HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-15-23 - Public Comment - L. Ryder - Comments for Community Dev Agenda Sept 18From:Lindsay Ryder
To:Agenda
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public comments
Date:Friday, September 15, 2023 9:27:53 AM
Attachments:Comments for Community Dev agenda Sept 18 - Lindsay Ryder.docx
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Please find attached public comments for consideration at the Community Developmentadvisory board's meeting on September 18.
Thank you,
Lindsay Ryder
To: Members, City of Bozeman Community Development Board
From: Lindsay Ryder, Bozeman resident (lindsay.ryder@gmail.com)
Date: September 14, 2023 (
(Submited via email to agenda@bozeman.net)
In re: Comments submited for considera�on on the Board’s mee�ng September 18, 2023
regarding proposed changes to Residen�al Zoning
Dear Members of the City of Bozeman’s Community Development Board,
I’m grateful to each of you for your service represen�ng the best interests of Bozeman’s
residents rela�ng to the development of our community – par�cularly considering the drama�c,
problema�c, and rapid change we are experiencing. As you are well aware, your work in
represen�ng this community’s best interests have both immediate and long-term implica�ons.
I am wri�ng to express my concerns with, and categorical opposi�on to, the proposed
residen�al zoning changes being considered by this Board and the City Commission.
I was born in Bozeman in February 1983 at the original Bozeman Deaconess Hospital, which is
now being repurposed into a luxury hotel by developer Andy Holloran of HomeBase Partners. I
was taken from that hospital to my childhood home on the 500 block of South Black Avenue,
where I spent the first 18 years of my life. This house, where my father s�ll lives, is down the
street from another Holloran development – the notorious Black Olive luxury apartments –
where mostly younger, newer Bozeman residents of financial means now reside alongside short-
term rental occupants here to enjoy our community and then depart – without having paid a
cent into our collec�ve coffers in the form of tourist or sales taxes (and which could be used to
support the development of truly affordable and community-centered housing). The building
formerly at this site housed several wonderful community nonprofits and service providers, all
of whom had to relocate to accommodate a structure that I would hardly consider a solu�on to
our community’s housing woes.
A few years ago, my father built an ADU at his property on South Black, where he now lives
while he rents out my childhood home at the front of the property – providing him with a
dignified and comfortable re�rement in his own community. This arrangement was permissible
due to some of the City’s past rezoning laws, allowing his R-1 zoned property greater flexibility
in both construc�ng the ADU and allowing for flexible rental op�ons as an owner-occupied
property. A beau�ful example of a community-centered and calibrated housing and
development policy working as designed!
As fate would have it, I had the good fortunate of buying my first (and only) home a few blocks
away. I reside on the 500 block of South 9th Avenue, which is currently zoned R-2. I worked hard
to be able to buy a home in my hometown (which if I hadn’t done five years ago would be
unatainable to me now!). Indeed, the seller chose to sell to me despite receiving higher and
cash only offers, as she wished to preserve the soul of the community and support a local
resident to remain in their hometown. I inten�onally bought a property with a rentable unit – a
finished basement apartment – to make homeownership atainable to us. My husband and I
have rented our basement to an MSU grad student at a below market rate. We also have
dreams of building our own ADU. Under current zoning, we would be able to rent that out
flexibly as well. Our current and future livelihoods are �ed up in this home we’ve worked so
hard to acquire and maintain.
My story, my father’s story, and so many others in this community share some common themes:
we’re hard-working locals who volunteer, shop, recreate, and otherwise ac�vely engage in this
community. This would all be directly and dras�cally compromised if the proposed residen�al
zoning changes were to be implemented.
And while my story could very much reek of NIMBYism at first glance, in reality the proposed
zoning changes would have incredibly detrimental impact on those who haven’t been able to
make the dream of homeownership in Bozeman’s historic core a reality yet. When the house
next door went up for sale within a couple of months of buying my own house, a young man
and MSU alumni bought it – fixing it up and ren�ng it to other MSU students while he lives in
the ADU in the back. This story would be very different if the proposed zoning regula�ons were
in place. It doesn’t take much imagina�on to envision a foreign (out of state or even out of
country) corporate en�ty purchasing the property via a bidding war, tearing down what was
admitedly quite a fixer-upper, and construc�ng a mul�-unity property in its place. And yes,
while this technically would have created more housing units than the current property (which
houses five wonderful community members between the owner-occupied ADU and the rental
house with four MSU student residents), that benefit does not nearly out weight the cost. The
same would likely have been true for my own house, had had the op�on to tear down and build
a larger structure been available to developers at the �me.
The proposed zoning changes would swi�ly and irrevocably result in the degrada�on of
Bozeman’s historic residen�al neighborhoods, including increased traffic and parking woes;
decreased quality of life for residents (both current and future) through more noise and light
pollu�on; and an escalated inability for “normal” people to get into the housing market as
wealthy developers will outbid us all.
I’m s�ll two or three decades away from re�rement age, and despite working hard and pu�ng
down roots in my hometown, can feel the dream of a dignified and comfortable re�rement like
the one my father has been able to enjoy, slipping away already.
Thank you for your integrity in truly represen�ng this community’s best interests. I know there
are many considera�ons to balance, and that the state legislature has restricted op�ons, but the
proposed re-zoning �ps the scales to the wrong side of what this community needs now, and
what we want to be in the future.
Sincerely, your fellow Bozemanite,
Lindsay Ryder