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HomeMy WebLinkAbout010609 Planning Board Minutes MINUTES TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 2009 ITEM 1. CALL TO ORDER AND ATTENDANCE Vice President Henyon called the regular meeting of the Planning Board to order at 7:03 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, City Hall, 121 North Rouse Avenue, Bozeman, Montana and directed the secretary to take attendance. Members Present: Staff Present: Sean Becker Chris Saunders, Assistant Director of Planning Cathy Costakis Tara Hastie, Recording Secretary Dawn Smith Donna Swarthout Chris Mehl Bill Quinn Erik Henyon Members Absent: Guests Present: JP Pomnichowski Guy Alsentzer Brian Caldwell ITEM 2. PUBLIC COMMENT (0-15 MINUTES) {Limited to any public matter within the jurisdiction of the Planning Board and not scheduled on this agenda. Three-minute time limit per speaker.} Seeing no public comment forthcoming, Vice President Henyon closed the public comment portion of the meeting. ITEM 3. MINUTES OF DECEMBER 16, 2008 MOTION: Mr. Becker moved, Mr. Mehl seconded, to approve the minutes of December 16, 2008 as presented. The motion carried 7-0. Those voting aye being Vice President Henyon, Mr. Becker, Ms. Costakis, Ms. Smith, Mr. Quinn, Mr. Mehl, and Ms. Swarthout. Those voting nay being none. ITEM 4. DRAFT GROWTH POLICY Assistant Director Chris Saunders noted the Draft had been prepared and distributed to the public and was available at the Planning Office – 20 E. Olive St., City Hall – 121 N. Rouse, Bozeman Library – 626 E. Main St., and MSU Renne Library as well as available through the City website. He noted public comments would be compiled and presented to the Planning Board at the January 21, 2009 public hearing. He noted a recommendation on the whole would be made to the City Commission after the public hearings. He suggested the Board make comments as the current meeting was a working meeting. He noted that the community had been noticed via cable, newspaper, and water bill noticing as well as a press release and he did not have any other specific comments but would be available to answer any questions. He noted Mr. Caldwell was the representative from the Planning Board to the Downtown Neighborhood Plan and they had selected a consultant to prepare the Downtown Neighborhood Plan. Vice President Henyon stated he had ideas that would streamline the discussion for the evening and noted Ms. Costakis had come to the meeting prepared; he suggested going through the document chapter by chapter or taking comments from each member individually. Assistant Director Saunders suggested the Board not take formal action until members of the public had the opportunity to comment on the draft at the public hearings. Mr. Mehl agreed with Assistant Director Saunders that the votes should be held until the Board had decided on the content so the focus could be on the public at the public hearings. Ms. Swarthout suggested editorial comments not be discussed and the primary focus be on the substantive content. The Board concurred though Ms. Swarthout expressed regret that specific chapters had not been assigned to individual Board members. Chapter 1: Vice President Henyon called for Board comments. Ms. Swarthout stated under Vision Statement the bottom bullet did not seem visionary enough and could be removed. Ms. Costakis stated she had felt the last three bullets did not flow and were not worded in the same way; she suggested different language. The Board concurred. Ms. Costakis suggested the word “that” be removed and “individual and collective choices be made” be included. Assistant Director Saunders suggested Staff would like the language retained and explained its intent; the Board agreed that the language could remain. Mr. Becker stated the Executive Summary included the use of humor and the public might not understand the intent; he noted the bullets at the end and the description could be cleaned up. Assistant Director Saunders suggested the Board provide alternatives. Mr. Mehl suggested being bland as humor would be a risky thing. Mr. Becker suggested the Board could wordsmith the language if necessary, but would be amenable to Staff’s edits. The Board concurred. Ms. Costakis stated there were some people who would just read the executive summary and suggested the description include more detail; she stated she thought it was too short and many of the concepts would not be understood. Vice President Henyon disagreed and stated he thought the executive summary should be short and to the point as the language in the document would support itself. The Board concurred. Mr. Mehl asked if the web document was fully accessible. Assistant Director Saunders responded it would be fully accessible and cross-linked once the finalized document had been adopted and it would depend on how one would like to access the information. Vice President Henyon suggested the word “required” be removed as it seemed harsh. Assistant Director Saunders responded the Commission had required it be a mandate so the language “required” should be included. Chapter 2: Ms. Smith stated that on page 2-6, “Growth by the numbers” in the sidebar, the dwelling units did not have a percentage change depicted and suggested Staff clarify the