HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-15-24 Public Comment - D. Stone - Range 5 Application 23306From:Diane Stone
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Range 5 Application 23306
Date:Thursday, November 14, 2024 9:48:25 AM
Attachments:23306.docx
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Please include my written testimony in the attach file into the formal record for Range 5
Application 23306.
Thank you.
Diane Stone
For the record, my name is Diane Stone; I’ve lived in Bozeman for more than two decades and witnessed
amazing growth. I’m writing in opposition to application 23306 to express frustration about Bozeman‘s
residential development, particularly when it’s proposed on 20 acres of high-value farmland and threatens
avoidable conflicts to an adjacent commercial farm.
Four Daughters Farm immediately north of the proposed development is an active, operational farm on
extremely fertile soil. Not only would this Range 5 proposal remove 20 acres of fertile soil from agricultural use,
it would also introduce conflict inherent between residential and proximal agricultural uses.
The Range 5 development would drastically alter the Four Daughters Farm’s ability to grow and market their
raspberries and flowers. One major concern is that run-off from the development could negatively harm soil
fertility and water quality. Another is that the proposed three-story buildings in such close proximity to Four
Daughters Farm would certainly change the amount of southern sunlight reaching the adjacent commercial
greenhouses, commercial flower fields and commercial raspberries – sunlight so necessary for success.
Furthermore, I’ve seen that conflict can go both ways: Active farms produce noise and smells incompatible with
high- density, adjacent residential uses. Zoning’s two main tenets are preserving high value soils for agricultural
uses and minimizing conflicts between incompatible uses. This proposal treads on both of those principles.
Finally, this level of residential development would add a significant amount of traffic to Stuckey Road, a two
lane road with no shoulders - already dangerous - without the major increase in traffic that would result from
approval of 23306.
For these reasons, and out of simple appreciation for a local source of flowers and fruit, I ask that the planning
department find that application 23306 does not conform to the relevant decision criteria. If the application is
approved, I ask that there be common sense changes (such as setbacks between multi-story buildings and Four
Daughters Farm’s southern property line to minimize shadowing; and non-litigation language) imposed upon the
development that would lessen the impact that approval without modification would have upon a surviving
family farm.
Diane E. Stone