Like, here you go.

Chris, uh, um I realized that's checking the public problems.

Um, I think it's true that I think that would have to be anything else, it's not under this one, but it's like I don't know.

Um, I just know that I think that would like to just put this on this.

However, it's just like a few people, I think.

Oh, and then uh, it's like uh it was delayed, but not sufficient to make me miss this.

All right.

Yeah, it's good.

You know, I need to have this one.

So, I think it was just so fast.

Uh sorry, I don't think we don't know.

Do you want to put some of that?

I think uh, it's starting.

I think it's not a way.

I was thinking about it.

Let's just hold it for considerable.

Is it like on the way to it now?

It's a five minutes later.

It takes a while to read this stuff.

It does.

Um, you should be that seven total.

So that's been a Chris isn't sure.

No, it's been quite bad, yeah.

Yes.

But it just said, like, why did I put the thought?

So I don't want to be like, and then that's good as a little bit of a second.

She has she can put it on top.

Or she doesn't want to.

She went on too.

So we can see the interesting one.

She wants to sign off.

We'll do it.

So we need to go to the hospital right now.

So she has a hospital at times.

So she's eight seconds.

She is like a very much counselor.

I'll call this meeting to order at uh six oh seven.

Daylight time.

Good evening and welcome to the June fifteenth, twenty twenty six meeting of the Bozeman Community Devolved Board.

Thank you for joining us.

Uh, we welcome the presence of those here at the city commission room.

Before we start this meeting, I'd like to remind those not physically present here, uh, of the ways in which you can follow this meeting and provide public comments.

You can watch this meeting in real time and provide public comment by joining us by a video conference.

You'll find the link to join us by going to the city's website at bosom and mt.gov.

Click on departments, then on city commission, and then on live stream and videos.

Find this meeting under the upcoming events list and click on the copy of the meeting agenda.

It is highlighted in blue.

Then in the agenda, click on via video conference in the second paragraph and follow the prompts into the meeting.

If you're joining us via video conference, and if you would like to offer public comment this evening, use the video conference raise your hand feature when it is your turn to comment.

Staff will call on you by name.

Please note that we will take public comments from those physically present here first, followed by those joining via video conference.

In addition to joining us via video conference, there are other ways you can follow this meeting, but they are for viewing or listening only, and you will not be able to provide public comment.

Dial in to listen to this meeting, you'll find the phone number and access code under section A of the agenda.

You can watch this meeting on Cable TV channel one ninety, and you can stream this meeting on your computer, similarly going to Bozeman MT.gov, click on departments, then on city commission, then on live stream and videos, find this meeting under the upcoming events uh list and click on the view live event.

You can also provide written public comment before meetings by sending us an email to comments at Bozeman.net, or or sorry, that'd be comments at Bozeman MT.gov or by visiting the city's public comment web page.

Any public comments received by noon today, will have been distributed to the board.

Um now I'd like to go ahead and have the folks in the room at the dais introduce themselves, starting with uh member Bonnet, Eric Bonnet.

Mark Eggie, Jason Delmute, Lauren Maitra.

And uh staff, please, Chris Saunders, community development, Trenton Ruffalo's city staff.

All right, thank you.

All right, are there any can are there any disclosures from members of the board?

Hearing none, are there any changes to the agenda?

None uh first item of business would be uh item D, approval of minutes, um and we have uh two meeting minutes to consider.

Um June 1st, 2026 and May 4th, 2026.

And let's see.

Normally I would entertain a motion, but I did want to uh point out one clarification in uh first in uh um minutes for June 1st at the 5431 mark.

Um there was a motion to amend and a corresponding vote, and it reads exterior facade materials and the character of equipment compounds.

That's what the minutes currently say.

I believe compounds should be changed to shelters, going back and looking at that uh referenced code section.

Um but then having said that I would uh hear any other changes that people thought and entertain a motion.

I move to approve the minutes from our main gene meetings, I'll second that.

All right, and then I think the typical is if an edit is mentioned before the vote.

Staff will just go ahead and take care of that.

Is that right?

Right.

Thanks.

Yeah, there were no objections to it.

So, so I remember Aggie.

Aye.

Second her bottom.

Aye.

Member Maitro.

Aye.

Member W.

Aye.

Motion carries four zero.

First action item.

Well, first and only action item under subpart E of the agenda 2026.

Unified Development Code Housekeeping Amendments one to amend Chapter 38 unified development code.

Boseman Municipal Code to address legacy short-term rentals in the RA district and parking in the B3 district after October 1st, 2026.

This is application 26307.

And our manager Saunders will take over from here.

Thank you.

Good evening, members of the board.

Chris Saunders has noted.

As the board's aware, the city adopted regulations that took effect on February 1st of this year.

There were a great number of changes that happened over the three plus year period of its development.

And some of that was separate amendments that went through in process and then got merged into the revised draft.

During the subsequent adoption of an implementation of those regulations, we've identified some items that need to be corrected.

The reason we're calling this housekeeping one is because there will be a housekeeping two later in the year.

