HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-05-16 Public Comment - D. Raffensperger - Olive and Black parkingCommissioners,
I would like to attend this evening’s meeting to hear the presentation by the planning department but
cannot. I have two suggestions that I would like the commissioners to hear:
1. The provision allowing unlimited exchange of “car share” parking spaces for standard parking spaces
at a 1:5 ratio, as at the Black-Olive project must be addressed. It is patently ridiculous that there is
no cap on the percentage of standard parking spaces that can be offset by “car share” parking
spaces. For the developers of Black-Olive to simply overlook the community’s concern about
number of parking spaces by both increasing the number of apartments and at the same time
decreasing the number of physical parking spaces demonstrates a level of hubris that seems to me
to be an affront to the community at best.
2. As reported in the Chronicle, the Design Intent Statement submitted by the architects for the Black-
Olive project is the worst form of “archi-speak”, and as a graduate of an ivy league graduate school
in architecture believe me, I’ve heard a lot of it. The statement about the use of solids and voids on
the building evoking the geology of natural forms is meaningless toward any attempt to allow the
community to have any real understanding of the decision making process behind the formal
development of the building and its attempt, or lack thereof, to relate to its surroundings. The
Commission should require that this statement be resubmitted in a manner that can be understood
by a lay person and that bears some relationship to a real world explanation of the design of the
building. If the City is going to require a statement of design intent then architects must be required
to formulate these statements in a way that clearly addresses the design as it relates to the way the
building responds to City code requirements and interacts with its context.
Thank you very much,
Dennis Raffensperger
Dennis Raffensperger, AIA, GGP
dRA Architects
720 S. Tracy Ave., Bozeman, MT
www.dRA-Architect.com
(o) 406.624.6782
(c) 406.581.8759