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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-19-26 Public Comment - L. Semones - Attention Bozeman City Commissioners, Community Development Director Erin George, HPAB members and the Lakota Group From: Linda Semones To: Bozeman Public Comment Subject: [EXTERNAL]Attention Bozeman City Commissioners,Community Development Director Erin George,HPAB members and the Lakota Group Date: Thursday,May 14,2026 11:13:14 AM 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. Please distribute the following Public Comment to the groups and individuals mentioned in the subject line. I respectfully ask Director George to sent the comment letter to the Lakota Group Dear Director George, City Commissioners, Members of the Lakota Group, and Members of HPAB, This letter is public comment on the the HPAB meeting of April 15. During that meeting, there was a discussion on the difference between using the word Standards as opposed to Guidelines. Director George seemed to indicate that her understanding was that these two words were interchangeable, basically meaning the same thing. If this is not the case, apologies to Director George, but her comments left the issue unclarified. Assistant Director Harbage more clearly stated the issue when she noted that there are both standards and guidelines in our current manual, "Guidelines for Historic Preservation &the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District." Assistant Director Harbage is correct. Both Standards and Guidelines appear in the manual. However, these two words (standards and guidelines) definitely do not mean the same thing. They are not synonyms. They cannot be used interchangeably. If you look at the organization of the manual beginning with Chapter 2, each topic is divided into 2 sections. The first is POLICY and the second is GUIDELINES. POLICY is what would be considered the mandatory requirements. It is the STANDARDS statement in the document. If you read chapter 2,Topography, p.47 you will find the following POLICY statement. "Site work should be planned to protect the assets of the existing topography."The use of incorrect and non binding language in the POLICY sections (should, must consider, and other flexible terms ) is what lawyers are using to invalidate the mandatory aspect of POLICY statements. However,the document was clearly written with the intention of making the POLICY statements the mandatory requirements. The second category, GUIDELINES, should be the available, flexible options to help a client with various ways to meet the mandatory policy requirements. This is how the manual was originally setup. But the manual is a hot mess because of the language. The use of non-binding terms in the POLICY sections is what allows developers to circumvent the intention of the document. As Brian Krueger said on our walk, the purpose of the plan review is to help the client be compliant with the policy and guidelines. However, since all is undermined by the wordage, the best a professional and dedicated planner can do is to push hard on the client to comply with POLICY, up to the point that the client puts their foot down and says NO, I won't comply any further. At that point, the planner can either deny the project or approve the client's plan. And, if the client has made some concessions it becomes difficult to deny the plan. Since the wordage is so unbinding, the planner rarely denies a plan at the last minute. This is why the revised "Guidelines for Historic Preservation" needs to use specific Legal and strong language for mandatory POLICY statements and reserve the non- binding language for the GUIDELINE flexible suggestions. No matter if HPAB recommends a tiered approach, or any other organization of the NCOD neighborhoods, the terms STANDARD (or POLICY), and GUIDELINES must be clearly and legally demarcated. Here is an Al summary of the definitions of STANDARD and GUIDELINE when used for historical preservation: In historic preservation, Standards are high-level, regulatory, or policy-based principles (often mandatory) outlining what needs to be achieved, while Guidelines are advisory, technical explanations detailing how to apply those Standards through specific, recommended methods. Both are used together to preserve a property's historic integrity. Standards vs. Guidelines Key Differences • Standards (The "What"): These are mandatory or regulatory, especially for federal, state, or local tax incentive projects. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties constitute the core requirements for four treatments: Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Reconstruction. • Guidelines (The "How"): These are non-prescriptive, technical advice documents that accompany the Standards, providing, "...a wealth of practical information" on how to apply them to specific,real-world projects, such as repairing windows, cleaning masonry, or adding new additions. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] 1 would also note that the Secretary of the Interior's standards include Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration and Reconstruction, but do not include the term New Construction. We need to make sure that our standards include those exact words, New Construction,to be completely clear in our intent. We need to make our standards airtight. The public has made it very clear that we should identify our STANDARDS and give them teeth through legal standing based on language. The public has also been very supportive of giving flexibility in the guidelines, as to how to achieve those standards. We have a very professional consultant firm, the Lakota Group, to help write the standards and the guidelines. We have an amazing staff who can then use the clarified and revised standards and guidelines to support historic preservation using the most current procedures. Our goal is not to preserve the town in amber. This update will insure that our historic resources are conserved, at the same time that positive development can occur. Sincerely, Linda Semones Bozeman Resident, living in the NCOD