HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-28-25 Public Comment - A. Hill - Public Comment_ Affordable Housing OrdinanceFrom:Andrew Hill
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public Comment: Affordable Housing Ordinance
Date:Wednesday, January 22, 2025 2:58:39 PM
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To: City Commission
I am in support of most aspects of the AHO. However, there are some aspects of the ordinance
that need to be changed before it is adopted.
Point 1: Table 38.380.020-1. The minimum percentage of affordable dwellings (5%) is too low in the
Type A and Type B incentives. Consider a 20-unit building. This would require only 1affordable unit. Assume this unit rents for $500/month below (or $6,000/year below) the
market rate. The present value of $6,000/year in perpetutity is about $120,000 (at an interestrate of 5%). If a 20-unit apartment building costs $6 million to build, developers are only
paying 2% more for all the allowances provided by the incentives. This price is too low. Theminimum percentage of affordable dwellings should be increased to 10% (from 5%) in the
Type A and Type B incentives. Even if this cuts the use of the incentives in half, this willprovide the same number of affordable units for the city. (An alternative way of looking at this
is considering the developer's annual rental income. 20 units rented at $2,000/month (or$24,000/year) generates an annual income of $480,000. Reducing this by $6,000 is only a
1.25% reduction in annual income. Again, this price is simply too low for all the allowancesprovided.)
Point 2:
Sec 38.380.040 C.3.b. The story of additional height for affordable housing developmentsshould not be allowed in zones R1, R2, and R3. This is too great a deviation from the code in
percentage terms. The maximum building height in zones R1 and R2 is 40 feet. An additional15 feet represents a 37.5% increase. This will simply be too out of scale with surrounding
housing. This problem is not solved by the appeal to transition height setback provisions asthis will be an issue in the middle of an R1 or R2 neighborhood, not just if the development is
adjacent to a lower intensity residential district. One solution would be to express theadditional height in percentage terms: "For affordable housing developments, the maximum
building height in each zoning district may be increased by 20%." This language would alsoincentivize developments with fewer luxury units with high ceilings; it is a win-win for both
future residents of the building and neighbors if developers build the same number of units,but units with lower ceilings that are therefore more affordable and in buildings with lower
maximum height. Several recently-developed apartment buildings are much higher than theyneed to be to allow high ceilings and to be marketed as luxury apartments.
Point 3:
Sec 38.380.040 C.3.c. Similar to the above point, two additional stories of height is too muchof a deviation in almost any zoning district and will be too out of scale with surrounding
buildings. An additional story of height arguably exerts the biggest negative spillover onneighbors, and only requiring 5% of units to be affordable for such a giveaway is simply too
low a price to ask of developers for this. Two additional stories of height under any
circumstances should only be allowed with Type C incentives.
Andrew Hill815 W Curtiss St
Bozeman MT 59715