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Home My WebLink About10-10-23 Public Comment - M. Egge - Re_ Comments to the Community Development Board regarding the Draft UDC Text and MapFrom:Mark Egge To:Agenda Subject:[EXTERNAL]Re: Comments to the Community Development Board regarding the Draft UDC Text and Map Date:Sunday, October 8, 2023 12:40:30 PM Attachments:2023.10.10 Egge Draft UDC Comments for BDC Draft 2.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. If possible, please replace the comments that I sent on Friday to theCommunity Development Board for their 10/10 meeting with the attached. Thank you! On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 8:51 PM Mark Egge <mark@eateggs.com> wrote: Please see the attached PDF. Thanks! -- Mark Egge(406) 548-4488he / him 1 8 October 2023 Re: Draft UDC Text and Map Members of the Community Development Board and Commissioner Madgic, I’m submitting my comments in writing (only) in hopes that you will have some time for your own discussion and deliberation on Tuesday. I’d like to begin by brieﬂy addressing a few common misconceptions about the draft UDC before sharing a speciﬁc suggestion to improve the crosswalk between our current zoning districts and the draft form-based categories. 1) There’s an assertion that the community has not been appropriately consulted in developing the draft code and that the process is moving too fast. In reality, the draft code is the culmination of ﬁve years of planning and analysis to help meet the community’s housing needs, including thousands of community touchpoints and inputs along the way: • The 2019 Community Housing Needs Assessment identiﬁed a need for 5,600 additional dwelling units by 2025 stated, plainly, that “more housing and more diversity in housing is needed.” • The 2020 Community Plan recommends to, “Promote housing diversity, including missing-middle housing;” “increase required minimum densities in residential neighborhoods;” and, to “complete the transition to a form-based code.” • The 2020 Community Housing Action Plan identiﬁed unzoning a speciﬁc strategy. • The 2021 UDC Affordable Housing Assessment notes that, with “little developable land available, any effort to increase the quantity of housing available while decreasing cost will have to allow increased residential density in the existing zoning districts through inﬁll and redevelopment.” The plan recommends to “establish a more detailed menu of multi- household building classiﬁcations, such as small (up to 6 units), medium (6-18 units), and large (18 units and over),” and that, “Bozeman move to eliminate the lot-area- per-dwelling-unit regulations.” Figure 1 R-A Lot Size to Buildable Units Simulation results for maximum buildout meeting setbacks, amenity space, wall plate height, parking, and lot coverage requirements that maximizes the bedroom count for a given lot size. 2 2) Many folks assume that 8-unit buildings will be permissible throughout the R-A district. In reality, due to the form-based lot and building limitations, you’d need a large lot (or tiny units) to create an 8-unit building in R-A. In general, building eight units (of at least 600 SF each), is dimensionally impossible on lots less than 7,500 SF and is improbable under a more realistic set of assumptions (a bedroom-count maximizing mix of average size one- and two-bedroom units) on lots less than 11,000 SF (see Figure 1). 3) Some fear that the new code will unleash a ﬂurry of teardowns of existing functional and affordable housing. In reality, the signiﬁcant majority of parcels in Bozeman’s existing multifamily zones (even in areas zoned R-4) remain single-family residences because scraping existing functional housing is extremely expensive. “Scrapes” in residential areas (downtown is different) typically only happen a) for a future owner-occupant who isn’t trying to make a proﬁt; or b) when the remaining economic value of a structure is close to zero. The draft code does not improve the economics of scraping functional housing for new construction. Where we are likely to see new development activity as a result of this code change is in newly legalized backyard additions and internal divisions (e.g. creation of basement apartments), and subdivision of existing large lots—all of which will produce new housing units at a much lower price point than scraping existing functioning housing. 4) Some fear a feeding frenzy of development activity as a result of this change. Unfortunately for pro- housing advocates, any uptick in development activity is likely to be modest at best. For any increase in development activity to occur there must be a) a business case that is proﬁtable under the new code that wouldn’t be allowable or proﬁtable under the current code; b) an increase in the number of willing sellers; and, 3) a developer with an interest in doing one-off inﬁll projects. On this last point, Strong Towns notes that, “the kind of inﬁll builder who builds small apartment buildings on single residential lots is almost an extinct species in many cities. Large development companies buy up whole city blocks to build 5-over-1 apartment buildings, or they create new subdivisions in the suburbs. They are largely not interested in one-off, small-scale inﬁll projects. You can change your zoning code to legalize such projects, but who is going to build them?” (“Upzoning Might Not Lower Housing Costs. Do It Anyway.” Daniel Herriges, April 26, 2023) 5) Some protest that any new inventory created as a result of this change will simply become empty vacation homes or short-term rentals. The facts suggest otherwise: investor-owned short-term rentals are already banned in all residential areas (and the Bozeman’s rules and enforcement are getting stricter) and owner-occupancy rates in Bozeman are actually trending upward. I used Montana Cadastral data in in March 2019 to determine that 61.7% of Bozeman’s residential parcels were owner occupied.1 I measured again in September 2022 and found that this number had actually increased to 62.4%. 1 A parcel is assumed to be owner-occupied if the tax bill mailing address is the same as the street address. 