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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.