knowing his brothers and how fiercely independent they are, Clancy also knew they would never agree to moving into any sort of assisted living facility. He started looking for alternative solutions.
Thankfully for the Kenck family, Montana passed a zoning reform law last year, dubbed the “Montana Miracle,” that makes it legal to construct duplexes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in single-family residential neighborhoods, and Clancy had his solution. He bought two neighboring lots in his hometown of Missoula, planning on building a home on one for himself and his wife, and a duplex on the other for his brothers—close enough for mutual support but allowing the men to maintain their independence. All was going well, until local busybodies got involved and threw a cloud of uncertainty over the whole affair.
Montanans Against Irresponsible Densification (MAID), a group of local homeowners opposed to the development of new housing, sued to block the law from going into effect, arguing that it violated their equal protection and due process rights because it did not extend to some rural areas and homeowners associations protected by private covenants.
Pacific Legal Foundation is committed to defending individual property rights, and we teamed up with Clancy and another prospective ADU-builder, David Kuhnle, to fight back. Property owners have a right to productively use their property in ways that do not create nuisances for their neighbors. Building new housing is not a nuisance, and neighbors do not get to dictate how others use their property.
This week, our clients’ courage paid off when the district court granted our motion for summary judgment. In a turnaround from an earlier decision where the court granted preliminary relief to the plaintiffs, the court rejected MAID’s arguments that the reforms violated their members’ equal protection and due process rights and reaffirmed that no one has the right to use the power of the state to force their subjective aesthetic preferences on their neighbors’ property. Clancy is building a duplex for his brothers, and there’s nothing his busybody neighbors can do about it.
