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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-10-24 Public Comment - M. Kaveney - Bozeman Yards Site Plan review and City Commission folderFrom:Marcia Kaveney To:Bozeman Public Comment; Joey Morrison; Douglas Fischer Subject:[EXTERNAL]Bozeman Yards Site Plan review and City Commission folder Date:Tuesday, December 10, 2024 11:58:58 AM Attachments:2024.12.10. Bozeman Yard.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 add the attached comments to the folder for Site Plan Review as well as the CityCommission folder. Thank you,Marcia Kaveney Bozeman Yard #24107 Comments for December 10, 2024 City Commission (CC) Meeting Submitted by Marcia Kaveney Dear Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Commissioners, After reviewing the video recording of the Nov. 26th City Commission meeting, I am submitting additional comments related to that meeting for your consideration. I urge Deputy Mayor Morrison and Commissioner Fischer to vote no on the TIF based on the entire project and the following observations and/OR to ask for return of review authority to the City Commission for the Site Plan- to ensure the retention of N. Ida as a through street and the massing of the building in relation to the NCOD. Observation 1: Introducing new infrastructure on a non-existent street in a low priority area that the city then must maintain seems unreasonable and unnecessary. Bringing a short, double dead- end street up to modern standards while simultaneously eliminating the use of N. Ida Street , a busy north-south connector, is much more detrimental to the community than improving E. Aspen would be beneficial. Disconnecting Ida is a worse oZence to our “connected street network” than leaving E. Aspen as a park. In fact, nothing seems more wrong. Solution: First vote no on the TIF reimbursement. And suggest the following alternative. Suggest moving the climbing boulder to the Aspen Street ROW “park” upgrading the bike and pedestrian pathway there, and permanently dedicating the ROW to the City as a Park. Improvements could then be made to N. Ida where places like Tin Works could attach into if needed. This would allow N. Ida to remain the active corridor that it currently is, improve the safety of the climbing boulder and provide an opportunity to make up for the gross misappropriation of cash-in-lieu of park funds when $272,000 from the Village Downtown development was spent on the new library instead of providing parkland. (Bozeman Daily Chronicle. 9/4/2008). The small section of E. Aspen just south of the boulder could Observation 2. Contrary to David Fine’s explanation of the order of review, Bozeman Yards developer apparently doesn’t mind spending the thousands of dollars on their site plan before getting TIF approval since their site plan is already in the public notice period. They are either very well-funded or very confident that the TIF money is coming through for them. What does this say about the City Process? By the time the CC’s final vote gets absorbed by the public the Public Comment Period will be over for the Site Plan and to my knowledge, in the past several years, all site plans get approved when undergoing an administrative review. Observation 3. When these streets are improved in the Bozeman Yards complex, what happens to the rest of N. Ida which is unimproved all the way to E. Lamme? And what about nearby N. Plum and E. Davis? Will the local residents then be expected to pay for the connections to the infrastructure like sidewalks, curbs, and pipes? What kind of snowball response would this approval create in exchange for 45 market rate condos and is this fair to the aZordable/lower income area of this corner of NENA? Please ask those questions. My experience of living on E. Davis for 15 years, and that neighborhood for 25, was that we experienced fewer problems of standing water due to the porous nature of the roadsides and required less maintenance for the City. Observation 4. The myth of a larger Park. Aspen already provides a larger “park” space than N. Ida would. Also, the park will not be larger permanently if not dedicated as such. Instead, there will always be the underlying threat and quite likely return to pavement as it becomes clear that N. Ida is needed as a street. Please see observation #1 for one alternative. Another alternative is to improve N. Ida and Aspen and add the small 30 foot length of Aspen that is adjacent to the boulder on the south as additional park space. Please vote no to the TIF OR ask to retain review of the Site Plan in order to leave N. Ida in play as a street.