But these two particular items happen to have a little extra time pressure behind them due to some deadlines in the code and just to deal with concerns of the public.

So these two items are before you this evening, you'll make a recommendation to the city commission.

City Commission will hold a public hearing, and then we'll ultimately decide what to do.

And so I'm gonna go through uh some of the slides.

I'm gonna then turn it over to Aaron George, our community development director, to um take care of some details and provide some background information that she's more familiar with, and then I'll close it out and then we'll go over to questions from yourselves or the public.

So the first item, and I would note that these are two different ordinances, and I'll explain that in just a minute.

Uh the first one is modifying the B3 parking.

Uh, the code as it stands today has a before October 1st of this year and on or after October 1st of this year.

That's to coincide and coordinate with some state law changes that also take effect on that same day.

Uh, some of those regulations happened during the session in 2025, and so we were editing on the fly, and there was an omission in some of the language.

So the proposed uh edits that are in the ordinance before you for consideration basically carry forward the elements that were are applicable in the code today prior to October 1st, so that they will carry forward after October 1st when uh the commission ultimately adopted uh the new regulations, they gave some particular consideration to the downtown area, the B3, because there are some unique characteristics there, and so uh we want to make sure that that carries forward uh according to the commission's original intent.

There are two major chunks in the edits.

Uh, first is uh addressing uh a variety of group residential activities.

The language in the code today includes um individual dwellings, but there's a variety of ways that people can choose to live together, and so we needed to make sure that those carried forward, and then there are some commercial standards that are more permissive in the B3 district than would be elsewhere in the city, and if we don't carry forward, then it would default back to those other uh standards throughout the community.

The other item is relating to short-term rentals, and um in this case uh the commission passed two ordinances relating to short-term rentals uh during the process of the UDC update timeline that were completely independent from the UDC update.

When those merged forward, it was identified that there was a um a consequence for that when the uh RA district was created as a blend of the RS R1 and R2 districts, commission had approved uh short-term rentals type two as an allowed use in the R2 district, but not an allowed use in the RS and R1.

So when that came together, the draft as it was presented uh to the Commission and ultimately adopted did not include short-term rentals type two as an allowed use in the RA district.

Um so we have this thing where different competing, not competing, different districts that were brought together had different ways of approaching the same use.

And so a couple of different questions come out of that, and um we'll talk about that in a minute.

But one of the things that's distinct for this ordinance, very unusual for the ones that usually come to you folks, this is not a codified ordinance.

It's not going to change the words in the book as it's currently drafted.

Um, what it is is instructions for from the commission for the administration of the ordinance, because we have now amended the ordinance multiple times.

Um the city doesn't do retroactive rules, and so uh each of those has had descriptions about this is how we deal with things that don't meet the new rules but were approved originally, so a non-conforming use or grandfathering is a term you often hear used, and how do we make sure and match all that up so that it makes sense?

And so we're trying to bring all three of those together, clarify the language that's applicable today, um, and then just uh bring this bring this up to a functional standpoint.

So, because of all those different pieces, uh, those other instructions for this is how we deal with non-conforming uses likewise were not codified.

Um they were simply instructions for administration.

So similar kind of thing is one of the reasons why there's a split between the B3, which will be codified, will go in the book for people to reference, and then these which are a little bit different.

And I'm gonna turn it over at this point to Aaron George.

Thanks, Chris.

Hello, board members, Aaron George, community development director.

Um the reason I'm speaking to this topic is because I was the one who was assigned to the short-term rental ordinance back in 2023.

So try as I might uh that is my topic forevermore.

The person that knows the most about it.

Um, so I'm just gonna add some more context here.

So just a refresher for those that are not in the midst of this or haven't dealt with them, what the types of the short-term rentals are for reference.

So type one are uh short-term rental of one or more bedrooms in a host primary residence while the host is present in that dwelling unit for the entire short-term rental period.

Type two is short-term rental of a dwelling unit if the host is not occupying the dwelling unit during the entire rental period.

And there are two subtypes to that, 2A and 2B.

2A is the host primary residence, and type 2B is short-term rental of an ADU on the same lot as the host primary residence, or of no more than one additional dwelling unit in the same building as a host primary residence.

Then type 3 I don't have on the screen because they're no longer allowed.

Uh, new type 3s were banned in 2023 by city commission.

Um, but the existing ones were grandfathered called legacy type threes.

So the existing ones that were operating as of the effective date of that ordinance in December of 23 were allowed to continue.

But um we process short-term rental permits as um their annual permits.

So you have to renew your permit before the expiration date uh for your permit every year, and if you fail to do that and you're a legacy type three, you lose your grandfathering status.

So it's really important folks keep their permit up to date.

Um at the time that that ordinance was considered in 2023, uh City Commission was uh very focused on trying to uh limit type threes, which were uh non-owner occupied.

So those are the types that are, and the reason they banned them was there was a perception uh in the community that they were using up uh housing supply.

Is that what you were gonna ask, Eric?

Yeah, thanks.

