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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-08-25 - Sustainability Board - Agendas & Packet MaterialsA. Call to Order - 6:00 PM B. Disclosures C. Changes to the Agenda D. Public Service Announcements E. Public Comments on Non-agenda Items Falling within the Purview and Jurisdiction of the Board THE SUSTAINABILITY BOARD OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA SB AGENDA Wednesday, September 10, 2025 General information about the Sustainability Board can be found in our Laserfiche repository. If you are interested in commenting in writing on items on the agenda please send an email to comments@bozeman.net or by visiting the Public Comment Page prior to 12:00pm on the day of the meeting. At the direction of the City Commission, anonymous public comments are not distributed to the Board or staff. Public comments will also be accepted in-person and through Video Conference during the appropriate agenda items. As always, the meeting will be streamed through the Commission's video page and available in the City on cable channel 190. For more information please contact Natalie Meyer, nmeyer@bozeman.net This meeting will be held both in-person and also using an online videoconferencing system. You can join this meeting: Via Video Conference: Click the Register link, enter the required information, and click submit. Click Join Now to enter the meeting. Via Phone: This is for listening only if you cannot watch the stream, channel 190, or attend in- person United States Toll +1 346 248 7799 Access code: 934 9305 9514 This is the time to comment on any non-agenda matter falling within the scope of the Sustainability Board. There will also be time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment relating to that item but you may only speak once per topic. Please note, the Board cannot take action on any item which does not appear on the agenda. All persons addressing the Board shall speak in a civil and courteous manner and members of the audience shall be respectful of others. Please state your name, and state whether you are a resident of the city or a property owner within the city in an audible tone of voice for the record and limit your comments to three 1 F. Special Presentations F.1 69th Montana Legislative Session Recap(Meyer) G. FYI/Discussion G.1 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Solutions and Priorities Work Session Part 1 (Meyer) H. Adjournment minutes. General public comments to the Board can be found on their Laserfiche repository page. This board generally meets on the second Wednesday of the month 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Citizen Advisory Board meetings are open to all members the public. If you have a disability that requires assistance, please contact our ADA Coordinator, David Arnado, at 406.582.3232. 2 Memorandum REPORT TO:Sustainability Board FROM:Natalie Meyer, Sustainability Program Manager Jon Henderson, Assistant City Manager SUBJECT:69th Montana Legislative Session Recap MEETING DATE:September 10, 2025 AGENDA ITEM TYPE:Plan/Report/Study RECOMMENDATION:None STRATEGIC PLAN:1.3 Public Agencies Collaboration: Foster successful collaboration with other public agencies and build on these successes. BACKGROUND: The 2025 Montana Legislative Session convened from January 6 through April 30, 2025. During the session, 1,769 bills were introduced, and 884 were passed by the Legislature. City staff from all departments engaged in the process by reviewing legislation and providing input—either through formal testimony or coordination with Central House Strategies—on bills that could affect City operations or adopted plans. As bill drafts became available, staff evaluated them for departmental relevance. A legislative core team met weekly to identify and prioritize key legislation. Staff led by the Economic Development Department gave a Special Presentation to the City Commission on August 19, 2025 to highlight the priority bills tracked throughout the session and outline how they are expected to impact City operations. Sustainability Program Manager, Natalie Meyer, will provide a summary of the presentation with an emphasis on bills related to energy and sustainability. UNRESOLVED ISSUES:None. 3 ALTERNATIVES:As suggested by the Sustainability Board. FISCAL EFFECTS:None. Attachments: Bozeman post-session report 7.15.2025 FINAL.pdf Report compiled on: June 18, 2025 4 2025 Montana Legislature Post-session Report Prepared by Central House Strategies Legislative Landscape The 69th Legislative Session was controlled by republican majorities in both chambers and Governor Greg Gianforte. Over 50 bill drafts were filed that targeted local land use regulations and local government budget authority. The rhetoric around property tax relief largely targeted local government spending as the culprit rather than changing circumstances in the state and policies that have shifted property tax burden away from industrial and commercial and on to residential properties. Although current state law caps the growth of local government revenue authority to the rate of inflation, the increasing costs of building and maintaining basic infrastructure and providing essential city services far outpaces these state-imposed limitations. Land use bills sought to preempt local zoning authority and restrict local government’s ability to manage