The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About02-28-25 Public Comment - K. Berry - Urban Parks and Forestry Board Meeting 2_27_25From:Katherine Berry To:Bozeman Public Comment Cc:Holly Hill; Lilly McLane Subject:[EXTERNAL]Urban Parks and Forestry Board Meeting 2/27/25 Date:Wednesday, February 26, 2025 5:46:47 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. Hello, Please see the attached comment letter from the Gallatin Watershed Council. Thank you foryour consideration. Best, Katherine 25.02.26 UDC Update Recommendations to Urban Pa… -- Katherine Berry, Water Policy Manager Gallatin Watershed Council www.gallatinwatershedcouncil.org | katherine@gallatinwatershedcouncil.orgCell: 860-558-3323 To: Urban Parks and Forest Board From: The Gallatin Watershed Council Re: PRAT Plan and the UDC Update Date: February 26, 2025 Dear Urban Parks and Forest Board, Imagine our City laced with streamside parks, lush with native riparian vegetation—cottonwoods, aspens, willows—the kind you find on the south side of town in parks like the Galligator Linear Trail, Grafs East Park, and Tuckerman Park. Imagine green ribbons running south to north, connecting water, wildlife, and people across town. These cool, peaceful places of refuge should be accessible to all residents of Bozeman. This is the vision painted in the PRAT Plan under Goal 4: Steward and sustain Natural resources across the parks and trails system. In many cases, we are missing this opportunity under the existing code. Despite federal and local regulations, the default for development is often mitigation, then minimization, and lastly, avoidance of impacts to wetlands and riparian areas. We don’t believe this practice matches what our community wants, nor does it align with the Commission’s priorities. The update to the UDC and the integration of the PRAT Plan presents an opportunity to flip the paradigm and incentivize avoidance as much as possible. It is easier and more cost-effective to prevent impacts to sensitive lands than it is to be retroactive. Let’s retain the ecosystem services of wetlands and riparian areas in our community and internalize the cost to protect and restore these sensitive lands instead of externalizing the cost of degraded and impaired ecosystems for the next generation. The efforts of “See Bozeman Creek” to convey a 100-year flood safely through the City and the revitalization of the Cattail Creek corridor are great examples of this. Let’s make natural resource stewardship the clear and obvious path right from the start of the development process and a consistent message across departments. We have attached a list of opportunities we see to integrate the goals of the PRAT plan into the UDC and address this challenge. As the City of Bozeman undergoes several planning processes, we are encouraged by the City’s hard and thoughtful work to grow sustainability. Our community values clean air, clean water, open-space, and wildlife. The PRAT Plan states that, “Through the engagement process, the plan uncovered that the City’s parks and trails provide an important oasis in the fastest growing city in Montana. Bozeman residents clearly value opportunities to connect with nature.” Thank you for listening. Good land management is good water management, and we are excited to build a more resilient future together. Thank you, Gallatin Watershed Council The Gallatin Watershed Council guides collaborative water stewardship in the Gallatin Valley for a healthy and productive landscape. www.gallatinwatershedcouncil.org 1 Attachment A: Recommendations for integrating the PRAT Plan into the UDC 1. Allow watercourse setbacks, wetlands, and other priority conservation lands and similar acreage to contribute to park dedication requirements in new developments. 2. Require a parkland and natural resource analysis - including a water resource delineation - as an initial step during the development review process in order to align “parks concept plans” with existing wetlands and riparian areas. Planning for the connection and continuity of sensitive lands is integral to their value and ability to provide ecosystem services such as wildlife habitat and flood control. Consider including this step as a pre-application requirement. A logical first step in the development process is to determine site conditions that significantly impact site layout and building constraints. Publicly available maps of streams, ditches, and wetlands are infamously inaccurate when it comes to site planning. The desire is to ensure that applicants are guided down the correct regulatory pathway as early on in the development process as possible so as to avoid situations where protecting natural resources is at odds with a plan that is already far underway and which can result in difficult negotiations, conflict, costly changes, and unnecessary impacts. 3. Clarify regulations and reporting requirements for wetlands and watercourses to improve enforcement and usability of the UDC. Several places in the code the regulatory language designed to identify and protect natural resources is confusing for all involved, despite best intentions. There are several inconsistencies throughout the UDC describing the burden of proof required to document the identification of water resources and proposed impacts. There is also significant overlap and several opportunities to streamline the site inspections, application requirements, and review of wetlands and watercourses. 4. Define subjective terms. Terms of particular concern that leave the codes susceptible to being applied inconsistently are: “unavoidable impacts,” “wetland review authority,” “public interest,” “to the greatest extent feasible,” and “wholly human-made water source.” It seems most impacts are justified as an “unavoidable impact” and in the “public interest” under the need for affordable housing. Many wetlands are deemed “human-made,” with no defined historical contex. After all, the whole Valley used to be one big beaver-dam-wetland-complex. 5. Provide adequate technical capacity to identify natural area parks and guide the protection of wetlands and watercourses throughout the development process. Water resources are highly technical and nuanced, both scientifically and how they are regulated. The UDC refers to a “review authority” for water resources, without specifying what this means. Currently, a “Wetlands” or “Sensitive Areas Report” is supposed to be provided by a water resources specialist contracted by the City. In several cases, it seems this review may not actually be getting The Gallatin Watershed Council guides collaborative water stewardship in the Gallatin Valley for a healthy and productive landscape. www.gallatinwatershedcouncil.org 2 done and that planning staff are not always aware of this step. Previously, reviews were conducted by a “wetlands review board,” but no “wetlands review board” exists today. 6. Increase watercourse buffers to match scientific best practices. Healthy streams need space to space to flood, erode, and grow native streamside vegetation in order to: 1) safely convey high flows with limited damage to property and infrastructure, 2) slow and store water, 3) support a healthy fishery, 4) provide critical wildlife habitat, and 5) maintain clean water. Best practices recommend maintaining a vegetated buffer on either side of a watercourse of 100’ for small streams, 150’ for medium-sized streams, and 300’ for rivers. These recommendations are a synthesis of scientific literature from Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Recommendation for Subdivision Development in Montana, Montana Department of Environmental Quality Scientific Recommendations on the Size of Stream Vegetated Buffers, and the East Gallatin Channel Migration Report. 7. Apply 100’ buffers to isolated wetlands. Watercourse buffers are currently extended around wetlands that are immediately adjacent to streams, but isolated wetlands do not receive the same treatment. Sec. 38.610.090. - Wetland permit conditions requires the “provision of a wetland buffer of a size appropriate for the particular proposed activity and the particular regulated wetland area.” No guidance for buffer width is provided, and in practice, buffers are not being applied to isolated wetlands. 8. Develop a Watercourse and Wetland Landscape Design and Maintenance manual as supplemental guidance to the codes in the UDC. The Landscape and Irrigation Standards for New Development focuses entirely on upland conditions and drought-tolerant species. It would be helpful to have similar design guidance available for wetter landscapes to communicate a clear vision for these natural areas, and to streamline the design and review process. The Gallatin Watershed Council guides collaborative water stewardship in the Gallatin Valley for a healthy and productive landscape. www.gallatinwatershedcouncil.org 3