Challenges & Opportunities

Disposition Planning

Trust managers currently use various types of information to guide the disposition of trust lands for development. Other empirically based, analytical tools also may help identify trust lands that are suitable for development. Without such tools, the risks may be greater that projects will be driven by external stakeholders, opportunity costs will be difficult to evaluate when considering multiple projects and dispositions will not be timed to yield the highest possible returns. Proactive, agency-driven actions, presuming they are reasonably transparent, can provide both stakeholders and local communities with better information to make decisions. This can lead to better planning for growth and development.

The State Trust Lands Project has contracted with researchers at Montana State University to develop an improved GIS-based model for land disposition planning and prioritization. This improved model will allow land managers to predict future growth patterns based on a variety of growth attributes, policies and conditions. The model will be calibrated to historical rates and patterns of development, allowing for predictive modeling of growth under "business as usual" conditions. It will also allow for modeling of various future scenarios using "smart growth" land use policies, the imposition of desired outcome criteria, additional environmental constraints and other variables. The model will objectively measure the suitability of any given land parcels (including state trust lands) for development under these various scenarios and assign "suitability" ratings.

The growth model will initially be applied to a 24-county region in western Montana to help guide county growth management plans, with the goal of making it easily transferable and scalable to other locations.