HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-18-19 Public Comment - G. Thompson - Amendment to Chapter 38 of the Bozeman Municipal CodeFrom:George Thompson
To:Agenda
Subject:October 21st Commissioners mtg; application 19403
Date:Friday, October 18, 2019 4:13:05 PM
October 17, 2019
Commissioners –
Oct 21, Commission Agenda Item
RE: Application 19403, Staff Report to Amend Chapter 38 of the Bozeman Municipal Code to
Increase Time Periods for Zoning Plan Review, Ordinance 2030
Good Afternoon Mayor and Commissioners,
Would like to provide a little background on this Application 19403.
In the past 6 months of Planning Board meetings I specifically asked one of our Senior Planners “ doyou take any consideration of the economic impact from Code interpretation”? Planner Response, “No” . By doubling the Zoning Review time from 30 days to 60 days ignores the fiscal impact to bothbuilders/developers/city staff.
Consequently with the new code being under review I believe it will be premature to extend review
time for Zoning applications which is only one of the many reviews of new/proposed projects.Would like to suggest there will be an opportune time to go through the entire code and reviewthe basis for staff decisions and impact of rejections of all formal reviews after the new code is inplace.
Reasons:
1. Reviews are an expensive undertaking for City staff and their clients. While our builders can easily
demonstrate the loss of capital in City delays, the City staff chooses not to acknowledge the loss of
tax revenue by having a straight forward project mired down with reviews. Take a +$10 million
project, if City review times by staff delay the project by 6-12 months there is a defined cost to the
builder, cost of capital, delay of contractors, potential loss of tenants to occupy the building.
However the City stated “ no consideration of economic impact".
What about the loss of property tax revenue because the project is delayed by a year. If the Buildingdepartment said losing $500,000 in taxes can come out of their budget because their projectdelay/rejection or advocated changes are critical to the success of our community, I’m thinking youwould think quite clearly about how to expedite the process and stay on schedule.
2) Timing of reviews. For example, the Design Review Board makes decisions very late in the process
of approving a +$10mm project. Developers can easily have $250,000 of architects/engineering
project costs on the line, in addition to financing, contractors scheduling and potential tenant move
in dates.
So the DRB takes an approach of “well, it’s a good start, you just need to make extensive changesand go back through site review, engineering etc.” Please note that the professional experience ofDRB folks is focused on small single family homes, residential remodels. As such I can assure you thatthey are simply not qualified to review $10mm projects and walk developers through all the costimplications resulting from DRB review so late in the permitting process. I know it is hard to findqualified volunteers for all our Boards, however, the expertise of the DRB is simply not in the samearea of expertise as the architects who complete pro-forma analysis and understand how to avoidlengthening time commitments and capital impacts. These DRB delays result in another review cycleof City staff, further delaying the tax revenue of a completed building.
At this time would suggest tabling the extension of Zoning review time until a comprehensiveanalysis can be done of the entire review process with both local builders and City Staff.
Thank you for your consideration.
George Thompson, 12 Hill Street, Bozeman
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