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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10-10-23 Public Comment - S. Perin - UDC Comments - you need better public engagement and revisionsFrom:Sue To:Agenda Subject:[EXTERNAL]UDC Comments - you need better public engagement and revisions Date:Sunday, October 8, 2023 1:39:44 PM 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 City of Bozeman and Commissioners, I am writing to voice my serious concerns about the proposed Unified Development Code zoning changes as well as the lack of public input that you have acquired in the process. I thought I had just not been paying attention, but now I am hearing everyone talking about how surprised they are to hear of the proposed changes. I then looked at your online powerpoint and see that you held 10 stakeholder meetings for people like developers - 2 meetings, real estate agents, NWE, designers and architects - 2 meetings, etc. REALLY?! Should the designers and real estate developers bewriting the code for the city?? Sounds like a huge conflict of interest. You received 435 completed brochures, 320 conversations and 527 unique insights. We are a city of more than 54,000 people. How is it that you can possibly think thatyour above numbers represent a fair representation of what the 54,000 people of Bozeman think?! That is less than .01% of the population. It is unconscionable that you think that you are accurately considering the population of Bozeman!! This UDC will shape Bozeman for years and probably decades to come. Please let's move more cautiously. Please let's move forward with the whole community in mind - and ask them what they think. You have all of our addresses - you could have reached out to all the homeowners and renters! I do not support the proposed changes to the residential zoning. All of them are too permissive and allow buildings that are too large for the current neighborhoods. My first example is the current R-A proposal. This is effectively eliminating all singlefamily neighborhoods in Bozeman. Allowing 10,000 sf 8 unit, 3story buildings in all single family residential areas is totally inappropriate. I would like to see the UDC reworked with more zoning levels. RS, R-1 = RA - with no more than 2 story buildings/2 plexes and ADUs - buildlings covering 40% of land R2 = RB with current R-3 regs - buildlings covering 40% of land R-3 = RC 10,000 sf 8 unit, 3story buildings, buildlings covering 40% of landR-4 - RD R-5 = RE If RS, R1, R2, R3 cannot be split up as proposed above and need to stay together asRA, then I would like to see RA be wno more than 2 story buildings/2 plexes and ADUs - buildlings covering 40% of land I know that the state changed the Zoning rules, but the city commissioners are trying to change Bozeman's zoning to be even more permissive than the state changes. This is unacceptable! This process should be redone with actual participation by the citizens of Bozeman. Right now I live in a R-1 neighborhood where people have yards, mature trees, fruit trees, gardens. The houses are all a similar size (some one story, some two stories)and it has a nice cohesive and community feel. Seeing one of my neighboring houses turn into a duplex or add an ADU would be fine. Seeing a couple of my neighboring lots turn into a 3 story 8plex , or a 10,000 sq ft house would be terrible, would totally change the nature of the neighborhood. ADUs would provide affordablehousing. Basement apartments would provide affordable housing. What you are proposing will encourage more million dollar condos! unacceptable. Allowing someone to turn an existing home into two apartments would provideaffordable housing. But as we have seen with all the Condo developments in downtown, allowing multistory condos is not doing that. Instead we get many part year residents that have their second home here, or people who can afford a million dollar condo! So please do not try to push this zoning through as a way to provideaffordable housing! I have read that buildlings can only cover 40% of the land in RA . What is allowed on the other 60%? There should be a requirement for trees and greenspace, not justpaved for parking. How is that written in to the UDC? And if it is not there, can it be? Trees and green space are needed both for climate change and sanity. Speaking of parking - how much parking will be required for an 8 unit building? Andwhere is this parking required? There should be parking required for 2 vehicles per unit - if cedarwinds condos and many others near olive and 19th can do this then others can too. Once we change things to be more permissive it will be harder to go back. Why rush into turning all of Bozeman into a disjunct collection of ugly neighborhoods that have no original character left? Please reduce the densities that you are proposing for R- A, R-B. Sincerely, Sue Perin