HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-14-26 Public Comment - M. Bateson - Support for an interim zoning ordinance during NCOD updateFrom:Mary Bateson
To:Bozeman Public Comment; Erin George; Rebecca Harbage; Joey Morrison; Douglas Fischer; Emma Bode;Jennifer Madgic; Alison Sweeney
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Support for an interim zoning ordinance during NCOD update
Date:Tuesday, April 14, 2026 11:47:48 AM
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To HPAB: Please make a recommendation to the City Commission to adopt an IZO while the
NCOD is being updated. (Please share this comment with the Historic Preservation Advisory
Board in advance of their April 15 meeting.)
To the Bozeman City Commission: Please adopt an IZO while the NCOD is being updated.
Please find an addendum with a transcript of the discussion held at the July 14, 2025 City
Commission meeting, covering the legality of the City of Bozeman enacting interim zoning.
Bozeman is well positioned legally to implement an Interim Zoning Ordinance (IZO). There is
precedent.
There is also public support for this action. Recently, several hundred residents both from
within and outside of the NCOD participated in a basic survey organized by the Inter-
Neighborhood Council (INC) to gauge interest in enacting an IZO. 428 residents responded to
the survey, with 83% supporting that the City Commission consider an IZO for one year while
NCOD guidelines are updated. At a minimum, the City Commission should discuss this
proposal publically. To ignore this request erodes public trust.
A local government may adopt an IZO as “an urgency measure to regulate or prohibit uses
that may conflict with a zoning proposal that the governing body is considering." NCOD
guidelines are about to undergo an overhaul. I support the City Commission adopting an IZO
to temporarily prohibit demolitions and new large developments (e.g. over 30,000 sq ft)
within the NCOD until the update is complete and until the City can hire a new Historic
Preservation Officer.
Thank you for your consideration,
Mary Bateson, Bozeman Resident
Addendum
City Commission transcript on the topic of Interim Zoning, Commission meeting July 14, 2025
~Time 2:26: Commissioner Jennifer Madgic: can you please talk about, just briefly, what thatmoratorium would look like and if it's legal?
Community Development Manager Chris Saunders: Sure. The cities currently working under
chapter 2 part 3 which has its own language on what they call urgency ordinances which isdifferent than the language from MLUPA*. So we need to keep those separated. We cannotuse the MLUPA language until after we have adopted the language and so that's off the table.
So the urgency ordinance we currently are working under has an initial time limit and not
more than six months and we have to be able to articulate what has happened that justifiesthis urgency. Sometimes people use the term emergency ordinance. We’ve used that inseveral occasions and one that comes to mind is when the Federal Government years and
years ago decided that we weren't going to have two telecommunication providers in the
nation. We were going to have eight that provided wireless services and their expectation wasthere would be this wave of towers rolling across the country sticking up willy-nilly across thecommunity and so the city said, wait a minute. This has changed outside of our control. We
put the pause in place while we went through a code writing process that specifically adopted
regulations for telecommunication standards, and then that took effect. So we can do themand they require pretty intensive work on the staff side to figure out what is it we're doing,
what is it we're correcting and that's how it worked and looks like the city attorney would like
to share thoughts.
Time 2:27 City Attorney Greg Sullivan:
The City of Bozeman, in addition to what Chris has said has used interim zoning, that's what
the statute calls it for short-term rentals. That was seven or eight years ago, and so there's
two components that you have to keep in mind, and one is you have to make the finding thatthere is something going on in community that would require you to act quickly and theinterim zoning, all it does is dispense with the standard adoption for the amendments and so
one of the things that it dispenses with is a public hearing in front of the zoning commission.
It also expedites the noticing procedure. There still is notice required and a public hearing infront of the commission. So all it really does is sort of shorten the timeframe that you wouldotherwise need to engage in if you had a standard zone text amendment or a standard zone
map of a process. so in addition, to get that shorter timeframe, you have to identify the thingthat's happening in the community that you need to address quickly, and you have to alsoidentify that you have a process undertaken or you are undertaking a process that wouldaddress that same issue.
One more thing, Chris mentioned the current Title 76 statutes and what happens under theMLUPA. They're pretty similar in the standard that you have to follow for interim zoning.There is a protest that you have to consider under current state law, that protest provision. Ican't tell if it's applicable under MLUPA but I know MLUPA doesn't have protest. So, there are
some subtle differences, but I think what Chris has said is right on. I just want you to considerthe shorter timeframe and what you have to do to get that shorter timeframe.
* Montana Land Use Planning Act (MLUPA or SB 382)