HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-18-19 Public Comment - S. Kirchoff - Downtown Bozeman Improvement PlanFrom: Steve Kirchhoff
To: Agenda
Subject: DOWNTOWN PLAN COMMENTS
Date: Friday, January 18, 2019 1:41:25 PM
DBIP Review Comments
Steve Kirchhoff
516 South 6th
Avenue
Bozeman, MT. 59715
Dear Downtown Bozeman Partnership, City Commissioners, and City Planners:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the improvement plan for Bozeman’s
downtown.
The comments here are in connection to Chapter 6, “Welcoming to Everyone.” The chapter
shows thoughtfulness and a genuine desire to be of help to Bozeman as we confront a growth
and development blitzkrieg. Many passages in the chapter are useful.
I want to speak only to the assumptions directing the authors’ attention and
recommendations for handling growth and development in Bozeman’s downtown district. I
believe the authors’ assumptions about population growth, supply and demand, and the
impact of regulations lead to suggestions and recommendations that only superficially
alleviate the problems that growth poses for housing affordability and community character.
First, sustainable population growth.
Bozeman is growing faster than 4% per year—an unsustainable rate, by all measures. Yet the
chapter makes no mention of the amount of population growth that is desirable with
sustainability in mind. Nor does it connect future development downtown to different
scenarios for growth in the city as a whole. How big a slice of future growth is downtown
supposed to have? What is the basis for calculating “optimal” rates of growth and
development downtown with respect to optimal growth in all of Bozeman? How many new
residents can the downtown sustainably accommodate between now and 2045? What is a
sustainable population growth rate for the core?
The chapter does not answer these questions—but it does say that from 400 to 800
residential units “are projected to be developed 2045.” This number is taken from another
consulting firm’s estimate of Bozeman’s future growth without mentioning whether or not it
represents a sustainable rate of growth. Why is there no comment about the desirability of
this number, the growth rate it represents, and whether it is sustainable? Shouldn’t there be a
precise knowledge of what constitutes sustainable future population growth, including a
specific description of core area build-out scenarios that are sustainable? Shouldn’t this
knowledge be brought to bear in this chapter?
The authors comment on sustainability elsewhere in the chapter, noting that “walkability”
(i.e., sustainable transportation) is enhanced by urban density. But “walkability” doesn’t
suffice all that should be said about sustainability. Elsewhere in the chapter the authors also
warn the city not to “constrict supply” of new housing, which the city could do, presumably by
adopting burdensome regulations. In tones pleasant and upbeat, the authors suggest that
local government adopt a nuanced, not a regulatory, approach to growth. In fact, the authors
appear to believe that rapid growth provides increased opportunities for civic leaders to use
their savvy by trying nuanced approaches—mostly incentives— to increase affordability and
retain neighborhood character.
Such incentives are briefly described in sections on density bonuses and height relaxations and
linkages between affordable housing and new parking structures. It must be said, however,
that these savvy, non-confrontational approaches seem to promise small benefits, since they
are derivative of growth and do not fundamentally re-shape or slow or steer it toward
sustainability. Even with savvy incentives in place, Bozeman’s growth rate will continue at its
unsustainable rate; in fact, the savvy incentives appear to depend on unsustainable growth in
order to be less burdensome. In short, the chapter suggests that continued growth can
provide the answer to the headaches of continued growth. This notion is facile and also
frustrating to many Bozemanites, who have rejected it and seek more meaningful discussions
about growth.
Second, concern with regulations.
Governments regulate housing to achieve the goals of compatibility, quality, and affordability.
The chapter clearly warns that prices increase and supply decreases when governments over-
regulate in pursuit of these goals. The authors write as though the negative outcome of
“overly burdensome” regulation is so patently obvious that it does not even require
substantiation. Presumably the authors are also familiar with exemplary communities that
have achieved affordability, compatibility, and quality without “overly burdensome”
regulations. The chapter, however, provides no examples of these communities. It is not clear
which exemplary jurisdictions the writers of the chapter have in mind when they suggest
easing up on regulations. Are there, in fact, shining examples of communities that have peeled
back regulatory layers to achieve the goals aimed for with regulation?
