HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-21-24 Public Comment - R. Heriza - Reference #23306From:Richard Heriza
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Cc:Thomas Heriza
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Reference #23306
Date:Tuesday, November 19, 2024 11:39:42 PM
Attachments:Bozeman Housing Project_Richard C. Heriza.docx
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To Whom It May Concern:
Please see letter attached - Reference #23306.
Sincerely,
Richard C. Heriza
November 19, 2024
My brother, Tom Heriza, and his wife, May, own a picturesque and productive
twenty-acre parcel of land just outside downtown Bozeman, which he recently
christened 4 Daughters Farm. The farm is located off Stucky Road, and I am
writing to support Tom and his family in their continuing battle with numerous
short sighted land developers who want to build a three-story apartment complex
within a stone’s throw of the farm’s property line. This development project is
proposed to house some 3,000 people, which will completely degrade the bucolic
environment of my brother’s property and adjacent farms on Stucky Road. Not to
mention the unbelievable eyesore and traffic jams the citizens of Bozeman will
inevitably encounter if this housing project comes to fruition.
In his seminal 1994 book, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of
America’s Man-Made Landscape, author James Howard Kunstler describes in vivid
detail how America’s cities, towns, and rural areas have been ruined by the sheer
ugliness of the built environment. Big Sky Country is renowned for its incredible
scenic beauty and wonderful, tight-knit, communities. But if sensible zoning and
land development decisions are not made poste-haste, the state of Montana will
no longer be one of the last great places in North America.
In his book, which should be mandatory reading for all Americans, Kunstler states,
“the great question of the twenty-first century will not be what we can do but
how we can live with what we’ve done.” This is the dilemma the city of Bozeman
and power brokers in the state must consider in regards to this particular housing
development and other “development” projects throughout Montana. My hope
is that sensible and well-meaning people will make smart decisions today because
once the farmland is paved there is no turning back the clock on suburban sprawl.
Sincerely,
Richard C. Heriza
Baker City, Oregon