Uh so um so new type 3s were banned and existing ones were allowed to continue uh as long as you keep their valid the permit valid every year.

And then we referenced primary residence, and what that means is it's the dwelling unit uh that a natural person occupies natural person's legalese, uh, the real person occupies for a minimum of 70% of the calendar year.

And a natural person can only have one primary residence.

So before 2023, we regulated short-term rentals based on ownership.

So we used to say owner-occupied, non-owner-occupied post-2023, it's primary residence.

Um our legal folks felt that was um easier to uh defend legally.

So that's context on the types.

Any questions on the types before I move on?

That's just background context.

Okay.

So short-term rentals in RA district.

The questions for you, you can see a little snippet here of the use table that in the new UDC, RA does not allow them for type ones or twos.

The type ones was intended to be allowed.

We actually corrected that through a codification order.

Codification order is something that the city attorney can do if there is a uh an error that is like a scrivener's error, something that was not intended.

Um, but the type two was at the time a decision that was uh that was made by Chris and I as we were drafting the code, uh, the 2023 ordinance.

We um looked back at the intention of city commission at the time and felt that the intention was not to expand where short-term rentals were allowed, but to actually limit it by um lessening the total number in the city by banning new type threes.

So the decision was made at the time to uh go with the more restrictive, which was uh R2 R S and R1 not allowing type two.

So the questions for you just the just to be clear, because I think this was the question I had.

So you're saying that R1 and R2 were part of what was becoming RA, and the question was should the more permissive R2 inform RA, or should the more restrictive R1 inform.

Exactly.

Okay, yeah, because I don't the question was also gonna be was it I don't remember that being explicitly discussed.

It was not.

Which way to do that?

It was not explicitly discussed.

Right, so um, like at any point, right?

There was no commission direction or work session.

Correct.

Like Chris said, the two efforts um overlapped.

So the 2023 short-term rental work overlapped with the beginning of the UDC project, and um then the UDC project took off, and was we were focused on so many other issues at the time that um short-term rentals did not come up in any new discussions as part of the UDC project.

So it was kind of behind the scenes when we were getting the final draft ready that we just made that decision based on the prior city commission's intent, and uh it wasn't until we then uh implemented the the new UDC that this kind of uh outcome became uh evident that wasn't necessarily intended to take away something from uh all of these existing type two hosts.

And so um what happened was um when the affected type two hosts became aware of this, they um contacted the city to you know understand what happened, we explained, and then they emailed the city commission.

So there were 16 public comments that came in, this was in April about the issue from type two short-term rental hosts asking city commission to fix this.

Uh so we received direction from the commission via the city manager.

So, of course, commission cannot directly uh direct staff behind the scenes.

Um, they talked with the city manager based on those comments and asked staff to draft an ordinance, and they formally authorized that uh on consent.

Um, what was that, May?

May 12th.

Um, so we started working on that, and then the ordinance that's in your packet tonight does exactly that um to grandfather the existing type two short-term rentals in RA.

Because that was the direct asked from city commission, just the the most narrow version of how to fix the issue.

However, one of the questions for you tonight is whether you might prefer to simply allow short-term rental type twos in RA outright.

Uh, this would be easier for staff to administer.

It would be simpler for customers to understand.

Um couple little tidbits of info for that.

Um we have found in talking with hosts over the last couple of years that it's popular for people who split their time or travel for work to operate a short-term rental as a type two to rent it out when they're not there, no more than 30% of the year to meet the primary residence requirement.

We do find, especially since new type threes are banned, that type twos are our most common type, and I have some numbers for you in just a sec.

Many hosts say the extra income helps them pay their mortgage or save for retirement.

And we understand that several commissioners may be interested in going this direction and allowing type twos outright, but they want the board's input.

Another question is if the board prefers to stick with grandfathering, which date should be used to apply the grandfathering, as in existing type two operating prior to either the UDC effective date of February 1st or the effective date of this ordinance.

As drafted, it's the effective date of this ordinance, that is staff's recommendation, because five months have passed since the new UDC has taken effect.

The difference would be if you use the effective date of this ordinance, it means that new type threes that came in, maybe not being aware of this change, would be allowed to operate if they came in before the effective date of this ordinance.

If you went with the more restricted, which is the UDC effective date, then it would be if someone came in as with a new application after February 1st, they would not be allowed to operate.

So for context, uh the area that's affected by this would be, see the R2 district is 867 acres, the prior R2 district, and of which 492 acres are existing residential use.

So that's um those are numbers from our land use report that we update every year.

So by not allowing type 2s and R2, it's a decrease of 492 acres of residential use that could no longer operate type twos.

If you were to allow it in R2, that means RA, that would mean allowing it in 1033 acres of existing residential use.

So that's the whole area of the RA that is residential.

And the reason I'm focusing on the residential is there's also areas of right-of-way, churches, other things that would never become a short-term rental.

So here's numbers.

Um this is from April, this is when we calculated when we got that influx of public comments on the issue.

Uh as you can see, type one short short-term rentals are our least popular type.

Not surprising, you're having to rent out a bedroom or multiple bedrooms while you're present in the home.

