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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-09-17 INC Minutes THE INTER-NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (INC) MEETING OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA DRAFT MEETING MINUTES Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017 Attending: Jennifer Rockne (SCAN), Kathy Powell (UNA), Ginny Cowan (BCNA), Gail MacMillan (BPNA), Dave Chambers (NENA), Jack Tyler (Flanders Creek), Aman- da Griffith (Bozeman Pond), Joe Genovese (NHVN), Lisa Prugh (Cooper Park), Eli An- selmi (Loyal Gardens), Codi Kruse (VUNA), Bob Wall (SENA) QUORUM Present Tanya Andreasen (new Neighborhood Coordinator) Chuck Winn (Asst. City Manager) Mayor Carson Taylor Officer Andy Knight, Bozeman Police Dept. Mark Greenwood (Midtown Neighborhood) Jane Mollow (Knolls) Dick Canfield (UNA) Chanel Mumford (Minnick Property Management) 4:30 Jennifer convened the meeting Commission room in City Hall No public comment. Reviewed Oct. minutes. Joe moved to approve the minutes. David seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 4:35 Andy Knight – Bozeman Police Dept. Christmas Stroll – BPD will have a booth, pictures with patrol car and makeshift jail cell. Shop with a Cop Dec. 9. 6th annual - $75 to each child, $25 to parents. Issues with sidewalk shoveling. Vehicles that are parked too long are cited. Code compli- ance officer is pretty busy, so it is driven mostly by complaints. NextDoor is being used to push out notifications when streets will be plowed. BPD is planning to start using NextDoor more as well. A lot of scams recently. Fraudulent emails installing ransomware in particular. A company is pretending to do paving work. Work from home scam. Someone is stealing mail around town. Seem to be targeting credit cards so they can clone the chips in the cards. Package theft will be on the rise soon too. Can ask UPS or FedEx delivery drivers to place packages off to the side so they are less visible. Someone is impersonating a police officer asking you to pay an outstanding warrant. A man was in the dressing room of a local business trying to take cell phone videos under doors. Recently apprehended someone stealing bicycles out of garages. Police would like to encourage everyone to press charges if someone walks into their home late at night drunk. Code compliance officer (Mark Carpenter) – 582-2222. 4:50 Mayor Taylor’s update Progress on UDC rewrite. Process has been long and slow. Started on Aug. 23. Hoping to finish before new commission is seated, to minimize disruption and to avoid having someone vote who hadn’t heard all the public comment. Might not be able to make it through in time. Commissions are reviewing it an article at a time, considering staff recommendations, then maybe presenting amendments. Currently on Article 3. It and Article 5 are the most revised sections of the UDC. There has been a lot of public input on those two sections. INC submitted a letter regarding Article 3. Affordable housing, NCOD, and parking will be addressed separately sometime during the next year. The UDC will reference the NCOD, but the NCOD will be separate. Might have some al- lowance for neighborhood-specific rules. Public comment is allowed at any review meeting and can reference any topic, but it will have greater impact if you can make the comment when the commission is considering that portion of the code. One comment allowed per person, plus an additional comment during the final review. Next Monday there will be a Law & Justice discussion and a school annexation discus- sion, so it is not clear how much time will be left for the UDC review. There will be addi- tional meetings on Nov. 15 and Nov. 16 to specifically review the UDC. Might not be able to address article 3 – public comment on that section is closed. Regarding the suggestions the INC submitted: ADUs in R1, ADUs in alleyways and the impact of alleyway width. Mayor Taylor would like to see this taken up on a per-instance basis. On short-term rentals, R1 is intended for single-family housing. Mayor Taylor is con- cerned about affordable housing, but isn’t favorable to allowing ADUs as short-term rentals. Will probably submit an amendment prohibiting that. Detached ground floor ADUs – not clear how that will go. If there is alley access for the ADU, should require clear visibility and enough width to safely exit the property. Converting garages to ADUs is in a similar category. Solar access – Mayor Taylor is in favor of solar installations, but there isn’t currently any solar access restriction, so might need to wait until this is raised as an issue. View shed restrictions are similar. A bigger community solar project might mitigate some of the issues with solar installa- tions. David Chambers mentioned that there is currently an issue with a proposed new house blocking an existing