HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-20-18 Public Comment - C. Wasia - Van Winkle StadiumChris Wasia 1020 W. Villard – Bozeman MT.
Public Comment for the 8/20/18 Commission Meeting: School Stadium
Exemption(s)
I have visited with many school district administrators over the last 5 years about
school re‐development projects and on many occasions a few have indicated they
do not believe they need to provide for school generated impacts on school
property and it is ok to spill them into the adjacent neighborhoods. Of course
that is not consistent with best practices and what we are used to seeing here in
Bozeman. And we have seen see this philosophy repeated in the district’s re‐
development plans from time to time making one wonder if they realize they are
proposing potentially unsafe plans from the start.
I have a question ‐ Is the school district purposefully moving the high school away
from main street and in the process devaluing our neighborhoods so they can
realize financial gain by selling off main street frontage property someday? That
seems to be what is happening regardless if they admit to it or not. Now this is
not necessarily a bad thing if it is done correctly. But when you increase the value
of your property by developing it, you need to follow the City’s rules and you
need to add the infrastructure necessary to support it. Otherwise, you make the
surrounding neighborhoods bear that burden. In this particular case the school
district appears to be acting as a developer “for profit” and I think they need to be
treated as such‐ otherwise rebuild the stadium where it is and avoid all of these
additional costs‐ but they are not.
In my opinion the state law that exempts school districts from actionable review
by the City never contemplated these “for profit” development tactics that I think
we are seeing today. Probably because I don’t think these tactics likely existed in
school districts 30 years ago. Times have changed so should the law that is
currently being abused.
Here is an example of the flavor of the tactics that I am talking about. Let’s take
the July 10 parking analysis memorandum performed by TD&H.
One of the purposes of the parking memo was to honestly show how much
parking is within a 1000 feet of the two entrances of the proposed stadium.
However, deception is at work with how the data was portrayed in the memo.
On page 3 we are lead to believe that during a football game the:
“Onsite Parking Areas Provided within 1,000 feet1 850”
1 North Lot, East Lot, West Lot, Back Lot, South Lot.
The deception is the play on words ‐ “parking area” versus “parking stalls”. If any
part of the parking area or lot was within a 1000 feet then all of the stalls in the
parking lot was counted. That may be how the code reads but it is disingenuous
to stand up and say there 850 parking stalls within 1000 feet when the real
number of “parking stalls provided” is 590 stalls. This play on words is deceptive
and has no place in an engineering memo and we should be surprised that our
school district accepts and passes on this deception. Again, we are being told only
69% of the truth – which is 260 parking stalls short.
15th Street, Beal & the Hastings parking lot are all completely ignored in the TD&H
memo. They don’t want to talk about these parking areas because that is where
those 260 cars will be parking that were falsely accounted for.
A second example is when one looks at the Average School Day on page 3 of the
TD&H memo, the deception continues.
“Onsite Parking Areas Provided within 1,000 feet1 908”
1 North Lot, East Lot, West Lot, Back Lot, Front Lot, South Lot, Off 11th Ave
Parking.
Why is the south parking lot even included? The entire south parking lot is almost
1,200 feet away from the new BHS entrance. I guess it’s only a misrepresentation
of 248 parking spaces? And in the west lot we are being told only 69% of the
truth as the west lot only has 69% of its parking spaces within 1,000 feet. That
means 248+89 or 337 parking stalls were counted when they shouldn’t be.
Also does it make sense to now allow parking in the long and narrow parent drop
off looped area during the day? Probably not if you want it to function the way it
was supposedly designed to. How does parking in the loop work during a fire or
ambulance visit during the day? I suspect emergency services will avoid it
because of its obstructed cul‐de‐sac like design. Not the best design in my
opinion and I challenge anyone to find a similar “cul‐de‐sac” design for a high
school’s main entrance in the state of Montana because you won’t.
In my opinion their parking impact approach is disingenuous and frankly
misleading to the planning department and the public. Just so we are clear, when
they tell you 850 parking stalls, they really mean 590 and when they mention 908
parking stalls they really mean 509.
So in conclusion, bad data leads to bad planning and bad design ‐ Just like we
have seen on 11th avenue at the High School’s “previous new entrance”.
Incrementalism is at work here with the goal posts being moved just a little bit
each time to get exactly what they want in the beginning and because of re‐
submittal review fatigue and an abused exemption law, they appear to be getting
away with it and the neighborhoods are left holding the bag.
As with any development in Bozeman, please make them do it right… the first
time, this time.
They still haven’t fixed N 11th‐ but we have a new stadium now proposed causing
more of the same problems.
Thank you‐ Sincerely – Chris Wasia