So we have about 32 of those.

Type twos total.

We have 189, which represents 53% of all short-term rentals.

Of the type twos, 62 of them or 17% are in RA.

So 17% of all short-term rentals are type twos in RA.

And then type threes are 38% or 135 of them.

So with that, I'll turn it back to Chris and did you want to do questions on short-term rentals now before we proceed to this kind of form formality of the next part?

I think we might as well.

Okay.

Um, let's see.

I don't I had a question.

I fairly closely followed the regulation of short-term rentals from when they weren't regulated at all to when they were first regulated to then when they were, you know, the updates.

Um, I thought I had a recollection that the type two that involves an ADU and a main residence on the same parcel that at a time it could go either way.

But now I see it's only the only the ADU can be rated.

Um does anybody remember if that was ever changed to where it could go either way?

Because you know, the proxy was the sort of avoiding the absentee landlord situation or the owner not being there.

So from that standpoint, it doesn't really matter if the owner has empty nested the main house and is living in the ADU, still there to keep an eye on the place.

Make sure that it's not the whole party situation.

Anyway, the question was just if anybody remembers that ever change, or was it always only the ADU could be rented in the type in that type two scenario?

So up until 2023, we didn't call out ADUs separately.

We just had type one, two, and threes.

And so the 2023 uh ordinance, the second of those ordinances uh created the subtypes.

And if I remember right, the reason for creating those was because city commission was interested in breaking them out so we could better understand what types we have and what kind of structures.

And the way we wrote it at the time was uh an ADU on the same lot as a primary residence, or another unit in the same building.

So it could be like a duplex or a town home, or it could be apartments.

Somebody has, you know, condos and they own two units in a building.

They could live in one and rent out the other.

With the ADU, they could live in the main home and rent out the ADU, but it could be the uh the opposite.

Yeah, if they choose to live in the ADU and rent out the main home.

Um I I believe that could be possible short-term rental of an ADU in the same lot as a host primary residence.

As worded, yeah, uh, that situation has not come up.

I've had people ask about um about all different varieties, but that situation has not come up.

I think the way it's written, it is the ADU, but um type 2A is the host primary residence.

So um if you have a house and an ADU and a lot, and you have a type 2A of the main house, you could also rent the ADU as a type 2B.

I don't know if that answers your question.

The 2A means they live there, but they're renting at 30% of the year.

Yeah.

The main house, and then the ADU you could rent all the time.

Right.

I mean, they might want to live in the ADU.

Yeah.

Basically live in the ADU, oversee the same.

I mean, not that it's anything that we necessarily need to address today, but I was also thinking um, I looked up um, you know, when these the most recent um ordinance 2149, the commission voted on it in October 2023, effective date December 2023.

And I have a vague recollection of sort of the discussion being, hey, let's keep track of this and see our data and review this every so often because you know the main impetus was the uh dire shortage of like all housing, you know, and especially well, I guess all housing, and but at the um in the intervening time, we've uh essentially, at least for the time being solved the shortage of apartment housing.

I don't know.

Um, it does seem from what what we've heard that the the supply is less of an issue now, and it's more about the pricing of housing, yeah.

Um, so I get so the I guess the related question was um uh is there any plan for like periodic review, and has there been any yet?

Do you mean uh periodic review with the city commission?

Yeah, well, yeah, or periodic review of um, I guess in any, yeah, I thought I thought the point was to bring it back to the commission every so often.

You know, sort of like here's the data we've collected, yeah, and then also maybe here's the changing housing situation to see if any um, I don't know, adjustments might be warranted.

Yeah, we don't have a particular schedule for that, but um, the focus in the first year of 2024 of implementing the new regs was uh definitely the implementing the grandfathering provisions.

It's not uh as simple as it may seem.

Uh so we had you know some folks that came in right before the ordinance took effect, and uh then we um had quite a bit of of effort on our hands to um review all those to determine if they truly qualified for the grandfathering status.

So 2024 was focused on that, um, and then also implementing obtaining and implementing new soft short-term rental software.

So that um was another big effort.

Uh subsequent to that, our director left.

I stepped into interim director, UDC uh definitely heated up.

So short-term rentals have not been a focus.

Um we were just simply simply implementing the ordinance, um, certainly monitoring the data and ready to answer questions if we were asked.

So now that this issue has come up, I would say it's essentially bringing the issue back before the board and the commission with a narrower focus in terms of what we were asked to do.

But um certainly um you know, here to answer questions, and um, you know, if city commission wants to ask us to do something on a broader scope, you know, we'll see.

Um if any other members have questions, go ahead.

I have one more, but I have to find the uh find my my reference.

Sure, I can jump in.

I'm just curious, you know, kind of with the question you posed to us of does it make more sense to essentially create a non-conforming use and manage that or just permit uh the type twos in the RA zone.

Um when this was originally decided, uh, it sounds like there was an intentional choice not to permit type twos in RS and R1.

