HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-28-25 Public Comment - E. Bonnett - Public Comment_ Affordable Housing Ordinance - 1_28_25 Commission MeetingFrom:Erik Bonnett
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL][SENDER UNVERIFIED]Public Comment: Affordable Housing Ordinance - 1/28/25 Commission
Meeting
Date:Monday, January 27, 2025 5:41:49 PM
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Dear Commissioners,
Thank you for your service to our community.
I wish to voice my overall support for the affordable housing ordinance and offer a specific
suggestion to increase the efficacy of the incentives. I am writing from the perspective of anArchitect practicing in our community and across the nation on workforce and affordable
housing projects.
Housing affordability is one of the most pressing issues facing our community. Safe andhumane housing should be a human right, while as I speak there is an unhoused member of
our community (he works at Kenyon Noble) who is living in a tent in a lot near ourarchitecture firm's office. The prevalence of homelessness in our community is
unconscionable, and is something the commission has the opportunity to help address in yourTuesday meeting.
Housing affordability affects working and middle-class members of our community as well.
My partner works at Cottonwood Days School as a special education teacher. The schoolstruggles to hire qualified employees because well-qualified applicants can't afford housing
even though the school pays a solid middle-class salary. In your Tuesday meeting you willhave the opportunity to help sustain the economic vitality of our community.
Affordable housing incentive ordinances are complex. They only work when they are well-
calibrated to market conditions and building practices. Such ordinances shouldn't be sogenerous they are give-aways to developers' bottom lines, but they also shouldn't be so stingy
that nobody actually uses them and they sit idle on the shelf. Thus, I laud your efforts toupdate the ordinances to keep them efficient and effective. That said, I strongly urge you not
to eliminate the deep incentive track. Our community desperately needs affordable housing.The deep track is perhaps the best tool we have available to spur the volume of affordable
housing production we need. If the deep track isn't working the way you think it should thentweak it; don't eliminate it.
Lastly, I'd like to offer a specific suggestion to make the incentives more usable. In my
experience, the incentives are difficult or impossible to use for smaller-scale projects. This isbecause the lot size and density bonuses only are useful to certain project types. For instance, a
lot size bonus is irrelevant to a condominiumized project built on a single lot. What wouldhelp most, in my experience, would be allowing more dwellings within a given structure in
R1, R-2, and R-3. Sharing walls, stairs, and elevators makes construction inherently moreaffordable per unit. Leveraging those efficiencies would help projects meet the AMI targets
the ordinance requires. For instance the R-1 incentive could allow duplexes; in R-2 it couldallow fourplexes, and in R-3 it could allow twelve-plexes in three stories. The total building
area limit doesn't need to change because affordable houses are smaller; this will ensure the
projects are compatible with the overall scale of the underlying zone. This incentive would bea meaningful and useful density bonus at that scale that could facilitate the production of more
deed-restricted affordable housing at smaller scales and integrated into existingneighborhoods.
Thank you again for your service and considering my suggestions,
Erik Bonnett
Architect, AIAHe, Him, His
www.studiocohab.com
p. 651.336.0394