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HomeMy WebLinkAbout120109 Planning Board Minutes PLANNING BOARD MINUTES TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2009 ITEM 1. CALL TO ORDER AND ATTENDANCE President Caldwell called the regular meeting of the Planning Board to order at 7:11 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: Cathy Costakis Chris Saunders, Assistant Planning Director Brian Caldwell, President Tara Hastie, Recording Secretary Erik Henyon, Vice President Sean Becker Ed Sypinski Members Absent:Guests Present: Bill Quinn Bill Brooks Donna Swarthout Nate Ward Dawn Smith Chris Mehl 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, President Caldwell closed the public comment portion of the meeting. ITEM 3. MINUTES OF NOVEMBER 17, 2009 MOTION: Vice President Henyonmoved, Ms. Costakis seconded, to approve the minutes of The motion carried 5-0. November 3, 2009 as presented. Those voting aye being President Caldwell, Vice President Henyon, Mr. Sypinski, Ms. Costakis, and Mr. Becker. Those voting nay being none. ITEM 4. DRAFT “COMPLETE STREETS POLICY ADOPTION” CITY COMMISSION LETTER (Costakis) President Caldwell introduced Ms. Costakis for presentation of the item. Ms. Costakis stated the reason for the agenda item was the Board’s work on the Growth Policy. She stated the Board had indicated the desire to forward a recommendation to the City Commission for adoption of a Complete Streets Policy. She suggested the recommendations for Complete Streets should instead be changed to policies and then formally adopted. She directed the Board to the ten elements of the Complete Streets Policy and had included the language in resolution form for City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 1 adoption by the Commission. She stated the beginning of the resolution explained the provisions of the draft Complete Streets Policy and explained that the vision of the community had been stated on the first page. She stated a “Complete Street” was defined within the language and basically included parts of chapter six of the adopted Transportation Plan for Bozeman and noted that language. She added that all of the proposed exceptions had been included from the Transportation Plan. Mr. Sypinski asked what would trigger the Complete Streets Policy. Ms. Costakis responded that maintenance would trigger the policy. Mr. Sypinski asked for clarification of which forms of maintenance would trigger the policy enforcement. Ms. Costakis responded minimal maintenance would not trigger full Complete Streets compliance, but major street maintenance would trigger more compliance; each site would be reviewed individually. President Caldwell added that there would be a balance based on the type of maintenance being done. Ms. Costakis stated the language was not a “hard and fast line” but should be considered based on the value of the work and the need for improvements. Assistant Director Saunders stated that the professional judgment of the people doing the work would have some say in whether or not maintenance was considered major or minor. He suggested minor revisions to the language presented would make the policy more clear and address instances where unreasonable increases in expense would be more evident. President Caldwell asked if in the review of chapter 44 of the UDO there was evidence of the ten items within the Complete Streets Policy and he thought the void in implementation was in some of the incomplete sidewalks in and around some of the schools within the City; he asked if an added benefit of the policy is that if it were adopted, it would bring more attention to some of the local disconnects. Assistant Director Saunders responded most of those sidewalks were not constructed with public funds, but instead were the responsibility of the adjacent owners; he thought the idea could be pursued to make it easier for the landowners and Commissioners to see the need for sidewalks without direct public funding. President Caldwell stated that common opinion was that 80% of the policy was in place and the adoption of the policy would be good for the community and it would be an important policy to proceed with; he added more credence would be given to sidewalk installation in the community. He suggested the items that would trigger the policy should be clearer and he was supportive of the policy. Ms. Costakis stated she had not changed much of the language from the Transportation Plan as it had already been adopted and added that getting too explicit might raise feelings for the applicant of being strapped into the recommendations. Assistant Director Saunders suggested the Commission would prefer to see precise text from the Board and he had identified minor changes that would not change the intent of the policy; he suggested inclusion of the letter and the draft resolution as a recommendation to the City Commission. Ms. Costakis read the draft letter to the Commission for the Board; she stated she had intended to include that other community’s involvement in the adoption of the policy, but she was uncertain whether or not it would help. President Caldwell suggested including the positive recognition of the City to acknowledge their ongoing efforts to provide a “Complete Streets” ordinance. City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 2 Mr. Becker suggested that at some level the resolution was ambiguous and in the wrong direction; the use of the words “cost”, “need”, “reasonability”, etc. and added that economic feasibility was difficult to gauge. Ms. Costakis stated she would like to make the policy more stringent, but had taken the language Mr. Becker was referencing directly from the adopted Transportation Plan. Mr. Becker suggested the adoption of the policy could be put at risk by being too specific. President Caldwell asked if the deferring sidewalks on a subdivision would make or break the feasibility of the subdivision, would it necessarily be a bad thing due to so many subdivisions going bankrupt and threatening the economy of the community. He suggested the policy could be used as an economic development strategy. Mr. Becker stated he thought economic development and feasibility were two different animals; he suggested the language “unless otherwise prohibited by ordinance” be included in the draft resolution. He cited a guy along the highway who wants to put in an extra bay and it would be silly to require him to improve the site to the standards included in the policy. Assistant Director Saunders responded that a business could be expanded by a minimum of 10% up to possibly 20% before Site Plan review would be triggered and would not require full review process; he noted that defined decision points, already established, would prevent the figurative “tail wagging the dog” scenario. President Caldwell suggested the inclusion of the language “unusual and extraordinary circumstances” should be included and the establishment of the City Commission making the final decision. Assistant Director Saunders noted that language to the affect had already been included. President Caldwell concurred. Assistant Director Saunders stated that the reference in the document to the “improvements” as a trigger was not necessarily pertinent to rights of way as the standards to improvements of the right of way were already in place in existing regulations. Mr. Becker suggested the resolution as presented did not have