I'm just curious what if you are aware of what the thinking was behind that, what was seen as different in those neighborhoods that led to a different um, you know, kind of permission for what what uses are allowed there in this case.

Yeah, good question.

And I'll be honest, I don't think it was an intentional choice um by city commission.

I don't think um this really was on their radar.

I mean, if if you guys were paying attention during the UDC process, there were so many issues that we were talking through with the community that were much more controversial.

Um, this was simply like Chris coming and asking me during uh, you know, working on some updates to the the draft at one point.

Uh and at the time I made the call uh that um let's in the draft because I think we were getting ready to publish a public draft at the time that this came up.

Um I thought back to the discussion with city commission in 2023 and their intent, which was they were concerned about the proliferation of short-term rentals and uh wanting to kind of um reduce especially the non-owner-occupied type, and uh so it seemed incongruous with their initial intent if we were to uh use the more uh permissive version, which would be to allow type twos and RA at that time.

Now that was uh that was reflecting back on a prior city commission.

Since then, like I said, the city commission has given instruction for us to work on this ordinance through the city commission.

And in doing that, so the city manager meets with every um city commissioner once a week, and so he's able to touch base with them on things that they're they're asking about or wondering about, and uh so far I've gathered that um there's a different mix of opinions now on the current city commission.

Four of the five members were not on the commission when that 2023 ordinance was worked on.

So we have some new perspectives.

Um, and um, like Mark said, the or maybe it was Jason, the the housing uh situation is a little different now, and uh we've had quite a bit more supply built since then.

So I think there might be more interest in um in being more permissive in this case.

So I think um they're interested in hearing the board's perspective on should we allow type two STRs in RA district now.

Thank you.

Um, I understood his question to be referring to the prior, um I think you just summarized the more recent where you had to kind of make that call in you know, sort of in the crunch time of the NMET.

But I I understood this question to be the antecedent when RS and R1, uh, it wasn't allowed, right?

But the background that created the wrinkle you guys had to iron out.

Yeah, I I think the the difficulty is that um the 2023 short-term rental ordinances were not focused on zoning district allowances.

They were not focused on where each type was allowed.

When that was last considered was in 2017, which is the prior one before that, um, that's when the types were created and the districts were decided.

And I think Chris worked on that, but that's ancient history.

I don't know if you recall decisions on the RS and R1 at the time or reasoning.

I think it boiled down to there was a significant community distaste for the idea of excess of uh short-term rentals in those kinds of districts, and um so the commission was being responsive to the public comments they were hearing at that time.

Yeah, I mean that's I think that's my recollection, too.

That I guess R1 was seen as the sort of most uh protected, and so uh maybe type ones were allowed, but that was it, and then R2 is type twos were also allowed.

Couldn't mean at the time you could do type threes, I think in some places.

Yeah, the the type threes were by far the most restricted um based on the greater intensity of use and demand that they created.

Um a lot of the questions and public concerns that raised the issue in the first place came from areas that were zoned, RS and R1.

So um it's always hard to tell, you know, exactly are you getting a full cross section of the community in the conversation?

Um but that um general voice that was heard was persuasive to the commission.

Yeah, thanks.

Thanks.

Yeah, go ahead.

Thanks.

Um, three questions about this.

Um I guess just well, no, actually, one has already been addressed, um, about kind of what like what's what's the the other side where we're gonna have like extra income helps pay mortgages and just like afford housing in this town, it sounds like just kind of community distaste may have been the other side of that.

Um my understanding is that the way that the RA district was defined when we were defining the new districts is that it was kind of like RS and R1 are kind of going away, and that RA was effectively the same zoning as R2.

Or at least that's how I thought of it, and I was just curious if um I guess uh if your planner saunders recall if if it was ever characterized in that way that you know that the kind of the the um restrictions that applied in R2 would apply to RA, or if if I'm just imagining that.

Yeah, I think that's a good point.

Um, the RS district um some time ago was um there was a decision made that no new RS areas were going to be created.

So it was kind of already a for lack of a better word, not forming zone.

It was it's you know, extant it there were areas that were zone RS and that was it, and there were not going to be more RS areas.

Um, but those areas exist and they were converted to RA, so they are the lowest density or lowest most uh rural areas of the city.

Uh when converted to RA, one of the notable differences was um the state law and under MLUPA that required us to allow duplexes in all residential zones.

So I do think the RA district gives a very different feel than what was originally intended by RS in a more rural setting.

So it's a blend of kind of of issues here.

I think it's there are some uh lower density rural areas that exist that were RS, but under the new RA district, the uses that are allowed are more similar to uh R1 or R2 in what's carried forward.

Do you think I captured that, Chris?

Okay.

And it that brings up another question for me, which is if I understand correctly under MLUPA cities and towns in Montana are required to implement a certain number of regulatory strategies to increase the availability and affordability of housing.

And am I correct that uh permitting ADUs in all residential areas is one of those strategies?

And if so, is that a strategy that Bozeman needs to be compliant with MLUPA?

It is one of those strategies.

We were already doing it, but I can't remember.

Was it one of the five of the 14 that we chose?

