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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-28-26 Public Comment - M. Bateson - Interim Zoning and Height Limit in B-3 – 2026-2027 Priorities Section 4From:Mary Bateson To:Bozeman Public Comment; Chuck Winn; Joey Morrison; Douglas Fischer; Emma Bode; Jennifer Madgic; AlisonSweeney Subject:[EXTERNAL]Interim Zoning and Height Limit in B-3 – 2026-2027 Priorities Section 4 Date:Sunday, April 26, 2026 3:38:38 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 City Commissioners, Thank you for including in your 2026-2027 Bozeman City Commission Priorities Section 4 Protect Bozeman’s heritage, neighborhoods, and environment. Please discuss the requests for an Interim Zoning Ordinance as Landmark, Historic Preservation, and NCOD projects are progressing. Please add to the list UDC and zone map revisions the City Commission is considering the issue of height limit reduction in the B-3 Zones. Several City Commissioners (Douglas Fischer, Jennifer Madgic and Joey Morrison) spoke of the need for discussion of the issue at the December 16, 2026 City Commission meeting. I include my transcription of that part of the meeting, produced with the aid of closed captioning and listening to the video of the meeting. Sincerely, Mary Bateson, Bozeman resident December 16, 2025 Part of City Commission Meeting (transcribed using Video Closed Captioning, by Mary Bateson, April 23, 2026) 2:29:19 Douglas Fischer >> We are on the cusp of approving a 500-page massive overhaul of our -how we grow, how we build, what our city looks like. And we have got this hick up at the last minute here with this decision on B3. That 90 foot limit was part of the plan. It was deliberate. It was discussed with the public. You know, it was made with very specific purposes in mind. I was in the UDC for almost 18 months. And then without a lot of discussion, we changed that at the very end of a very long meeting two weeks ago. So we can argue various reasons for 90 feet versus 70 feet, but I want to set that aside right now and argue that we don't have a good track record of making big legislative changes from this dais without --essentially at the last minute. I can point to urban camping. We made some changes that had really big ripple effects for us. Affordable housing ordinance. We made some changes from the dais. Also a big impact that we have never really solved. Even the fire station, we kind of overruled all of our downtown awards and said we are going to make that affordable and that fire station is still sitting there downtown undeveloped. So to me, the amount of public uproar and interest in this issue here at the 59th minute of the 11th hour underscores the interest in the need for a morerobust public discussion akin to what produced that 90 foot limit in the first place. And to me, the fairest and neatest way to proceed is to return to the UDC text to what it was and what we had public input on an public discussion on and advice from our advisory committees and our downtown groups. And not -- kind of not make a sudden move not make a last-minute change, and then see how – have this discussion with evidence, with our advisory groups involved, with -- kind of as the process is that we have put in place to make big legislative decisions. This is clearly a bigger legislative decision than I anticipated when I reported on this two weeks ago. That is why I recommend we just be prudent, take a breath. I think it is interesting. We could say there's a lot of stuff. Go slow. This to me would be going slow. Moving from 90 to 70 feet is going fast. It's making an abrupt change. Carrying out the goals of the entire community as commissioner said, this 90 feet reflects the goals of the entire community. It was a thoughtful process. Let me just leave it there and see how my other fellow commissioners feel about this. 2:33 >> Commissioner Bode >> Thank you, Mayor. Yeah. I have just been really in a place of deliberation over the past two weeks since this happened hearing that, oh, we have moved too quickly and also hearing, great, I'm so thrilled. You should have gone further down to 60. I guess I want to go back to that moment when I proposed the amendment, we have been receiving comments about this. Do we want to have a conversation about it? I did not initiate that with the intent to make a clear motion, but after going around the horn, we were all I think open to the idea of this being a lower height. And then I pulled up that section of the 2019 downtown plan that had the --you could have these articulations. You could have a step back. You could do affordable housing if you go up to the seven stories. Add my argument at that point was, I'm not certain that we are doing any of those things as we are going up to seven stories. And so maybe we are not actually in alignment with the 2019 downtown plan. What I have heard from staff today is that we actually do have those additional design guidelines instituted in this updated UDC. So I think that checks one box of the three. The other two stepping back --a blanket step back from the stories is not in there. And then the long-term affordability through smaller units feels a little bit dubious to me. I don't think we are getting that necessarily with the 90 feet --the additional 20 feet. But I think we could, and it sounds like the affordable housing ordinance --we have not seen examples of people utilizing the affordable housing ordinance in this zone for that additional height currently. And so I heard the argument in public comment it is not working at the current height that we have. Given all of that, I think I'm in this kind of great space of while the 2019 plan set all of these things not as you shall institute these things to get up to 70 --but it did seem pretty clear -- I'm sorry, seven stories. It did seem pretty clear about the seven stories part. The additional design guidelines to kind of break up the massing. I do think we are doing that. I think I could be moved back to 90. But I'm interested in hearing some of my other colleagues' thoughts. 2:25:54 Jennifer Madgic >> I want another level of discussion and input from the community. I don't like it when we've got this rift. And so I am inclined to not make a decision tonight to kick this to a work session with the public. I'm not sure that I'm curious to hear others. 