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Home My WebLink About07-15-26 Public Comment - E. Cope - FW_ Downtown BID meeting public comment ----today''s meeting July 15, 2026From:Emily Cope To:Bozeman Public Comment; eric@360commercialmanagement.com; eric@owenhouse.com; Erik Nelson;frescocafe317@gmail.com; Ileana@delaneynco.com; mkehke@pacv.com; Randy Scully(randy@scullypartnergroup.com) Subject:[EXTERNAL]FW: Downtown BID meeting public comment ----today"s meeting July 15, 2026 Date:Wednesday, July 15, 2026 2:44:20 PM Attachments:image001.png 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. Hello, Please see below. Thank you, Emily Cope Economic Development Director Downtown Bozeman Partnership 222 East Main Street #302 | Bozeman MT 59715 406-586-4008 | www.downtownbozeman.org From: David Loseff <dploseff@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2026 11:23 AM To: Ileana Indreland (Ileana@delaneynco.com) <Ileana@delaneynco.com>; Ellie Staley <ellie@downtownbozeman.org>; Emily Cope <Emily@downtownbozeman.org> Cc: Mike Delaney <mike@delaneynco.com>; Jim Webster <jwebster587@gmail.com>; randy@scullywestproperties.com Subject: Downtown BID meeting public comment ----today's meeting July 15, 2026 Dear BID board, On August 25, the City Commission will be holding a hearing to determine whether or not it will preserve its recently revised UDC rules which allow for increasing the allowed building heights in the entire B3 area (except for the narrow spaghetti string downtown B30C Bozeman corridor from Baxter to Bozeman hotel which remains at 60'). Basically, as downtown property and business owners, we are now at our "speak now or forever hold your peace" moment. The historic preservation board and Jim Webster along with many many others in our community have already spoken out against this increased 90' height allowance (including a petition signed by over 300 community members including two former mayors) but our downtown community of business and property owners have remained largely quiet to date on an issue which I believe will have profound long term adverse impacts on the attractiveness and "soul" of our very special walkable historic downtown. It will also have profound adverse parking impacts.....adding 2 more stories on an already parking deficient downtown core.....do the math. For example, if Matt Paine's Bozeman Hotel gets to add two more floors from its already approved plan (with very limited parking for that plan)....it would add approximately 30 more hotel rooms without adding a single new parking space. I believe that would be terribly impactful to many of the neighboring businesses such as the wonderful Fresco Cafe which is a hidden gem but already faces challenges due to limited accessible parking even before Paine's hotel gets built.....let alone with another 30 rooms added. I have already spoken out against this huge height allowance and its likely adverse impacts many times both publicly and in small group discussions with Douglas Fischer and others.......and frankly, if others are concerned about these adverse impacts on our already unique and precious historic downtown core, then it is time for those others to get active and speak to Commissioners Fischer and Mayor Morrison, in particular. If you care about this issue, then we need every Who in Whoville speaking out on it. I mention Commissioners Fischer and Morrison in particular since in my political calculus, it is going to boil down to getting the support from either one of them to join with Commissioners Sweeney and Madgic to get the height limit in the wider B3 restored back to its prior 70' level (which, in my view is already too high). While I have fully outlined my concerns about the newly increased 90' height allowance and won't repeat at length here.......I would just make the following points: If you don't like the already tall boxes without setbacks, etc. inundating W. Mendenhall and the entire North Central area......One11, Henry, AC Marriott, and even W. Main (Freestone, etc.) please note that this new 90' height increase would add at least two more floors to those buildiings.........and then don't be surprised when those extra high buildings go up at the O'Reilly's Auto store (end entire block), the bowling alley, old fire station site, etc......this is all so easily predictable. Expect the prior plans for the Left Lane's proposed hotel on the Empire Building site next to the library to seek the full 90' height......essentially building Bozerman's answer to the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem in blocking the viewshed of the entire southeast views of Main St. While the prior Left Lane proposal to the Library called for development easements on the Library property to protect their east views, their building (with another 2 floors added...to 90') would block the east views of everyone else in downtown Bozeman. Parking impacts would be horrendous.....particularly in the northeast corridor around the newly proposed Paine hotel but really everywhere else. The Commissioner argument that the buildings should be given the tallest allowances in the downtown core because that is where the greatest infrastructure exists is a totally false argument when we already know that we face huge infrastructure deficiencies in our downtown core (eg. parking) which is getting further stressed by organic growth. The second argument put forward by a Commissioner that increasing building heights also increases property tax yields on each building site....is technically correct for any specific site but the argument becomes totally lame when considering the adverse impacts on the existing buildings and businesses who are struggling with significantly increased property taxes and parking shortages. Basically, that argument is a "throw the existing downtown property owners and businesses under the bus in favor of generating even higher property tax yields for government spending." That is inherently a kill the golden goose strategy. Finally, instead of paying lots of consulting fees for out of town consultants to justify increasing heights, maybe we would be better off just looking at the best practices of other cities who have successfully preserved and enhanced the economics of their historic downtown and surrounding areas....cities like Charleston, SC, Boulder CO, Old Town of Scottsdale, Old Town Alexamdria, Burlington VT, Aspen, Jackson WY, even historic parts of NYC and Boston. We can also look at cities like Ithaca NY which previously had a wonderful quaint downtown but later allowed for substantially taller buildings and sucked the soul out of their downtown core.....taking a great college town city and making it rundown. Sad. Another alternative to getting out-of-town consultants who take fees without having any skin in the game.....maybe the city commission should also consider giving greater weight to the inputs of many downtown property and business owners who have spent the past decades living in this town, watching its customer needs, investing millions into this town to restore buildings, businesses and have led to the economic vitality of our downtown and surrounding areas.......and will face the ongoing impacts of these height and other UDC decisions. Maybe the inputs from the existing residents should be more greatly valued and listened to v. inputs from an out of town consultant looking for a fee. Just saying. Anyway, if the BID board members and other downtown property and business owners are concerned about these issues and very predictable outcomes, it is time for all of you to speak up, get your tenants and neighbors to speak up.......and help convince Commissioners Fischer and Morrison (and hopefully Bode is she wants to get engaged on this topic) that the change to 90' in the B3 is very bad policy and needs to revert back to 70' and hopefully make other changes on setbacks etc. to preserve the wonderful place we have. David Loseff