the infrastructure and financial impacts of new development. Economic development efforts were also targeted through several tax increment finance bills introduced early in the session. These bills sought to limit the return of the increment to local taxing jurisdictions, changing requirements for advisory boards, and public hearings regarding TIF districts. Legislation and Outcomes The City of Bozeman prioritized bill tracking and lobbying efforts through two main criteria: Impact on existing operations and impact on implementing adopted plans. Bills were further categorized and prioritized during weekly meetings to discuss lobbying and committee hearing strategy. This summary highlights several of the most impactful bills that passed this session. A full list of bills with status and effective date is at the end of this summary. ● HB 20: Require voted levies to be in dollars rather than mills and subjects voted levies to the requirements of 15-10-420 (Brewster) ○ Impact: Subjects the city’s voted levies to 15-10-420 and limits the ability to keep up with rising year over year staffing costs of providing public safety services and any city operations funded through voted levies. ○ Outcome: Amendments exempt school district levies from 15-10-420. Amendments to subject voted levies to inflation failed and language was reverted back to subjecting voted levies to 15-10-420. Annual revenue growth from voted levies will slow and the city will have to change the way that ballot language is crafted for future voted levies and anticipate rising year over year costs in setting the dollar amount levied. ● SB 117: Revise government entity limitations on property tax increases (D. Zolnikov) ○ Impact: Authorizes local governments to create and contribute to a “large taxpayer reserve account” meant to mitigate impacts to a city’s tax base if a large contributor goes 5 ○ out of business or no longer provides a significant contribution to a city’s taxable value. Changes 15-10-420 to raise the inflationary rate from ½ the rate of inflation to full inflation up to a 4% cap and reduces the contribution of newly taxable from 100% to 75% for residential properties, and 40% of most other classes and TIF. ○ Outcome: The main factor limiting the ability of local governments to increase their budgets to meet increasing demand and costs of providing services will no longer be the rate of inflation, but the ability to fully include newly taxable value that is added to the tax base from new development in a given year. ● HB 492: Revise municipal zoning laws related to parking requirements (K. Zolnikov) ○ Impact: Would have drastically limited the ability for a local government to require parking to be built for a number of different types of development and a ban on any parking requirements for residential units under 1200 square feet. Would result in no on- site ADA accessible spaces for some residential developments. ○ Outcome: Amendments were added to reduce the severity of the bill for communities not subject to the Montana Land Use & Planning Act (MLUPA) by striking the requirement for local governments to reimburse developers for on-site parking, and allowing cities to require no more than one half parking space for residential units under 1200 square feet (MCA 76-2-304). For Bozeman and other communities subject to MLUPA (MCA 76-25- 303), parking requirements are prohibited for residential units under 1,200 square feet. The passage of this bill impacts the parking incentives outlined in the city’s Affordable Housing Ordinance. ● SB 243: Amend zoning regulations to allow taller buildings (Boldman) ○ Impact: Would prevent cities from restricting building height in commercial zones. ○ Outcome: Amended to prevent cities from limiting building height to a height less than 60’ in commercial areas. This has little impact in Bozeman given present code that outlines 4 stories which is approximately 60’ in commercial developments in Bozeman’s downtown and commercial areas. ● SB 33: State buildings subject to state building code review (Hertz) ○ Impact: Transfers responsibility of plan review, permitting, inspection, and code enforcement of any state-owned or operated buildings in from the local review authority to the state Department of Labor & Industry. ○ Outcome: The City of Bozeman will no longer have review, permitting, inspection or code enforcement authority on MSU’s campus or any other state owned or operated buildings in city limits. ● HB 394: Revise local government public notice and resolution requirements ○ Impact: Changes MCA 7-1-4127(7)(a) to clarify business days instead of calendar days and specify the first notice must be published 15 business days out and the second, 5 business days before the hearing or action to be taken. Applies to noticing for resolutions and hearings for assessments, preliminary budget hearings, growth policy hearings and zoning and subdivision hearings that refer to 7-1-4127. ○ Outcome: Creates more clarity for the public and for clerks administering public noticing requirements. Some noticing periods may become longer. 