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Home My WebLink About04-03-24 Public Comment - S. Macevicz - Guthrie project at 5th & VillardFrom:Stephen Macevicz To:Bozeman Public Comment Cc:betterbozemancoalition@gmail.com Subject:[EXTERNAL]Guthrie project at 5th & Villard Date:Tuesday, April 2, 2024 7:10:48 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 Commission, I have grave misgivings about the proposed Guthrie development. It brings too much density alongwith further degradation of a nice historic family neighborhood. Rather than risk further damage tothe north-of-main neighborhoods, the City Commission should reject the Guthrie project as it iscurrently envisioned. In particular, the number of dwelling units should be severely reduced and nodeviations from normal building requirements (especially height restrictions and on-site parkingrequirements) should be granted in exchange for purported advantages of additional low-incomedwelling units. If one didn’t know better, one could easily believe that the City of Bozeman is purposely trying to destroy the north-of-Main family residential district, which is predominately composed of modest bungalows with modest yards—the type of housing ideal for family starter homes close to the city center. That is, that was the character of the neighborhood before the big-box building frenzy started around five years ago and sent real estate values sky-rocketing. Since that time, the City has permitted the construction of at least seven big-box (i.e. 3-5 story 50-100+ dwelling units) structures, on the southern fringes of the north-of-Main neighborhood, all within a mile of Whittier Elementary School: Building Location Distance to Whittier School Freestone N. 5th & Main 0.4 mi One 11 Beall & Willson 0.4 mi Armory Mendenhall & Willson 0.5 mi The Henry Tracy & Villard 0.6 mi AC Hotel Tracy & Mendenhall 0.7 mi Merin Lamme & Bozeman 0.8 mi And this does not include numerous high density condo complexes adjacent to these big box buildings. On top of this, the Guthrie building would be one block down N. 5th Avenue (that is, lessthan a tenth of a mile) from Whittier School! People do not want the closets that Mr. Holloran is offering for affordable housing—and that, indeed, the City would pay dearly for by way of the proposed inducements. They want a house and a yard, such as is already in the neighborhood. The so-called affordable housing of the Guthrie project will be the future blight of Bozeman and will probably have the same effect on the community as the HRDC warming center. Moreover, people with families do not want their kids to have to dodge traffic on the way to andfrom their neighborhood school. I can vouch how horrible the traffic has become in the north-of-Main neighborhood. I bike through the neighborhood several times a week for most of the year. Many of the streets are narrow and there are many cars cruising looking for parking places or working their ways to the main artery roads. It is a big detraction from how the neighborhood used to be and the Guthrie will only make matters worse. Finally, the City should not be in the business of “affordable” housing—or at least it should exerciseextreme prudence in spending citizen money in that direction. This is because the cost of housing islargely due to factors completely outside of a local community’s control. It has to do with nationalissues, such as interest rates, immigration, deterioration of big cities, and whether or not the localcommunity has a tourist economy—and a demand for low cost and frequently seasonal labor, whichof course Bozeman does. If we could limit occupancy of affordable housing to only long termcitizens of Bozeman or Montana, I would strongly support City attempts to create affordablehousing. But we cannot, so any attempt will be ineffective and prohibitively expensive. Forexample, if Mr. Holloran’s 111 micro-units are occupied by the same proportion of Bozeman citizensas jobs were taken by Fort Collins citizens, in a famous Fort Collins study of the effectiveness of cityinducements to job-creating businesses, then only about 27 percent of the units (or about 30) wouldgo to Bozeman citizens. So the projected value (or cost to Bozeman) of the affordable housinginducements is about three times what the City thinks it is. Please reject the plan as currently proposed. Sincerely, Steve Macevicz 412 South 6th Avenue