solar installation in NENA. Also pointed out that if NCOD is a guideline, it may not be legally enforceable. Mayor Taylor responded that the NCOD is currently codified as existing law, and guide- lines established by NCOD are used by staff when evaluating building proposals. They are thus treated as standards, unless they disagree directly with the UDC. A key difference between guidelines and code is that guidelines can be changed more easily. Kathy asked about decisions based on alley width and length – how would that be han- dled? Might require special use permit. Will there be any concrete requirements? There are some – setback requirements, some minimal visibility requirements. There should be requirements in the UDC. New commissioners and mayor will be seated on Jan. 8. Strategic plan has been created, but it hasn’t been associated with any actions yet. Mayor Taylor is hopeful that the Commission will formulate a set of action that will get done in 2018. Mayor Taylor expressed again how much the advisory boards, and especially INC, are important to the City. Appreciates all the people that volunteer to do this and thanks us for working on the INC. Asks us all to keep doing it, to help make the City work. 5:30 Action items Jack gave an update on HOA and renter outreach. Introduced Chanel Mumford from Minnick Property Management, who has worked with the working group on this issue. Jack related some experiences with people in his neighborhood that weren’t sure they could participate in the neighborhood association because they rent. Might be able to en- courage participation if the property management companies provided some information to renters when they sign leases. Discussed the potential for conflict when a group wants to affiliate with the neighborhood program if the group is also an HOA. There is confusion about the difference, and about which group might address a particular issue. The working group also tried to reach out to two other property managers, Peak and Lu- na, to see if they had input or suggestions. Investigated developing a handout that could be distributed to property managers. This might also be useful as a marketing piece that isn’t sp ecific to renters as well, and might be useful to pass out more broadly around the city. Tanya asked about people who live in areas where there aren’t neighborhood associations – this material might be useful to prompt the creation of NAs in new areas. Lisa mentioned that it might be good to send a welcoming packet to people when they join NextDoor. Can use private messages to communicate with people on NextDoor. Discussed the tension between HOAs and neighborhoods again. Tanya related that the MSU Good Neighbor Committee has discussed having a counter- part to her position at MSU. In the meantime, the Good Neighbor Committee is discuss- ing ways that inform and educate students on being good renters. So the Committee has also discussed approaching landlords and property managers on similar issues (citizen- ship, being good neighbors, understanding pertinent laws, etc.). Might be able to share ef- fort with the INC working group, since there are some significant overlaps of interest. Kathy is on the neighborhood branding working group – hasn’t gotten anything accom- plished yet. No progress from the noise ordinance working group. Maddy is head of the party planning working group – no update yet. Discussed maybe doing a party in January instead of before Christmas. 5:50 FYI items from Tanya There are two people in the audience from prospective new neighborhood groups, and there are a couple of others that are starting to emerge. Tanya would like to meet with neighborhood associations and attend meeting. Good Neighbor Committee is pretty active. SAFE coalition is also another interaction point with MSU. They are working on an alcohol amnesty program that allows underage people to contact the police to report problems without risking being charged with under- aged drinking. The GNC is working hard with fraternities and sororities on issues of noise, parties, etc. They are encouraging officers to actually ticket offenders. Jane Mollow just submitted the paperwork to Tanya tonight to create the Knolls NA. Midtown is still working on forming – deciding on boundaries is currently a bit of a stick- ing point. 6:02 Neighborhood Announcements NENA meeting Nov. 16 at Beall Park. SCAN – nothing to report. Cooper Park – trying to organize social event SENA – nothing to report. NHVN – in winter hibernation. BPNA – meeting Nov. 14 in Longfellow gym. Tanya sent postcards Loyal Garden – board of directors meeting Nov. 28. Annual HOA meeting Dec. 12 at Petra. BCNA – pretty quiet. Bozeman Pond – also quiet. Ginny had looked at the neighborhoods on NextDoor – there are 19 groups on there that aren’t recognized. 6:15 No objections – meeting adjourned. Minutes recorded by Bob Wall.