2:37:47 >>Joey Morrison>> The honor of going forth again. I think there is a few threads that I want to comment on. one is, yeah, the feeling generally grateful for just that we do second readings on these. To have a conversation of here is why we are keeping it away we did or here is what we want to change. I think I generally -- I gave a pretty apathetic support when we did this on the second. I'm certainly not afraid of tall buildings. I think if there is a place where going to put the tallest buildings of the community, downtown is supported in all of our plans. It is supported by a lot of fairly robust housing policy or planning policy around the country that this is where it should go. It doesn't have to be the case everywhere. I think when we are looking to what our peer communities compare us to, I what our peer communities compare us to, I think comparing us to Charleston or Jackson or anywhere makes it hard--muddies this conversation. Boston, Massachusetts also has a beautiful historic character to it. It is significantly more dense than us. If we adopt this at 70 feet, we would actually be one of the shortest downtowns in Montana. most other cities in Montana have taller buildings than what we are discussing tonight. That doesn't mean we have to do with those other communities do. It also doesn't mean we need to fear where they have gone. And that has sort of been the underpinning of some of the conversation that I have watched play out. one of the things I have liked and loathed about this conversation so far of where we have gotten --I have really deeply respected and appreciated public comments, written and verbal, that were divorced from motivation attacks. Of saying this is why somebody is saying something or this is why nobody is doing that and just taking it at face value. Here is why I am doing this or this is what I believe and here is the reason or the rationale. This conversation becomes harder to have when it becomes, this is why somebody else is saying something, which means we are not even listening to what they necessarily likely said. So all of that to say I think I wish that I had been a no to this amendment on the 2nd. So by proxy I'm interested in supporting going back up to 90 feet tonight. But if it feels like that is the direction we are going to go, I'm happy to make more findings. but I'm not really sure. 2:40:39 Mayor Cunningham >> Thanks for sharing that. (Cunningham comments not included…) 2:43:32 Emma Bode >> Commissioner Madgic suggested the idea of, what if we just don't make the decision tonight, and I'm having a hard time understanding if we can even do that. It seems like this is the night where we make a decision. And if we want to adjust that, we will need to initiate another process to return it. Could staff just give us some guidance there? Is it possible to set aside this one chunk and pass the rest? 2:44 Madgic >> To clarify, I was just suggesting to keep it at 70 with a marker that we are going to talk about it Bode >> Okay. That is an important clarification. Thanks. Madgic >> Can you clarify or restate your motion, please? Or restate your motion, please? 2:44:41 Fischer >> Definitely. We would move to return the B3 text to the 90 foot height limit as reflected in the December 2nd UDC draft presented to the commission. Madgic >> okay. And I just want to clarify, I do think there are appropriate areas for 90 feet in this B3 district. I just don't think it should be a blanket even with some of the protections that we have. And I agree with some of the public comment that there is opportunity to get public benefit with that increased height, and I think we are missing that option. 2:45:44 Commissioner Fischer. >> Part of the thing is that it is clear that question gets to the core of what I think produced 60 public comments and 25 responses today. And I think that iswhat deserves a larger, more thoughtful, more deliberative discussion. Not at the 11th hour here as the page document. I think that is a discussion we could have perhaps as we have been talking about revisiting the affordable housing ordinance. We are going to set our priorities with a new commissioner and a new commission in January. This could be one of the items that we look at. We could. But in general, I think that kind of discussion of what do we get for 90 feet? What do you get for height and density in our downtown? You know, we have tried to bring affordability downtown in multiple ways so that we have the fire station. We give them $2 million. We gave the buyer roughly $2 million between a price break and subsidies. And he has not been able to bring anything out of the ground on that site. The Downtown Bozeman Association annually makes $200,000 available for folks to bring in workforce housing. The past six years, just one person has applied for that. I think we need a larger discussion. And at the same token, we have our downtown urban renewal district. Makes a really good point that this gives flexibility. This is paired with strong design standards, which we have put into thanks to our community development board you cannot build a freestone apartment building anymore with this new code. You can build something that looks like where cafe m is across the street from the library. We have strong design standards in this UDC. And a 90-foot --you know, the height actually allows us to maintain vitality. It brings tax revenue. It brings people downtown to support downtown. So this is just one view, you know, of what height is. I think that was part of what was the thinking as reflected in the December 2nd draft that had been there for two years. And if those assumptions are --need to be challenged, I would ask – I guess there is already a lot of thinking already into that 90 foot view. And then the 70 foot switch changed that pretty quickly. 2:49 30 Joey Morrison>> … But I still think it means for us in the future to have thatconversation of what is --what is a desirable height for this zoning district? I don't think it is what we have really catalyzed here. It being 90 feet for quite a long time. We did not receive a single comment on it until December 1st. Suddenly we are having this whole conversation about it. I don't think anything else we received public comments on that late spurred us into action. The dark skies suggestions. Audubon society suggestions. We felt like those would be too substantive to do so late in the process, so it does feel like saying 90 feet has been the plan. You know, it incorporated components within the downtown plan growth policy, et cetera, of the intentions of this --much of the UDC rewrite that it feels like this is actually the spot stating the default to change and 70 is not saying, here is the default. Here is the no sudden moves. Let'shave that conversation in the future. I think the 90 feet is actually us saying, this is a conversation we need to have. 2:50 Mayor Cunningham >> Any additional comments before we put it to a vote?