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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-11-19 Protest - L. Semones - Bozeman Medical Arts Zone Map Amendment (2)From:Linda Semones To:Agenda Subject:zoning protest letter Date:Wednesday, September 11, 2019 12:58:51 PM Attachments:Protest zone change.docx I have resent my letter to make a correction. The plan I refer to is the Downtown Bozeman Improvement Plan, not the Bozeman Community Plan, when I reference p.111. Please use this version of the letter. I am sorry, there are so many plans at this point it is easy to get them confused. But I think I got it right the second time. Thank you, Linda Semones Aug. 16, 2019 Bozeman City Clerk Attention: Chris Saunders 121 N. Rouse Ave. Department of Community Development PO Box 1230 Bozeman, MT 59771-1230 Protest Re: Application 19258 Zone Map Amendment Application I spent an inordinate amount of time attending meetings to address the update of the NCOD last year. This included the joint meeting of the Zoning and Planning Commissions. According to the freshly adopted NCOD plan, existing neighborhoods, historical or otherwise are important to the city commission. Supposedly the city is in the process of creating rules and guidelines for the preservation of the historical districts, and for the compatible development of the non-historic downtown neighborhoods. The last time I checked the Bozeman Community Plan Survey site, the theme “ A City of Neighborhoods” was in second place in the ranking of themes for the Bozeman Community Plan, only behind “ A City Influenced by Our Natural Environment, Parks, and Open Space.” All of this led me, as a citizen, to assume that the downtown neighborhoods were safe. At the extensive meetings I attended, there was a marked concern for those areas specifically on the borders of B districts. I believe the City Commission called them transition areas. People who live in R districts on the borders of B districts regardless of whether they are R2 or R3 or any other R, expressed that they were feeling threatened by the high rise and intensive development on their borders. This new request for a zoning change intensifies the concern that developers will continue to erode away at the borders of the neighborhoods, before the city can ever write the rules and guidelines needed to protect these areas. If there is truly a Community Plan which has identified this property as in a transition area that needs rezoned, the neighbors of this requested zone change should have been contacted first by the City Commission, and the neighbors and the Commission should have worked out a plan. Allowing a developer to request the change only reinforces the idea that the community doesn’t matter. It is a false premise that these zoning changes only affect those neighbors within 150 feet of the change requested. All of us who live in the downtown neighborhoods are threatened by a precedent of changing zoning at the whim of a wealthy developer. My home could be threatened tomorrow. How many homes in the Community Core, Downtown, will be told that since they are downtown their area matches up with a B3 zone? Once the downtown zoning area of B3 usage is squared off to match the map on page 111 of the Downtown Bozeman Improvement Plan, how long will it be before more property is coveted by downtown developers and the boundaries are pushed back even further by preying on vulnerable properties that can be cherry picked out of R4 and other R districts? The Downtown Bozeman Improvement Plan specifically recommends that in general property not be added to the B3 area, and that property not be added nor taken away from the R4 area, with the exception of the areas marked on page 111. And, as I read the document, these zoning changes are recommendations, and certainly not promises to any developer who comes along. Neither do I see where these recommendations are legally binding. Is the City Commission going to work with these property owners to make the change in a way approved of by the neighbors? Or, alternatively, is the city going to let developers make the choices? My own home is at 404 S. Church, and is in an R2 zone. Will this area, since it is downtown, in the future be easily changed to B3? I protest this zoning change, as it is the opening shot in the developers' war against the downtown neighborhoods. Sincerely, Linda Semones 404 S. Church Ave.