percentage of the increase. The Board concurred. Ms. Costakis stated it was weird to have the second chapter as the Introduction and suggested the chapter should be labeled The Principles of Planning or How’s and Why’s of Planning instead. The Board concurred. Mr. Becker suggested 2008 numbers be included in the document. Assistant Director Saunders responded the numbers would be included when they became available. Mr. Becker suggested that where the economy was sitting today, the growth policy would be effective in the event of contraction within the City; he suggested including economy language in the document though he did not know the precise location it should be included. Assistant Director Saunders responded it could be referenced. Mr. Mehl suggested “Planning smart regardless of the scenario” be included. Mr. Becker noted it should be explicit as planning in the current economy was vastly different than planning had been in the last decade and suggested the need for planning in all economic conditions be stated. Assistant Director Saunders responded the language could be included. The Board concurred. Chapter 3: Vice President Henyon stated Objective LU-1.2 the words “and objectives” appeared twice and one set would need to be removed; he noted Staff had done a good job on the chapter and asked if the UDO edits would have jurisdiction over the Growth Policy. Assistant Director Saunders responded the UDO explicitly stated the Growth Policy would be the dominating document if a conflict were to arise. Ms. Smith stated she agreed with Ms. Costakis that the table on page 3-2 was difficult to read. She stated the discussion on infill was difficult to understand due to the reference to additional density that did not allow flexibility between the density and the land use. Assistant Director Saunders noted the flexibility in the document was on page 3-10 and was also referenced in the table so different buildings with different activities could be mentioned. Ms. Smith responded the development could be less dense and her concern was the language was not encouraging re-use. Assistant Director Saunders responded he saw nothing that conflicted with Ms. Smith’s concerns. Ms. Smith noted she was happy with the Land Use Map as presented. Ms. Swarthout stated she agreed with Ms. Costakis that the information should be presented more clearly and suggested “specific” should be included at the bottom. Mr. Quinn stated he thought Staff did an excellent job on the chapter. Ms. Costakis stated most of her comments were editorial and had been submitted in writing, but she had decided that the caption on page 3-9 should include that sustainability was a part of everything. She stated that the matrix was difficult to understand and noted an “X” had been omitted. Assistant Director Saunders responded it was a typo and would be corrected. Ms. Costakis suggested the document contain directions to the Land Use Map in case someone did not know where it was. Mr. Mehl responded that the directions were included on page 3-11. Assistant Director Saunders asked the Board to discuss community participation for page 3-6 in the sidebar as objective LU-1.3 contained a lot of white space and Ms. Costakis had provided a quote that could be instituted to occupy some of the space. Mr. Mehl disagreed and stated he thought the white space would be a relief to those viewing the document on the website; he suggested the proposed quote was from a recent politician and would not be appropriate. Vice President Henyon responded he appreciated the quote regardless of who it came from. The Board concurred that the quote was non-partisan and should be included in the document. Mr. Becker asked how the current map would transition to the proposed map. Assistant Director Saunders responded the transition would be immediate upon City Commission approval. Mr. Becker asked if the Growth Policy Amendment process would need to be undertaken by anyone who disagreed with the Growth Policy Designations. Assistant Director Saunders responded the pubic would have time to publicly comment and would require a Growth Policy Amendment Application if they sought a different designation after the Growth Policy was adopted by the Commission. Mr. Becker asked if the intent of the appendix was to allow for modifications to the document and noted it added utility to the document but should contain more detailed zoning information. Assistant Director Saunders responded the UDO was the determining factor for zoning designations and allowable uses; he noted the Growth Policy was not a regulatory document and principal or conditional uses would border too closely on regulatory language. The Board concurred with Assistant Director Saunders. Mr. Mehl stated he agreed with Ms. Costakis’ comments regarding the order of the document and suggested Staff modify the order to provide easier understanding for the public. He suggested Staff review all of the matrices included in the document for typos. He suggested the map include a reference to the Growth Policy or printing the definitions on the reverse side of the map in case the map was separated from the document. Assistant Director Saunders responded Staff’s preference would be to include a reference to the Growth Policy document on the map