the teeth to provide for enforcement. Mr. Sypinski responded that the performance measures and standards would be left to Staff as explained in the proposed language. Assistant Director Saunders responded that the proposed language implied and, at times, explicitly listed that each instance would be evaluated and reviewed. President Caldwell added that Ms. Costakis had included the Transportation Plan language to provide for consistency. Ms. Costakis added that exceptions had been included in more detail within other communities adopted Complete Streets Policies and suggested a better set of exceptions could be sought. She stated she also wanted to include the City working with other transportation agencies such as the County or State and noted the suggested of cooperation between the entities could be included. President Caldwell stated he had been unable to download the Transportation Plan for the last six months and suggested some of the language be included as part of the proposed resolution. President Caldwell opened the item for public comment. The two members of the public in attendance simultaneously stated the discussion sounded like a good idea but did not provide their names. Seeing no further public comment forthcoming, President Caldwell closed the public comment portion of the meeting. Vice President Henyon stated he felt that the Transportation Plan and Growth Policy language made the draft resolution kind of redundant, but he was supportive if the adoption of the City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 3 resolution would make the policy more accepted. He suggested Staff review the document prior to adoption by the City Commission. Ms. Costakis stated the whole point of the draft was that the Commission had never formally adopted the policy but had recommended its adoption. Mr. Sypinski stated that part of the implementation strategy was to adopt a Complete Streets policy so he did not think it was being redundant. He stated he was supportive of either Staff reviewing the resolution prior to City Commission adoption or forwarding a recommendation of approval at the evening’s meeting. He suggested he would not mind seeing cooperation between County and State entities included in the language. MOTION : Ms. Costakis moved, Mr. Sypinski seconded, to forward the draft Complete Streets resolution to Staff for comments and to forward a recommendation of approval to the City Commission for the draft resolution of the “Complete Streets Policy”. Mr. Sypinski asked if the Board would have a chance to review the document prior to Staff forwarding the resolution to the City Commission. President Caldwell responded that he thought Staff saw the intent of the resolution and would institute their comments appropriately; he suggested the motion remain as is with support from the Board. Vice President Henyon suggested the addition of language to provide for cooperation with County and State transportation entities; he stated he did not think Staff would necessarily need to review the document. President Caldwell responded that he thought it would be potentially disrespectful not to acknowledge the efforts of Staff by allowing them to make comments. Assistant Director Saunders offered to provide comments and stated the reference to the 2020 Plan was incorrect and should instead be referenced as the Bozeman Community Plan. Mr. Becker suggested a time frame be included and stated that it would be better if the resolution was in the format normally reviewed by Commission; he suggested the draft be forwarded with the suggestions by Board members included. Mr. Sypinski made a friendly amendment that Staff should review the resolution prior to Commission review to provide the correct format. Assistant Director Saunders responded he would like to make a few suggested word changes prior to the Board forwarding a recommendation directly to the Commission; page 2, second paragraph, the inclusion of language “may be appropriate in some instances” and the removal of the word “may” and its replacement with the word “could”. He suggested the inclusion of the word “has, and will continue to” in the first sentence of the next paragraph to illustrate that the City has been Ms. Costakis withdrew her motion. including those requirements. MOTION : Ms. Costakis moved, Mr. Sypinski seconded, to forward a recommendation of approval to the City Commission for the draft resolution of the Complete Streets Policy with edits as recommended by Staff and the addition of language to provide for cooperation between the City and other transportation jurisdictions. Ms. Costakis stated she thought the bike board was considering forwarding a similar letter to the Commission and suggested she could include other board’s/commission’s letters. President City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 4 Caldwell responded he did not think the other letters would be necessary and could be considered by the Commission at a later date. Mr. Sypinski concurred with President Caldwell. Mr. Becker added the draft resolution would be considered by the Bicycle Advisory Board tomorrow at their meeting. The motion carried 5-0 . Those voting aye being President Caldwell, Vice President Henyon, Mr. Sypinski, Ms. Costakis, and Mr. Becker. Those voting nay being none. ITEM 5. DISCUSSION ITEM 1. GROWTH POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN IMPLEMENTATION A public meeting to provide opportunity for Planning Board members to discuss implementation of the Growth Policy and Economic Development Plans. President Caldwell stated the previous item was a great example of what he had wanted to see in the implementation of the Growth Policy. Ms. Costakis stated she had gotten the Form Based Zoning CD from the State and offered to let any member of the Board view the CD after she was finished with it. Mr. Becker asked if the new definitions for Residential Emphasis Mixed Use in the Growth Policy would be presented to the Planning Board for review. Assistant Director Saunders responded that it was the zoning district that would need to be clarified instead of the Growth Policy designations. Mr. Becker asked if Form Based Zoning could be used to define those designations that had not yet been identified. Assistant Director Saunders responded Form Based zoning could be included. ITEM 6. NEW BUSINESS Ms. Costakis stated she thought she would sign up for the Small Town Tour and Smart Growth Conference and suggested the Board members would enjoy attending. Assistant Director Saunders stated the Downtown Improvement Plan would be up for consideration by the City Commission on 12/14/09. President Caldwell asked if the fervor against the removal of public parking lots had been resolved; he added the literal interpretation of the language the Planning Board had suggested regarding no net loss of parking spaces had been at issue. Assistant Director Saunders responded the applicant had been attempting to resolve the issue. ITEM 7. ADJOURNMENT Seeing there was no further business before the Board, President Caldwell adjourned the meeting at 8:27 p.m. City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 5 __________________________________ __________________________________ Brian Caldwell, President Chris Saunders, Assistant Planning Director Planning Board Planning & Community Development City of Bozeman City of Bozeman City of Bozeman Planning Board Minutes of December 1, 2009. 6