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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-24-2026 Public Comment - H. Happel - Public Comment Pertaining to Building Height Limits-- Item K on the City Commissions''s Agenda for Tuesday, August 25 From: Henry Happel To: Bozeman Public Comment Subject: [EXTERNAL]Public Comment Pertaining to Building Height Limits--Item K on the City Commission"s Agenda for Tuesday,August 25 Date: Monday,August 24,2026 1:35:25 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 Commissioners: I am writing to address one of the issues before the City Commission at its August 25 meeting: building height limits in the B-3 zoning district. I support retention of the current height limits which were adopted by the City Commission last December. Many of my reasons were articulated by members of the Community Development Board at their meeting on August 3. 1 will add two more here: 1. Development in the Gallatin Valley can be analogized to a rubber balloon. If you squeeze one side of a balloon, it gets bigger on the other side. If you constrain growth inside Bozeman, the result will be increased sprawl outside Bozeman. To protect our natural environment, our farm lands and open spaces, our natural beauty and our wildlife corridors, we should be encouraging development, denser development, inside the City. 2. Bozeman should only alter recently adopted fundamental zoning rules when there are compelling reasons to do so. Development of buildings, particularly high-rise buildings, is a complicated matter involving developers, investors, lenders, architects, engineers, contractors and others. I suspect there are high-rise building projects under development right now for which expensive work has been done in reliance on the 90- foot building height limit adopted by the City late last year. Changing the height rule now without some compelling reason to do so strikes me as unfair, and ultimately harmful to the City if it acquires a reputation for development laws that can be so quickly altered. On a side note, I would like to praise the materials put together by the Community Development Department for tomorrow evening's discussion. They strike me as thoughtful and thorough. Henry Happel 608 S. Grand Ave.