HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-13-25 Public Comment - S. Boyd - Commentary on the draft update to the AHOFrom:Scott and Frances Boyd
To:Jennifer Madgic
Cc:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Commentary on the draft update to the AHO
Date:Monday, January 13, 2025 12:24:01 PM
Attachments:Commentary on the proposed updates to the AHO.pdf
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Commissioner Madgic,
Would you please circulate the attached commentary to the CDB before tonight's meeting? I have also
cc'd this to comments@ so that the other commissioners can read it.
Regards,
Scott Boyd
To Whom It May Concern:
There remain several issues with the draft update to the AHO, as outlined
herewith.
It is impossible for the city to draft a robust ordinance which considers all
possible permutations and forms that future developments may implement.
One thing that can be counted upon is the ingenuity and creativity of mankind
such that new approaches, implementations, nuances, and interpretations
will be brought to bear on development, and the AHO is no exception to that
inevitability. Unintended consequences abound. Similarly, it is also
undoubtedly the case that policy makers did not envision that the very first
project using the deep incentives would be so intensive and extreme with
regards to size, scale, density, and diminished amenities and one which would
solicit such outcry from citizens across the city that we would immediately
consider revision of the code. And yet here we are, painfully aware of the
shortcomings of the earlier AHO and attempting to rewrite a well-intentioned,
forward-looking ordinance to help those that need it most. Because of that
experience and importantly because these costs are permanent and
irreversible, it is judicious for the city to proceed with caution in drafting an
update to ensure that the costs that neighborhoods are asked to shoulder are
reasonable and commensurate with the benefits the city receives. Because
SB-382 will by law remove the public’s voice from site-specific development,
the commission must exercise its duty of care and fiduciary duty to craft a
conservative and cautious ordinance which maximizes the benefits while at
the same time minimizes the costs. To wit, we do not know the boundaries of
what level of aPordable units for developers to build in order to use these
incentives and there’s no basis for setting the threshold at 5% or 8%. Is the
city getting everything it can from this ordinance? Could the threshold be set
to 10%, 15% or even 25% for the Type A incentives? We know that LiHTC
developers, who’ve made use of these incentives, will be providing 100%
aPordability so this threshold practically does not apply to them. In its
adoption the deep incentives were presumed to be applicable only to LiHTC
projects and would increase their ePectiveness. Perhaps a better use of our
resources would be to maximize the density of those projects rather than
incentivizing the private market to build aPordable housing?
Most importantly however, the city needs to consider that while the AHO can
possibly bring about some marginal improvements in the level of aPordability
in Bozeman, it is actually the city’s current zoning and development
ordinances that are causing the overall decline of aPordability. Why does it
fail to recognize that as long as we allow for the gentrification of existing
aPordable housing stock’s destruction and replacement with luxury housing
without regard to aPordability, we will never make a lasting impact on building
aPordable housing? The cancerous ePects that selling $1000 per SF homes
has on the prices of all homes in Bozeman, whether single or multifamily,
cannot be overstated. While it is great for those who cash out or who won the
“timing lottery”, the long-term ePects on our community and economy are
disastrous. This unrestrained cycle of gentrification that serves only the
wealthy segment of the market will consume all of the resources of our
community until there are no healthy cells to consume, leading to the death of
the Bozeman that we all know and love. When single-family bungalows can
be scraped and replaced with multifamily units averaging $2 million per unit,
the city is ePectively chasing its tail and prescribing changes to reverse the
ePects of its own policies. We’re treating the symptom and not the disease.
Ironically the 2021 UDC APordable Housing Assessment made five concrete
recommendations as major strategies to promote housing aPordability.
Presumably they are listed in order of priority and impact, with the first
strategy being to create more housing. The second strategy is:
Preserve Existing A.ordable Housing
It is not possible for Bozeman to try to “build” itself out of the current
aPordable housing problem through new construction alone. Instead,
the City needs to also consider preserving its existing stock of
aPordable housing, much of which may continue to be available at
lower sales prices and rents than the new “aPordable” housing that
might replace it.
