HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-09-17 Public Comment - D.& D. Canfield- Black OliveDear City Commissioners,
In our opinion, there are major problems that are relevant to the present Home Base
Montana proposal for Black Olive, but are much more general:
The 4B NCOD Guidelines and code for the B-3 Commercial area have two major flaws:
• The transition from Main Street to the surrounding residential areas is seriously
flawed. A donut of massive buildings, abruptly towering over historic downtown
buildings on the inside of the donut and historic homes on the outside, will harm
Bozeman forever.
• Parking in the both the Main Street business district itself and its spillover into
surrounding residential areas is not well thought out. Parking space within huge
commercial buildings like 5 West, as well as the proposed Black Olive
apartments, is grossly inadequate and unrealistic. Dumping the cost of “ghost’
parking space in public facilities onto Bozeman citizens is going to produce
massive taxpayer revolt, once it is broadly understood. Both downtown
businesses and surrounding residential neighborhoods will suffer, as a
consequence.
The Subchapter 4B Guidelines are only one part of the Design Guidelines for Historic
Preservation and the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District. All new construction
in the B-3 Commercial area is also subject to these other chapters of the NCOD
Guidelines:
• Chapter 2. Design Guidelines for all Properties
• Chapter 4. Guidelines for Commercial Character Areas
• Appendix.
The Black Olive proposal fails to follow several specific subsections of each of these
chapters. The Design Review Board, whose members are extremely competent and
committed to Bozeman, has twice pointed out several such failures.
Now is not the time for acceptance of any proposal for new construction that so strongly
violates many of the basic principles that have made Bozeman the attractive place that
it is today.
Dick and Deb Canfield
726 S. Third Ave