HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-01-24 Public Comment - M. Egge - Community Engagement Done Well - Missoula's Growth Plan OutreachFrom:Mark Egge
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Community Engagement Done Well - Missoula"s Growth Plan Outreach
Date:Thursday, August 1, 2024 11:57:05 AM
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Commissioners,
Missoula is updating their growth plan currently. They're doing a scenariobased plan, basically with "low / medium / high density" scenarios
(varying the number of units allowed by right, allowable building massing,
and parking requirements).
I'd encourage you to check out their engagement website. Bozeman would
do well to emulate this style of
engagement: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2bd0496411e047f7b1017ccf1e9613ba
A core tenant of good public engagement is to ask people to weigh in on
things they have expertise in: their experiences, their preferences, trade-
offs they would make, etc.
Another tenant of good engagement is to identify tradeoffs and ask
participants to internalize those tradeoffs when providing input. Missoula's
website establishes important connections between policy choices and
outcomes (e.g. limits on structure size will result in fewer units and highercosts, more parking means less housing, etc.) and then asks respondents
to rank their own preferences.
Finally, Missoula's website does an exemplary job of providing visuals ofwhat the impacts might be for a neighborhood of the proposed scenario.
Showing the impacts at a neighborhood scale (rather than focusing on a
single parcel) also helps place those impacts in context. Missoula's website
does a beautiful job of illustrating the potential impacts of the threescenarios.
As the City begins outreach around our own development code and
policies, I would encourage it to take inspiration from Missoula's example.
Thanks for your consideration and leadership.
Mark Egge1548 S Grand Ave
Bozeman, MT 59715