itself. Mr. Mehl suggested the figures be hyperlinked to the references in the document. Assistant Director Saunders responded the references could be included. Mr. Mehl suggested all the document references within the Growth Policy be hyperlinked. Assistant Director Saunders responded Staff would provide the hyperlinks and were currently working on it. Mr. Mehl stated the Mandella quote was not his and had been made by another author. Mr. Becker added it was a part of a poem and noted he could find the name of the real author. Mr. Mehl stated he thought the quote did not match up with the rest of the information within the sidebar. Vice President Henyon suggested a quote from Lewis & Clark be included, if there was one. Assistant Director Saunders responded he was not familiar enough with Lewis & Clark to provide a quote, but would look into it. Ms. Swarthout suggested it was nice to read something inspiring while bogged down reading Land Use requirements. The Board concurred. Vice President Henyon asked if the Planning Board had decided on including Fire Stations on the Land Use Map. Ms. Smith responded the Board had decided that there were other maps that could be used to obtain that information. Assistant Director Saunders responded the data would be made available to the public on a separate map. Chapter 4: Ms. Smith asked if a definition would be included as “low impact development” had been referenced on page 4-8, objective C-6.1. Assistant Director Saunders responded a hyperlink could be provided in that location to supply the definition. Ms. Swarthout stated C-4.3 read as a statement instead of a goal or objective and suggested the language “create neighborhood commercial center that will” be included. Page 4-6, objective C-4.5, should include the language “investigate design review strategy for the City”; she noted she was concerned the implementation policies were written to address the goals and objectives and had not been written as action items in the chapter. Assistant Director Saunders responded the difference was that form based zoning had not been decided upon and as such a more firm implementation policy would not be appropriate. Ms. Swarthout stated it seemed the language was too vague and the goals and objectives were the same language as the implementation strategies; she noted she would sit down with Staff to discuss the inconsistencies with regard to chapter 16. Vice President Henyon stated on page 4-6, C-4.5, had referenced “form based zoning” and was later referenced as “form based development” (16-7, item E); he suggested the definition of “form based zoning” should be included. Ms. Costakis stated she was uncertain about the quote from the Centers for Disease Control. Assistant Director Saunders responded he would check into the quotation and reference where it had originated. Ms. Costakis stated there were three things connected to physical health; density, activity, and mixed use and suggested the language be included. She noted on page 4-4, C-2.1, the section on circulation was not strong enough language to provide for pedestrian/bicycle connectivity of subdivisions and the addition should be made. She asked if the public health section had been removed. Assistant Director Saunders responded the public health information had been included in the Public Services Appendix. Ms. Costakis suggested “public health” should be included as an objective in Community Quality. Assistant Director Saunders responded the language had been included in a number of places in the document and listed some of those locations. Mr. Becker stated the use of proper nouns and actual quotations should be investigated to provide for accurate sources; he suggested the basic letter of specificity be included. He asked if in goal C-2.1 on page 4-4 pedestrian references would include bicycles. Assistant Director Saunders responded a bicycle was considered a vehicle and noted a “complete street” would reference bike lanes. He advised there would be benefit to brevity, but it would not be the end of the world if bicycles were specifically referenced within brackets in the statement. Mr. Becker stated that there was no mention of incentives on the bottom of the page and suggested the public should comment on structured parking and those incentives. Assistant Director Saunders responded the language had been included in “Parking, Best Practices” and “Parking Improvements Districts”. Mr. Becker suggested “form based zoning” be referenced as what existed and that, with investigation, form based zoning could be expanded. Mr. Becker suggested the storm water references were too vague. Mr. Quinn suggested the language “more sustainable with fewer negative impacts” be included. Mr. Becker suggested the removal of some of the language would achieve the same result. The Board concurred the language should be stricken. Vice President Henyon stated he was still unclear on C-4.5 with regard to “form based zoning” and noted he had issue with the expansion of something he does not know the definition of. Assistant Director Saunders responded the definition could be included. Ms. Costakis asked for clarification of “form based zoning” and how it was being used in Bozeman. Assistant Director Saunders responded he would provide the Board with an