6 ● Water policy/nutrient standards: Together, Bozeman supported these three bills to provide clarity around nutrient standards set by state and federal rules. ○ HB 664 Repeal numeric nutrient standards (Mercer). Directs DEQ to repeal and amend current standards to set achievable discharge thresholds for nitrogen and phosphorus while maintaining and improving water quality in surface waters. ○ HB 736 Provide nutrient pollutant loading offsets (S. Fitzpatrick). Provides a predictable tool for offset planning and provides flexibility for discharges to comply with discharge permit limits. ○ HB 685 Feasibility allowance for nondegradation policy (S. Fitzpatrick). Changes terminology from “nondegradation” to “feasibility allowance.” ● Property taxes: The final vehicle for property tax relief this session came down to the combined passage of HB 231 and SB 542 in the final day of session. The following is an overview of the relief provided by this package. 2025 changes: $400 rebates for owner-occupied primary residences - similar application process to the Governor's rebates. The application process will be noticed in June 2025 and the application will be open August 15th - October 1st, 2025. Automatically implements tiered residential rates for ALL residences (regardless of whether they're a second home or short term rental) with an increase in rates for homes valued over $1.5m. ● Ag rate drops from 2.16% to 2.05% ● Commercial is assessed at 1.4% for the value below $400k and 1.89% for the value above $400k ● Residential is subject to a tiered rate structure based on assessed market value: ○ First $400k of market value is 0.76% ○ $400k-$1.5 million is 1.1% ○ Over $1.5 million is 2.2% ○ The maximum rate for multifamily dwelling units with a market value of greater than $2 million is 1.89% if the dwelling units are leased at 150% or less of the county fair market rent (by county as defined by HUD). The property owner must certify lease rates to the department of revenue. 2026 and beyond: Homestead + long term rental reduced rate for primary residences and long term rentals below 4x median ($1.4m). Application process will be noticed by October 30th, 2025 for the application window that opens between Dec 1st, 2025 and March 1st, 2026. ● Ag stays at 2.05% ● Commercial is assessed at 1.5% for the value less than 6x median (currently $2.1m) market value and 1.9% for any value over 6x median market value ● Residential is subject to a tiered rate structure based on statewide median value: ○ Value less than or equal to statewide median value (currently $356k) 0.76% ○ Value between median and 2x median ($356k up to $713k) 0.9% ○ Value between 2x median and 4x median ($713K up to $1.4 million) 1.1% ○ Value of 4x median and greater ($1.4 million) is 1.9% ○ The tax rate for a rental multifamily dwelling unit described in subsection (1)(b)(iv) that qualifies for the rental property reduced tax rate is 1.1%. 7 Next steps: 1. Track the ranking and assignment of study bills to interim committees 2. Monitor and engage in interim committee meetings 3. Monitor and engage in rulemaking and implementation of new legislation around municipal budget, property tax relief, land use/zoning bills, and water quality/quanitity. 4. Continue to strengthen relationships with the Bozeman delegation through 1-1 meetings, site visits, facility tours, invitations to city events 8 Memorandum REPORT TO:Sustainability Board FROM:Kesslie Carlson-Ham, Sustainability Program Analyst Natalie Meyer, Sustainability Program Manager Jon Henderson, Assistant City Manager SUBJECT:Greenhouse Gas Reduction Solutions and Priorities Work Session Part 1 MEETING DATE:September 10, 2025 AGENDA ITEM TYPE:Citizen Advisory Board/Commission RECOMMENDATION:Greenhouse Gas Reduction Solutions and Priorities Work Session Part 1 STRATEGIC PLAN:6.3 Climate Action: Reduce community and municipal Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, increase the supply of clean and renewable energy; foster related businesses. BACKGROUND:On July 9, 2025, the Sustainability Division presented the draft 2024 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Report to the Sustainability Board. The final report will be shared with the Bozeman City Commission on September 9, 2025. The report details sector-level changes in emissions from the baseline year of 2008 to 2024. While overall emissions per person have declined since 2008, overall emissions have continued to increase with population growth. The 2020 Bozeman Climate Plan includes GHG emissions and clean energy goals. During the development of the Climate Plan, City staff, subject matter experts, and members of the community were consulted in the development of sector-level strategies designed to mitigate local GHG emissions. Each sector includes a solution-level analysis of the emissions reductions necessary to achieve our climate goals. During this work session, staff will review the solutions, actions, and assumptions included in the Climate Plan, and discuss progress on the implementation of the solutions and actions. Board members may refer to the Bozeman Climate Plan and the Climate Plan Dashboard for supporting information and background. Advisory Board members will be invited to ask questions and discuss the assumptions included in the Climate Plan and the implementation priorities. A subsequent work session will provide an opportunity for the board to recommend priority actions. This feedback will be used by staff to help develop the 2026-2027 board work plans in alignment with the City Commission's adopted priorities. 9 UNRESOLVED ISSUES:None. ALTERNATIVES:As suggested by the Sustainability Board. FISCAL EFFECTS:None. Report compiled on: September 5, 2025 10