Bozeman City Commission Meeting April 28, 2026: Priorities, Public Comment, and Interim Zoning
Bozeman City Commission Meeting – April 28, 2026
The Bozeman City Commission met on April 28, 2026, for a regular meeting that included a work session on the City Manager’s work plan and commission priorities. The evening began with the Pledge of Allegiance and updates from commissioners, followed by consent items, extensive public comment on a range of issues, and a deep dive into the city’s strategic priorities. Key topics included interim zoning, social housing, public safety funding, and upcoming ballot measures.
Consent Calendar
- Consent one (items 1–6) approved 5–0.
- Consent two (adoption of findings of fact for appeal 25769, Send and Springs) continued to the May 5, 2026 meeting after public comment from appellant Jeff Poole and discussion about reviewing omitted Unified Development Code provisions. The commission will consider the document again after allowing time to review Poole’s comments.
Public Comments & Testimony
Non-Agenda Items:
- Natsuki Nakamura (Bozeman resident, Economic Vitality Board member) commented on the interim zoning discussion, thanking commissioners for sharing views but wishing it had been agendized. She also spoke as Teamsters union president, urging fair contract negotiations for city workers.
- Aidan Rasmussen (Bozeman DSA Housing Working Group) advocated for social housing funded by revenue bonds, citing a 44.2% vacancy rate for units built in 2024–2025 compared to 9.2% for pre-2024 units, and called for market-shielded affordable housing.
- Anthony Smith raised concerns about police accountability, referencing a 27-hour standoff and calling for transparent coroner’s inquests and policy changes.
- Riley Dunn urged proactive rather than reactive governance, arguing that proactive measures now save time later.
- Mary Bateson highlighted that the Neighborhood Conservation Overlay District (NCOD) is not being enforced and argued that large buildings threaten the general welfare of residents.
- Daniel Cardi supported social housing and criticized the commission for not holding a public hearing on interim zoning; advocated for reducing B3 height limits from 90 to 60 feet.
- Isaac Buttery (MSU student) urged water conservation policies due to declining snowpack, noting that 80% of Bozeman’s water supply comes from snowmelt.
- Autumn Michaels (DSA) reiterated the request for bond council consultation on social housing, stating the campaign has been running for five years.
- Emily Toledo (online) challenged the commission’s definition of urgency, arguing that dysfunctional land use policy has real cumulative impacts on quality of life.
Work Session Comments:
- Mary Bateson read prior commissioner statements on B3 height limits from December 2024 and asked the commission to publicly discuss height limits as they said they would.
- Bonnie Rice (Sacagewea Audubon Society) requested that dark sky preservation be formally incorporated into commission priorities, noting that a formal analysis of Bozeman’s lighting code by DarkSky International is complete and includes specific recommendations.
- Nathan Stein (Headwaters Community Housing Trust) supported bridging the affordability gap and urged exploring new funding sources such as a housing levy or revenue bonds, citing the narrow failure of the 2020 levy.
- Catherine Barry (Gallatin Watershed Council) encouraged developing a wetland and watercourse mitigation manual and adding natural resource staff capacity to ensure consistent implementation of the new code.
- Riley Dunn questioned the need for interim zoning, called for statistically valid surveys rather than self-selected ones, and asked that B3 height concerns be addressed separately from NCOD updates.
Discussion Items
Interim Zoning and NCOD Update: During commissioner FYI, all five commissioners gave their positions on the request for an interim zoning ordinance (IZO) for the NCOD:
- Deputy Mayor Fisher opposed an IZO, citing the four-year UDC rewrite process, need for predictability, and concerns that a pause would undermine trust and create legal/financial uncertainty. He argued that reopening that debate pulls time from other priorities and that the strongest calls for a pause come from already-protected areas.
- Commissioner Bodie cited Montana Code Annotated, noting that IZO is meant to address uses, not design standards. She found no exigent circumstances or specific threat to public health, safety, or welfare, and stated that an IZO would undermine the ongoing NCOD update public engagement process.
- Commissioner Magic said she began discussing interim zoning last summer but now feels less urgency due to slowed development and the completed UDC update. She remains open to investigating an IZO but prefers to focus energy on the NCOD process.
- Commissioner Sweeney read from the 1990 Bozeman interim zoning ordinance and expressed support, emphasizing that the NCOD is a conservation overlay and that the Historic Preservation Advisory Board has voted to write a letter analyzing pros and cons.
- Mayor Morrison stated he sees no level of threat to health, safety, or welfare that merits urgency, and that other issues (e.g., a recent traffic fatality) have already mobilized swift action.
Work Plan and Priorities Refinement: The commission held a lengthy work session to finalize the joint city manager work plan. Key areas addressed:
- Public Safety: Fire staffing (Safer grant cliff, options for a quick response unit and future ballot measures), police staffing and a potential police impact fee study ($50,000), EMS transport services, and behavioral health coordination.
- Community Engagement: Consensus program (pilot underway), review of citizen advisory boards (report expected, work session in June), enhanced MSU partnership (including housing, policing, and parking coordination), “Telling Our Story” initiative, and a proposed Citizens Academy (moved under engagement).
- Affordability: A dedicated housing work session will be scheduled to explore revenue bonds, GO bonds, a housing levy, and zoning incentives (density in RB, design standards modifications). Commissioners expressed differing views on developer concessions and the effectiveness of current tools like LITeC and the Affordable Housing Ordinance.