At the same time, the chapter is silent about the role that banks, financiers, developers, and
builders play in controlling the supply of new housing. Surely it is in the best interests of these
parties to slow supply and therefore to realize a higher return on each new housing unit that is
developed. This seems like such a patently obvious motivation that it should require no
substantiation—but good luck finding it in mainstream literature on growth and community
development! You will not find it in this chapter.
Furthermore, the chapter says nothing about the fact that, while builders have presumably
been building in Bozeman for years “as fast as they can,” the median price point for housing
has been beyond the reach of “working people” for a long time. Discussions about the
increasing price of housing in Bozeman that leave out the influence of the building and finance
communities on prices are lacking important explanatory information. Keeping the builders
and financiers out of the question helps to perpetuate a fascination with over-regulation and
government’s culpability in jacking-up prices.
Finally, if we were to accept the logic in the chapter, which is that supply must be encouraged
and government should act to encourage it, a big question still remains: Just exactly how
much supply is needed? Can the authors say at what precise point in the supply curve prices
truly will begin to decline? Should Bozeman be trying with all diligence to grow faster and
faster, increasing supply year after year? Does Bozeman need to build enough housing units to
support a population growth rate of 7% per year? 8%? 10%? And, what happens to
communities that grow faster to get a better price point? These are not academic questions,
but matters of everyday common sense.
Third, removing B-3 from the NCOD.
To facilitate growth and diversify housing offerings in the core, the chapter suggests removing
the core from the NCOD—that is, removing the core from the “extra” regulatory structure of
the NCOD. This easing of regulation is supposed to provide builders and developers more
flexibility, thereby increasing housing supply and diversity and hopefully stabilizing prices. I
suggest the supposed negative impact of NCOD regulations on flexibility and supply and price
is an assertion parading as an empirical fact. The assertion has it that a less regulated
environment will push diversity and supply up while moderating prices or even pushing them
down.
This assertion, however, seldom if ever achieves genuine maturity in the real world. The
assertion is an empty form forced upon the complexities of reality, as if to make reality
“behave” and leave us free of worry about things as they actually are. Take Bozeman as an
example. In the core of Bozeman, in the B-3’s “soft” regulatory regime (compared to the
strictness of the NCOD and compared to the B-3 itself when it used to include more
restrictions on design and materials) housing costs are higher than in other zones in Bozeman.
In the past decade Andy Holloran has erected mediocre buildings on Mendenhall using
mediocre, cost-effective materials and designs, efficient labor, and efficient construction
techniques—in other words, by capitalizing on “flexibility”—and yet his properties command
some of the highest prices and rents in all of Bozeman. This means that an environment of
easy regulations with plenty of flexibility results not only high prices but also mediocrity and
public distaste. Such a scenario should give us pause before we bow to the assertion that
flexibility delivers what we are seeking from new development downtown.
Clearly, “heavy-handed” regulations don’t explain the expensive mediocrity of recent
downtown developments. So, what does explain it? It seems reasonable to believe that price
increases in Bozeman’s core housing market are due to a “supply” of a different kind: the
increased supply of out-of-state financing and especially of moneyed buyers from out of state.
Surely the willingness, and the capacity, of out-of-state purchasers to spend more than the
local median amount for housing drives up prices—as much if not more so than the other
factors mentioned in this chapter and in the literature about growth. Wealthy buyers can and
do spend dearly for mediocre housing. In any event, when pondering the housing market in
Bozeman, there is more to consider than just a supposed connection between regulation and
prices. Therefore, removing the downtown from the NCOD in the name of flexibility is not a
sufficient reason.
Many Bozeman residents living near downtown feel as though they are being engulfed by a
growth machine that is financed by out-of-state interests and that constructs new residential
“units” primarily for out-of-state buyers. Bozeman is the gold mine and its gold—which is to
say, its character—is being extracted and leached by the process of growth. What is left
behind, that is, what becomes our new built environment, after all the wealth has been taken
during the “growth process,” is unwholesome piles of faux masonry, crappy openings, and
broad swaths of EIFIS. That is hyperbolic language, I know, but I am certain you have heard
versions of it —some less emphatic, some more—many times by now. Now is time to hear
these voices.
Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment. And best wishes to all.