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Home My WebLink About11-26-24 Public Comment - W. Swearingen - Necessary AHO amendmentFrom:Will Swearingen To:Bozeman Public Comment Cc:will Swearingen Subject:[EXTERNAL]Necessary AHO amendment Date:Friday, November 22, 2024 8:56:50 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. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and City Commissioners, I am writing with regard to the city’s Affordable Housing Ordinance (AHO). I believe that this ordinance needs to be amended to prevent certain situations in which it could becounterproductive. A case in point is the Block B development on East Babcock behind the East Main Tire- Rama. This project is proposing to use the shallow incentive provision in the AHO tobuild a 90-foot-tall edifice containing 46 luxury units. It the process, it would tear down two apartment buildings containing 20 affordable apartments renting for approximately$1,100 per month. To meet the shallow-incentive requirement, the developer proposes to give the city bare land that is equivalent in value to two new affordable housing units. This case shows how the current AHO can be counter-productive to the goal ofincreasing affordable housing in the city. This project would result in a loss of 20 affordable housing units (or a net loss of 18 units if two affordable housing units wereeventually built on the donated land). There may be those who argue that the city can’t stop the developer from going ahead without the city’s incentives. By providing shallow incentives, the city can at least gaintwo potential new affordable housing units. However, it is also possible that the project would not proceed without the shallow incentives: it might not “pencil out” without thetwo additional stories of apartments afforded by these incentives. At any rate, the optics are terrible for the city to seem to be complicit in evicting 20 low-income households toenable a 90-foot-tall luxury apartment complex. One solution would be to amend the AHO to state that no city incentives will be provided to projects that result in a net loss of affordable housing. Sincerely, Will Swearingen, 59 Hitching Post Road, Bozeman.