This strategy has been recommended throughout our recent historical
attempts to measure and improve aPordability: the 2017 Regional and Urban
Design Assistance Team (R/UDAT) (a program of the American Institute of
Architects) report, the 2019 Bozeman Community Housing Needs
Assessment, the 2020 Bozeman Community Housing Action Plan, the 2022
MSU School of Architecture study, “Investigating Neighborhood Character in
the Northeast Neighborhood of Bozeman, MT” all recommended that the city
preserve existing aPordable housing and various strategies to accomplish it.
However, it is the 2021 UDC APordable Housing Assessment which went into
the most detail and developed a strategy for preserving Naturally Occurring
APordable Housing (NOAH). That section of the Assessment is duplicated in
its entirety below.
Discourage Redevelopment of Naturally Occurring A.ordable
Housing
Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District (NCOD) (Section
(38.340.010)
The NCOD overlay district was created in 1991 to stimulate the
restoration and rehabilitation of buildings that contribute to the
character and fabric of specific established neighborhoods. This
district covers three distinct areas: (1) Downtown, (2)
neighborhoods north of Downtown, and (3) neighborhoods south
of Downtown.
Specific designated historic structures and areas are interwoven
into the NCOD and are described in the “Guidelines for Historic
Preservation and the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay
District.” Construction in this district must be in compliance with
the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of
Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating,
Restoring and Reconstructing Historic Buildings and must meet
specific architectural appearance design guidelines related to
height, scale, massing, and materials. A “Certificate of
Appropriateness” is required for all work in this district with a few
exceptions (e.g., egress windows, fences). Deviations from
dimensional and development standards are allowed within the
Conservation Overlay District, but an applicant must demonstrate
that proposed deviations are more historically appropriate to the
building and/or site than the underlying standard. Deviations are
not available for uses.
The 2015 NCOD Audit recommended removal of the NCOD by
2020 and replacement with smaller more specific overlay areas
for the Historic Districts and general design guidelines to promote
compatible development outside the districts. In 2019, the
Bendon Adams Report instead recommended keeping the overall
NCOD boundaries intact (with minor adjustments) but breaking
the NCOD program into two programs – one to preserve historic
buildings and another to protect neighborhood character and
context for the three specific areas listed above. Following that
report, further conversation in Bozeman is now focused on
eliminating the NCOD while maintaining both the preservation
function and neighborhood character protection through the
creation of new base or overlay zoning districts that are tailored to
meet these two priorities. We generally support this change.
More specifically, we support the separation of the historic
preservation function for individually listed structures and
districts (and the continued application of the Certificate of
Appropriateness system to modifications of those buildings) from
simpler neighborhood conservation (but not historic)
redevelopment standards. We also support a recommendation
that NCOD areas not designated as historic structures or districts
be placed in one or more new base or overlay districts (perhaps
one for each for the north of Downtown and south of Downtown
areas) with simpler neighborhood conservation standards that do
not overlap with the Secretary of the Interior’s standards and that
are applied administratively by City staP.
Although NCOD was designed to protect and preserve housing
and character, the new neighborhood character zoning district(s)
could be designed to better conserve existing housing in order to
address Bozeman UDC APordable Housing Assessment |43
Bozeman’s housing aPordability challenge. More specifically,
conservation of existing smaller housing should be a primary
focus in those new zoning districts designed to replace the NCOD.
The City should consider a provision that existing single-
household dwellings in these the areas north and south of
Downtown only be allowed to expand by a certain percentage of
their existing size during any five-year period, unless the single-
family use or structure is replaced by another form of housing
(such as a two-household, three-household, or four- household
use) that increases the housing supply. As an alternative to a
percentage size control, the City could revise the current
standards to establish maximum home width, depth, or volume
standards that would prevent the replacement of existing homes
with much larger homes. Any such standards should be based on
the established scale and character of homes in the zoning
district, and should be careful to define any houses that already
exceed the stated maximums as legal conforming (not
nonconforming) structures.
Additionally, the new neighborhood character district(s) should be
designed as either strictly residential or mixed-use districts with a
limited structure footprint size. While the current NCOD district
applies design and development standards to the broad range of
residential and non-residential development permitted in the
underlying base zoning district, there is a risk that the availability
of higher intensity or higher value non-residential uses in the
underlying zone district could lead to the replacement of existing
smaller homes with those uses. In order to discourage demolition
and replacement of existing smaller homes with non-residential
uses, the City could consider imposing a 5,000 square foot size
limit on the gross square footage of non-residential uses
(excluding civic uses required to provide public services) in the
new character districts.
