HomeMy WebLinkAbout07-22-26 Public Comment - E. Talago - Public Comment for Transportation Board re_ PBZFrom:Emily Talago
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Cc:Nicholas Ross
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Public Comment for Transportation Board re: PBZ
Date:Wednesday, July 22, 2026 12:02:49 PM
Attachments:Public Comment- PBZ.pdfSCC Concept Report Draft.pdf
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Please distribute public comment and concept report to members of the transportation board at
your earliest convenience. With gratitude,
Emily Talago
Dear Members of the Transportation Advisory Board,
Thank you for the time and consideration you gave to our Midtown neighbors' concerns at your
last meeting regarding the RPPD for Bozeman HS. I appreciated the opportunity to be heard,
the thoughtful questions raised, and the intentional direction you offered. As I mentioned in my
written and spoken public comment, some neighbors on the east side of N 7th have been
contemplating a parking management strategy since the city adopted zero parking requirements
for the corridor in 2017. We are contending with the ELM, a 1100 person event venue with no
parking, along with a sizable bolus of 1000+ units of high density residential and commercial
development approved and at various phases of construction. Despite a vision for shared
parking leases and structured city-owned supply, those things have yet to materialize and thus
compels the request that you take up the parking management conversation sooner than later.
Before describing our request, it's worth summarizing the two mechanisms Bozeman's code
currently provides for neighborhood-level parking management, since our request sits at the
intersection of both:
● Residential Parking Permit Districts (RPPDs)— Sec. 36.04.330 et seq.— are established
by City Commission ordinance following a public hearing, and are the mechanism used
for districts like the MSU Residential District and the Bozeman High School district.
RPPDs set fixed day/hour restrictions and permit rules directly in ordinance.
● Parking Benefit Zones (PBZs)— Sec. 36.04.601 et seq.— sit within an
already-established Parking Management District (currently only the Downtown district)
and are created, amended, or dissolved by the Parking Commission (Transportation
Board) itself through a resolution and neighbor-notice process, rather than requiring a
Commission ordinance for each change. PBZs also allow surplus revenue to be
reinvested directly in the zone.
Because east of N 7th falls within the already-adopted Downtown Parking Management District,
the PBZ pathway is the one squarely within this Board's authority, and administratively it is the
better fit for our situation— it doesn't require a separate ordinance each time the zone needs
adjustment. As mentioned last month, we have been developing a parking allocation model, the
Shared Curb Credit (SCC) framework, intended to work within that PBZ structure. We're
attaching a preliminary concept report describing the SCC methodology for the Board's review,
with the understanding that it is a work in progress and will be finalized as our policy request is
refined and the underlying code is potentially amended.
We looked closely at both the RPPD and PBZ frameworks, and here's the issue we keep
running into: both mechanisms hard-code permit allocation rules in ordinance rather than basing
them on any underlying analysis of cost, demand, or curb capacity. Both RPPDs and the current
PBZ ordinance (Sec. 36.04.604) prescribe fixed, uniform figures— a set number of resident
permits per dwelling, a set number of visitor permits, a blanket weekday restriction window—
regardless of what a given block's infrastructure costs, curb inventory, or demand pattern
actually look like. That level of one-size-fits-all detail is exactly what the SCC framework is
designed to replace with a transparent, data-driven allocation, and it's a structural mismatch with
either existing tool as currently written, not just a Downtown-versus-neighborhood issue.
In particular, the existing PBZ ordinance's fixed permit counts and blanket weekday hours run
counter to a proportional, PBZ-specific allocation model like SCC. We think the underlying
PBZ-creation and enforcement framework in Division 3 is sound, but the eligibility provisions
need to be loosened to let individual PBZs adopt different, locally-appropriate allocation
strategies instead of one fixed permit formula for every zone.
I’d like to request that the Board place this on future meeting agendas to consider
recommending that the Bozeman City Commission:
1. Update Chapter 36, Article 4, Division 3 to reflect the “house-keeping” definitional
change from "apartment building" to "multi-unit building" adopted in Chapter 38, so the
two chapters stay consistent;
2. Amend the overly prescriptive eligibility language in Sec. 36.04.604 (fixed days/hours,
fixed permit counts per dwelling, blanket multi-unit exclusion) to allow individual PBZs to
adopt disuniform, PBZ-specific parking management strategies grounded in actual cost
and demand analysis; and
3. Establish the North Seventh Association of Neighbors East (NSANE) Parking Benefit
Zone, using the SCC framework, under the amended code.
Regarding budgets, Sec. 36.04.605 requires PBZ permit fees to be set at a level that at
minimum covers administration and enforcement costs, but to date we don't believe the City has
developed a line-item cost estimate for administering a PBZ of this kind. We'd suggest that a
program budget breaking out fixed costs (e.g., signage, initial GIS setup, notice mailings) versus
variable/ongoing costs (e.g., annual permit processing, enforcement staff time, SCC
recalculation) would give the Board a much stronger basis for evaluating our request and setting
appropriate participation fees, and we'd welcome the opportunity to help develop that estimate
alongside staff.
