HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-20-24 Public Comment - A. Sweeney - Public Comment for Tuesday 8_20_24 Commission Work Session (AHO)From:Alison Sweeney
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public Comment for Tuesday 8/20/24 Commission Work Session (AHO)
Date:Saturday, August 17, 2024 7:42:03 AM
Attachments:City Commission AHO comments .docx
Root Policy-2021.pdf
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Hello Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Commissioners,
Please consider my comments ahead of your upcoming work session on the affordablehousing ordinance. Since I seem to write a book every time, I'm sending it early so that if you
feel like getting a jump start on your preparation you can dig in over the weekend.
I appreciate your placing this on the agenda as a work session! I think all of us see the flawsin the current ordinance. I'm off to Crow Fair to camp with family, visit with elders, and
recharge my own batteries. I hope with your work load you've been able to take some timehere and there to recharge yours.
Sincerely,
Alison B. Sweeney
Bernadette's Handmade JewelryBozeman MT
406-404-5740alison-bernadettes.com
Thank you for taking the time to think critically about the housing affordability problem in Bozeman. Before I get into my own suggestions for how to improve this ordinance I would like to refer you to several of the recommendations in the 2021 report from root policy. They are as follows:
On page 43, Outcome #2, Preserve Existing Affordable Housing
“While most discussions of affordable housing focus on vacant land development and
redevelopment, it is equally important to identify ways in which the Unified
Development Code can be used to preserve existing housing, and to reduce speculative
pressures to expand or replace that existing housing with more expensive housing over
time. Some of the proposals explored in this section are designed to limit both the net loss in the number of small “a” affordable dwellings if and when some of those older structures are replaced with larger numbers of units.” This section of their report goes on to discuss ways in which historic preservation and the NCOD can be used to preserve existing small “a” affordable housing! Additionally, it describes a nearly identical affordable housing overlay zone (that the BBC suggests implementing) to that recommended by Professor Patrick Condon! The only difference is the professor suggests requiring affordability when a single home is replaced with multi-unit development. AND Root Policy suggests applying this new overlay zone to additional core neighborhoods!
“This new overlay would be designed to apply in areas other than the areas
north and south of Downtown currently covered by the NCOD…”
I have wanted my neighborhood to be an affordable housing preservation area for a long time. According to a recent Gallatin County Market Snapshot, we’ve added a considerable amount of housing, and have a vacancy rate higher than the national average, but our rental rates have actually increased. https://www.erescompanies.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Q2-2024-Market-Snapshot-Bozeman-MT-8.pdf To me, this says that simply replacing a small “a” affordable single-family home with multiple units is not enough to address our affordability problem. In other words, supply alone does NOT lead to affordability. Actually the Root Policy report says as much!
“While increasing the supply of housing will not, by itself, guarantee that
housing becomes more affordable, it is very unlikely affordability can be improved without an increase in housing supply.” – pg 3 So yes, we need to build housing, but supply alone will not save us. Please read both pages 43 and 44 in their entirety! The report is attached for your reference.
Another recommendation from Root Policy is the 2nd bullet point on page 60: “Custom-built zoning districts for existing neighborhoods that reflect neighborhood-specific design and infill standards…” This speaks to the need to develop our zoning and building codes, essentially to plan our city, on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis! Several members of the Community Development Advisory Board have been advocating for this for a long time. And these neighborhood-specific standards could include incentives for affordable housing creation that work in those neighborhoods. Finally, on page 61, the report addresses the PUD or PDZ process. The report suggests, “A new Planned Unit Development Ordinance to be added to Title 38 that would simplify current regulations, re-orient them towards housing affordability, and allow negotiated approval of innovative housing projects by the City Commission after a public hearing.” Recently Bozeman changed the PUD (Planned Unit Development) development tool to a PDZ (Planned Development Zone) and at the CDB special meeting on August 12 several members concurred that the deep incentives would be better accommodated within the PDZ affordable housing area of code, rather than being granted by-right, in the affordable housing ordinance. Keeping in mind these recommendations from the professionals, I would like you to consider these suggestions from me, someone who grew up here and sees Bozeman neighborhoods as the people in them, not the multi-colored squares on a map, to be redeveloped at the whim of commissioners, staff, or institutional investment developers. 1. Place a moratorium (pause) on this affordable housing ordinance, effective immediately, and redraft it in conjunction with the UDC rewrite. Since the current ordinance essentially allows developers to break code, it is an upzoning document. As such, it is highly affected by the base zoning codes. These are expected to change somewhat in the near future, so any impacts of adjustments to the AHO cannot be properly anticipated until the new UDC is adopted. The current AHO should be paused because it was crafted without any community engagement whatsoever! The new UDC rewrite, and therefor the AHO should be crafted using considerable resident input, neighborhood-by-neighborhood. Use the City’s Neighborhoods Program to achieve more competent and direct feedback from residents. Additionally this ordinance is unsafe until we have an affordable housing preservation policy in place. We could end up with a net-loss of affordable housing!
