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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-08-22 Public Comment - L. Semones - attention Community Development Advisory Board and Mr. Padden Guy MurphyFrom:Linda Semones To:Agenda Subject:attention Community Development Advisory Board and Mr. Padden Guy Murphy Date:Monday, August 8, 2022 9:32:28 AM Attachments:Parking Minimums Buffalo article Minus Minimums.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Mr. Murphy, I listened with interest to the Aug 1 video of the Community Development Board. Your questions about how transportation infrastructure could be funded were of interest due to some research that myself and Kathy Powell worked on last year. Here is the letter that I sent to the past Parking Commission, as well as to Mr. Veselik. I will include the source material as well. There are always options for every problem, and not working on a compromise seems like the easy way out in most cases. A compromise is always more work. But compromises in general serve more of the total public. Dear Members of the Parking Commission, I would like to thank you all for the very difficult work you have done during these years of burgeoning city growth and the problems that such rapid growth causes for the community. Last week, I sent you a letter of public comment in which I proposed that now is not the time to eliminate parking minimums, and that developers be held to their responsibility to help solve the parking problem in Bozeman. I now would like to make further public comment on the recommendation to eliminate parking minimums in the city. I make these comments as a private citizen, and not as a member of the Historic Preservation Board. It is obvious that parking requirements for the city need to be reviewed and revised. Just trying to access a business on Main Street from 11 AM to 2PM will convince you that the city needs to try something different. Whether this should be paid parking, more required parking for developers, less required parking for developers, parking lots, parking garages, connection to a public transit system, bike paths and parking, pedestrian protection, or parking benefit districts has all been on your agenda for several years. At this point, a hard working subcommittee has recommended that the city go directly to no parking minimums required for developments in the B3 zones. Thanks to Mr. Egge, who provided his sources for this concept, I was able to read about various cities where this has been done. The article with the most data analyzed what has been done in the City of Buffalo, New York. The source is: Minus Minimums Development Response to the Removal of Minimum Parking Requirements in Buffalo (NY) Daniel Baldwin Hess & Jeffrey Rehler Pages 396-408 | Published online: 12 Mar 2021. In Buffalo, and it is to be assumed in other cities that have followed their process, the city did not go directly to no minimum parking requirements. In Buffalo, it was a step-by-step process that developed within their form-based Green Code. Buffalo eliminated off-street parking minimums on April 3, 2017, by enacting a form-based zoning code known as the Unified Development Ordinance or Green Code. Under this Green Code, small site plans are excluded from complying with a Transportation Demand Analysis. Each large site plan over 5000 square feet requires developers to complete a Transportation Demand Analysis with a checklist of parking possibilities, including shared parking programs, bicycle storage, employee incentives, off street parking, roadway improvements, public transit pass subsidies, and carpooling plans. The developer is required to commit to this plan. The plan eliminates off street parking only if the developer and city can agree that with the other transportation modes on the checklist, parking needs for the development are adequately met. It is to be noted that Buffalo already had a public transit system with buses going by individual stops every 15 minutes. Each development site was analyzed individually for parking needs, rather than using a city- wide minimum that might actually create excess parking due to a one-size-fits-all regulation. I suggest that before eliminating the parking minimums in Bozeman, this form-based code be studied. It requires developers to look at their local and specific parking needs and how their development will affect the surrounding community. It holds them responsible to the community by requiring the Transportation Demand Analysis, and holds them responsible to the city transportation plan by providing the checklist of parking solutions. It is not a stop gap parking plan, such as a Parking Benefit Zone, which simply stretches the problem out into areas far outside the development site and which makes the public responsible for parking the excess cars brought to the area by development. It is a design that considers the developers and the outlying neighborhoods partners with equal responsibility to work together to create livable city spaces. I respectfully request that the Parking Commission study the uses of such a Green Code based on form-based planning. It could help resolve some of the differences between the community, the developers and the City of Bozeman.