New A.ordable Housing Protection Overlay District
In light of current and foreseeable market pressures, it is likely
that existing smaller, more aPordable houses in many areas of
Bozeman will continue to be purchased, demolished, and
replaced by larger, more expensive homes. While the replacement
of existing single-household structures with two-, three, four-, or
multi-family structures would add new housing supply that could
help remove market pressures, the replacement of an old home
with a new home does not add supply. In order to help preserve
Bozeman’s existing stock of smaller, older, more aPordable
homes, the City may also want to consider creating a housing
preservation overlay zoning district that could include limits on
home expansion, maximum house width, depth, or volume, or
other standards designed (similar to those described for the
character-based replacements for the NCOD district above) to
ensure that redevelopment of existing homes results in new
homes that “fit” with their neighbors while discouraging the
purchase of existing homes to replace them with much larger and
more expensive houses. This new overlay would be designed to
apply in areas other than the areas north and south of Downtown
currently covered by the NCOD and could also limit the ability to
replace existing smaller homes with non-residential uses
(particularly larger ones) that would otherwise be allowed in the
underlying base zoning districts.
Residential Manufactured Home Parks (RMH) (Sec.
38.300.100.G)
Residents of manufactured home parks rarely own the land under
their homes; instead, it is often owned by a park operator who
may or may not have an interest in preserving and maintaining the
park. Throughout the country, communities are increasingly
viewing manufactured home parks as a valuable source of
already-existing aPordable housing and are taking steps to
prevent the removal of those parks that are viable, safe, and have
been developed with proper infrastructure connections. Bozeman
should consider whether those manufactured home parks
already zoned RMH should be further protected in ways that do
not interfere with the operation of those parks (as required by
Montana law). As an exception, most newer codes do not
discourage the redevelopment of parks containing homes that do
not meet HUD safety standards for manufactured homes under
the National Manufactured Housing Act. Bozeman UDC
APordable Housing Assessment |44 The City may also want to
consider allowing redevelopment of manufactured home parks in
ways that add to the overall housing supply (as opposed to
redevelopment for non-residential purposes), as discussed for
the neighborhoods north and south of Downtown above.
Some of the existing manufactured home parks, however, are not
zoned RMH. Zoning ordinances that include existing mobile home
parks as one use in residential or mixed-use zoning district that
allows a wide variety of alternative uses make it easier for owners
of manufactured home parks to redevelop the property (and
displace existing residents) in favor of a higher value residential or
mixed-use development. Where manufactured home parks in
Bozeman are not zoned RMH -- as is the case with the Wagon
Wheel Trailer Court at 23rd Street and College Street (which is
zoned R-O) or the Gallatin Valley Trailer Court north of GriPin Drive
(which is zoned M-1). The City should evaluate the continued
viability of those parks as sources of aPordable housing in light of
health, safety, and infrastructure standards, and should consider
discussing with the property owners rezoning the viable parks into
the RMH zoning district, if possible, in order to preserve this
important source of small “a” aPordable housing.
Suggested improvements to the updated AHO
Though the city is not writing a check from its reserves in order to create
aPordable housing, there is undeniably a cost associated with these policies
and in the case of infill projects, it is one that is paid almost exclusively by the
surrounding neighborhood of any project making use of these incentives.
Costs realized through increased height, decreased parking requirements,
and departures from construction standards include decreased in safety and
quality of life and an increase in congestion. Because the costs are not borne
equally by the community at large but instead are localized to each individual
site, it is imperative that the city craft an ordinance which minimize these
costs.
1. More care, consideration, and attention should be given to where
an incentivized development is constructed to ameliorate the
impacts to existing residential neighborhoods. In greenfield
developments or for those constructed in commercial or mixed
zoning areas that are not within an existing neighborhood less
attention can be given to these concerns, and possibly more
aggressive incentives could be considered. There have been
several questions raised as to why the proposed 7th/8th & Aspen
project wasn’t met with the same consternation and vehement
opposition as the Guthrie. You could ask the same question of
other projects that have been constructed or proposed using the
AHO and the simple answer is that they are either greenfield
developments or in mixed zoning areas. Conversely, the Guthrie
is being proposed for a historic building in an existing
neighborhood within the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay
District.