2. Repeal the deep incentives immediately, entirely, and permanently. Several members of the Community Development Advisory Board agreed at their August 12th special meeting, that the deep incentives are more appropriately housed in the PDZ section of the UDC. This section of code allows for tremendous flexibility in the pursuit of housing creation. And it includes a public participation component, which could help prevent future situations like the Guthrie from arising.
3. If the City Commission is unprepared to pause this ordinance, and remove
the deep incentives permanently, then restrict the use of it to parcels that
front onto major arterials such as Main, 7th, 19th, Oak, Huffine, etc. Please do not misunderstand my reasons for suggesting this. I am a firm believer that what makes our neighborhoods resilient is a mix of residents. However, these buildings are not appropriate everywhere. 3 stories are currently allowed in every zone in Bozeman. If the AHO continues forward by granting extra height, we are looking at 4 to 9 story buildings. This type of building is simply not appropriate everywhere, and the negative impacts of placing it in a neighborhood of existing human scale housing will create lasting damage. Other cities have limited the areas they have upzoned to major arterials and transit stops. This makes sense especially if our AHO continues forward with parking reductions as a possible incentive
4. 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. Any use of these incentives would need to defer to preserving existing affordable housing. Refer to my earlier submitted article: https://www.betterbozemancoalition.org/commentary/preserving-naturally-occurring-affordable-housing-noah There is a huge difference between greenfield development and redevelopment, or “infill”, and the City needs the ability to navigate that difference. A land swap or cash-in-lieu scheme could be appropriate if we had a municipally owned housing scheme to put these assets to good use, but so far, all we are able to do is put money towards developer profits through providing gap funding for LIHTC projects.
5. Eliminate the Administrative-only reviews of projects using the incentives
in an AHO going forward. This is particularly necessary since the incentives include additional allowed height, and reduced parking. Since these incentives amount to upzoning, the same noticing requirements should be in place as currently required for a zone map amendment.
6. 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 may be attributed to a dwelling unit and therefor the affordability of that unit. The kitchen is important because being able to prepare food at home is not only an economic concern it is a health concern. If a satisfactory kitchen cannot be included in every affordable unit, require shared full kitchens with access to all residents. Being able to prepare a meal for friends or visiting family is key to creating community and wellbeing. A great example of this is the Hogan in Missoula: https://www.thehoganmt.com Finally, people have toys. I would say this is a pretty gear-oriented community. Every unit should have some storage for the equipment used to enjoy our outdoor amenities whether that is skiing, biking, climbing, boating, fishing or something else. It’s why many people move here. These provisions are necessary because we want to build places people want to live! Not places to store people.
7. 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 we prioritize the allocation of this limited resource for the construction of buildings that house the people who live and work here, not vacation homes, or luxury investments. There are legal options for doing this! 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 not like this ordinance because it trades community resources and our quality of life so that developers 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 a financial product above a housing product. It’s driving the land cost inflation. These buildings employ leasing agents that use algorithms to set rents at the highest level possible. The pro-formas on these projects are designed to return a profit even while accommodating a certain level of vacancy. It is extractive, and harmful to our goals as a community. So I want the City Commission to repeal it entirely. But if they are unwilling to, 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 help us make use of federal housing vouchers. Requiring affordability for a 50 year period is an improvement, though I do not
understand why it’s not required in perpetuity, since the developer isn’t going to give the incentives (height and reduced parking) back after 50 years.
• And 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 compatible in 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 into existing 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 to greenfield development, or include guardrails to make sure we don’t lose existing affordable housing to redevelopment. Thank you for reading my lengthy comments. -Alison