Open questions we'd welcome the Board's or staff's guidance on, several of which came up in
our own internal discussion and which may need to be resolved before or alongside any code
change:
● PBZ boundary clarity: Sec. 36.04.601 describes the Downtown district as the B-3 zoning
boundary plus 1,000 feet beyond it. We'd like clarification on whether the B-3 zoning
district itself is included within the parking management district, or whether the district
consists only of the 1,000-foot extension around it.
● "Dwelling" definition: Sec. 36.04.604 conditions permits on a per-"dwelling" basis but
doesn't define the term. We'd propose this be clarified to mean each uniquely taxable
parcel, and would appreciate the Board's or staff's view on that.
● Multi-unit/apartment eligibility: Residents of multi-unit buildings are currently excluded
from resident and visitor permits under 36.04.604.F–G, despite paying into the same
street assessments. We think this may merit reconsideration.
● Day/hour specificity and why our situation is different: The Midtown commercial corridor
has had zero off-street parking requirements since the B2-M zoning designation was
adopted in 2017. Combined with the elementary school and the ELM event center— a
roughly 1100-person venue with no dedicated parking of its own— our neighborhood
experiences very specific, predictable peaks in demand for on-street parking. On show
nights, residents returning home from middle-shift jobs frequently cannot find parking on
for a few blocks because event attendees have filled it. This is a fundamentally different
demand pattern than the fixed 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., weekday-only restrictions built for
the MSU or Bozeman High School districts, and a uniform M–F daytime restriction
doesn't address it. The only way we see to get commercial property owners and event
operators to eventually increase off-street parking supply is if this Board and the
Commission support exercising real authority to prioritize on-street parking for residents
during our actual peak demand periods, which do not track a standard commuter
schedule.
● Special assessments within urban renewal districts (URDs): We understand properties
within a URD still pay special assessments, but only for local streets. We'd like to confirm
this is accurate, as it affects the cost-allocation side of our model.
● Maintenance-to-reconstruction cost ratio: Is there an established or recommended ratio
between annual maintenance assessments and amortized reconstruction assessments
that the city uses, or is this left to case-by-case bond structuring? This affects how
consistently our model could be applied citywide.
We recognize this may require pairing our request with broader policy cleanup work that may be
already identified as outstanding, and we're glad to support that effort in whatever way is useful.
Thank you again for your consideration. We're happy to attend a future meeting to present the
SCC model directly and answer questions.
Sincerely,
Emily Talago
Midtown Neighborhood Association, Steering Committee
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Shared Curb Credits (SCC)
A GIS-Based Cost Allocation Framework for Parking Benefit Zone Permit Eligibility
Concept Report — Preliminary Draft
Prepared for the Bozeman Transportation Advisory Board
Pilot PBZ: North Seventh Association of Neighbors East (NSANE)
Note: This report is a preliminary concept draft, shared to illustrate the SCC methodology. It will be finalized as policy is refined
and applicable code provisions are potentially amended. The reconstruction costs used in the case study are hypothetical and
included only to demonstrate the calculation; they are not a proposed assessment.
Existing Residential Parking Permit Districts and Downtown Parking Management District
Page 1
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Executive Summary
Residential parking permit programs are traditionally designed around one question:
Who should receive access to a limited public parking resource?
This report proposes an alternative: base permit eligibility on the same objective facts the City already
uses to fund its streets, and let a small internal marketplace handle the rest.
Rather than allocating parking permits through first-come, first-served registration, waiting lists,
lotteries, or uniform permit limits, this proposal ties each property's permit eligibility to that property's
share of the neighborhood's street costs — adjusted for any curb the property already has to itself
through a driveway.
The resulting accounting unit is called a Shared Curb Credit (SCC).
SCCs represent a parcel's annual share of the neighborhood's shared curb resource. Property owners can
use SCCs to obtain residential parking permits within a Parking Benefit Zone (PBZ), or voluntarily trade
unused credits to neighbors who need more — a kind of small, resident-led exchange for parking supply,
described in more detail below.
This report demonstrates the concept using a single block as a case study. Because it relies on parcel,
street, curb, and parking data the City already maintains in GIS, the same approach can be applied
block-by-block across the neighborhood, and recalculated automatically as conditions change.
The technical formulas behind these calculations are provided in the Appendix for reference. This body
of the report focuses on how the concept works and what it would mean in practice.
Purpose
The objective is not to privatize public parking.
The objective is to create a transparent, repeatable framework that answers three questions objectively:
● How much does each property contribute toward the neighborhood street system?
● How much public curb has already been set aside for that property's exclusive use (i.e., its
driveway)?
● How much of the remaining shared curb should that property have a claim to?
How SCC Works
Every property on a residential street already contributes to the cost of that street, through maintenance
assessments (based on lot size) and, when a street is rebuilt, reconstruction assessments (based on
frontage). SCC simply uses those same, already-existing cost shares as the basis for parking permit
eligibility, rather than assigning every household the same fixed permit count regardless of what it
contributes or how much curb it already occupies with a driveway.
