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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-23-2026 Public Comment - E. Mason - Guiding Questions for Commission Worksession on Building Heights & ZETs From: Emily Mason To: Bozeman Public Comment Subject: [EXTERNAL]Guiding Questions for Commission Worksession on Building Heights&ZETs Date: Sunday,August 23,2026 5:58:54 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 Commission, Thank you for having a work session to review building height limits and zone edge transitions. My concerns about increased building heights come from years spent in different cities from Washington DC (20+years), Oaklalnd and Berkeley, CA (5 years), Spokane, WA (1 year), Salt Lake City,UT (1 year), and Boulder, CO (10 years). My concerns range from wind tunnels created by large buildings (which will increase ice on sidewalks and streets, making them more dangerous), loss of sunlight during our long, dark winters, infrastructure strain, viewshed impacts, loss of history, and minimal, if any, impact on making housing more affordable. If you are using MIssoula as an example of a comparable city that increased height limits in the downtown area, I would argue that Missoula County made a choice many years ago to preserve over 17,000 acres of open space in exchange for increased building heights. While this did not prevent sprawl, at least more public land was preserved. The argument that some make that there is a binary choice -we either go up or out- lands extremely flat for any independent, critical thinker. The City of Bozeman and Gallatin County do not have an ability to preserve land outside of what GVLT does. As we can all see with our own two eyes, growth is spreading quickly throughout the county. This is mainly due to the fact that people who move here want a single-family home (or at the very least a townhome) with a garage to store all of the gear. They want to live in a traditional neighborhood. Few people want to live in a small apartment that has limited parking and no garage, unless they are using the apartment as a second home/crash pad for their visits to Bozeman. Increased density can also have the opposite effect: people who once lived downtown, or near downtown, throw in the towel and move further out into the county to get away from the increased density and all of the issues that come with it. Here are some guiding questions that I hope you all can consider at your work session: 1. What is your lived experience in larger cities that informs your decision making around building height limits?What research have you done on your own(outside of board or staff recommendations) to inform your opinions about building heights? 2. What specific public benefit are we trying to achieve with increased building heights and minimal or weak zone edge transitions? 3. What would we get at 90 feet-plus that we cannot get at 60 feet? 4. Would additional height meaningfully improve housing affordability?What price points would actually be produced? What evidence can you point to that shows any recent development projects have improved affordability? 5. Who benefits and who bears the costs of increased heights and minimal ZETs? 6. What is the community's preferred future form, especially those who have lived in the downtown core for many years? 7. If the 90 foot-plus height limit remains,what are the metrics to determine if the Commission's goals were achieved? 8. What public benefit would justify permanently changing the historic downtown skyline, and what evidence do we have that increased height will actually produce that benefit? Thank you in advance for considering these important questions at your work session. Emily Kelley Mason 2703 Westridge Dr.