Going from memory?

Yeah.

Um, hi, Chris Saunders again.

Um we've had uh accessory dwelling units in the code since 1998, so far in advance of statute.

It is one of the elements that um we did count on as satisfying our statutory requirements.

Um there's no discussion in MLUPA of short-term rentals, so it leaves that question to the locals.

Um it's kind of the split there between the things the statute requires and the things the statute is silent on.

Thank you.

Yeah, that that makes sense.

I was somehow conflating those two.

Um, last question.

Um, my understanding is that uh back in 2023 when that that sitting city commission um banned type three rental short-term rentals and then increased the owner occupancy requirement for type two from 50% of time to 70% of time.

Like the intent was really to boost rental vacancy rates.

And I'm just looking back at the EPS reports, I think at the time the vacancy rate was like somewhere in the low single digits, and now like the most recent report says we're like in like 18% vacancy rate.

And I just wanted to verify that I have those numbers approximately right.

I don't have the current number in my head, but it fluctuates dramatically, and it depends on your source.

Um, so some higher numbers have been quoted lately that um I think were maybe not as accurate, but I think it is accurate to say that the vacancy rates have increased because of construction of um more multifamily in the last several years.

And I think it is also accurate to say that in 2023, City Commission was looking to free up more housing units for both ownership and rental.

Thank you.

Oh, did you have anything you wanted to ask?

Or say, um, I just don't want to follow up on his comment that um uh so say it a little differently, but I think it's the same thrust there where he was going was right.

So the original idea of RA was we were gonna take or can get rid of RS, but we're gonna take R1, R2, R3, combine them into RA and ratchet it all up to R3.

So after RB was broken out as R3, what was left would then conceptually have been R1 and R2, and if we were still following the prior idea, at least those two would have been ratcheted up to R2.

Correct, I don't think that there was ever an idea of um like I don't know, ratcheting down.

I mean, I can see the I can I see the logic of the interpretation that staff came up to in that context.

But I mean, I think in the sort of the the broader history, um, kind of uh and mean my recommendation too is that that sort of ratcheting up everything everywhere, the risk of oversimplifying is like one of the strong town strategies of oh, if you kind of if you let bigger stuff happen be allowed everywhere, you'll get it sprinkled in a few spots.

But if you sort of, which was you know what we thought we were doing fairly non-controversially at the outset, uh, which proved to be uh not uncontroversial, but anyway.

Yeah, I think that's accurate, but I I feel compelled to say you all know.

But uh during that UDC process, of course, we did hear from a number of residents who were can who lived in areas that would become RA that were concerned about what uses were going to be allowed, and through that public comment, there was some shifting of the allowed uh uses and development standards.

The uses didn't change dramatically, it was mostly the development standards that changed, and I'm sure you all remember that because it was recent enough.

Um I think the outcome was maybe not as much of a ratchet up, but still an increase from before.

Yeah, okay.

Um, were you gonna okay?

Yeah, I think I mean I know this isn't quite the way the commission usually does it, but I always sort of like if we have any discussion or telegraph, because if anybody is listening, at least they have the benefit of hearing, so someone can say, like, oh, that thing Jason said it's wrong, and here's why.

Um, but so if anybody has any discussion, um, I think we could do it, just knowing that um, or maybe briefly, we still need to go to the B3 part, but so I think all that's left is a couple of slides about the the criteria, um, the public notice and the recommendation.

So Chris was gonna do that part if you don't mind.

Yeah, no, okay.

Please go ahead.

Good evening again.

Um, as the board's where uh the criteria under state law have shifted uh for approval of zoning as shown on the screen here.

Staff report dives into detail on each of these.

Um in both cases with uh the the items before you one is a correction of a clarification clerical error section effectively, and the other is uh discussion relating to what is uh identified as an accessory use within um various districts in the city.

So uh our conclusion has been that um the analysis that has gone before, whether that's in issue plans or land use plan or um other regulations have largely addressed any uh anticipated impacts, and uh we find that um the uh the uh language is drafted is consistent with the land use plan, and there's some details um provided in the staff report.

Uh we did public notice this.

Uh one thing um as George mentioned this before, but uh now under MLUPA, the city commission has to authorize any code amendment to even begin to ensure that they're aware of it, helps the public be aware, so that's that third line there under public notice.

Um, would not have seen that probably earlier, uh, but we'll see it going forward in the future.

Um, as noted also, um, since the publication of the notice for this specific ordinance, we have not received public comments, but there were some public comments that came in in advance that helped the commission decide that this is something they'd like to do.

Um, so there's no the comments that came in do not explicitly say we like or dislike any particular uh element for these reasons.

Um staff is recommending approval, and there is a suggestion that allowing the type two STRs just simply as an allowed accessory use in the RA district, um, could potentially be uh the most favorable outcome, and then the city commission is scheduled for consideration of these two items on July the 14th, and there is one motion which would cover both.

If you wish to modify recommendations, you of course can uh use a different motion, uh, but we provided this one as a starting point, and that completes my presentation.

