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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPB memo 3-21-2017 TO: PLANNING BOARD FROM: CHRIS SAUNDERS RE: GROWTH POLICY UPDATE DATE: MARCH 21, 2017 At the Planning Board meeting on March 7th, we discussed key questions for consideration by Board members as they review the existing growth policy, review existing neighborhood plans, and that can shape the future update. The Board agreed to review and provide feedback on the questions to continue to shape additional discussion. The questions and Board responses to date are below. As you continue your document review and consider the responses to date, think about what specific changes to the document you would propose for the City Commission to consider. For example, should some elements be left out or expanded. The growth policy and neighborhood plans are on the City’s website at http://www.bozeman.net/Departments‐(1)/Community‐Develop/Plans‐and‐Planning. Existing growth policy review Questions: 1) Identify three things in the growth policy that you find supportive of resiliency. 2) What barriers do you see in the growth policy to being a resilient community? 3) What things do you see as missing in the growth policy? 4) What things do you see in the growth policy as having been completed and do not need to carry forward. - The current policy is, in my opinion, a something-for-everyone document. It is supportive of resiliency in the sense of being in favor of all things good. It's fairly worthless however in terms of prioritization. It is also exceptionally verbose, to the point that I suspect no one ever reads this document unless they are, for example, foolish enough to have volunteered to be on the Planning Board. - I would be in favor of a much shorter, much crisper document that tried to provide some real guidance with regard to some of the more difficult issues facing the City. -Relative to resiliency: In theory the whole document is supportive of resiliency, but that may be its shortfall. There are really no trade-offs within it. I feel it should be a document that identifies a dozen or so main goals to prioritize. When there are too many goals to pursue, it just makes for a bunch of competing interests, and the document fails to bring clarity or guidance. Neighborhood Plan Review Questions: 1) Does the neighborhood plan still accurately describe the neighborhood for which it was prepared? 2) Have any action steps been completed or are still outstanding? 3) Should the plan be updated or removed? Future growth policy Questions: 1) What are the three most critical issues you see as facing Bozeman, and how can the growth policy address those issues? -Managing growth in the city; -Engaging the county in county-wide growth planning; -Figuring out how to pay for such necessities as new schools, new roads, infrastructure maintenance, and other needs such as the Law and Justice center - Managing Growth (including better interface with Gallatin County) ‐ Economic Development / taxes vs infrastructure costs - Smaller / Dispersed Commercial centers (one near the new HS site) accessible via COMPLETE multi-modal networks (eventually to Four Corners and Belgrade ‐ As far as how the GP can address these issues: I think the city's goal of investing in "alternative" and demand driven education is good, as is using infrastructure investment to incentivize development (and business recruitment) in the areas we want it. ‐ It seems like Bozeman will need to use this carrot to instigate momentum to create another strong commercial node or three? Four? (Four Corners grocery store), another in the NW corner of town by the new HS, MINIMUM. Its the only way to address commuter / driver bottleneck, as well as to create more livable neighborhoods. 2) Based on your personal experience and in conversation with others offer three ways to engage the public in the update process. -I am not a big fan of surveys because they never seem to ask quite the right questions. I think that is in part because they tend to be too mushy about the necessary trade-offs involved in various policy alternatives. Nonetheless, a carefully crafted survey could probably generate some useful information. -I feel, similarly, that public meetings often deemphasize trade-offs to the point that the information they generate is rather meaningless. However, if you had a public meeting in which you told the participants to pretend that they all sat on the City Commission and they had to support or oppose some specific issues, you might generate some useful information. (Example: Would you rather spend $125 million on high schools I would you rather reduce that to $90 million and spend $35 million on open space bond issues?) -As with the City’s Strategic Planning document, I think it would be useful to publish outlines of the new draft Growth Policy and give the public the opportunity to comment. As far as engaging the public...first of all people need to feel that their feedback matters. But also that what they are working on ACTUALLY HAS TEETH. - I think tools like the Envision Tomorrow software are powerful. Challenging people to locate those quantities of housing units was very eye opening, and I think most people would be moved by the scale of that. It highlights the issues well. - Process also needs "buy-in" from the top down in order for engagement to reach the broadest audience.