The steps are:
● Add up what each property pays annually toward street maintenance and reconstruction.
Page 2
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
● Determine each property's percentage share of the total neighborhood street cost.
● Inventory the curb: how much is off-limits for safety reasons, how much is already private
driveway, and how much is left over as shared public curb.
● Give each property that same percentage share of the shared curb.
● Subtract any curb that property's own driveway already occupies, since that household already
has private off-street access other residents don't.
● Convert the resulting footage into a number of "Shared Curb Credits," using a standard 22 feet
per parking space.
A property that pays more into the street and has little or no driveway ends up with more credits. A
property with a long driveway curb cut that already provides off-street parking ends up with fewer, since
it has less need to draw on the shared curb. One credit buys one resident permit.
The SCC Marketplace: A Mini Exchange for Parking Supply
Not every household will want to use all the credits it receives, and not every household will receive
enough credits to cover the permits it wants. SCC addresses this with a small, resident-led marketplace
app— conceptually similar to a limited internal stock exchange, but for curb space instead of shares.
● Each year, every property is issued its SCC allotment, based on the calculation above.
● A property that doesn't need all its credits (for example, a single-permit household that receives
several) can voluntarily transfer the surplus into a neighborhood pool or directly to another
resident.
● A property that needs more permits than its allotment provides (for example, a household with
multiple vehicles) can acquire additional credits from that pool or from a neighbor, rather than
being capped by a flat per-dwelling limit.
● The City's role is limited to administering the accounting: issuing SCCs annually and issuing
permits only when sufficient credits are surrendered. The City does not pick who gets extra
permits — that is worked out among residents through the exchange app.
This is the feature that most directly answers a problem with the existing PBZ code: rather than the City
prescribing a fixed number of permits per dwelling regardless of actual need or contribution, the
marketplace lets supply flow to the households that value it most, while still keeping the total number of
permits tied to the physical curb actually available.
Why This Approach
The current PBZ and RPPD frameworks allocate permits by fixed, uniform rules — a set number of
resident permits and visitor permits per dwelling, regardless of lot size, frontage, driveway access, or
financial contribution. SCC replaces that fixed formula with a proportional one grounded in data the City
already collects, and adds a market mechanism so unused allotments aren't wasted.
Because the framework is based on percentages and existing GIS data rather than fixed dollar amounts
or fixed permit counts, it does not need to be rewritten if assessment rates, financing terms, or curb
inventories change in the future. The same steps are simply re-run with updated numbers.
Page 3
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Illustrative Case Study
The following case study demonstrates the SCC calculation on a single hypothetical block, using the City's
real assessment methodology for maintenance costs. Reconstruction costs, bond terms, and the
resulting reconstruction assessment are hypothetical, included only to show how a reconstruction cost
share would be incorporated if and when a street is rebuilt — they are not a proposed or pending
assessment.
Existing Assessment Methodology
The case study uses the City's existing assessment methodology.
Maintenance
● Assessment based upon parcel area
● Rate: $0.040217/square foot
Reconstruction
● Cost: $350/linear foot
● Bond term: 20 years
● Interest: 5%
● City contribution: 50%
● Property-owner contribution: 50%
● Reconstruction cycle: 50 years
Parcel Geometry
Parcel Frontage Depth
A (corner) 75 125
B 60 125
C 65 125
D 50 125
E 50 125
F 60 125
G 65 125
H (corner) 75 125
Corner parcels include an additional 125 feet of assessment frontage for reconstruction purposes.
Page 4
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Financial Contribution
Maintenance (actual City rate)
Total parcel area: 62,500 square feet
Annual maintenance, using the City's current $0.040217/sq. ft. rate: $2,513.56
Reconstruction (hypothetical, for illustration only)
No reconstruction is proposed or pending for this block. The figures below use a hypothetical
construction cost and bond structure solely to show how a reconstruction share would factor into the
calculation if a street were ever rebuilt.
Street length assessed: 750 feet; hypothetical construction cost of $350/linear foot: $262,500
Hypothetical property-owner share (50%): $131,250, amortized over a 20-year bond at 5% interest and a
50-year reconstruction cycle: an equivalent annual cost of $4,213.18
Total Annual Neighborhood Cost (illustrative)
Combining the actual maintenance figure with the hypothetical reconstruction figure: $2,513.56 +
$4,213.18 = $6,726.74
Parcel-Level Cost Allocation
Maintenance columns below reflect actual City rates; reconstruction and total columns are hypothetical.
Page 5
Parcel Frontage Area (SF) Maintenance Assess. Frontage Reconstruction Annual Total
A 75 9,375 $377.03 200 $1,123.52 $1,500.55
B 60 7,500 $301.63 60 $337.06 $638.69
C 65 8,125 $326.76 65 $365.14 $691.90
D 50 6,250 $251.36 50 $280.88 $532.24
E 50 6,250 $251.36 50 $280.88 $532.24
F 60 7,500 $301.63 60 $337.06 $638.69
G 65 8,125 $326.76 65 $365.14 $691.90
H 75 9,375 $377.03 200 $1,123.52 $1,500.55
Totals 500 62,500 $2,513.56 750 $4,213.18 $6,726.74
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
GIS Curb Inventory
Using existing GIS data, classify every linear foot
of curb.
