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Home My WebLink About03-22-19 Public Comment - D. Pickard - Cottonwood & Ida Preliminary PUDDale Pickard Radiant Design & Supply Business 501 E. Peach Residence 527 North Montana Bozeman MT 59715 March 17, 2019 Brian Kreuger and City Commission PO Box 1230 Bozeman MT 59771-1230 agenda@bozeman.net Re: Cottonwood and Ida PUD Application 18516 To those concerned, I own and operate a business located in the Trades Guild building at 501 East Peach. I am also an owner in the commercial building complex itself. This building complex is located on the corner of East Peach and North Church, in close proximity - within 2 blocks of the development under review, (PUD18516). I own my home located at 527 North Montana and I have walked, biked and driven to work at my business and property on East Peach Street since 1988. I have admired much of the development in our neighborhood, especially the small homes that replaced the grain bins on Cottonwood. Even the larger building developments seem not to have violated standards in such a way as to adversely affect our neighborhood, especially with respect to trafﬁc and parking. However, I ﬁnd this proposed development, (PUD18516) untenable in several respects and must recommend against allowing the several variances that will undoubtedly prove inimical to our neighborhood. The requested variances include restrictions against apartment buildings, parking, building setbacks, height restrictions, maximum restaurant area, alteration of street construction to accommodate the development, and other “Form and Intensity”standards regarding lot lines restrictions, lot coverage, storefront and landscape block frontage etc. With respect to the parking issue, it’s apparent that the developers over-designed occupancy for the lot and then compensated for lost parking by reducing the parking standards. A third of the remaining unaccounted for parking requirement is to be provided off site in a nebulous future development of the brewery site. The proposal sacriﬁces building setbacks, sidewalks and the “adopted designs for local streets” along that block of Cottonwood in favor of “back out angled parking”. This appears again to be a belated attempt to accommodate the excess number of vehicles the development expects to draw to the area. I prefer that apartment buildings not be permitted as an allowable use in the area as per existing standards. Adhering to the existing standard would reduce the parking and trafﬁc conﬂicts associated with the site commensurately. I also prefer that existing standards requiring building setbacks, building heights, landscaping, and maximum restaurant size be adhered to. I have not studied the plans in detail but there needs to be some allowance for snow removal made that is associated with the overall required parking area. My concern is that allowing these variances will produce a building development of a scale and density that will necessarily produce conﬂicts with the existing neighborhood - especially over parking, trafﬁc congestion, and truck access to existing neighborhood businesses. It’s clear that important design standards were ignored to maximize the occupancy of that block at the expense of others in the neighborhood. A development of this intensity and magnitude will necessarily negatively impact the ability to walk and bike in the neighborhood. By insisting on these several variances to the norm of existing standards without reason, the developers burden the neighborhood with an argument that we would prefer not to have. Other developments that do not intentionally violate standards would not require this kind of expensive correction and input on the part of the local neighborhood. We would have preferred to have been approached with a design that met rather than changed standards. Sincerely, Dale Pickard