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HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-01-25 Public Comment - M. Kaveney - City Commission July 1, '25 mtng, Gallatin Center ZMA #24626From:Marcia Kaveney To:Bozeman Public Comment; Jennifer Madgic; Terry Cunningham; Douglas Fischer; Emma Bode; Joey Morrison Subject:[EXTERNAL]Re: City Commission July 1, "25 mtng, Gallatin Center ZMA #24626 Date:Tuesday, July 1, 2025 12:06:52 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 Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Commissioners- I neglected to say in my previous email that I heard the applicant's response to the question about labeling the wetlands when I reviewed the CDB meeting video of June 16, 2025.However, I still stand behind my comments that there should have been labels or the applicant could have denoted the reason for their absence so the commission and public is not leftwondering. Thank you, Marcia Kaveney On Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 10:42 AM Marcia Kaveney <marciakaveney@gmail.com> wrote: Dear Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Commissioners Madgic, Bode, and Fischer- I am writing to you today about application #24626, Gallatin Center Zone Map Amendment,which doesn’t conform to the ZMA requirements as put forward by the city. Checklist andcode compliance are important, and since this application does not conform to the city’srequirements, I am requesting that you require the application be amended to includelabeling for the wetlands and waterbodies before making any approval of the application.I’ve attached my previous comments to this letter for your easy reference. I’ll begin by thanking Commissioner Madgic for taking the time during the CommunityDevelopment Board (CDB) meeting on June 16th to delve into my written comment and get clarification from Tom Rogers that the applicant did indeed leave off the required labelingof bodies of wetlands and open water on their ZMA Exhibit of the property. There are no labels to distinguish between wetlands and open water bodies even though, as plannerRogers stated in a June 2 email exchange with me, "The ZMA map requirements include mapping the known location of any existing water bodies and wetlands." City staff allowedthis inadequacy to slide, and did not require the exhibit to be updated for your meeting tonight. Why is this small and simple detail important? Because the omission highlights otherpotential problems of code interpretation and compliance in our planning department. TheZMA map requirements are simple. There should be no exceptions. What would happen ifthe applicant didn't complete items #2, #4, or #7 of the ZMA checklist? Would the leadplanner require them? How does he decide which omissions are acceptable and which arenot? Who knows? Neither you nor the public do. Is it fair to allow one developer to submitsloppy paperwork and not another? It can’t be. If our codes and checklists aren’t enforcedthen they quickly cease to matter in any meaningful way. If the staff doesn’t police smalland simple details then who does? You can’t be expected to do so. If you accept sloppywork from the staff you are signaling to them that sloppy work is acceptable. It isn’t. I also share these thoughts with you because of the city’s work on the UDC Update. Thecommunity has contributed countless hours of effort alongside planning staff to update City UDC codes. What good will all that work be if there is not clear, consistent, detailed, anddependable compliance, driven by city staff? Details matter. Given the way our city government works neither you nor the public can beexpected to police all the paperwork you get for detail and thoroughness, but you can beexpected to demand thorough, accurate and detailed reports from city staff. Anyone who hasreviewed documents knows that a lack of attention to detail in one area signals that therewill likely be poor attention to detail throughout. If details aren’t attended to it signals todevelopers that details don’t matter and their submissions to the city will reflect that reality.You need thorough, complete reports to do your jobs properly, and the public has a right toexpect you to demand them. Thank you for your consideration of my comments. Marcia Kaveney From:Marcia Kaveney To:Chuck Winn; Bozeman Public Comment; Tom Rogers Subject:[EXTERNAL]Project 24626, CD Board meeting June 16, "25 Date:Monday, June 16, 2025 11:46:29 AM 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 Community Board Members- I am writing to object to application 24626 moving forward until the applicant resubmits their 001 ZMA Exhibit and includes the labeling and location of any existing water bodies and wetlands as required by the Zone Map Amendment requirements. These labels are currently missing from their exhibit. A viewer cannot tell which contour lines indicate wetlands and which indicate open bodies of water. This is unacceptable work. See Figure 4 of the staff report or follow this link to the online documents: https://weblink.bozeman.net/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=299767&dbid=0&repo=BOZEMAN) In a June 3 email exchange, Tom Rogers confirmed this labeling is a ZMA requirement but said, "The Development Review Committee (DRC) has reviewed the application and found it adequate for continued review for the purpose of map amendments." and that he couldn't require a revision to the applicant's map at this time. He also assured me, "that evaluation of environmental consideration does not occur at this stage and will be examined with development." However, while I understand more environmental consideration will occur at a later date, I object to the DRC's allowance of an incomplete application to move forward in the review process. The lack of labels might seem like a minor mistake, and may even have been an oversight, but this is exactly the type of mistake I believe the City Commission, advisory boards, and City planners need to stop allowing. They and the public deserve accurate information and adherence to application requirements. This code is not ambiguous nor arduous. The application should not have been allowed to move forward, or if the missing labeling was a mistake, then it needs to be corrected before being reviewed by the City Commission. Thank you for your consideration of my comments, Marcia Kaveney