Uh, there is no separate applicant from the city to make a presentation on this.

Uh clarification.

So is there um I guess there's one motion that would encompass STRs, but what about the parking in the B3?

And and then what happens about the just allowing type twos in RA as opposed to a grandfathering scheme.

If you wanted to take them both uh as written, this language would cover both.

If you wished to do separate motions, you certainly could do that.

How would staff uh find it most helpful to address the recommendation or not regarding um just allowing type twos in RA as opposed to having the you know the sort of uh grandfathering scheme?

Sure.

I just want to clarify um because this has evolved pretty quickly on staff's side.

So the ordinance as drafted is uh grandfathering type two short-term rentals.

Um that was the initial instruction from city commission.

The notion of allowing them outright in RA came up kind of in discussion of the draft around the time that the public notice went out.

So uh we broadened the public notice, but we do our public notice uh a couple times to cover our bases.

So the first two that published were just about grandfathering.

The third one we broadened it to include the possibility of uh allowing outright.

And uh it would be possible to make that change if the board desired before it reaches city commission without changing the schedule.

So that is possible, but I just want to make it clear that the ordinance is drafted is for grandfathering, and the motion on the screen is for as written.

Right.

But if you'd like to allow them outright, it would be a different motion.

So it would be similar to this motion, but adding an amendment.

Okay.

And that's the easiest way as opposed to two separate motions.

Sixes, sixes, okay.

You could do either.

Okay.

Well, Chair, I'll offer uh a motion, but also want to telegraph that I intend to.

So before we do that, we do need to go officially to public comment, please.

All right, thank you.

Um I don't see any public and comment in the room, but uh uh Ms.

Clark, if you if you wanted to comment on your own personal resident, okay, I see you shaking your head now.

Uh Trent, would you uh see if there's anybody online that would like to make public comment about this item?

No public comment online.

Okay, thank you.

Then uh Mr.

Eggie, you were about to make a motion, um, but also telegraphing that I intend to make uh an amendment to my motion.

Um having reviewed and considered the project report, draft ordinances, public comment and all information presented.

I hereby adopt the findings presented in the project report for application two six three zero seven and move to recommend approval of the amendments.

I second that um and then uh Mr.

Egan, you want to go ahead with the uh proposed amendment to the motion.

Uh yeah.

If we have a uh it's been seconded, then I uh move to amend the main motion to um modify the ordinance to uh allow type two short-term rentals in the RA zone rather than to grandfather those in.

Is there a second?

I'll second the motion.

All right.

Um discussion on the uh motion to amend.

Uh Mr.

Eggie, I guess go ahead since it's your uh motion, we'll give you an opportunity to speak to it.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I'm making this uh motion to amend I think for three reasons.

One is I alluded to in my my questions.

I think it's more consistent with my understanding of how the new districts were defined, that the regulations that were applied in R2 were type two uh short-term rentals have always been allowed would characterize the regulations in RA.

Um, that's that's my interpretation of the the you know, kind of how that process was communicated.

Uh, second, and I think a little bit more conceptually, yeah.

Home homeownership remains uh massively expensive in this town, and I know that one of the intents of the ETC update was to support affordability of housing, and so uh planner George is indicated that to the ability to rent your house out if you go out of town for a month, uh, does help some homeowners pay their mortgage or say for retirement, and so I think it's you know allowing short-term rentals in the RA zone is consistent with that objective.

Um, doesn't seem to be a lot of downside.

I'll say lastly, I think anything that simplifies the set of regulations that our community development department uh is charged with administering seems to be uh of a benefit to the community.

So for those reasons, I I offer the amendment to extend the allowance for uh to type two short-term rentals into the RA zone.

Thank you.

Um second or bonnet.

Do you want to oh oh on the amendment, right?

Second or mitra.

Yeah, I guess I agree.

Um, I think Bothman has a lot of vacancy now.

Um, I think the need for situations like this is a lot higher than it used to be.

Um, and hopefully the affordable housing can increase due to more options, yeah.

Um, go ahead.

Um, yeah, I think that I mean I think overall I feel a little bit conflicted on this because I think uh, you know, certainly the you know what what was just mentioned by the two folks who spoke prior, there's a scenario where it becomes more affordable for the homeowner.

I also know um you know these units are often you know relatively high-end rentals, and they would be relatively low-end or affordable permanent, you know, rentals, I suppose, short-term rentals.

Like so, because you know, if someone wants to rent out their ADU, their option is either doing short-term or long term, right?

And if we if we compel them to do it long term, those are gonna be pretty affordable, or they may just choose not to do it.

And and I certainly know of folks in the city that that essentially long-term rent ADUs and they're some of the most affordable units.

So I think it would be unfortunate if this resulted in some of those getting um, you know, kind of converted to short-term rentals.

I think there is is kind of a pretty legitimate question of is that actually gonna happen.

And I think um I think in net I'm inclined to agree that uh that permitting it is likely to be produce more affordability for more people, though some may draw the short end of the stick.

Um I also think there's I think kind of another piece to it that I just think is kind of like equitable access or equitable use of one's house across the city.

