Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-18-25 Public Comment - E. Killenberg - Middle housing examples to inform the UDC mass and scale work sessionFrom:Eva Killenberg To:Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]Middle housing examples to inform the UDC mass and scale work session Date:Tuesday, June 17, 2025 12:14:41 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. Dear Commissioners, My name is Eva Killenberg. I want a UDC that encourages incremental development of neighborhoods through the creation of middle housing, a concept that I have seen broad support for in the community. I think there are two key questions we should be asking: one, does the UDC legalize a variety of effective middle housing types, and two, does it incentivize the market to create them? In my research into these questions, two projects have stood out, which I would like to share with you today. The first project, which speaks to the question of legalizing middle housing, is close to home. A few weeks ago, I attended the Fowler Housing Project open house. I am so excited to see the city collaborating with local architects to design a housing project that fits the needs of our community. The proposal has thoughtful integration into the surrounding area while incorporating meaningful density - 84 housing units at 18 units per acre. One of the design choices that stuck out to me was what they called “skinny townhomes.” Comprising 51 units of the proposed development, these townhomes are “skinny” because they are only 12 feet wide and 3 or 4 stories tall. Stepbacks on the fourth story mitigate the height of the buildings to pedestrians on the street. The design was inspired by a development in Utah that was featured by the Urban Land Institute, and chosen because they creatively and efficiently use the available space, allowing for more affordable units. This design also has personal significance to me. When attending college in Philadelphia, I happily lived in a 3-story narrow row home with 3 housemates. Our house was lively and communal, in large part due to the design. Because the home was only one room wide, it was impossible to climb the stairs to my 3rd-story bedroom without passing the common area and my friends’ rooms, making it a habit for my housemates and me to stop and chat about our days when we got home. Our block had 20 of these homes, housing almost 100 people, and had a strong sense of community. I made some of my closest college friends from living on this block. I recognize that the “skinny” townhome may not work for everyone, but it is a great example of a type of dense, efficient middle housing that can contribute to the social fabric of our neighborhoods. However, this design would not be legal in Bozeman under the draft UDC. The Fowler project proposes that the city annex this parcel with RB zoning, which, in its current form, includes a 15-foot minimum lot width and a 25-foot maximum wall plate height. I support the Community Development Board’s recommendation to remove minimum lot area in the updated UDC, and I wonder if there should be additional discussion about minimum lot width. The CDB has also recommended eliminating or raising the wall plate height in RB, which was also suggested in the Bozeman Architects UDC recommendations, and is something I believe is essential to make RB an effective middle housing zone. I am not advising that we optimize the code for skinny townhomes, nor does this specific housing type work for everybody. Rather, I think this is a good case study in how the code might be more flexible and amenable to a variety of middle housing. Illustration from the Fowler open house, showing the “skinny” townhomes from the street. The second example I want to share today speaks to how middle housing can be incentivized through code in a way that begets real results. In 2022, Portland, Oregon, passed its expanded Residential Infill Plan with the goal of stimulating affordable middle housing creation. Portland’s Residential Infill Plan included many pro-middle housing reforms, which I hope the commission will give consideration to in future UDC work sessions. The one that cut deepest into financial incentives for middle housing is a mass and scale tool: a sliding scale floor area ratio that limits square footage of single-unit homes while allowing for larger structures with more units. Other cities have passed code reforms that legalize middle housing, but often, that is not enough to stimulate the production of these types of homes in the housing market. Portland’s sliding scale FAR took these reforms a step further to make the housing that their city needed more attractive to developers. Quoting the Sightline Institute Analysis of this policy, “The idea is for that extra square footage to work like a sluice gate for Portland’s housing market, rechanneling investment away from luxury remodels and McMansions and toward new homes that are affordable to the middle class on day one.” Three years later, we can see that this has worked! According to a recent report, in low- density neighborhoods, more middle housing units are now being built than single-family homes, and those units are selling for $250,000 to $300,000 less than a new, market-rate detached house. In the first 6 months of 2024 alone, 1,400 permits were issued for infill middle housing. I encourage the commission to review both the Portland Residential Infill Plan and the full 2025 report if they have not already. I support recommendation of the CDB and the analysis of the staff to remove floor area ratios from the code, which don’t work as effectively for the varied lot sizes in Bozeman, but believe that the Graduated Square Foot Cap proposed by Forward Montana and uplifted by the CDB will serve the same function of incentivizing middle housing over large, single unit homes. I am excited to uplift these promising examples of middle housing creation, and hope they give some color and direction to the upcoming discussion of mass and scale on June 24th. Sources / Recommended Reading Urban Land Institute article on “skinny” townhomes: https://urbanland.uli.org/development-business/thin-micro-townhouses-optimize- density Portland Residential Infill Plan (RIP) Summary 2019: https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/rip/documents/recommended-draft-august- 2019-summary/download Sightline Institute RIP Analysis 2020: https://www.sightline.org/2020/08/11/on- wednesday-portland-will-pass-the-best-low-density-zoning-reform-in-us-history/ Portland RIP Report 2025: https://www.portland.gov/bps/planning/rip2/news/2025/2/4/portland-sees-significant- production-middle-housing-resulting Strongtowns article covering the RIP report 2025: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025/6/4/portlands-quiet-housing-revolution-is- starting-to-pay-off