Architecture

Single Unified Development Ordinance combining zoning and subdivision. Not a full development code in the 'every development regulation in one volume' sense — the engineering design standards stay external.

Seven-chapter spine, structurally referenced to Missoula Title 22, plus one reserved-chapter slot for future expansion.

Definitions and measurement rules consolidated and placed early, in Chapter 1 — mirroring the way Title 76, chapter 25 front-loads its own definitions at 76-25-103, and curing the current-code precarity of chapter-scoped definitions doing cross-chapter work.

Place types excluded from the regulatory code; they live in the Land Use Plan or in future area or neighborhood plans adopted under 76-25-214. Zoning districts, the A-grid and B-grid, and overlays are the binding map layers.

Three-layer regulatory framework: citywide standards; zoning district family and intensity; the A-grid and B-grid and overlays.

MX zoning district family structure: RMX (residential-primary), CMX (commercial-primary), IMX (industrial-primary), plus SP (Special Purpose: OSR, PLI, Airport). Numbered by intensity (RMX/CMX 1-5, IMX 1-4). Intensity = massing + use permissiveness, not density. MX naming borrowed loosely from Philadelphia. Renaming and remapping the current zoning districts into RMX/CMX/IMX/SP is a conversion, and the conversion carries implementation work that is part of the architecture, not separate from it: (1) the CMX-2 / CMX-3 / CMX-4 split of the current B-2 is sound as a concept but is a mapping question, not a text question — it is tested by a parcel-level mapping exercise showing which current B-2 parcels move where, before the split is treated as settled; (2) RMX-5, the near-downtown-scale residential-primary intensity, is available through the legislative rezoning process where the Future Land Use Map supports it, but with no parcels initially mapped — a home for the intensity without an everywhere-entitlement; (3) the T district retirement is paired with a preservation mechanism for the parcel-specific conditions current T parcels carry, so the conversion to citywide Chapter 4 transition standards does not strip negotiated protections — that mechanism is drafted as part of the adopting-ordinance strategy; and (4) the conversion is accompanied by a parcel-level conversion table stating, for each parcel, the current zoning district, the successor zoning district, the major entitlement changes if any, and whether the change is an equivalent translation or a substantive policy change — because owners will read the conversion map as a rezoning and the table is what answers that plainly.

The A-grid and B-grid is a thoroughfare network shown as a layer of the Official Zoning Map — a recognized form-based-code device (the A-grid and B-grid of the regulating-plan tradition) adapted for Helena. Every street is on either the A-grid or the B-grid; Chapter 4 form standards are calibrated more strictly along A-grid frontages, and B-grid frontages receive defined relief. The grid carries no special legitimacy problem and needs no bespoke derivation doctrine: it is a layer of the Official Zoning Map, and it is legitimate the way every layer of that map is legitimate — it is adopted with the UDO, on a planning basis, through the legislative process with the public participation Title 76, chapter 25 front-loads into the adoption of the implementing regulations. The initial grid is a meaningfully informed planning determination on the adopted record: it is informed by the City's adopted transportation and neighborhood plans — the 2015 Long Range Transportation Plan's functional classification, the 2023 Downtown Helena Multimodal and Infrastructure Plan's corridor classifications, and the adopted neighborhood plans — with the City exercising planning judgment across them. As ordinary planning practice, adopted plans inform that determination; documents that are not adopted policy do not bind it (the draft Comprehensive Safety Action Plan would inform the grid once adopted; the 2021 Five-Point Intersections traffic study is a conditions and data study, evidence rather than a designation). Where the adopted record and that planning judgment do not affirmatively place a street on the A-grid, the street is on the B-grid — secondary is the conservative default, and the default resolves to relief, not to stricter standards. The grid is a network finding, not a list of individually selected streets.

Single Official Zoning Map with internal layers (zoning district, the A-grid and B-grid, overlays). No companion maps — 76-25-301(4) directs the City to adopt 'a zoning map' singular. Where an online map layer, printed map, or staff display conflicts with the adopted zoning map record, the adopted record controls — this prevents GIS or display errors from becoming entitlement disputes.

The A-grid and B-grid changes after adoption through two paths, and the zoning map amendment procedure in Chapter 3 is the mechanism that records either kind of change on the Official Zoning Map. First, the derivative path: when an underlying adopted source is amended — a new Long Range Transportation Plan, an adopted Comprehensive Safety Action Plan — the grid is updated to track it. Second, the neighborhood-plan path: a neighborhood plan adopted under 76-25-214 can refine the grid within its area, including elevating a street to the A-grid, as a meaningfully informed determination made through that plan's own adoption. The adopted Downtown and Railroad District neighborhood plans are the current-generation examples of that document type — both were adopted under the predecessor growth-policy statute rather than under chapter 25, and 76-25-214 is the chapter-25 successor mechanism for area and neighborhood plans. The standards the grid layer calibrates, and what the City considers in drawing the layer, are stated in Chapter 4; the recording procedure is in Chapter 3.

