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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-03-23 Public Comment - D. Sauther - Public comment against #22264 - Canyon Gate proposed platFrom:Diana Sauther To:Agenda Cc:Ross Knapper Subject:Public comment against #22264 - Canyon Gate proposed plat Date:Monday, April 3, 2023 11:58:40 AM Attachments:Canyon Gate Plat - CDB comment.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. Please forward the attached to the members of the Community Development Board. Thank you, Diana -- Diana Sauther Top Hand Realty Advisors, Inc. 403 W. Main Street, Suite 1 Bozeman, MT 59715 Office: 406-586-0356 Cell: 406-599-3433 Fax: 406-551-1008 Diana@TopHandAdvisors.com www.TopHandAdvisors.com Diana Sauther 1865 Boylan Rd. Bozeman, MT 59715 April 3, 2023 Re: Canyon Gate Plat -- #22264 Dear Community Development Board Members, I have serious concerns about the floodplain issues. The adjacent neighborhood, The Legends, abuts Bridger Creek and was designed to accommodate the historic creek overflow paths. The 2006 storm water plan for The Legends, which was approved by the City, includes a series of greenway corridors and culverts that honor that historic overflow path. Some of that system leads to a detention pond that is directly adjacent to the Canyon Gate parcel. The system was designed so that overflow from the detention pond would overtop the pond onto the Canyon Gate parcel, honoring the historic flow path. This is how the whole Legends system was designed, and it was approved by the City when The Legends was platted. Screenshot from The Legends Storm Water Plan: However, the staff report on Canyon Gate makes no mention of this. In fact, it mistakenly shows the only historic flow path as entering the northwestern part of the parcel (screenshot below): Worse, in the section entitled “38.220.060 Documentation of Compliance with Adopted Standards”, in the paragraph addressing Geology, Soils and Slopes (page 20 of the 30-page report), staff states that the Canyon Gate “site will be slightly elevated to mitigate concerns from flooding in the adjacent Legends subdivision.” If the City previously approved The Legends stormwater design that continued to channel water across the Canyon Gate parcel, then it cannot now allow Canyon Gate to alter those overflows back onto The Legends and increase the flooding risk to residents of The Legends. Bridger Creek is already outside the mapped FEMA floodzones – both the 100-year and 500- year. Last year, we had flooding from the creek into Boylan Rd – and that was just a normal run-off season, not any 100-year event. It is clear that the Bridger Creek floodplain has changed dramatically. I have lived there for six years, and I can assure you that the most significant changes occurred AFTER the 2018 LiDAR that was used in the supposedly “new” Canyon Gate Flood Hazard Evaluation. Bottom line: • This is a dynamic floodplain. • The FHE was not conducted to FEMA standards and was based upon LiDAR collected before the most recent and significant changes to Bridger Creek. • The staff report fails to take into account the fact that The Legends neighborhood was designed and platted to allow flood overflows to continue their historic flow paths onto the Canyon Gate parcel. For all these reasons, additional work is required regarding flood hazards – for both the future residents of the Canyon Gate parcel as well as the neighbors already living in the area. Our climate is changing and what we used to call 100-year and 500-year floods are now more frequent. We need to design resiliency into our floodplain systems. Staff clearly believe that it is at least possible that portions of the Canyon Gate parcel will be designated as floodplain in the upcoming 2025 FEMA remapping, and has taken pains to attempt to shift any City liability onto others. Frankly, the idea that City staff would highlight this risk but allow the developer to proceed as long as the risk was stated in the fine print of a plat map is mind-boggling to me. How many future residents of this parcel do you think will even see a plat map before they buy property in Canyon Gate, let alone read the tiny little notes on it? That is not good governance. A citizen will reasonably expect that if the City approved a development, it must have met all the relevant health and safety requirements – not that the City passed the future liability to the developer and future property owners via fine print on a plat map. That’s just wrong. There is other work needed on this proposed plat, beyond the flood risk: Improper Street Grid: The City Commission, when approving this high-density zoning, cited its location at the intersection of an arterial and a collector street as making it appropriate for high density. But the plat does not make use of those streets – in fact, there is no direct access from Bridger, the arterial. None. There is only one access from Story Mill, the collector street. Instead three access points come from local streets, dramatically increasing the impact to the adjacent neighborhood. That is poor design and should be rectified, both for the benefit of the 4,000+ expected daily vehicle users of Canyon Gate and the adjacent residential neighborhood, where children currently play on quiet residential streets. Improper trail “connections.” The applicant claims to have designed his proposed development to improve connectivity of existing trail systems. But his proposed linear trail does not connect to the existing trails leading to large public parks – instead, it ends at the Legend’s detention pond. There is no trail there – just a steeply sloped grassy bank into the detention pond. There are three major City-owned parks/trail systems nearby: • The trail leading to Glen Lake Rotary Park is across Story Mill from the Canyon Gate parcel • The paved trail leading to the M and Drinking Horse are across Bridger Dr. from the Canyon Gate parcel • Story Mill Park and its wonderful trails are just a half-block from the Canyon Gate parcel. And yet, the proposed Canyon Gate design includes a “trail” that ends in The Legends detention pond. This is poor design. Further, it will generate undue pressure on The Legends and increase the maintenance necessary, the cost of which is borne solely by its residents. It should not be the neighbors’ responsibility to provide and maintain trails and open space for Canyon Gate. By all means, provide connectivity to the Legends’ trails – but please ensure connection to actual trails, rather than dumping all Canyon Gate trail traffic into the detention pond where no trail exists. And please require at least as prominent connection to the other area trail systems that lead to larger, publicly funded parks and trails. Proximity to those amenities was another rationale the City Commission listed when approving this high density development, so please ensure superior connection to them. I urge you to recommend the necessary improvements to the proposed plat to address these significant design flaws. Regards, Diana Sauther 1865 Boylan Rd.