HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-11-18 Public Comment - G. Stratton (Kilday & Stratton) - Affordable Housing Ordinance j
Way &Siratto
Developers • Duddors •Consultants
Matthew Madsen
Affordable Housing Program Manager
City of Bozeman
20 East Olive St.
Bozeman, MT 59771
May 9, 2018
M att,
In anticipation of the upcoming presentation to the City Commission relating to affordable
housing we took a few minutes to reflect on our experience going through the process and how
it relates to the existing Affordable Housing Ordinance. We summarized our review with the
list of comments provided below. These comments are based on our experience as the
developer and builder of Affordable Housing in Bozeman as well as numerous discussions with
Kevin Thane, Brian Guyer, yourself and other planning staff, as well as other members of
CAHAB. The list is intended to provide input moving forward as we continue to drill down on
the management and application of our Affordable Housing Ordinance.
We would like to start by reiterating how impressed we are by the approach of City of Bozeman
Staff at all levels as we moved through the process. The level of commitment and dedication to
this program exhibited by the staff was nothing short of exemplary. We have no doubt based
on this level of dedication that this program will succeed.
With that said we offer the following Comments:
1. Mission Statement. The existing ordinance does not provide clear goals for the
Affordable Housing Program. We believe a simple mission statement, that may be 3 or
4 paragraphs, should summarize the goals and provide simple criteria against which
individual affordable housing plans can be measured in terms of compliance. This type
of statement may spur creativity within different projects generating more ideas and
specific ideas to meet the intent of the ordinance.
2880 Technology Boulevard West • Bozeman, MT 59718 • 406-577-2028 • kildaystratton.com
2. Teamwork. We constructed the first 8 homes under the ordinance. Our application of
the ordinance, we believe, was very successful. That success was due to the incredible
team that we worked with throughout the process. That team included the developer,
builder, city staff, HRDC, lenders, real estate agents and the buyers themselves. The
existing ordinance is not written to promote this team approach it basically places the
burden of the program onto the developers of individual projects. We don't believe this
provides a recipe for success moving forward.
We suggest implementing a team approach to where each member of the team focuses
on that members' strength within the team. In other words, the developer is
responsible for providing lots, the builder is responsible for building the house, the city
program manager is responsible for administering the city funds, HRDC is responsible
for administering road to home funds, and so on. We believe this type of a team
approach is vital to success as we move forward.
3. Specific Ordinance Items. We believe, with what we have learned through the process
that it will be beneficial to revisit several specific aspects of the plan making it more user
friendly and simpler format for administration. In working with Kevin Thane and Brian
Guyer we have numerous other ideas that may generally improve the ordinance. We
request the opportunity to discuss these items with you and look forward to your input
as we move forward.
Thank you for your assistance and efforts to this point and as you are well aware we truly look
forward to working with you as our Affordable Housing Ordinance moves forward.
Sinc ely, -
Greg St tton