Subdivision-procedure split (Missoula model): common procedural mechanics (notice, appeal, completeness) live in Chapter 3; subdivision-specific process (plat submittal, exemptions, phasing) and land-division form stay in Chapter 5.

Chapter 5 is Subdivision Design and Public Realm — land-division-scale form, not just subdivision process. Chapter 3 owns common procedure; Chapter 5 owns subdivision-specific process and land-division form; Chapter 6 owns improvements and dedications; the Engineering Standards own construction detail.

Form intent and review hooks for some topics also addressed in the Engineering Standards — block structure, connectivity, cul-de-sac policy, street-type assignment, public-realm review hooks, curb-cut frontage limits — are stated in the UDO; construction specifications for those topics remain in the Engineering Standards.

Process Crosswalk promoted to its own structural element within Chapter 3 (Missoula Article 2.2 model).

Board of Adjustment retired. Relief from objective standards is handled through the variance process under 76-25-502 — Planning Administrator decides, decision is final, appeal runs through the consolidated Chapter 3 appeal process under 76-25-503. The variance lives in Chapter 3 as one of the twelve review types in the Process Crosswalk. There is no separate 'administrative adjustment' tier — 76-25-502 establishes the variance as the relief mechanism.

The UDO does not codify the City Engineer. The Engineer's authority is established elsewhere in City Code, and a zoning-and-subdivision ordinance has no business establishing it. Chapter 1's administration article names only the land-use decision-makers that Title 76, chapter 25 establishes — the Planning Administrator, the Planning Commission, and the governing body. The engineering and fire-code seam is handled as a drafting constraint: the subdivision design provisions in Chapter 5 are drafted to be consistent with, and not to conflict with, the Engineering and Design Standards and the applicable fire code. The construction and safety determinations themselves are made under their own separate authority. When the new Engineering and Design Standards are formally incorporated, that incorporation is the deliberate future step at which any engineer-dependent determination would enter this Title.

Form-based architecture: no topical chapter block. The proposed UDO abolishes the topical chapter pattern carried by current Title 11. Site design standards (parking, landscaping and screening, signs, outdoor lighting) live in Chapter 4 as integrated sections of the form/dimensional/site design framework. Use-specific operational standards (mobile home parks, RV parks, daycare facilities, home occupations, licensed premises, marijuana operations) live in Chapter 2's supplemental use standards section (11-2-9), adjacent to the use tables that route to them. Overlay districts get their own chapter (Chapter 7) because they are mapped layers on the zoning map, not standards. The form-based logic: a chapter exists when the regulated thing is structurally distinct — form, procedures, use, subdivision, overlay — not because the topic was historically organized that way. This is the structural pattern Missoula's Title 22 UDC follows.

PUDs retired. The current Title 11 Chapter 25 (Planned Unit Developments) is not carried forward. The form/dimensional flexibility a PUD historically provided is delivered through the proposed district intensity ladders (RMX-1 through RMX-5; CMX-1 through CMX-5; IMX-1 through IMX-3) and through the calibration mechanic of the A-grid and B-grid. Site-specific master-planned development, where genuinely needed, is handled through subdivision review under Chapter 5 with the form intent and review hooks the chapter establishes. The PUD as a discretionary site-by-site negotiation is inconsistent with 76-25-102(3)(d)'s streamlined administrative review of site-specific applications.

Nonconformities split three ways. Nonconforming uses live in Chapter 2 § 11-2-9 as a use-specific operational standard, adjacent to the use tables that define the current permissions; the section governs how a previously-lawful-but-now-nonconforming use operates going forward, including the abandonment and reestablishment rules. Nonconforming form, dimensional, and site features — including existing nonconforming lots and nonconforming signs — live in Chapter 4 alongside the form, dimensional, and site design standards they are exceptions to. Chapter 5 carries one operating rule: a subdivision may not create a new nonconformity, with variance under Chapter 3 the only relief mechanism. Each chapter owns the question it is the right home for: uses next to the use tables, form next to the form standards, and the no-new-nonconformities-through-subdivision rule next to the subdivision standards.

Procedural posture drafted to the version of 76-25-305 effective July 1, 2027 — the version that will be in force when the UDO is adopted. Under that section, an application in substantial compliance with the zoning regulations and map, where all impacts were previously analyzed and made available for public review, must be approved, approved with conditions, or denied by the Planning Administrator and is not subject to further public review except on appeal under 76-25-503. Where the development may result in new or significantly increased impacts not previously considered, 76-25-305(5) requires additional data, additional analysis, and a 15-business-day written comment period.

The CUP is carried forward as a ministerial process under 76-25-305, consistent with Helena's adopted April 2026 Conditional Use Permit process: completeness determination, the substantial-compliance and impact determinations, a 15-business-day public comment period only where new or significantly increased impacts are found, and a written decision by the Planning Administrator against the 11-3-4(B) criteria, with appeal to the Planning Commission under 76-25-503. Helena's adopted practice already operates the CUP this way, so this is not an untested divergence from the statute. The residual drafting task is to express the 11-3-4(B) criteria as objective standards, consistent with the 'objective standards, little or no personal judgment' framing of a ministerial permit in 76-25-103(24); criterion 12 (public comment collection) is dropped because the 76-25-305 impact path supplies the public-comment mechanism.