American Planning Association explanation of “form based zoning” via e-mail. Chapter 5: Ms. Smith asked if on page 5-5, objective 1.5 would be a promise the City of Bozeman could make. Assistant Director Saunders responded it was a promise the City could keep as long as certain criteria were met. Mr. Mehl suggested the document not use abbreviations in the sidebar and cited “COA’s” was unclear to the community. He noted the photograph seemed to be missing. Assistant Director Saunders responded it was a note instead of a photograph. Mr. Mehl noted it was confusing. Mr. Becker noted the figures were not properly referenced. Assistant Director Saunders responded those items would be corrected. Vice President Henyon asked how important it was to include “branding logo” language. Assistant Director Saunders responded it would help increase the visibility and effectiveness of education regarding historic preservation. Chapter 6: Ms. Swarthout noted the first line should be amended to include the language “and a human right”. The Board concurred. Vice President Henyon stated on page 6-3, 1.4 needed to be bolded. Chapter 7: Ms. Swarthout stated she was thrilled with the chapter as proposed. Ms. Costakis stated the matrix included W-2 and it should be removed. Vice President Henyon stated that on page 7-3, AC-1.1, the word “current” should be removed. The Board concurred. Chapter 8: Assistant Director Saunders reminded the Board that Prospera was still working on the chapter and would maintain the same general format. Ms. Costakis noted that on page 8-2 education had not been included. Assistant Director Saunders responded he would check in the Prospera report to confirm that education had not been included in the study and he noted that economic data was sometimes segregated by function. Mr. Mehl stated the photo of downtown included text that did not appear in the rest of the Growth Policy and suggested it be included to reference Downtown Bozeman. He stated the appendices had been noted early on within the chapter and the economic references had not been included. Assistant Director Saunders responded the reference to Prospera had been included on page 8-2. Mr. Mehl asked if the Economic Profile was available to the public. Assistant Director Saunders responded it was available in hard copy at the Planning Office and could likely be available through Prospera. Vice President Henyon added he would prefer to comment on the chapter after Prospera had provided the draft. Assistant Director Saunders responded the Prospera plan would be a freestanding document that would be available through the website. Ms. Smith suggested the public be directed to contact Prospera directly for researching the economic climate. Mr. Quinn stated he thought it would be good to have a link to the document. Assistant Director Saunders responded he would check with Prospera to see if they would be willing to make the document available through a link. Mr. Mehl suggested his organization could provide economic data for Gallatin County instead of Gallatin and Park Counties. Vice President Henyon stated he concurred with Mr. Mehl. Assistant Director Saunders responded the Prospera data had been separated for each county. Mr. Mehl stated the last paragraph included a foreshadowing to 8.4 and wondered if the sentence could be stricken. Assistant Director Saunders responded it referenced background data and that there would be updates in the future so it should be included. The Board concurred with Assitant Director Saunders that the language should remain. Mr. Mehl stated the order of the chapter had been a point of discussion and suggested 8.4 should be located in the beginning of the document and he would reverse the order of the paragraphs in 8.2. Ms. Swarthout noted more comprehensive data had been referenced and the current layout made sense to her. Vice President Henyon stated that on page 8-2 the last two paragraphs discussed current economy, recession, mortgage lending problems, etc. and he was not certain the information needed to be included. He stated he would like to see focuses on the educated workforce, the location and its benefits, air – rail - & highway systems, telecommunications (fiber optics), and wireless connectivity. Chapter 9: Mr. Mehl stated he found the photo on page 9-8 very dark and he could not determine whether or not it was an impaired or unimpaired view shed. He suggested a second line should be included to define the units of measurement used (microns). Vice President Henyon suggested a new objective should be included as E-2.7 for more efficient timing in transportation to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce pollution. Assistant Director Saunders responded it would be more of an implementation policy. Vice President Henyon agreed, but thought it should also be included as a long range goal for environmental reasons. Assistant Director Saunders suggested it be included as an implementation policy in E-2.6. Mr. Becker noted the stacking on Main Street would be too large for timed lights with such short block lengths; he noted motion detectors had been included and the Opticon system the emergency vehicles used would also disrupt the timing of lights. Chapter 10: Mr. Becker asked if the connection to the PROST Plan