HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-20-25 Public Comment - C. Lawrence - Public comment related to Application 23185From:Cory Lawrence
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public comment related to Application 23185...
Date:Monday, May 19, 2025 9:07:26 PM
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Public Comment_Application 23185_The Bozeman Hotel_vF.pdf
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To whom it may concern:
Please accept the attached and apply to the responses received related to Application #23185.
As adjacent property owners, we appreciate the opportunity to engage in this process and implore
the Director of Community Planning and Development to deny the application until such time as the
items noted in the attached are corrected and a better project is allowed to be developed in our
downtown.
Respectfully,
Cory T. Lawrence
President & CEO
Office: 800-445-2995 or 406-586-1311
Direct: 406-414-8930
7 EAST BEALL STREET, BOZEMAN, MT 59715
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SENT VIA EMAIL WITH ATTACHMENTS TO COMMENTS@BOZEMAN.NET, MAY 19, 2025
City of Bozeman Department of Community Development
Attn: Application 23185
PO Box 1230
Bozeman, MT 59771
To whom it may concern:
This letter is being written in response to the Notice of Site Plan Application related to
application #23185.
Being a downtown business owner and operator, we have several concerns about the
application referenced above.
First, the Master Plan does not coordinate with the site plan details. This is the case for
both the drawings and information submitted with the application. There are significant
discrepancies with square footages used in calculations versus what is determined per the
drawings. The application summary includes information related to hotel rooms and condo
units and a rooftop restaurant, while elsewhere in the plans and submissions there is
reference to only hotel rooms, two restaurants, and a spa. In short, the application and
related submissions are poorly organized and incongruent on topics of particular interest
to adjacent property owners such as us.
Second, the online Laserfiche application failed to load several of the plans (examples
detailed below), leaving any public review impossible. This is a restriction of our ability to
fully and completely and transparently review the documents we were noticed to inspect.
As a result, we withhold all rights extended to us as an adjacent property owner until such
time as a full and complete review can be made. The public process is supposed to
support the public’s right to know and these technical problems impaired this right.
Lastly, the following items have been identified as deficiencies in the project that, in our
view, should promote the denial of this application until such time as these issues are
addressed and modifications made that bring the project into compliance.
1. Objectionable Issues:
a. Development Review Application indicates there is to be one building with 34
condo units and 121 hotel rooms and a rooftop restaurant and yet, in the
parking calculations summary, there are two buildings, no condo units, two
restaurants, an outdoor dining area, and a spa.
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b. Project Narrative indicates a total of 198 guest rooms, whereas elsewhere in
the document, 200 guest rooms are identified.
c. The project assumes primary entry to the hotel from Lamme Street. Lamme
Street is currently a hazardous throughway on the block between Tracy and
Willson (the block on which the project sits). Not only will several on-street
parking spaces be lost, but the street itself is not sufficient in width, curb and
gutter, or management to accommodate the increase in traffic that will result
from the project. This is a serious public safety issue and exists most
extremely on Lamme Street, although Tracy and Beall streets also present
serious hazards to the public as a walkway and driving street. All of these
streets in current form do not support the minimum level of safety for the
public.
d. Request for Departure of Sec 38.510.030 B Weather Protection – Applicant
has requested a departure from the requirements for weather protection as
per the above-referenced section. This should not be allowed as this
requirement has been required for similar buildings in the area. Further, with
the significant vertical face of the building, wind tunneling effects will result,
as they have at other similarly sized buildings. Having weather protection
that meets this standard is necessary, in our view, to abide by the same rules
applied to other buildings in the area. From experience, this weather
protection offers a significant benefit to pedestrians as they navigate
inclement weather that is frequent throughout much of the year. Especially
given the other safety issues associated with reduced parking and traffic
congestion, the loss of weather protection for pedestrians would further
exacerbate public safety.
