HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-17-24 Public Comment - Z. Osman - Why the Guthrie is NOT the Housing Bozeman NeedsFrom:Zehra Osman
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Why the Guthrie is NOT the Housing Bozeman Needs
Date:Tuesday, April 16, 2024 1:59:27 PM
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Honorable Commission Members,
The HomeBase Partners proposed Guthrie workforce housing seriously misses the mark of
what should be considered adequate and affordable housing. Additionally, this project shouldnot receive any incentives much less any deep incentives.
Besides struggling with an appropriate price for affordable housing, what do we, as a city and
a community, consider to be ADEQUATE affordable housing? There are many criteria thatcontribute to the adequacy of affordable housing and here a few minimum criteria:
1. Security of Tenure: A person should be able to stay in their leased home for enough years
that they are able to provide some stability for their family’s lives and be able to form someconnections with their community. With the threat of rising rental rates and changes in lease
terms, a month-to-month lease is anxiety-provoking, tenuous, unstable, and temporary.Imagine the threat of losing your housing every single month. Is this what we want for our
community members? Is this what we want for our community - a transient workforce? Aworkforce in stable housing is a stable workforce.
2. Access to Dependable and Affordable Transportation: Let’s be real, people need to drive in
Bozeman. A person should be able to drive their vehicle to school functions, grocery stores,doctors’ offices, and places of work. Bozeman has sprawled out enough that walking, biking,
or taking the streamline does not work for families, the disabled, or the elderly and is notconsidered dependable. Adequate parking is an important part of adequate housing.
3. Access to food preparation: Having a kitchen is important for families and for the
community. This is where a family can have meals together and where friends can break breadtogether. A person should not have be restricted in the preparation of food in their dwelling. A
simple kitchen is an important part of adequate housing. A hot plate is not considered akitchen and forces the tenant to eat out or eat at the company store/cafeteria.
4. Adequate sized housing units: Would a single mom with one child be able to reside in the
proposed Guthrie? Is there enough room for this mother to raise her child? People do not needlarge apartments, however we should seriously consider what is considered an adequate
amount of space for a person to reside.
Consider the following scenario: A family friend lived in the same small 1-bedroom apartmentfrom 1967 to 2006. As a single mom, she raised her son in this apartment. She drove him to
after-school activities. When he later had his own family, he lived nearby and she picked-uphis young kids from school when he and his wife couldn’t make it home from work in time.
The family would gather in her small kitchen for holiday meals. She was connected to the
community and would sometimes pick up groceries or make a meal for a sick neighbor. Later,her at-home-caregiver would use her parking space during her daily visits.
This friend didn’t have a luxury apartment, she had an adequate apartment where she was able
to raise her son, form connections to the community, and stay near her family and friends. Herrent was affordable and she did not have to keep moving. This is what adequate affordable
housing looks like. The Guthrie is not even close to being adequate affordable housing. It isinstead a place where Homebase Partners’ investors can be assured their commercial
properties will have a transient workforce. It also looks a lot like new short-term rentalapartments, which I thought we were prohibiting.
Finally, are we helping Homebase Partners’ commercial investments to build their own
company town in Bozeman and then asking Bozeman residents to help pay for it through lossof existing buildings and deep monetary incentives? Is this the housing Bozeman needs?
Thanks for all you are doing to open up communication with the public so we can all
collaborate together for a Bozeman that works for everyone.
Respectfully,Zehra Osman
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