and the parallel of the objectives within the document would be more clearly called out in the Growth Policy. Assistant Director Saunders responded there was a tight correlation and the PROST Plan had been referenced at the beginning of the document. Mr. Becker suggested the specific goals of the PROST plan should be more clearly identified within the Growth Policy. Assistant Director Saunders responded the chapter was essentially a summary of a more substantial and specific, freestanding document. Mr. Mehl stated the first page referenced Appendix D with regard to the PROST Plan. Assistant Director Saunders responded the reference was a typo and the true reference would be corrected and linked to the PROST Plan. Mr. Mehl stated on D-2 there were not enough definitions of types of parks as there were acreage calculations for other types of parks; he suggested the three with the highest acreage be included if only three were being used as examples. Ms. Swarthout suggested it was nice to see the different types of parks. Assistant Director Saunders clarified that the listed parks were the ones being referenced in acres. Ms. Costakis asked if a goal had been included to have a park within a quarter mile of every resident. Assistant Director Saunders responded the PROST Plan provided that language. Vice President Henyon suggested on page 10-3, objective R-1.15 should be included to support in-town cross country skiing. Assistant Director Saunders responded it had been addressed in a separate section of the document and the PROST Plan was more specific. Mr. Becker responded he agreed there was a need to address the concerns of cross country skiers, but other user groups would have the same concerns and Vice President Henyon’s suggestion would be too specific for inclusion. Vice President Henyon suggested the concept of linking to the school system in Bozeman should be an objective in Safe Routes to Schools. Assistant Director Saunders responded it had been specifically addressed in the Transportation Plan. Vice President Henyon suggested an objective to promote lighting standards to limit nighttime recreational facilities. Assistant Director Saunders noted objective E-5.3 addressed the issue of light pollution. Chapter 11: Mr. Becker suggested a Meriwether Lewis quote could be included in the chapter and asked if there were only 6 miles of bicycle lanes in Bozeman. Assistant Director Saunders responded the figure predated bike lane work that had been done in the fall and the information would be updated. Mr. Becker asked if the table could include the percentage of roads in the sidebar to clarify if State roads were included. Assistant Director Saunders explained the figure was the overall amount of roadways within the City. The Board concurred that the road information should be clarified. Assistant Director Saunders noted the bicycle measurements were only one way travel. Mr. Becker asked if the notations listing street types were all types pertinent on page 11-6 and 11-7. Assistant Director Saunders responded all types were listed. Mr. Mehl stated that on 11-1 the Transportation Plan was referenced as 2001 and the graphics were referencing the 2007 Draft which made it confusing. Assistant Director Saunders responded the two would be harmonized as soon as the Commission adopted the Plan. Mr. Mehl stated the street types should be arranged in order of large to small or vice versa. Ms. Costakis asked if sustainability should be included in 11-1 under multi-modal unless it had already been addressed. Assistant Director Saunders noted it could be included but had already been addressed. Ms. Costakis asked the calculation of sidewalks within the City. Assistant Director Saunders responded the City did not have a map for measuring the distance of sidewalks as no one had comprehensively inventoried the sidewalk system of Bozeman. Mr. Becker asked if sidewalks were required in the initial build-out of a subdivision. Assistant Director Saunders responded sidewalks were required for public areas, but were not required for the interior of lots until construction on individual lots and would be financially guaranteed until such a time as the sidewalks could be installed. Ms. Smith stated the street types on page 11-7 defined arterials as having separated paths and asked which arterials, aside from N. 19th Ave., had separated paths. Assistant Director Saunders responded that Oak Street also had separated paths. Vice President Henyon suggested an objective correlating to air quality and signalization that makes the automobile network efficient while decreasing pollution. The Board concurred that Chapters 12-17 be opened and continued to the next meeting of the Planning Board. ITEM 5. NEW BUSINESS Ms. Swarthout requested excusal from all Wednesday meetings between now and the beginning of May due to a scheduling conflict. The Board concurred that her absences from Wednesday meetings would be excused. ITEM 6. ADJOURNMENT Seeing there was no further business before the Board, Vice President Henyon adjourned the meeting at 9:46 p.m. __________________________________ __________________________________ Eric Henyon, Vice President Chris Saunders, Assistant Director Planning Board Planning & Community Development City of Bozeman City of Bozeman