HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-30-17 Public Comment - D. Behrent - Black OliveFrom:darrelalaska@aol.com
To:Agenda
Subject:Black Olive Development
Date:Thursday, March 30, 2017 10:30:51 PM
Members of the City Commission;
The overall size of the proposed Black olive Development proposed for the corner of East Olive Street
and South Black Street is too much development for such a small site.
1. The neighborhood parking is totally inadequate to accommodate the additional on street parking the
developer is proposing. The federal Building with no on site parking facilities forces all federal
employees in the surrounding neighborhood. If the city parking standards were applied to the Federal
Building approximately 200 vehicles are disseminated throughout the adjoining neighborhood. The Black
Olive Development will only force more vehicles into the neighborhood parking.
2. The developer is relying on a traffic study performed to verify existing streets have adequate capacity
to handle the increased traffic generated by this development. The study is flawed in that it was done in
the summer when the university is not in session and the population of Bozeman is reduced by 10,000 or
more students and the streets do not have restricted travel due to the effect of snowfall and subsequent
snow removal operations. This is equivalent to designing a roof in Bozeman based on the snow load in
August and expect it to perform adequately in during the winter. An evaluation needs to be done under
the adverse conditions of winter with streets narrowed by snow removal operations that reduce the
streets to one way traffic and reduced quantity of available parking spaces.
3. The building as designed with the balconies on the north and east side of the building present a
hazard to pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks below when building residents clear the balcony decks of
snow and allowing the snow and any foreign objects contained in the snow to fall on pedestrians traffic.
Also, any ice accumulation occurring on the edges of the balconies will fall onto pedestrians below with
the possibility of inflicting severe, long term and life threatening injuries. Temporary protective shelters
have been placed at the entrances to Roberts and Traphagen Halls due to a ice falling from the roof onto
a pedestrian entering/exiting the building. There is also on going litigation due injuries from ice falling
from other buildings in the Bozeman area onto pedestrians.
4. The on street parking spaces the developer proposes to use have been paid for by Owners of the
adjacent properties and the developer wishes to gain the use of the spaces at no cost and a proposes to
utilize a "ride share" with no evidence that such a program will work in a community such as Bozeman
where the sought after recreational opportunities of the open space surrounding the city of Bozeman(i.e.
Hyalite, Gallatin Canyon, Big Sky, Bridger Bowl, etc.). If Mr. Holloran wishes to pursue the "ride share"
program a financial guarantee needs be provided in an amount necessary to cover the cost of
constructing 16 parking spaces in a future parking garage should the "ride share" program not work (16
spaces at $50,000/space = $900,000). This could be in the form of a surety bond for a period of several
years until the success of the program can be verified.
Darrel C. Behrent, P.E,
208 Lindley Place
Bozeman, MT 59715