Use Length
Public safety 155 ft
Exclusive driveway use 180 ft
Shared public parking 431 ft
Total curb 766 ft
Using a planning assumption of 22 feet per
parking space:
431 ÷ 22 ≈ 19 permit spaces
Shared Curb Credit Allocation
Each parcel's annual street contribution determines its proportional responsibility for supporting the
shared curb resource.
After deducting driveway occupation, the remaining balance becomes annual Shared Curb Credits.
Parcel Annual Cost Cost Resp. Shared Curb
Alloc. Driveway Net SCC (ft) Permit Credits
A $1,500.55 22.31% 136.3 32 104.3 4.74
B $638.69 9.49% 58.0 26 32.0 1.45
C $691.90 10.29% 62.8 28 34.8 1.58
D $532.24 7.91% 48.3 18.5 29.8 1.35
E $532.24 7.91% 48.3 18.5 29.8 1.35
F $638.69 9.49% 58.0 29 29.0 1.32
G $691.90 10.29% 62.8 0 62.8 2.85
H $1,500.55 22.31% 136.3 28 108.3 4.92
Page 6
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Marketplace Example, Using the Case Study
Applying the marketplace concept described earlier to this case study's numbers:
● Parcel A receives 4.74 credits but only needs one permit. The remaining 3.74 credits can be
voluntarily transferred into the neighborhood pool.
● Parcel B receives 1.45 credits but wants two permits. Parcel B acquires the additional 0.55 credit
it needs from the pool or from a neighbor before obtaining its second permit.
No City action is required to make this exchange happen — the City's role stays limited to issuing the
annual credits and issuing permits once sufficient credits are surrendered.
GIS Implementation
This methodology relies exclusively upon datasets already maintained by the City, which include:
● Parcel polygons
● Parcel dimensions
● Parcel square footage
● Assessment frontage
● Street centerlines
● Curb inventories
● Driveway curb cuts
● Parking restrictions
● Safety no-parking zones
● Residential permit districts
Using these datasets, the SCC calculations can be automated on a block-by-block basis and recalculated
annually as assessment rates or curb inventories change.
Adaptability
The SCC methodology is intentionally independent of any particular assessment rate, bond amount, or
permit price.
If maintenance rates, reconstruction costs, financing terms, or assessment formulas change, the
methodology remains unchanged.
Each year:
● Calculate annual parcel costs using the City's adopted assessment methodology.
● Determine each parcel's proportional responsibility for neighborhood street costs.
Page 7
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
● Inventory shared, exclusive, and safety curb using GIS.
● Allocate Shared Curb Credits according to proportional responsibility.
● Deduct exclusive driveway occupation.
● Issue annual SCCs.
● Exchange SCCs for parking permits.
Because the framework is based on proportional responsibility rather than fixed dollar values, it remains
scalable and adaptable to future policy or financing changes.
Conclusion
Shared Curb Credits redefine residential permit parking within a Parking Benefit Zone as an
infrastructure accounting problem rather than a parking allocation problem.
Instead of asking who deserves parking, the SCC framework asks:
● Who finances the public curb?
● How much of that public curb has already been dedicated to exclusive private use?
● How should the remaining shared resource be allocated transparently and equitably?
By leveraging existing GIS datasets and current assessment practices, SCC provides a technically
defensible, scalable framework that integrates transportation planning, public finance, and curb
management. It also introduces flexibility by allowing residents to voluntarily transfer unused parking
rights, ensuring that scarce curb space flows to households with greater demand while recognizing the
financial contributions of all property owners.
Page 8
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Appendix: Mathematical Framework
This appendix sets out the formulas underlying the calculations described in the body of this report, for
technical reference.
Annual Street Cost
For each parcel i:
Cᵢ = Mᵢ + Rᵢ
● Cᵢ = Total annual street cost assigned to parcel i
● Mᵢ = Annual maintenance assessment
● Rᵢ = Equivalent annual reconstruction assessment
Annual Maintenance
Mᵢ = Aᵢ × r
● Aᵢ = Parcel area
● r = Annual maintenance assessment rate ($/square foot)
Reconstruction
Rᵢ = (Fᵢ ÷ ΣF) × B
● Fᵢ = Assessment frontage
● ΣF = Total assessment frontage
● B = Annualized property-owner share of reconstruction costs
Total Neighborhood Street Cost
CTotal = Σ Cᵢ (i = 1 to n)
Shared Public Curb
L = L − Lsafe − Lexclusive
● L = Total curb length
● Lsafe = Public safety exclusions
● Lexclusive = Driveway curb cuts
Relative Cost Responsibility
Pᵢ = Cᵢ ÷ Ctotal
Page 9
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Shared Curb Allocation
SCᵢ = Pᵢ × L
Shared Curb Credit
SCCᵢ = SCᵢ − Dᵢ
● Dᵢ = Driveway curb-cut length
Permit Credits
Permit Credits = SCCᵢ ÷ 22
using a planning assumption of one parking space per 22 linear feet.
