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Home My WebLink About01-22-26 Public Comment - E. Cope - BID 12_21_26 Public Comment letterFrom:Emily Cope To:eric@360commercialmanagement.com; eric@owenhouse.com; Erik Nelson; frescocafe317@gmail.com; Ileana@delaneynco.com; mkehke@pacv.com; Randy Scully (randy@scullypartnergroup.com) Cc:Ellie Staley; Douglas Fischer; Bozeman Public Comment Subject:[EXTERNAL]FW: BID 12/21/26 Public Comment letter----Please submit at today"s meeting Date:Wednesday, January 21, 2026 10:18:15 AM Attachments:Bozeman. UDC height. petition. 1.13.26.pdf 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. Good Morning, Please see the email and attachment submitted for public comment. See most of you in a little bit! Emily Cope Economic Development Director Downtown Bozeman Partnership 222 East Main Street #302 | Bozeman MT 59715 406-586-4008 | www.downtownbozeman.org The Downtown Business Improvement District and Downtown Urban Renewal District are City of Bozeman entities administered by the Downtown Bozeman Partnership. City of Bozeman emails are subject to the Right to Know provisions of Montana’s Constitution (Art. II, Sect. 9) and may be considered a “public record” pursuant to Title 2, Chpt. 6, Montana Code Annotated. As such, this email, its sender and receiver, and the contents may be available for public disclosure and will be retained pursuant to the City’s record retention policies. Emails that contain confidential information such as information related to individual privacy may be protected from disclosure under law. From: David Loseff <dploseff@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2026 9:42 AM To: Ileana Indreland (Ileana@delaneynco.com) <Ileana@delaneynco.com>; Emily Cope <Emily@downtownbozeman.org>; Ellie Staley <ellie@downtownbozeman.org>; Randy Scully <randy@scullypartnergroup.com>; randy@scullywestproperties.com Cc: mike hope <mkwnhope@aol.com>; Cory Lawrence <coryl@offthebeatenpath.com>; Ashley Ogle <ashleyogle@kenyonnoble.com>; harte14@yahoo.com; Jim Webster <jwebster587@gmail.com> Subject: BID 12/21/26 Public Comment letter----Please submit at today's meeting Dear BID Board, As you should be aware, the recently approved new UDC which goes into effect on February 1, 2026 was amended to increase allowed building heights in the B3 to 90'...which effectively adds 2 additional stories to the existing 70' level.....and buildings can go up to 2 stories higher with affordable housing bonus density increases....ie. 10 story buildings. These changes will have a tremendous adverse impact on our already congested downtown parking and traffic situation. Adding significant height and density without any commensurate increases in parking will worsen our downtown parking situation......simple and obvious math. To the extent that the BID as a group and/or individual downtown property and business owners are serious about addressing our challenging downtown parking situation, it needs to proactively get engaged in opposing the B3 height increase. A Daines/Post Office parking garage deal may or may not happen but adding density without increasing parking will unquestionably exacerbate an existing problem for downtown property and business owners. While other community members are proactively opposing this pending B3 height increase due to other significant adverse impacts arising from this height allowance change.......eg. effectively gutting the City's affordable housing bonus density program by giving away the extra height for free. and others opposing its adverse impacts on our quaint downtown walkable ambience, viewsheds, sunlight impacts, etc (see attached public petition letter which over 120 residents signed within 2 hours of issuance) my reason for presenting this issue to the BID board is due to its looming adverse parking impacts. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/guest_columnists/michelle-osman- city-commission-s-multi-million-xmas-gift-to-out-of-town-developers/article_c47a7fb9- a7a4-4694-b92f-4140f279b8e8.html The one reason provided by the City for allowing the increased building heights is that taller buildings will result in increased property tax yields for the City. That was the same rationale given for allowing Holloran to build his 140 room AC Marriott Hotel on the old Straightaway Motors site without requiring his creation of one single new parking space while also allowing him to avoid paying over $2.65 million in cash-in-lieu fees under city rules at that time. But while the City may benefit from reaping higher tax revenues, it comes at the direct expense to downtown businesses and property owners in the form of reduced publicly accessible parking downtown. As you may know, downtown properties (and its tenants via NNN leases) pay 20-25x the property tax per square foot paid by other properties/businesses in Bozeman outside of our downtown area. Part of the reason is because other businesses such as Walmart own their own parking lots and pay lower rates on their parking lots resulting in a lower average property tax bill for them. Downtown properties and businesses can only afford to pay these huge premium property taxes to the City with the City providing public parking......a simple symbiotic relationship. To pay the City's high property taxes, we need customers and customers need accessible parking spaces. However, when the City allows increased building heights without addressing commensurate parking needs, the City tax revenues grow while throwing downtown business and property owners under the bus. And the City's next "solution" will be to further increase taxes on downtown customers by instituting paid parking........while increasing the parking problem with increased building heights. I have heard from various fellow downtown property owners that they "don't want to make waves" or "want to get along, go along" or basically avoid becoming the proverbial "fart in church." That's nice and comfortable but similar to many of you, I have invested millions into my downtown property just like my tenants and many of my neighbors and having accessible public parking for customers is fundamental to preserving the economic vitality and viability of our downtown. Ironically, I am arguably less impacted by the parking situation than my neighbors because the Baxter is a destination location and we also own our own parking lot. Nonetheless this parking issue is critical to our entire historic downtown, our smaller neighboring businesses, etc. and now is the time to stand up and be counted. Hopefully the BID and its members will take a leadership position, either as a group or as individual business leaders and engage on this issue of utmost importance to our downtown. Respectfully, David Loseff The Baxter and its operating businesses and employees.