3 6) Finally, there’s a misplaced notion that the types of housing this change would re- legalize are somehow different or incompatible with historic norms. In reality, Bozeman’s historic neighborhoods (which predate modern Euclidean zoning) are chock full of small apartments, internally subdivided houses, fourplexes, ﬁve-plexes, and even higher density 24- to 50-unit apartment buildings. The map shown in Figure 2 illustrates this diversity of housing types (consistent with the R-A category) in the historic neighborhoods south of Main Street. There’s one further objection—coming chieﬂy from those who have dispassionately evaluated what the draft code would (actually) allow in the context of their immediate surroundings and have concluded that the draft code’s building mass and scale allowances would be too large or out of character for their block. In my view, this is a reasonable objection and there are ways that the draft UDC could be amended to ameliorate some of these concerns while still creating a regulatory environment compatible with creating more housing and more diversity in housing types. Frankly, using our existing Euclidean zoning as the sole basis for the new form-based map is a rather coarse approach to what could (and perhaps should) be a more ﬁne-grained approach to assigning which forms should be allowed where. Form-based codes are typically more nuanced than our current zoning. To take full advantage of the beneﬁts of a form-based code, district assignments should be based on the form and massing of existing structures and a block’s orientation to primary corridors, commercial districts or nodes, and other environmental features of the built environment like parks and institutions. Dan Parolek explains in Planetizen’s “Introduction to Form-Based Codes” course that there are three common block arrangements (see Figures 2, 3, and 4 from the same source): 1) an End Grain of blocks with larger buildings along the primary corridor; 2) blended densities within the same block at a Figure 2 Diversity of Housing Units in Historic Neighborhoods 4 compatible scale and size; and 3) end transitions into neighborhoods with larger building types at the edge. Figure 3 End Grain of Blocks with Multi-Unit Types (Parolek) Figure 4 Blended Densities (Parolek) Figure 5 Transition into Neighborhoods (Parolek) 5 Frequently, Bozeman’s existing zoning does not describe the size and shape of the existing structures. E.g. many existing R-4 areas are predominantly single-family detached houses, even though the area is currently zoned to allow 4-story apartment buildings. For these areas, R-A would be more ﬁtting than R- B. The Draft UDC implements a blended densities approach (Figure 4) based on current zoning (not current built environment). My hypothesis is that Code Studio’s suggested zoning-to-form crosswalk is more reﬂective of the constraints of the project budget than of best practice for implementing a form- based code. My suggestion is to implement more of a “transition into neighborhoods” approach (Figure 5) with assignments that are tailored, block by block, to reﬂect the existing built environment and orientation of primary transportation corridors, commercial nodes, parks, and institutions. To accomplish this (as well as to respond to the signiﬁcant input provided many community members) I suggest reducing the dimensional allowances of each residential category by one story. I would deﬁne the primary residential categories as follows (illustrated with historic precedent for each building type). R-A “Small House” Shape R-B / NEHMU “Large House” Shape R-C “Small Apartment” Shape REMU “Midrise” Shape R-A R-B / NEHMU R-C REMU Maximum Lot Coverage 40% 40% 60% Front / Rear Setback 10’ / 10’ 10’ / 10’ 10’ / 10’ 10’ / 10’ Maximum Height 2 stories 3 stories* 4 stories 5 stories Maximum Units 4 8 24 Maximum Building Width 120’ 160’ 250’ Maximum Building Size 6,000 SF 10,000 SF Primary Street Build-to Frontage 60% 80% * 25' max wall plate height Notes: 1. Ground Floor Commercial Use Allowed in NUHMU and REMU 2. Required parking (all zones): 1 per 1-bedroom unit, 2 per 2+ bedroom unit 3. Required amenity space (R-A, R-B, R-C): 100 SF per 1-bedroom unit, 150 SF per 2+ bedroom unit 6 Then, on a block-by-block basis, assign parcels to form categories. As a baseline, start by assigning R-1, R-2, and R-3 to R-B; R-4 to R-C; and, R-5 to REMU. Then—and this is where things get interesting—adjust each block fact up or down between categories based on a set of rules about the existing environment and juxtaposition to primary corridors and other features: • Move R-B blocks currently zoned R-1 or R-2 with 66% or more single-story homes down to R-A. o Move any R-A blocks fronting an arterial or collector road up to R-B. o Move any R-A blocks fronting a commercial node, park, or institute up to R-B. • Move any blocks with one or more 4-story buildings to R-C • Move any blocks with more than 30 existing units up to R-C • Etc. … develop and apply similar adjustments for R-C and REMU This approach to assigning districts would accomplish two things: 1) it would establish more of a transition into neighborhoods with large end grains along our primary transportation corridors and commercial nodes; 2) it would better align the new districts with the existing built environment (rather than relying on existing zoning). Finally, if similar rules were applied once every few years, it would enable and allow a gradual evolution of land uses. E.g. if an R-A internal block is slowly redeveloping and crosses the threshold into having more than half of homes being 2+ stories, it would get reassigned to R-B after the next update, allowing for a predictable and gradual increase in density over time. My thoughts here are still rather imprecise, but I hope it inspires some consideration among the board in terms of how we can make the transition to a form-based code responsive to the concerns of the community and align our building form categories to better utilize the concepts of form-based transitions. I hope at some point soon to provide an accompanying map to illustrate what this might look like compared to the current draft map. Overall, the draft code is a signiﬁcant improvement over our existing code. The draft code does what our plans say it should, creating a regulatory environment compatible with producing more housing and more diversity in housing types. It deserves to be recommended to City Commission (possibly with some amendments), knowing that the perfection of our development regulations is a journey not a destination. Thank you for your consideration and for leading our community through these challenging but important discussions. Mark Egge 1548 S Grand Ave Bozeman, MT 59715