Page 10
Dear Members of the Transportation Advisory Board,
Thank you for the time and consideration you gave to our Midtown neighbors' concerns at your
last meeting regarding the RPPD for Bozeman HS. I appreciated the opportunity to be heard,
the thoughtful questions raised, and the intentional direction you offered. As I mentioned in my
written and spoken public comment, some neighbors on the east side of N 7th have been
contemplating a parking management strategy since the city adopted zero parking requirements
for the corridor in 2017. We are contending with the ELM, a 1100 person event venue with no
parking, along with a sizable bolus of 1000+ units of high density residential and commercial
development approved and at various phases of construction. Despite a vision for shared
parking leases and structured city-owned supply, those things have yet to materialize and thus
compels the request that you take up the parking management conversation sooner than later.
Before describing our request, it's worth summarizing the two mechanisms Bozeman's code
currently provides for neighborhood-level parking management, since our request sits at the
intersection of both:
● Residential Parking Permit Districts (RPPDs)— Sec. 36.04.330 et seq.— are established
by City Commission ordinance following a public hearing, and are the mechanism used
for districts like the MSU Residential District and the Bozeman High School district.
RPPDs set fixed day/hour restrictions and permit rules directly in ordinance.
● Parking Benefit Zones (PBZs)— Sec. 36.04.601 et seq.— sit within an
already-established Parking Management District (currently only the Downtown district)
and are created, amended, or dissolved by the Parking Commission (Transportation
Board) itself through a resolution and neighbor-notice process, rather than requiring a
Commission ordinance for each change. PBZs also allow surplus revenue to be
reinvested directly in the zone.
Because east of N 7th falls within the already-adopted Downtown Parking Management District,
the PBZ pathway is the one squarely within this Board's authority, and administratively it is the
better fit for our situation— it doesn't require a separate ordinance each time the zone needs
adjustment. As mentioned last month, we have been developing a parking allocation model, the
Shared Curb Credit (SCC) framework, intended to work within that PBZ structure. We're
attaching a preliminary concept report describing the SCC methodology for the Board's review,
with the understanding that it is a work in progress and will be finalized as our policy request is
refined and the underlying code is potentially amended.
We looked closely at both the RPPD and PBZ frameworks, and here's the issue we keep
running into: both mechanisms hard-code permit allocation rules in ordinance rather than basing
them on any underlying analysis of cost, demand, or curb capacity. Both RPPDs and the current
PBZ ordinance (Sec. 36.04.604) prescribe fixed, uniform figures— a set number of resident
permits per dwelling, a set number of visitor permits, a blanket weekday restriction window—
regardless of what a given block's infrastructure costs, curb inventory, or demand pattern
actually look like. That level of one-size-fits-all detail is exactly what the SCC framework is
designed to replace with a transparent, data-driven allocation, and it's a structural mismatch with
either existing tool as currently written, not just a Downtown-versus-neighborhood issue.
In particular, the existing PBZ ordinance's fixed permit counts and blanket weekday hours run
counter to a proportional, PBZ-specific allocation model like SCC. We think the underlying
PBZ-creation and enforcement framework in Division 3 is sound, but the eligibility provisions
need to be loosened to let individual PBZs adopt different, locally-appropriate allocation
strategies instead of one fixed permit formula for every zone.
I’d like to request that the Board place this on future meeting agendas to consider
recommending that the Bozeman City Commission:
1. Update Chapter 36, Article 4, Division 3 to reflect the “house-keeping” definitional
change from "apartment building" to "multi-unit building" adopted in Chapter 38, so the
two chapters stay consistent;
2. Amend the overly prescriptive eligibility language in Sec. 36.04.604 (fixed days/hours,
fixed permit counts per dwelling, blanket multi-unit exclusion) to allow individual PBZs to
adopt disuniform, PBZ-specific parking management strategies grounded in actual cost
and demand analysis; and
3. Establish the North Seventh Association of Neighbors East (NSANE) Parking Benefit
Zone, using the SCC framework, under the amended code.
Regarding budgets, Sec. 36.04.605 requires PBZ permit fees to be set at a level that at
minimum covers administration and enforcement costs, but to date we don't believe the City has
developed a line-item cost estimate for administering a PBZ of this kind. We'd suggest that a
program budget breaking out fixed costs (e.g., signage, initial GIS setup, notice mailings) versus
variable/ongoing costs (e.g., annual permit processing, enforcement staff time, SCC
recalculation) would give the Board a much stronger basis for evaluating our request and setting
appropriate participation fees, and we'd welcome the opportunity to help develop that estimate
alongside staff.
