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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-12-19 INC Minutes THE INTER-NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL (INC) MEETING OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA DRAFT MEETING MINUTES Thursday, Sep. 12, 2019 Attending: Jennifer Rockne (SCAN), Kathy Powell (UNA), Linda Semones (Bogert Park), Ginny Cowan (BCNA), Suzanne Held (NENA), Gail MacMillan (MSU liaison), Bob Wall (SENA) Melody Mileur (City Staff) Commissioner Cunningham Taylor Lonsdale (City Transportation Engineer) Danni Hess (Western Transportation Institute) Danae Giannetti (Western Transportation Institute) Kate McDowell (Bridger Creek phase 1 resident) Sandra Goetting (Bridger Creek phase 1 resident) Nancy DesRosiers (New Hyalite View resident) Mark Campanelli (Bogert Park resident) 4:32 Jennifer convened the meeting Commission room in City Hall. Agenda change – moving up Commissioner Cunningham’s presentation. INC Parking working group will be immediately after that. No public comment. Reviewed August minutes. Linda clarified her comment about the survey – neighbor- hoods are doing well, but neighborhood character is not getting as much support. Gail moved to approve the minutes as amended. Linda seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 4:35 Commissioner Cunningham’s updates Bogert Pavilion – Commission presented with three options. Selected option that will ex- tend the life of the Pavilion the longest, without demolishing. $650,000 estimated cost. Bids are being accepted now. Three firms have responded. Will not be available for hockey this winter. Comments on North Cottonwood Road – concerns from Petra Academy about lack of a left turn lane. Plans were changed to add the left turn lane. Monday night agenda includes rezoning a portion of the property associated with the Medical Arts building. A lot of comments have been received already. Met with School Board – they are proposing a scoreboard within Van Winkle stadium that is in violation of the sign ordinance. They requested an exemption, which required a public hearing. The school can legally decide to not abide by some city codes, but they try to be conservative about that. They do hold the public hearing to solicit input, but there is no vote by the City. All road construction on the west side of town has been piled up into a short period of time. Part of that was to put out a larger bid package to include some roundabout work. A number of comments have been received about difficulties of getting into and out of that area. 4:43 Creation of INC Parking working group With so many parking issues being discussed around the City, the INC steering commit- tee has discussed organizing a working group to get more neighborhoods involved and Jennifer has moved to form the group. Would like representation from NENA, SCAN, UNA, Cooper Park, Bogert Park, and Midtown. There are residential parking permit districts around the University and Bozeman High, but the City is seriously examining the creation of parking benefit districts that might af- fect additional neighborhoods. Kathy provided some additional background on why it should be beneficial for those neighborhoods to get involved in this working group, since the districts could be very impactful. Linda will try to contact Dave Crawford to try to get some involvement from their neigh- borhood. Suzanne asked if Kathy could prepare a brief letter describing the working group to present to Neighborhood association steering committees. Kathy suggested tar- geting the start of November for the first meeting. 4:53 Round robin neighborhood updates NENA had over 70 submissions for their photo exhibition. Had a great response for peo- ple commenting on the pictures. Working on trying to incorporate this feedback into the NCOD review process. Parade of Sheds this coming Saturday, Sept. 14. Parade, self- guided tours through the day. UNA annual meeting will be at the SUB in mid-October. A lot of road construction dis- ruption in the neighborhood. Good Neighbor Day coming up Sept. 27 – might extend into the weekend. BCNA second annual pre-Halloween block party and potluck will be happening the last Saturday of October at Christy Field. 5:00 Taylor Lonsdale, City Transportation Engineer A lot of road construction, particularly in the west part of town. Taylor previously worked at Western Transportation Institute, focusing on children’s transportation to and from school. A lot more bike and pedestrian facilities are planned. Hoping to work with Bicycle Advi- sory Board, WTI, and others to design appropriate facilities, ensure connections. StreamLine is another focus. Approaching the formation of a Metropolitan Planning or- ganization – required when population exceeds 50,000. This will probably happen after next census. StreamLine will likely be a part of the regional transportation plan. Transportation and land use planning are inseparably linked. Process of forming the new metropolitan area will be influenced by the areas involved. Question from residents of Bridge Creek phase 1 – last winter, corner of Bridger Canyon Road and Birdie Drive was very dangerous. A lot of parking on the street, and a lot of snow being pushed into the street, caused a lot of traffic constriction. A lot of people that are visiting some of the neighborhood organizations park in the street instead of using the organizations’ parking lots. Also concerns about traffic at Story Mill Road and Bridger Canyon Road, and difficulties of getting across street at new park. Signal planned for Story Mill Road/Bridger Canyon Road, maybe next year. Other cross- ing near the new Parks and Rec building also being examined. Looking for ways to im- prove the situation before the signal is installed. Question about what is done if an emergency vehicle is not able to get down a street. Taylor didn’t know for sure – will research. Kathy asked if Taylor would be willing to attend neighborhood association meetings – he would be. Jennifer asked a question on behalf of a neighbor – what would it take to get signs notify- ing drivers of uncontrolled intersections? Taylor said they are getting better access to data on car accidents, to help prioritize addressing problems. Kathy encouraged the City to work with MSU to try to reduce the number of cars coming in (as part of sustainability effort). Linda asked about traffic calming on collector streets – rules are strongly biased toward cars, at the expense of pedestrian and bike traffic. Is it possible to work more collabora- tively with MDT? Yes – but it will take time and a lot of effort to build the relationships that will allow those collaborations to be productive. Linda also asked about the possibility of a city-wide campaign to address speeding prob- lems. Taylor suggested that it will take a lot of different approaches – some at the neigh- borhood grassroots level. 5:47 Segued into discussion of traffic calming popups – Danni Hess from Western Trans- portation Institute discussed some of the recent projects. First project – S. Church. Planning started last November, was continued after the Farmers’ Market was moved this spring. Installed some temporary devices, collected data before and after. Some modest reduction in speed (but the biggest gains were for people that were going faster). Trying to expand past looking at 85% speed and traffic volume – look at how some of the devic- es affected yield rates for pedestrians, other measures of impact. Hoping to have report on project available the end of the month – MSU engineering students are helping processs data. Four additional projects have been done since that one. Learned that more pre-project outreach to neighborhoods is beneficial. Project at Cooper Park helped to advance the idea of using these pop-up projects to design features that might be included in permanent reconstruction projects. Looking at using interim supplies that might last longer than the temporary projects. Assembling a traffic calming toolkit that will be available on the City website that neigh- borhoods can use to do projects without relying on WTI or the City. Also working on some additional strategic criteria and prioritization tools. Currently evaluating whether any of the results warrant more permanent installations. Question about the Church-Story intersection, which wasn’t included in the project. Danni will be moving out of her position at WTI, but Danae will be transitioning into that position. 6:02 No objections – meeting adjourned. Minutes recorded by Bob Wall.