HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-13-24 Public Comment - A. Sweeney - Attn_ Community Development Advisory Board regarding the AHO special meetingFrom:Alison Sweeney
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Attn: Community Development Advisory Board regarding the AHO special meeting
Date:Sunday, August 11, 2024 10:56:24 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.Thank you, advisory board members for serving, and for taking the time to thinkcritically about the housing affordability problem in Bozeman. When you advise our CityCommissioners on how to handle the existing AHO, please consider recommending thefollowing:
1. Repeal the ordinance, effective immediately, and redraft it in conjunction with
the UDC rewrite.Since the current ordinance essentially allows developers to break code, it is anupzoning document. As such, it is highly affected by the base zoning codes. Theseare expected to change somewhat in the near future, so any impacts ofadjustments to the AHO cannot be properly anticipated until the new UDC isadopted. The current AHO should be repealed because it was crafted without anycommunity engagement whatsoever! The new UDC rewrite and therefore theAHO should be crafted using considerable input neighborhood-by-neighborhood. Use the City’s Neighborhoods Program to achieve more competentand direct feedback from residents.
2. If the City Commission is unprepared to repeal the ordinance, restrict the use of
it to parcels that FRONT onto major arterials such as Main, 7th, 19th, Huffine, Oak,
etc.Please do not misunderstand my reasons for suggesting this. I am a firm believerthat what makes a neighborhood resilient is a mix of residents. However, thesebuildings are not appropriate everywhere. 3 stories are currently allowed inevery zone in Bozeman. If the AHO continues forward by granting extra height,we are looking at 4, 5, 6, 7, plus story buildings. This type of building is simply notappropriate everywhere, and the negative impacts of placing it in a neighborhoodof existing human scale housing will create lasting damage. Other cities havelimited the areas they have up zoned to major arterials and transit stops. Thismakes sense especially if our AHO continues forward with parking reductions as apossible incentive.
3. Include provisions for the city to deny the use of the incentives on a case-by-case
basis.This is necessary because the current land swap incentive, and the proposed cash-in-lieu incentive could both result in a net loss of affordable housing units. Anyuse of these incentives would need to defer to preserving existing affordable
housing. Refer to my earlier submittedarticle: https://www.betterbozemancoalition.org/commentary/preserving-naturally-occurring-affordable-housing-noahThere is a huge difference between greenfield development and redevelopment,or “infill”, and the City needs the ability to navigate that difference. A land swapor cash-in-lieu scheme could be appropriate if we had a municipally ownedhousing scheme to put these assets to good use, but so far, all we are able to do isput money towards developer profits through providing gap funding for LIHTCprojects.
4. Eliminate the Administrative-only reviews of projects using the incentives in an
AHO going forward.This is particularly necessary if the incentives include additional allowed height,and reduced parking. Since these incentives amount to upzoning, the samenoticing requirements should be in place as currently required for a zone mapamendment.
5. Define what constitutes a studio vs. a one bedroom, set a minimum square foot
requirement, and define what is required in a kitchen, and require onsite storage
for every unit.This is important because studio vs. one bedroom affects the occupancy that maybe attributed to a dwelling unit and therefore the affordability of that unit. Thekitchen is important because being able to prepare food at home is not only aneconomic concern it is a health concern. If a satisfactory kitchen cannot beincluded in every affordable unit, require shared full kitchens with access to allresidents. Being able to prepare a meal for friends or visiting family is key tocreating community and wellbeing. A great example of this is the Hogan inMissoula: https://www.thehoganmt.com Finally, people have toys. I would saythis is a pretty gear-oriented community. Every unit should have some storagefor the equipment used to enjoy our outdoor amenities whether that is skiing,biking, climbing, boating, fishing or something else. It’s why many people movehere. These provisions are necessary because we want to build places peoplewant to live! Not places to store people.
6. Explore options for requiring affordable housing creation through the use of the
City’s CILWR option.Water will be our limiting factor here in Bozeman. We need to make sure that weprioritize the allocation of this limited resource for the construction of buildingsthat house the people who live and work here, not vacation homes, or luxuryinvestments. Cash-in-lieu of water rights could legally be deployed to requiresome affordable housing creation. I’d like to close by thanking David Fine and the others in the Economic Development
Department for their work on the suggested revisions to our current AHO. While I do notlike this ordinance because it trades community resources and our quality of life so thatdevelopers can still profit, while delivering us far fewer affordable units than we need,that doesn’t mean the staff hasn’t worked hard. I believe that incentivizing these mega-buildings is propping up a system that produces afinancial product above a housing product. It’s driving the land cost inflation. Thesebuildings employ leasing agents that use algorithms to set rents at the highest levelpossible. The pro-formas on these projects are designed to return a profit even whileaccommodating a certain level of vacancy. It is extractive, and harmful to our goals as acommunity. So I want the City Commission to repeal it entirely. But if they are unwillingto, there are some positive changes proposed by staff.
Revising the required affordability to 60% AMI is more in line with community needs,so that’s a positive baby step.
Allowing for income averaging in the affordable units of a project could potentially helpus make use of federal housing vouchers.
Requiring affordability for a 50 year period is an improvement. The townhouse incentives might prove useful in creating the missing middle housing
defined as “a range of house scale buildings with multiple units that are compatiblein scale and form with detached single family homes” that our 2020 Community Plan
or Growth Policy says we are striving for. These buildings could potentially blend intoexisting neighborhoods. But it will also incentivize the demolition and redevelopment
of our existing housing stock for high end homes, so perhaps it should be limited togreenfield development, or include guardrails to make sure we don’t lose existing
affordable housing to redevelopment.Thank you for reading my lengthy comments, and for serving on an advisory board. Ihope to see you in person for the August 12 special meeting.
Alison B. SweeneyBernadette's Handmade JewelryBozeman MT406-404-5740alison-bernadettes.com