HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-08-24 Public Comment - S. Ahmed - Public Comment_ The Right to a Safe, Healthy, and Sustainable NeighborhoodFrom:Ahmed, Selena
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public Comment: The Right to a Safe, Healthy, and Sustainable Neighborhood
Date:Monday, July 8, 2024 10:21:49 AM
Attachments:PublicComment_July82024_SAhmed.pdf
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Dear Bozeman City Commission:
Please see attached my Public Comment on "The Right to a Safe, Healthy, and Sustainable
Neighborhood".
With gratitude,
Selena
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Letter to The Bozeman City Commission
July 7th 2024
The Right to a Safe, Equitable, Healthy, and Sustainable Neighborhood
I am grateful to the Bozeman City Commission for reclaiming review authority of The
Guthrie plan. This action reinstated hope in the public process for our community.
However, reviewing public documents since the Commission's decision to reclaim
review authority of The Guthrie plan has been disheartening. Specifically, the following
is concerning for the safety, equity, and wellbeing of our community:
1. The lack of an integrative sustainability agenda that fosters safe, equitable, and
healthy places brought forward in decision making for development in our
community.
2. The numerous inaccurate, subjective, and concerning statements in the Bozeman
Community Development Staff Report dated June 27th 2024 in response to
Application 23354 for the proposed The Guthrie at 5th and Villard Site Plan.
3. Email correspondence between the Developer of The Guthrie, Homebase Partners,
and members of the Bozeman Community Development in ways that are
suggestive of collusion for enabling the use of deep incentives for this
development.
I will focus my public comment on what I know best: a sustainability agenda for
fostering wellbeing. I will refer to The Guthrie proposal as an example of failure for
meeting multiple interconnected objectives of sustainability, with the goal of
highlighting how we can do better as a community.
Sustainability is a holistic concept to apply for enhancing human and planetary health
in ways that are equitable. In 2024, we no longer can make decisions based on a single
outcome. The Guthrie plan is taking advantage of deep incentives, enabling bypassing
neighborhood code, based on a single outcome: affordability for a narrow
demographic of 80% AMI. This single goal is unacceptable as our community, nation,
and planet face increasing threats to wellbeing. We must take an integrative approach
in our decision making that jointly considers multiple economic, environmental, socio-
cultural, health, and ethical goals for all.
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1. Economic Goals
• Affordability
o Affordability for who? Affordability goals should focus on vulnerable
populations in a community. Affordable housing also needs to be built
with equity front and center where all genders, individuals, and families
have opportunities to create homes in safe spaces.
o The Guthrie is providing "affordability" for a narrow demographic of our
community at 80% AMI. This is not the most vulnerable population of our
community and may rather continue to propagate economic disparities.
o In contrast, the new N. 3rd Apartments under construction a few blocks
north of The Guthrie site will offer rents at 60% AMI, more closely
meeting affordability goals for vulnerable populations.
o The offering of studio units that have been inappropriately classified as
one-bedroom units to this narrow AMI bracket also inappropriately
qualifies for the deep incentives in Bozeman's affordable housing plan, as
the affordability metric has been set at a 2-person household AMI.
o The email correspondence dated September 1st 2023 between
Homebase Partners' Andy Holloran and Bozeman Community
Development representatives David Fine and Anna Bentley illustrates a
collaborative and concerning attempt to misconstrue studio units as "true
one bedrooms" by adding sliding door partitions to studio units to take
advantage of the deep incentives for affordable housing.
o We must take a systems approach to affordability. What has driven up
housing costs in our community? We must identify the root causes of our
housing affordability crisis and address these. Have housing costs been
driven up by those who own multiple investments properties and by
luxury developments that serve as pieds-à-terre and are often vacant?
• Long-term Costs
o We know too much to be doing so little when it comes to building with
sustainability in mind. Each new development should use green building
materials for energy efficiency and durability, that would result in long-
term reduction in utility and repair costs.
o The Guthrie is on the other extreme of using relatively inexpensive and
unsustainable materials that are typically not allowed by the NCOD code
provisions which may result in quick product decay and other long-term
costs, that will ultimately be a burdened on the future.
2. Health Goals
• Traffic Safety
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o The average household in Gallatin County has 2 cars per household.
