HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-01-25 Public Comment - D. Loseff - Public comment on new UDC 38.220.050From:David Loseff
To:Terry Cunningham; Douglas Fischer; Jennifer Madgic; Emma Bode; Joey Morrison; Bozeman Public Comment
Cc:Alison Sweeney; mike hope
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public comment on new UDC 38.220.050
Date:Friday, November 28, 2025 3:59:22 PM
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Dear Mayor and City Commissioners,
I respectfully object to the provision of the new UDC which sets a substantially increasedallowed height of 90' in the B-3 downtown district. While I understand that new State
legislation sets a minimum height of 60' for downtown areas.......and that appears to be theheight limit which you are applying for the B-3C, B2 and B-2M, I believe that you should also
apply the 60' height limit for the B-3 district......covering the downtown in its entirety for 3reasons:
First: Preserve quaint historic pedestrian friendly streetscape feel: We currently have a
wonderful and quaint downtown which balances height and backdrop mountain views. It ispedestrian friendly as opposed by big building caverns. Increasing the building heights will
destroy that quaint downtown feel. Other special western towns preserve their historic corestreetscape with even lower height limits such as Aspen (42' and lower with some mechanical
addition), Boulder (38') and Jackson WY (30' and potentially up to 39'). There are also rulesabout height limit adjacencies, and compatibility. The current proposal of 90' in the B-3 is
over 2x those height limits. I understand that you can't go below the State Legislature setminimum of 60' but why go one inch above that height?
Simply visualize the portion of Mendenhall comprised of the Amory, 5West, AC Marriott,
Westin Element and the Parking Garage----which are all around 60'-70'......a big buildingcavernous stretch of our downtown, dark with no sunlight or views and hardly quaint or
inviting by any measure.....just big structure masses lined up across from each other for 2blocks........and then add 20-30' of additional height to these buildings.....at 2 or possibly 3
more stories to each of those buildings or 90' total.....and that is what this 90' B-3 heightallowance is creating throughout the balance of our B-3.
Second: Why Give Away for Free potential Affordable Housing Incentives?: Even if you
accepted 90' high structures in the B-3, why give it away for free instead of using theadditional height as an incentive for extracting affordable housing benefits for the City from
developers instead of giving the extra height away for free. Mayor Cunningham, othercommissioners and David Fine have repeatedly complained that the State Legislature has
taken away from the City the ability to extract affordable housing concessions. Theseconcessions take the form of either relaxing parking requirements or allowing additional
height above UDC limits. This complaint about the State legislature taking away much of thecity tools to extract more affordable housing is absolutely true and will be further worsened by
their recent rules on virtually eliminating parking requirements. Given this unfortunatesituation, why would the City Commission voluntarily eliminate their only remaining leverage
by increasing UDC height limits to 90'? Instead, you should set a maximum height limit of 60'(which is the state legislative minimum allowed height limit in the downtown) and then
require affordable housing concessions from developers for anything built above the 60'maximum height in the B-3 to the extent you are willing to allow any new development higher
than 60'.
Third: Higher building, higher density impacts on already scarce parking: The combination ofthe State Legislature's restrictions on imposing any downtown parking requirements for nex
development combined with allowing buildings to reach heights of 90' (or even higher withbonus allowances?....which would be awful).......but combining higher buildings and
consequent higher density with essentially eliminated parking requirements is a recipe forhuge parking congestion problems in our entire downtown area and neighboring areas like the
South and North sides neighborhoods.....which are already plagued by parking availabilityissues and will also getting further hammered by Guthrie, North Central, and future higher
density buildouts with four plexes, 8 plexes, etc. per new State rules. The new UDC rules,which are fully in your control, are setting the foundation for the next 20 years and this
combination of substantially increased height and eliminated parking requirements is aformula for a trainwreck on the parking capacity and road congestion front. Keeping height
limits at 60' (with potential increases arising from affordable housing incentives) would atleast partially mitigate the impact of these problems.
Overall, we have something very special in our entire downtown.......let's not screw it up by
bringing in excessively tall and over massing our entire downtown area. 60' height restrictionsare substantial and substantially higher than the height allowances granted in other comparable
neighboring cool western towns like Aspen, Boulder, Jackson and numerous other placeswhich have faced huge influxes of big institutional developer money and have had to work
hard at trying to preserve its core history. The big institutional development money cominginto our town is driven to maximize scale and profits vs. preserving history, culture and the
unique special attributes of our town and thus it is incumbent on the City Commission to bethe watchdogs and set tighter development limits to safeguard the attributes which make
downtown Bozeman special.
Respectfully,David Loseff
105 W. Main St.Bozeman, MT 59715