e. Sec 38.540.050 – Number of parking spaces required
i. Parking sufficiency – The project currently calculates a need for 106
parking spaces, all of which are to be accounted for by “116 SID
parking stalls”. As I understand it, SID parking stalls are not stalls at all
but rather, credit for SID parking that no longer exists. The substance
of this is that the neighborhoods surrounding the project will be
inundated with cars associated with hotel guests and patrons of the
project. In turn, this will contribute to disputes with neighbors trying to
maintain their own off-street parking, neighbors trying to adapt to the
loss of public spaces in the neighborhood due to the presence of
additional parked cars, and many derivatives of this nature. In
addition to creating a hostile environment for everyone who lives,
patronizes, or works in the area, this will unquestionably put public
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health and safety in peril. There are already significant car-pedestrian
and vehicle conflicts directly in this area courtesy of the poor planning
associated with guest check-in at the AC Hotel. The project, as
currently planned, will materially exacerbate parking problems, traffic
congestion, and public safety.
ii. Reconciling parking for project with the overall master plan – The
applicant has modified the master plan and adjusted individual
building plans several times. As a neighbor principally concerned
about public health and safety related to traffic patterns and parking,
it is an affront to the development process to be restricted from any
ability to reconcile parking calculations, use of SID parking stalls, and
the sharing of parking between the current site plan application and
the master plan. From a comparative to what I cannot verify as the
current master plan document, the parking calculations are woefully
different and fail to reconcile to what is included in application 23185.
The failure of the applicant and city planning department to provide a
clear reconciliation and verification of the information of the master
plan and current site plan, restricts our ability to address topics of
greatest concern. As such, we withhold all rights to include parking
sufficiency and related calculations and the same for traffic related
planning associated with the site plan. In short, the current
application should be declined until such time as this information is
provided accurately and completely to the public.
1. Sec 38.540.010 states, “The provisions of this division are also
intended to help protect the public health, safety, and general
welfare by: helping avoid and mitigate traffic congestion;
encouraging multimodal transportation options and enhanced
pedestrian safety;” The application in current form and the
absence of any reference or reconciliation to the master plan
makes it impossible to reasonably review and evaluate the
sufficiency of parking associated with this building.
Fundamentally, the fact that zero parking is being required for
this structure creates enormous questions of the commitment
of the city staff to address issues of public health and safety
and the maintenance of the character and nature of the
neighborhood in which the project exists.
iii. 38.540.010.2 Change of use or occupancy of buildings requires that to
the extent that parking requirements have changed by more than 10
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percent, an occupancy permit cannot be issued until such additional
parking spaces, in the amounts required, are provided for. In spite of
this, there is not provision of prior parking calculations to current
application calculations. Here again, as a concerned neighbor, I
cannot even access information to confirm that UDC requirements
apply and/or have been met.
iv. Parking calculations – Parking calculations were found to be incorrect
or unclear as to calculation due to unsupported assumptions by the
applicant. To follow are all of the errors, irregularities, or inaccuracies
in our review:
1. Land Use – Hotels
a. Applicant indicates 16 employees on maximum shift
and yet, provides no backup support for this figure. With
200 guest rooms over nearly 200,000 square feet of
building, requiring a significant front desk,
housekeeping, engineering, and management staff, this
figure does not appear to be accurate. Further, the hotel
has, as stated in one of the many varying narratives
about the programming of the property, three
restaurant/bars (one restaurant/bar at ground level
totaling over 3500 sf of indoor and outdoor seating, one
hotel lobby bar of 750 sf, and one restaurant on the 6th
floor totaling over 1800 sf), a spa with over 4700 sf of
space, a “mercantile”, and an event space of an
undisclosed square footage but estimated to be roughly
3,000. To this, all of the kitchen, food preparation, and
back-of-house support areas equate to the need for
significantly more than 16 employees on maximum
shift.
b. Taking estimates from a sampling of comparable hotel
properties with similar F&B and meeting spaces but
without spa or mercantile spaces, the average number
of employees required for maximum shift could easily
be greater than 60 employees. In addition, the applicant
has stated in a public presentation about the property
that it is to be “Bozeman’s first and only full-service
luxury hotel”. This further supports that maximum shift
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employee count will be significantly higher than 16
employees, as stated in the application.
c. Taking the above into account results in a minimum
parking requirement of at least 136 spaces or an
increase to overall project parking minimum
requirements of 20 spaces. Given the current
application provides for “SID stalls” (see below) of only
116, the applicant fails to provide for the minimum
required parking spaces.