2. Not all sites are equivalent, and not all should operate under the
same simple set of rules. There is a principle of appropriateness
for a site that is being ignored, and the AHO should not attempt to
be a one-size-fits-all ordinance. For that reason, when dealing
with an infill project in an existing neighborhood more restrictive
incentives should be required.
a. In no case should more than one additional story be
considered for an infill project.
b. Likewise, parking should be required for every market-rate
unit associated with an infill project rather than granting
parking relief to the entire project. Reduced parking
requirements can be granted to the aPordable units created
but the market-rate should be required at the rate specified
by the current UDC.
Additionally, the proposed AHO does not consider the compounding ePects
that existing parking relief mechanisms which the city granted to various
zones and by the AHO’s extension, to certain projects and, that these ePects
should be ameliorated. For example, there are several residential
neighborhoods along 7th Avenue that adjoin the Midtown Redevelopment
District with its 2017 elimination of parking requirements.
1. Projects that plan to utilize the deep incentives’ reduction of
parking requirements should not be permitted in neighborhoods
that abut another zone that already has relief from parking
requirements. This ordinance totally ignores the future state of
the area after the it has been redeveloped using Midtown’s “no
parking required” relief without regard to the intensifying impact
of these incentives. Therefore, proximity to zones that have been
created which already aPord reductions in parking must be
controlled.
2. Restrict proximity to schools and other vulnerable facilities
should be required.
3. Though the AHO is silent on the matter, it should require that the
beneficiaries of the incentives be residents of Bozeman (i.e. they
should have a permanent Bozeman mailing address on their ID
card, passport, or driver’s license).
Finally, the land donation and cash-in-lieu provisions in the AHO, while on the
surface a possible solution to create additional aPordable housing, will end
up serving the same deleterious ePects of our existing UDC. When we allow
for the creation of luxury developments that utilize the incremental four
stories allowed by the AHO in the downtown core and other similar areas, not
only will it forever change the character of the surrounding area by such an
increase in mass and scale, but that change will reap further increase in the
value of the real estate. Presumably residential buildings that are four-stories
taller than their neighbors and which oPer uninterrupted views will command
ever-higher prices. This is one area where trickle-down economics will work in
that surrounding properties will increase in corresponding value, adjusted of
course for the inferior views. Moreover, common sense dictates that the
developer looking to provide the oPsetting land will do so at the most
economical level possible, which by definition will be furthest from the city
core where demand for land is less. This will preclude future development in
desirable areas where people most want to live and force aPordable housing
to the perimeter of the city, in opposition to the stated goal of developing it
throughout. Further, by accepting land only in lieu of aPordable housing the
city will shoulder all of the risks of construction: financial risks such as
interest rate risk and project financing risks, project management risks, design
risks, environmental risks, safety risks, and cost overruns and delays will all
be borne by the city and whatever entity it chooses to partner with in order to
build the units. The AHO does not have the mechanisms to control the timing
and scope within it and sets itself up for realizing unintended consequences
in the future, much like our cash-in-lieu policies do with respect to providing
for water and parkland. The city is not in the business of developing land and
should refrain from engaging in this tempting but risky activity altogether.
It is evident that a better use of the community’s time and resources would be
to craft a solution that preserves NOAH while also preserving the character of
neighborhoods rather than to update the AHO. There is an existing conflict
between the AHO and the NCOD and it would be wise for use to resolve the
conflict through legislative action rather than through legal action and
allowing the courts to decide. That would allow the city to create a win-win-
win situation instead of pitting the various actors against each other, each
defending their own interests. How often have we heard long-time residents
bemoan the changes the city has wrought the past 8-10 years, forever
changing the character of the town that we love? What will it take to heed
those complaints and do something to stem the tide while also helping those
that need it most?
However, if the city insists on proceeding with a revision of the AHO despite
the many shortcomings identified, it should consider modifying the existing
draft to accommodate the suggestions above.
Respectfully,
Scott Boyd