High-density structures must mandate parking for a minimum of 1 car per
1-bedroom unit to mitigate heightened traffic congestion in the
surrounding neighborhood and ensure traffic safety.
o New developments must further work with the city to provide a
actionable plan for traffic calming initiatives, surveillance, and street safety
awareness campaigns.
o The lack of parking provided to residents of The Guthrie places a safety
burden on our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is particularly
vulnerable to increased traffic as the home to Whittier Elementary School.
o The traffic intersection at Villard and 7th near the site of The Guthrie is
failing (los F). This intersection cannot hold the additional density of The
Guthrie and will exacerbate the already failing safety of this intersection,
pushing more traffic north down 5th alongside Whittier Elementary
School towards Peach or south on 5th towards Main St, currently
undergoing two massive new developments.
o Parking and traffic safety of developments should be approved with
future opportunities in mind, including those that may provide true
affordable housing for the community's most vulnerable populations.
• Lived Experience
o New developments should foster wellbeing of its residents without
burdening the wellbeing of the surrounding neighborhood.
o Fostering wellbeing within developments includes communal spaces for
building trust among residents, bike parking, and adequate ventilation.
o Short-term leases of 30 days encourage a transitional residency and do
not enable building trust and safety among residents of a high-density
development.
o The Guthrie plan and lack of interactions by Homebase Partners with
residents of our neighborhood call to question impacts on the lived
experience of both future tenants as well as neighboring residents.
o The location of The Guthrie is excellent in enabling residents to walk or
bike to numerous locations in town within 20-minutes. However, it is
important to note that Bozeman does not have a prevalent walking
culture, with most people in this neighborhood driving to close-by
locations. We cannot superimpose the concept of a 15-minute city on
Bozeman without carefully planning for it and incentivizing a cultural shift
to walk and bike. We can start by maintaining and cleaning bike lanes
that often have debris and providing bike parking in new developments.
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3. Environmental Goals
• Natural Resource Use
o We need regulations and incentives for building projects to adopt
sustainability standards with climate resiliency such as LEED standards for
resource efficiency.
o As noted above, new developments should use green building materials
for reducing the consumption of water, energy, and other natural
resources while reducing pollution and negative environmental
externalities.
o Rather, The Guthrie is using relatively inexpensive materials that are
typically not allowed by the NCOD guidelines since the historic nature of
the neighborhood enforces higher building standards.
• Green Spaces and Biodiversity
o New developments should be mandated with green spaces that foster
biodiversity, ecosystem services, and habitat for Montana's incredible bird
wildlife.
o The Guthrie proposal lacks integration of green space with concrete plans
that would break wildlife corridors for birds while contributing to an urban
heat effect, something which we need to proactively mitigate in the face
of climate change. Further, the development will be cutting down several
mature trees.
• Climate Change
o Held v. Montana declared a government’s constitutional duty to protect
people from climate change.
o Development decisions thus must consider both how a project impacts
climate change as well as mitigates climate change.
o Without green spaces and green building materials, The Guthrie will be
vulnerable to climate impacts while exacerbating the urban heat effect.
4. Socio-cultural Goals
• Neighborhood Integrity
o New developments should fit the culture and character of the
neighborhood.
o The Guthrie would be disruptive of the quiet and historic character of our
neighborhood, realizing Montana's most dense development to date.
Our neighborhood has the right to a gradual and predictable increase in
density over time, which The Guthrie plan does not provide.
o The Bozeman Community Development Staff Report designates the site
of The Guthrie as subordinate to the Midtown Urban Renewal District.
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However, this site resides in the NCOD and should only be beholden to
the standards and code of the NCOD.
o The five stories of The Guthrie plan are jarring to the surrounding one-
story bungalows. This height is not approved by existing neighborhood
code without the exemption of deep incentives for "affordability".
o Being in the NCOD among mostly 1-story bungalows, and not the
Midtown Urban Renewal District, The Guthrie should be mandated to
have a transitional structure and be built down in a way that fits the
character and cultural code (NCOD) of the neighborhood.
• Community Connectivity
o New developments should foster
5. Ethical Goals
• We need affordability that meets the needs of diverse residents of Bozeman,
including the most vulnerable. We need affordability for both tenants and
residents.
• Each household in our community has the right to a safe, equitable, and healthy
neighborhood.
• The safety, wellbeing, and sustainability is being threatened by The Guthrie
plan.
Your consideration as members of the City Commission sets a precedent for how we
shape our community to be a microcosm of the positivity we seek to see in this world.
The Guthrie plan fails to meet numerous goals of sustainability while also failing to
provide affordability for the more vulnerable populations in this community. This calls
to question why the City is trading public resources (parking and historic neighborhood
integrity). In light of the above considerations and the inaccuracies of the Bozeman
Community Development Staff Report on The Guthrie, I request you, members of the
City Commission, to deny The Guthrie plan from benefiting from the city's deep
incentives for affordability in return for public resources.
Moving forward, I urge you to please adopt a strong integrative sustainability agenda
in your decision making for the wellbeing of ourselves and generations to come.
With gratitude,
Selena Ahmed, PhD