About the Big Sky Community Housing Trust

We envision a community where all residents have stable and affordable homes.

A Brief History

The Chamber of Commerce initiated the Big Sky Community Housing Trust in 2016 under the umbrella of HRDC in Bozeman and seated a volunteer board. With funds provided by Resort Tax, they hired a consulting firm to conduct a survey to analyze Big Sky’s housing needs. In 2018, they used the survey results to formulate the Big Sky Community Housing Action Plan and hired Laura Seyfang as the Executive Director to steward this plan.

In July of 2020, Big Sky Community Housing Trust became an independent nonprofit that supports the local economy and enhances the character of the community by improving the availability of affordable homes for residents.

Big Sky Community Housing Action Plan

The Big Sky Community Housing Action Plan identifies housing goals and a plan of action to address community housing objectives. Strategies to meet objectives have been identified and prioritized; roles and responsibilities have been assigned. BSCHT established a timeline for achieving priority strategies, recognizing that this plan will have life beyond this timeline and will continue to evolve and meet changing community housing needs over the long term.

The following graphic summarizes the strategies Big Sky will pursue over the next five years, including incentivizing more community housing development, ensuring community housing is part of the buildout of Big Sky, incorporating short-term rental regulatory and conversion policies, increasing local funding capability, acquiring land to developing community housing, and helping residents and the workforce get into homes. The primary affordability level that each strategy will address is illustrated below and represents the provision of a diversity of housing for community members across multiple income levels and at various life stages.