HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-25-26 Public Comment - A. Bryan - Public Comment — Downtown Bozeman Building Height From: Allison Bryan
To: Bozeman Public Comment
Subject: [EXTERNAL]Public Comment—Downtown Bozeman Building Height
Date: Tuesday,August 25,2026 11:59:46 AM
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City Commissioners,
As discussions and workshopping continues, I am writing in support of maintaining allowable
building height in Downtown Bozeman at 90 feet.
As an architect,business owner, former community development board member, AIA
Montana board member, and longtime member of this community, I believe strongly that one
of the most important things we can do to protect what we love about Bozeman is to allow our
downtown core to grow thoughtfully and sustainably.
Jane Jacobs wrote, "There must be a sufficiently dense concentration of people, for
whatever purposes they may be there." That simple idea is fundamental to what makes a
great downtown work.
Density is not the enemy of character. Done well, density is what supports character. It puts
more people within walking distance of restaurants, shops, offices, cultural spaces,parks, and
one another. It gives local businesses a consistent customer base. It creates activity throughout
the day and evening. And critically, it creates the concentration of people necessary to make
public transportation, biking, and walking truly viable alternatives to driving.
For a community like Bozeman, surrounded by an extraordinary natural landscape, this is also
an environmental issue. We can accommodate growth by concentrating more of it within our
existing urban core, or we can continue pushing development outward onto undeveloped land,
requiring more roads, utilities, parking, and automobile trips.
I would much rather see Bozeman grow up in the right places than endlessly out.
The economics matter as well. Construction costs and land values have changed dramatically.
If redevelopment on Main Street cannot financially support itself within a 70-foot envelope,
we have single handedly created a regulation that discourages investment in the very place
where we should most want it.
When downtown development becomes economically infeasible, growth does not simply
stop. It moves somewhere else.
It moves to new nodes at the edges of town, where land is less expensive and development is
easier. Those areas require additional infrastructure and encourage more driving. Meanwhile,
downtown risks becoming increasingly static, expensive, and less economically diverse.
Other communities facing similar pressures are recognizing the relationship between compact
development and transportation. Boulder, for example, is actively pairing higher-intensity
development with transportation-demand management, multimodal infrastructure, reduced
parking requirements, and investment in downtown mobility. The objective is not density for
density's sake; it is creating places where people can live, work, shop, gather, and move
around without depending on a car for every trip.
Bozeman has an opportunity to do the same while creating rules that ensure additional height
produces excellent architecture and an excellent public realm.
Allowing 90 feet does not mean every building should be 90 feet tall. Height can and should
be accompanied by thoughtful standards for massing, upper-story setbacks, street-level
transparency, historic preservation, materials, active ground-floor uses, and pedestrian
experience. We should regulate how buildings meet the street and contribute to the city,
not assume that twenty additional feet inherently diminishes our character.
Main Street is one of Bozeman's greatest shared assets. Its future depends on people
continuing to live, work, eat, shop, create businesses, and spend time there.
A vibrant downtown is not a museum. It is a living ecosystem.
If we want to preserve the open land and extraordinary environment surrounding Bozeman,
support local businesses, activate meaningful public transportation, reduce our dependence on
cars, and keep Main Street as the true heart of our community, we need to allow enough
density in our downtown core to make those goals economically possible.
I support sticking with the decision for the the allowable downtown height to stay at 90
feet—not because I want Bozeman to become a bigger city, but because I want us to
grow in a way that protects what makes Bozeman special.
Thank you for your time,
Allison
Bozeman, MT+Ojai, CA
503.789.8912
phhysicalspace.co