2. Land Use – Retail
a. Applicant made another calculation error in the parking
calculation in relation to the “Retail (Spa)” land use. The
applicant used the B-3 Reduction of 50% related to
“Restaurants” but identified this land use as “Retail”.
The correct B-3 allowable reduction for “Retail” is 40%.
This results in the addition of one parking space, from
three to four.
3. Allowable reductions – There is reference to the “SID stalls”
associated with the premises. From our recollection of the
master plan, the applicant has thus far been allowed to “trade”
these SID stalls between and among the various buildings as a
means of “meeting” parking requirements. We have never seen
any certification that these SID stalls actually exist and would
request that certification be required as part of the application
in order to confirm the existence and number of such SID
stalls. Further, based on our research of the UDC, there is no
right provided for SID stalls to be used between and among
various properties. This, too, is a point of concern for us as it
appears the SID stalls of the applicant are being freely moved
between and among other properties.
f. Sec 38.520.070 – Mechanical Equipment Screening
i. Sec 38.520.070 E requires that “All rooftop mechanical equipment,
including air conditioners, heaters, vents, and similar equipment
must be fully screened from public view both at grade and from higher
buildings with the exception of solar panels and roof-mounted wind
turbines.” The applicant has failed to meet this standard on numerous
other buildings in the B-3 district. On several occasions in the past,
we have implored the Director of Community Planning and
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Development to enforce this UDC requirement at other buildings
developed by applicant. Unfortunately, to date we have received no
follow-through, although a prior Director of Community Planning and
Development confirmed that this requirement did apply to the
building. As a result of this history and the failure of the city to enforce
this requirement, we are respectfully ask that it be required that the
applicant account for and construct screening for all roof mounted
mechanical equipment in accordance with the referenced code
section.
g. Lack of public access to application drawings – The following documents
were not available via the Laserfiche system and therefore, could not be
reviewed as a part of our consideration of the application. As such, we
reserve the right to contest the application due to restrictions on our right to
know in the public forum.
1. 006 – C1.1 Civil Site Plan
a.
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b.
c.
We respectfully ask the Director of Community Planning and Development to deny the
application based on the above information. As an overall statement, the most significant
concern we have as neighbors to the project that is subject to the application is the utter
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absence of any parking requirements for the project and the inevitable traffic congestion
and public safety hazards that will precipitate from both increased traffic and the absence
of new parking spaces around and related to the project. It is beyond our comprehension
that the city planning department will allow the addition of nearly 200,000 square feet of
hotel, restaurant, bar, spa, mercantile, and meeting space without any parking
requirements and with assumed traffic loading of adjacent streets and intersections that
are already failing.
Should the city decide to approve this project without mitigating these serious public safety
and health issues, we feel compelled to seek relief of some kind for the good of the public
and the property values of properties in the area. Losing the character and nature of this
city’s beloved downtown due to increased parking and traffic issues is a terrible shame. It is
an embarrassment that our public servants would allow this without a specific plan to
mitigate the obvious detriments that will ensue. We are actively engaged in this process to
implore a heightened sense of responsibility for the public good and the historic integrity of
our downtown.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide our comment and appreciate your kind
consideration of it.
Respectfully submitted,
Cory and Carrie Lawrence
Owners, Off the Beaten Path LLC
7 E Beall St – Suite 200
Bozeman, MT 59715