Open questions we'd welcome the Board's or staff's guidance on, several of which came up in
our own internal discussion and which may need to be resolved before or alongside any code
change:
● PBZ boundary clarity: Sec. 36.04.601 describes the Downtown district as the B-3 zoning
boundary plus 1,000 feet beyond it. We'd like clarification on whether the B-3 zoning
district itself is included within the parking management district, or whether the district
consists only of the 1,000-foot extension around it.
● "Dwelling" definition: Sec. 36.04.604 conditions permits on a per-"dwelling" basis but
doesn't define the term. We'd propose this be clarified to mean each uniquely taxable
parcel, and would appreciate the Board's or staff's view on that.
● Multi-unit/apartment eligibility: Residents of multi-unit buildings are currently excluded
from resident and visitor permits under 36.04.604.F–G, despite paying into the same
street assessments. We think this may merit reconsideration.
● Day/hour specificity and why our situation is different: The Midtown commercial corridor
has had zero off-street parking requirements since the B2-M zoning designation was
adopted in 2017. Combined with the elementary school and the ELM event center— a
roughly 1100-person venue with no dedicated parking of its own— our neighborhood
experiences very specific, predictable peaks in demand for on-street parking. On show
nights, residents returning home from middle-shift jobs frequently cannot find parking on
for a few blocks because event attendees have filled it. This is a fundamentally different
demand pattern than the fixed 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., weekday-only restrictions built for
the MSU or Bozeman High School districts, and a uniform M–F daytime restriction
doesn't address it. The only way we see to get commercial property owners and event
operators to eventually increase off-street parking supply is if this Board and the
Commission support exercising real authority to prioritize on-street parking for residents
during our actual peak demand periods, which do not track a standard commuter
schedule.
● Special assessments within urban renewal districts (URDs): We understand properties
within a URD still pay special assessments, but only for local streets. We'd like to confirm
this is accurate, as it affects the cost-allocation side of our model.
● Maintenance-to-reconstruction cost ratio: Is there an established or recommended ratio
between annual maintenance assessments and amortized reconstruction assessments
that the city uses, or is this left to case-by-case bond structuring? This affects how
consistently our model could be applied citywide.
We recognize this may require pairing our request with broader policy cleanup work that may be
already identified as outstanding, and we're glad to support that effort in whatever way is useful.
Thank you again for your consideration. We're happy to attend a future meeting to present the
SCC model directly and answer questions.
Sincerely,
Emily Talago
Midtown Neighborhood Association, Steering Committee
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Shared Curb Credits (SCC)
A GIS-Based Cost Allocation Framework for Parking Benefit Zone Permit Eligibility
Concept Report — Preliminary Draft
Prepared for the Bozeman Transportation Advisory Board
Pilot PBZ: North Seventh Association of Neighbors East (NSANE)
Note: This report is a preliminary concept draft, shared to illustrate the SCC methodology. It will be finalized as policy is refined
and applicable code provisions are potentially amended. The reconstruction costs used in the case study are hypothetical and
included only to demonstrate the calculation; they are not a proposed assessment.
Existing Residential Parking Permit Districts and Downtown Parking Management District
Page 1
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
Executive Summary
Residential parking permit programs are traditionally designed around one question:
Who should receive access to a limited public parking resource?
This report proposes an alternative: base permit eligibility on the same objective facts the City already
uses to fund its streets, and let a small internal marketplace handle the rest.
Rather than allocating parking permits through first-come, first-served registration, waiting lists,
lotteries, or uniform permit limits, this proposal ties each property's permit eligibility to that property's
share of the neighborhood's street costs — adjusted for any curb the property already has to itself
through a driveway.
The resulting accounting unit is called a Shared Curb Credit (SCC).
SCCs represent a parcel's annual share of the neighborhood's shared curb resource. Property owners can
use SCCs to obtain residential parking permits within a Parking Benefit Zone (PBZ), or voluntarily trade
unused credits to neighbors who need more — a kind of small, resident-led exchange for parking supply,
described in more detail below.
This report demonstrates the concept using a single block as a case study. Because it relies on parcel,
street, curb, and parking data the City already maintains in GIS, the same approach can be applied
block-by-block across the neighborhood, and recalculated automatically as conditions change.
The technical formulas behind these calculations are provided in the Appendix for reference. This body
of the report focuses on how the concept works and what it would mean in practice.
Purpose
The objective is not to privatize public parking.
The objective is to create a transparent, repeatable framework that answers three questions objectively:
● How much does each property contribute toward the neighborhood street system?
● How much public curb has already been set aside for that property's exclusive use (i.e., its
driveway)?
● How much of the remaining shared curb should that property have a claim to?
How SCC Works
Every property on a residential street already contributes to the cost of that street, through maintenance
assessments (based on lot size) and, when a street is rebuilt, reconstruction assessments (based on
frontage). SCC simply uses those same, already-existing cost shares as the basis for parking permit
eligibility, rather than assigning every household the same fixed permit count regardless of what it
contributes or how much curb it already occupies with a driveway.
The steps are:
● Add up what each property pays annually toward street maintenance and reconstruction.
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● Determine each property's percentage share of the total neighborhood street cost.