- Heritage and Environment: NCOD update, urban forest management plan (including canopy goals, vulnerability analysis, and heritage tree recommendations), Pratt Plan (parks, recreation, active transportation), integrated water resources plan, and Bozeman Creek Vision Plan.
- UDC Revisions: Commissioners committed to a comprehensive review of the Unified Development Code and zone map in August 2026, including topics like B3 height limits, dark sky amendments, wetland mitigation rules, and short-term rental regulations.
Language and Structural Edits:
- Changed “streamline the development review process” to “improve predictability and cut inefficiencies.”
- Moved Citizens Academy to the “Engaging Meaningfully with Community” section.
- Adjusted completion definitions for the Safe Streets for All plan to include a long-term vision beyond the three listed initiatives.
- Consolidated references to the Affordable Housing Ordinance.
- Added police impact fee study to the work plan.
Key Outcomes
- Consent Item 2 continued to May 5, 2026 to allow review of new comments.
- Housing Work Session to be scheduled in the coming months to discuss funding mechanisms, zoning incentives, and overall housing strategy.
- Ballot Question Strategy Work Session will determine which issues (fire staffing, police staffing, housing levy, etc.) to present to voters and on what timeline.
- UDC Text and Map Amendments will be reviewed in a dedicated work session in August 2026, with input from advisory boards and the public.
- Advisory Board Work Session planned for June 2026.
- Consensus Program Pilot continues as planned.
- Police Impact Fee Study to be pursued; commissioners expressed support.
- Affordable Housing Ordinance Revisions to be discussed in the housing work session; specific proposals include exploring density bonuses in RB zoning and alternative incentives.
Additional FYI
- Commissioner Magic announced a walk along Bozeman Creek on April 29 (dog-friendly, trash pickup).
- City Manager announced the Hidden Creek groundbreaking on May 1 (182 apartments for 30–70% AMI, 9 for-sale homes, $2 million city support, partnership with county/HRDC/United Housing Partners) and completion of the Riverside Lift Station ($1 million under budget, serving 140 homes).
- Commissioner Sweeney promoted the Give Big event and Extreme History Project walking tours (May 1).
- Mayor Morrison closed by responding to public comments, defending the commission’s proactive record on transportation safety and interim zoning.
Meeting adjourned.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everyone, as we call this April twenty eighth, twenty twenty six Boltzmann City Commission meeting to order. Follow along and engage in the meeting today. Um if you're in the in the room, you're already here, check. If you're wanting to attend virtually or online, you can dial in uh ver via the phone number that's on any of our agendas. You can join us remotely from our uh city videos page. And you can just watch um live via cable channel 190. Um all of those have an uh different ways in which you can engage. Some of them have the opportunity to provide remote public comment. That's only coming through our city video page. Um if anyone submitted written public comment before noon today, we have all gotten those. Um they were socialized throughout the commission and and the related staff for public comments that came in before noon today. Um so just as a reminder for anyone trying to submit public comment comments at Bozeman.net. Um, if they come in before noon, we will get them and we will be able to consider them for this meeting. Um without further ado, we will move on to our Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. Moving on, do we have any changes to our agenda this evening? Good evening, Mayor. There are no changes tonight. Excellent. Now moving on to FYI. Are there any commission FYI this evening? I have one. Sure. Commissioner Magic. Um I am doing a walk with the commissioner tomorrow. Uh Commissioner Sweeney is gonna join me on this one. It's gonna be a walk of Bozeman Creek, at least that part of the creek we can actually see. Uh we're gonna start here at City Hall in the parking lot at 515 and go approximately let's see, past Bogard to the lineier park. There's a place where the creek kind of crosses the bridge. This is gonna be dog friendly, and we're also gonna pick up trash. Sounds like a great time. Thank you. Yeah, Deputy Mayor. Um I just want to speak briefly. We have been uh we have received a uh a letter from the inner neighborhood council asking us to consider an interim zoning ordinance or uh pause uh on on larger developments within the um COD, the neighborhood conservation overlay district. Uh the historic preservation board has voted to ask us to take up this matter. Commissioner Sweeney, you've been asking us as well from your spot here. Um I just wanted to speak briefly, if I could, to that request, um, just to explain some of my the reasoning. And and I I see that I have a responsibility as deputy mayor and a member of this commission to ensure that our um our public processes and votes have integrity, that our city government and our uh commission are predictable, and that our vision and policies work citywide. Everything hinges off those. And I have given honest consideration to uh two of these requests for interim zoning ordinance and concluded that that request doesn't meet that threshold on several points. The first one is that we already made this decision through a legitimate process. We spent four years um rewriting the development code with extensive public input. The process was explicitly included discussions about downtown scale and neighborhood concerns and protections. And the result was a new code that reflects those concerns and that we just adopted. And to me, government has to be predictable or it stops working. My responsibility, and I would argue our responsibility as a commission is not to respond to every request, but it's to provide stability and predictability. And if we pause projects just immediately after adopting a new code, we undermine that trust in the system, not just for developers, but for residents, for city staff, and for anyone trying to invest in this community. We have a process underway. I'd like, and I feel strongly that we need to let it work. We knew when we adopted the code that the NCOD was in was uh guidelines were unfinished.
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