Final plat approval at the City Commission is required for most subdivisions. The administrative minor subdivision path under 76-3-609 — handling small, low-impact divisions administratively end-to-end, including final plat, without Commission action — is the carve-out to preserve and defend. Phase 1 already enacted it (adopted Title 12 12-5-4). Note the 76-3-609 path is a specific retained mechanism that coexists with 76-25-105(4)'s general rule that a chapter-25 jurisdiction is not subject to Title 76, chapter 3 — the memo should confirm and explain that retention rather than assume it away.

The Engineering and Design Standards remain external and are coordinated by cross-reference. The UDO does not renumber or rewrite those standards, but it may establish land-use and form intent that those standards help implement. The relationship is modeled on Missoula's 'Manual' companion-document device. The UDO's subdivision design provisions are drafted so they cannot conflict with the Engineering and Design Standards or the applicable fire code.

76-25-303 (the version effective October 1, 2026) limits zoning authority in ways the Chapter 2 use tables and the Parking chapter must be drawn to: it prohibits treating manufactured housing or factory-built housing differently from other residential units; it limits parking requirements to no more than one space per dwelling unit and prohibits any minimum parking requirement for several categories (existing buildings undergoing a change of use, licensed child-care facilities, residential units under 1,200 square feet, deed-restricted affordable housing, assisted living facilities); it limits height restrictions; and it constrains how the UDO may treat registered family and group day-care homes and small community residential facilities (76-25-303(1)(f) and (g)). These limitations are a Chapter 2 and Parking-chapter drafting constraint.

Subdivision appeals run on two tracks. Most administrative land use decisions — including preliminary plat and final plat decisions, variance decisions, and interpretations — are appealed under 76-25-503: a two-tier de novo path, Planning Administrator decision to Planning Commission, then to the governing body, then to district court, with a 15-business-day window at each administrative step and exhaustion required before district court. The administrative minor subdivision under 76-3-609 follows a separate path that Helena currently runs: a noticed adjoining owner may request, through the City Manager, that the City Commission review the decision, and the City Commission sustains the decision unless it was arbitrary, capricious, or unlawful. The Chapter 3 procedures and the crosswalk must reflect both tracks.

Extraterritorial and shared-jurisdiction reach is drafted from the statute: 76-25-301(1)(c) requires the City to adopt zoning for its 20-year annexation area but provides that the zoning does not operate outside City limits until annexation; 76-25-305(2) supplies the rule for which jurisdiction reviews what, including the split-jurisdiction case; 76-25-306 ties annexation review to the 76-25-305 process. The Planning Commission provision (replacing the retired Zoning Commission) is drafted from 76-25-104, which specifies the commission's establishment, membership, and appeal role.

Current Title 11 Chapter 26 home occupations: disposition pending audit — may fold into supplemental use standards, stay standalone with cross-reference, or reorganize.

CSR (Chapter 27) was codified in Phase 1 as a process description. Phase 2 gives it a proper structural home and expresses it in the same procedural vocabulary as the rest of the UDO — substantial compliance, the 76-25-305(5) impacts path, notice, appeal posture.

Neighborhood plans adopted under 76-25-214 and the regulatory map layers interact, and the UDO is drawn so the interaction is clean. A 76-25-214 neighborhood plan is not itself a regulation — consistent with 76-25-216, the plan is not regulatory; the Official Zoning Map and the UDO are. But a neighborhood plan can refine the A-grid and B-grid within its area, and the refinement becomes operative through the zoning map amendment procedure in Chapter 3, which records the change on the map. The assumption to confirm with the City Attorney is the mechanical one: that a neighborhood plan adopted under 76-25-214 is the appropriate vehicle for an area-specific grid refinement, and that the zoning map amendment is the correct recording step — rather than the refinement requiring its own independent map amendment process unconnected to the plan. The existing Downtown and Railroad District neighborhood plans were adopted under the predecessor growth-policy statute (76-1-601 and 76-1-603), not under chapter 25; they are carried forward as adopted neighborhood plans and are the current-generation examples of the document type, and 76-25-214 is the mechanism for neighborhood plans adopted from here forward.

Substantial-compliance review under 76-25-304(2)(c) is ministerial. Adopted Phase 1 practice — reflected in the Conditional Use Permit Process, the Site Specific Development Process, the Variance Process, and the Commercial Site Review — establishes the substantial-compliance determination as an administrative finding the Planning Administrator makes during impact determination, not a separate discretionary review. The proposal carries forward this posture: where an application meets the objective standards of the UDO, the substantial-compliance standard is met. Site Specific Development reviews are explicitly described as ministerial in the adopted Phase 1 process materials.