● Inventory the curb: how much is off-limits for safety reasons, how much is already private
driveway, and how much is left over as shared public curb.
● Give each property that same percentage share of the shared curb.
● Subtract any curb that property's own driveway already occupies, since that household already
has private off-street access other residents don't.
● Convert the resulting footage into a number of "Shared Curb Credits," using a standard 22 feet
per parking space.
A property that pays more into the street and has little or no driveway ends up with more credits. A
property with a long driveway curb cut that already provides off-street parking ends up with fewer, since
it has less need to draw on the shared curb. One credit buys one resident permit.
The SCC Marketplace: A Mini Exchange for Parking Supply
Not every household will want to use all the credits it receives, and not every household will receive
enough credits to cover the permits it wants. SCC addresses this with a small, resident-led marketplace
app— conceptually similar to a limited internal stock exchange, but for curb space instead of shares.
● Each year, every property is issued its SCC allotment, based on the calculation above.
● A property that doesn't need all its credits (for example, a single-permit household that receives
several) can voluntarily transfer the surplus into a neighborhood pool or directly to another
resident.
● A property that needs more permits than its allotment provides (for example, a household with
multiple vehicles) can acquire additional credits from that pool or from a neighbor, rather than
being capped by a flat per-dwelling limit.
● The City's role is limited to administering the accounting: issuing SCCs annually and issuing
permits only when sufficient credits are surrendered. The City does not pick who gets extra
permits — that is worked out among residents through the exchange app.
This is the feature that most directly answers a problem with the existing PBZ code: rather than the City
prescribing a fixed number of permits per dwelling regardless of actual need or contribution, the
marketplace lets supply flow to the households that value it most, while still keeping the total number of
permits tied to the physical curb actually available.
Why This Approach
The current PBZ and RPPD frameworks allocate permits by fixed, uniform rules — a set number of
resident permits and visitor permits per dwelling, regardless of lot size, frontage, driveway access, or
financial contribution. SCC replaces that fixed formula with a proportional one grounded in data the City
already collects, and adds a market mechanism so unused allotments aren't wasted.
Because the framework is based on percentages and existing GIS data rather than fixed dollar amounts
or fixed permit counts, it does not need to be rewritten if assessment rates, financing terms, or curb
inventories change in the future. The same steps are simply re-run with updated numbers.
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Illustrative Case Study
The following case study demonstrates the SCC calculation on a single hypothetical block, using the City's
real assessment methodology for maintenance costs. Reconstruction costs, bond terms, and the
resulting reconstruction assessment are hypothetical, included only to show how a reconstruction cost
share would be incorporated if and when a street is rebuilt — they are not a proposed or pending
assessment.
Existing Assessment Methodology
The case study uses the City's existing assessment methodology.
Maintenance
● Assessment based upon parcel area
● Rate: $0.040217/square foot
Reconstruction
● Cost: $350/linear foot
● Bond term: 20 years
● Interest: 5%
● City contribution: 50%
● Property-owner contribution: 50%
● Reconstruction cycle: 50 years
Parcel Geometry
Parcel Frontage Depth
A (corner) 75 125
B 60 125
C 65 125
D 50 125
E 50 125
F 60 125
G 65 125
H (corner) 75 125
Corner parcels include an additional 125 feet of assessment frontage for reconstruction purposes.
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Financial Contribution
Maintenance (actual City rate)
Total parcel area: 62,500 square feet
Annual maintenance, using the City's current $0.040217/sq. ft. rate: $2,513.56
Reconstruction (hypothetical, for illustration only)
No reconstruction is proposed or pending for this block. The figures below use a hypothetical
construction cost and bond structure solely to show how a reconstruction share would factor into the
calculation if a street were ever rebuilt.
Street length assessed: 750 feet; hypothetical construction cost of $350/linear foot: $262,500
Hypothetical property-owner share (50%): $131,250, amortized over a 20-year bond at 5% interest and a
50-year reconstruction cycle: an equivalent annual cost of $4,213.18
Total Annual Neighborhood Cost (illustrative)
Combining the actual maintenance figure with the hypothetical reconstruction figure: $2,513.56 +
$4,213.18 = $6,726.74
Parcel-Level Cost Allocation
Maintenance columns below reflect actual City rates; reconstruction and total columns are hypothetical.
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Parcel Frontage Area (SF) Maintenance Assess. Frontage Reconstruction Annual Total
A 75 9,375 $377.03 200 $1,123.52 $1,500.55
B 60 7,500 $301.63 60 $337.06 $638.69
C 65 8,125 $326.76 65 $365.14 $691.90
D 50 6,250 $251.36 50 $280.88 $532.24
E 50 6,250 $251.36 50 $280.88 $532.24
F 60 7,500 $301.63 60 $337.06 $638.69
G 65 8,125 $326.76 65 $365.14 $691.90
H 75 9,375 $377.03 200 $1,123.52 $1,500.55
Totals 500 62,500 $2,513.56 750 $4,213.18 $6,726.74
Shared Curb Credits — Concept Report (Preliminary Draft) E. TALAGO
GIS Curb Inventory
Using existing GIS data, classify every linear foot
of curb.
