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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-04-24 Public Comment - M. Kaveney - Public Comments for Community Dev. Board 11_4_24 Mtng.From:Marcia Kaveney To:Bozeman Public Comment Cc:Jennifer Madgic Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public Comments for Community Dev. Board 11/4/24 Mtng. Date:Monday, November 4, 2024 11:36:22 AM Attachments:2024-11.4. CDB comments..pdf 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. Please place the attached comments in the Community Development folder for today's meeting. Thank you. Dear Community Development Board members and Commissioner Madgic- My attached comments are in response to the CDB meeting of 10/21/24. I hope you will findthem useful for future reference on the Historic Preservation topics as well as other topics that cross your desks. Thank you for the opportunity to comment, Marcia Kaveney Community Development Board, for the 11/4/24 meeting. From Marcia Kaveney November 4, 2024 I am writing today in response to the CDB’s discussion regarding the Historic Preservation and Landmark Program (HPLP) on October 21st, 2024. I attended most of the meeting virtually and recently reviewed video of the public comments and board discussion. I would like to thank Nicole Olmstead for her comments regarding the need to look beyond individual properties when considering neighborhood character and for her interest in applying tree protection standards to the entire city and not just in the NCOD areas. I also appreciate her interest in continuing with the Heritage Tree Program and possible additions to landscape codes for protection of historically valuable trees. I would like to thank Commissioner Jen Madgic for asking for the survey responses to be made available to the board members as well as the public. I see that has already been updated on the engage Bozeman website. I also thank her for supporting tree language to be included in section 38.340 of the UDC and her agreement that mature trees are part of our historic natural environment. I agree with Commissioner Madgic that access to the powerpoint presentations in advance of meetings would be very beneficial for the public. Perhaps powerpoints could be linked in the staV memos of the meeting agenda. I appreciate commissioner Madgic’s interest in increased and continued public involvement and to that end suggest that the City Commission reinstate public comment at the beginning of meetings, even if it is limited in time such as 15-20 minutes. Additional general public comment could also be accepted later in the meeting. I would like to thank Mark Egge for his support of the Heritage Tree Program and his support of Emily Talago’s suggestion for neighborhood level planning. He had a lot more to say about the HPLP and it’s taken me a while to unpack the comments. I am concerned that several of Mark’s factual sounding statements were unsupported with data, possibly incorrect, and therefore misleading to the public. I think Mark, as a member of an advisory board representing the City of Bozeman, needs to be more careful with his wording and support his statements with actual data.I oVer the following responses to Mark’s discussion comments in order of his presentation. Mark mentioned the national historic preservation recommendation to work to prevent carbon stored in the framework of older buildings from entering the landfill. I support this idea and repurposing old structures whenever possible. It’s equally important to prevent the carbon stored in mature trees from entering the landfill through avoidable demolition. Unlike houses, trees store more carbon every year they are alive. According to Climate-Forests.org, “Older trees and forests can store their accumulated carbon for centuries. As a healthy tree ages and continues to absorb carbon, the total amount of its stored carbon increases. Older, larger trees can hold a substantial portion of a forest’s total above-ground carbon even though they account for a relatively small percent of the trees.” https://www.climate-forests.org/post/carbon-sequestration-and- storage-capacity-of-older-trees-and-forests. The Nature Conservancy states that old forests “…have a lot of what scientists call irrecoverable carbon: If we disturb that stored carbon, we won’t be able to get it back through natural processes on the timetable we’d need for eVective climate action.” https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/magazine-articles/forest-carbon-101/. We can extrapolate this to the mature trees in Bozeman’s urban forest. In other words, the value and ecosystem services of older, mature trees cannot simply be replaced with younger trees as suggested by Mark’s later comments and should be considered for carbon storage along with the carbon stored in the built environment. Mark’s comment regarding Bozeman’s past when trees were absent is interesting for historic purposes and supports the need for the Heritage Tree Program, but he implies that we are doing well because we have so many more trees now than we started with. We are indeed very fortunate to have 26,000 trees and have worked hard to get them so we should work equally hard to retain them, especially the mature ones. Mark implies that tree planting is oVsetting tree removal with his statement that the number of trees is “going up rapidly every summer”. Where are the numbers to support this statement? The City has not yet begun it’s canopy assessment so is that data even available? In contrast, last year alone, HomeBase bulldozed and dumped 150 mature trees and over 200 trees in all from its Canyon Gate property. (I personally counted the trees.) None have been replanted to date. And that’s just one of many projects removing trees. Mark also mentioned the City’s designation as a Tree City, USA. And while this is a terrific step in the right direction it is not enough by itself. The requirements for this designation focus only on maintaining and planting of publicly owned trees on public property. As previously discussed, new saplings do not replace mature trees in the timetable we need to combat climate change. Mark also mentions the rules the City has for trees and developments needing to plant trees but neglects to mention the existing City codes that require developments to design around existing trees. Preliminary Plat and Site Plan Review Criteria in the Unified Development Code (UDC) specifically require designing around and protecting existing trees on properties. These are rules that tell people what they can and can’t do on their property as far as trees are concerned. The problem is the rules are not being followed. They weren’t followed for Canyon Gate and they appear to not be followed for the upcoming 7th and Aspen project which currently has plans to demo and dump 22 out of its 23 trees in Phase 1 and 2 including two century-old spruce trees. As far as the City levying heavy fines for cutting down trees, I would like to hear the evidence behind that statement as well. Who is getting fined? There is evidence for the opposite. HomeBase did not get fined when it cut down all of its 200 plus trees, even the half dozen promised for the future City Park. Mark thinks we’re doing “pretty well” as far as tree protection goes. I disagree. Mark stated that “density and infill is the single most important and impactful way to reduce our city’s environmental impact, bar none.” (unsupported) and thinks that “removing and replanting the occasional tree to accommodate growth within our city boundary is how we grow sustainably…” If only it was the occasional tree. Mark grossly understates what many residents see as an acceleration of tree removal within city limits. We seem to be dealing with the destruction of whole swaths of trees in addition to 100% removal of trees in many smaller projects. If residents were only experiencing the “occasional” tree removal, it’s likely that groups like the Bozeman Tree Coalition would not need to exist. Finally, while I appreciate that Mark expressed support for the Heritage Tree Program, I think his introduction of the idea that the Heritage Tree Program (HTP) could be used to “weaponize” trees to stop development revealed his lack of knowledge of the Heritage Tree Program proposal and served no purpose, other than to undermine it. Mark’s concerns about not telling private property owners what they can and can’t do regarding trees is in direct opposition to the protective codes he referred to earlier. Our codes are rules and they tell people what they can and can’t do on their private property. They are in place to provide predictability and guidance for change and growth. As a co-founding member of the BTC, I would like to remind the Community Development Board that our motto is “Housing and trees can coexist.” There are existing city codes that support this such as the UDC codes for design standards, preliminary plats, and site review criteria. Unfortunately, new or re-developments are often not strictly held to those codes paving the way for destruction of some important members of our urban forest. That is why we need to include Heritage Tree Program and “natural feature” protection language in the Historic Landmark Program, the UDC, and beyond the boundaries of the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District. Thank you, Marcia Kaveney