Use Length
Public safety 155 ft
Exclusive driveway use 180 ft
Shared public parking 431 ft
Total curb 766 ft
Using a planning assumption of 22 feet per
parking space:
431 ÷ 22 ≈ 19 permit spaces
Shared Curb Credit Allocation
Each parcel's annual street contribution determines its proportional responsibility for supporting the
shared curb resource.
After deducting driveway occupation, the remaining balance becomes annual Shared Curb Credits.
Parcel Annual Cost Cost Resp. Shared Curb
Alloc. Driveway Net SCC (ft) Permit Credits
A $1,500.55 22.31% 136.3 32 104.3 4.74
B $638.69 9.49% 58.0 26 32.0 1.45
C $691.90 10.29% 62.8 28 34.8 1.58
D $532.24 7.91% 48.3 18.5 29.8 1.35
E $532.24 7.91% 48.3 18.5 29.8 1.35
F $638.69 9.49% 58.0 29 29.0 1.32
G $691.90 10.29% 62.8 0 62.8 2.85
H $1,500.55 22.31% 136.3 28 108.3 4.92
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Marketplace Example, Using the Case Study
Applying the marketplace concept described earlier to this case study's numbers:
● Parcel A receives 4.74 credits but only needs one permit. The remaining 3.74 credits can be
voluntarily transferred into the neighborhood pool.
● Parcel B receives 1.45 credits but wants two permits. Parcel B acquires the additional 0.55 credit
it needs from the pool or from a neighbor before obtaining its second permit.
No City action is required to make this exchange happen — the City's role stays limited to issuing the
annual credits and issuing permits once sufficient credits are surrendered.
GIS Implementation
This methodology relies exclusively upon datasets already maintained by the City, which include:
● Parcel polygons
● Parcel dimensions
● Parcel square footage
● Assessment frontage
● Street centerlines
● Curb inventories
● Driveway curb cuts
● Parking restrictions
● Safety no-parking zones
● Residential permit districts
Using these datasets, the SCC calculations can be automated on a block-by-block basis and recalculated
annually as assessment rates or curb inventories change.
Adaptability
The SCC methodology is intentionally independent of any particular assessment rate, bond amount, or
permit price.
If maintenance rates, reconstruction costs, financing terms, or assessment formulas change, the
methodology remains unchanged.
Each year:
● Calculate annual parcel costs using the City's adopted assessment methodology.
● Determine each parcel's proportional responsibility for neighborhood street costs.
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● Inventory shared, exclusive, and safety curb using GIS.
● Allocate Shared Curb Credits according to proportional responsibility.
● Deduct exclusive driveway occupation.
● Issue annual SCCs.
● Exchange SCCs for parking permits.
Because the framework is based on proportional responsibility rather than fixed dollar values, it remains
scalable and adaptable to future policy or financing changes.
Conclusion
Shared Curb Credits redefine residential permit parking within a Parking Benefit Zone as an
infrastructure accounting problem rather than a parking allocation problem.
Instead of asking who deserves parking, the SCC framework asks:
● Who finances the public curb?
● How much of that public curb has already been dedicated to exclusive private use?
● How should the remaining shared resource be allocated transparently and equitably?
By leveraging existing GIS datasets and current assessment practices, SCC provides a technically
defensible, scalable framework that integrates transportation planning, public finance, and curb
management. It also introduces flexibility by allowing residents to voluntarily transfer unused parking
rights, ensuring that scarce curb space flows to households with greater demand while recognizing the
financial contributions of all property owners.
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Appendix: Mathematical Framework
This appendix sets out the formulas underlying the calculations described in the body of this report, for
technical reference.
Annual Street Cost
For each parcel i:
Cᵢ = Mᵢ + Rᵢ
● Cᵢ = Total annual street cost assigned to parcel i
● Mᵢ = Annual maintenance assessment
● Rᵢ = Equivalent annual reconstruction assessment
Annual Maintenance
Mᵢ = Aᵢ × r
● Aᵢ = Parcel area
● r = Annual maintenance assessment rate ($/square foot)
Reconstruction
Rᵢ = (Fᵢ ÷ ΣF) × B
● Fᵢ = Assessment frontage
● ΣF = Total assessment frontage
● B = Annualized property-owner share of reconstruction costs
Total Neighborhood Street Cost
CTotal = Σ Cᵢ (i = 1 to n)
Shared Public Curb
L = L − Lsafe − Lexclusive
● L = Total curb length
● Lsafe = Public safety exclusions
● Lexclusive = Driveway curb cuts
Relative Cost Responsibility
Pᵢ = Cᵢ ÷ Ctotal
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Shared Curb Allocation
SCᵢ = Pᵢ × L
Shared Curb Credit
SCCᵢ = SCᵢ − Dᵢ
● Dᵢ = Driveway curb-cut length
Permit Credits
Permit Credits = SCCᵢ ÷ 22
using a planning assumption of one parking space per 22 linear feet.
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