That I don't really see a reason that R RA should be different from RB, that if you buy a house in RA, you have less rights uh to what you can do with it.

I don't think like I think our regulations around how the uh short-term rentals are managed as well as our zoning regulations address the compatibility issues, so I don't see a reason why they shouldn't be treated differently.

Um I think the last thing I would say too that I I would hope that as RA, like the these zones that were RS and R1 are now zoned RA and and can have duplexes, things like that.

Perhaps some larger structures will be subdivided.

I know that's fairly active in a place like Denver.

There's real estate firms that specialize in doing that.

Um and it might be that some of those transactions could create ADUs uh that they could help uh people afford those those types of houses.

So I think you know, and that I think it is uh something that I definitely support this amendment, but also recognizing that there may be some folks in the community that um that are hurt by it.

Um but I think in that is the way to go.

Yeah, um, yeah, interesting.

I um I think that wrinkle that you just mentioned um might counsel toward at some point uh breaking up the two subtypes of type twos and and treating them differently because the type the type two where the owner lives in it, it's their own residence that they live in at least seven months out of the year.

That can be the difference between somebody being able to afford a house or not, or being able to go on vacation or not, if they can you know the if the house can make some money while they're gone instead of the having to just be you know have enough income or savings to support it during their absence.

Um different different story when we're talking about an ADU and whether that ADU would or could be a long-term rental instead.

Um so maybe those should be um, you know, maybe these two different situations should just be regulated separately um and differently.

Um I heard staff's um uh rationale and and I mean I agree that that's it's true what they said about um there was kind of a a response of some public outcry and and uh maybe a desire to either not ratchet up or less ratchet up.

Um but I also I also do you know think that the general idea was that sort of the the bigger picture at least to start was the idea of ratcheting up.

Um so in that sense the what was allowed in R2 should be allowed in RA.

Um it's just interesting because when when STRs first got regulated, um there wasn't really, I mean, I don't there was like no prior regulation.

So there was this sort of pattern of investor-owned properties.

Uh, there was concern that entire streets or neighborhoods would be essentially overrun with them.

Um there was this another concern about the absentee landlord situation and the out of state investor, um, which you know, type twos don't have this concern because the owner lives there at least seven months of the year.

They know the owners or they know the neighbors and vice versa.

Um, you know, they're accountable to the way that uh operation interacts with their neighbors in their neighborhood.

Um but uh I think you know, all in all on balance um probably simpler and easier at this point to let uh str type twos be an allowed use in RA, um, you know, with the caveat that maybe the two different subtypes should be looked at or evaluated and regulated differently in the future.

Um there's any other input speak up.

Otherwise, we'll have uh try and call the vote on the motion to amend.

Uh mover micro.

I'm sorry, mover, mover eggs.

I second or mitra.

I remember Dell me.

I member bonnet.

I then um so now we have a main motion as amended.

Um any further discussion?

I'd like to make another motion.

Yeah, to amend.

Okay.

Um I think the issue that you brought up of um, you know, what if that I think there's an unintentional exclusion of some configurations here um in terms of you know who's who's living which part of it and renting which part of it, and I think that can be addressed by in the um the definition that was on the slide of the type 2b it was kind of either the ADU situation or a second dwelling in the same building.

I think it could be amended to say a second dwelling in the same or a separate building that could facilitate someone living in in a small unit and renting the big unit.

Um, unless I guess I guess I would love to ask staff if that is their interpretation as well, too, or or if the kind of definition of yeah, see it seems to me that the way those two things are written, like using the word ADU and the definition of primary residence prohibits someone from classifying in a small dwelling as their primary residence while the big dwelling is rented.

Because a big dwelling couldn't be classified as an ADU.

Um so my my thinking is that this motion would be needed to facilitate that situation if someone wanted to do it.

Yes, I think uh I think you're correct that um what you're suggesting would make it more clear that the uh situation you're describing would be allowed.

So I think as it's written today, it's you can rent out the ADU if your main home is the primary unit.

But if you're living in the ADU, I don't think it was written in a way that allows you to rent out the main home instead.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, and I guess just um should I talk about the motion now, or do I just give it now and then okay?

You could I didn't I'd be uh interested to hear staff's opinion if um the current public notice would encompass would be brought up to encompass this as well.

It it is not, um, but we could um make a change to um what's coming up because the city commission meeting is on July 14th.

So we have another public notice that we'll be publishing this weekend this weekend that could be amended to address this add-on if passed.

And how about uh housekeeping bucket number two?

When is that expected?

That is so there are some uh there's at least one work session with city commissions scheduled for August about uh the topic so far.

Commission has asked to discuss our uh height in the B3 district and uh zone edge transitions, and uh following that work session and whatever comes out of it, we have a tentatively scheduled I think October date for a hearing on housekeeping number two.

And the reason we're calling it that is simply because uh we also have a running list in the background of just little fixes that need made that are not time sensitive, and so um those also would need to be proposed into the same ordinance, uh, including any changes that commission might want to make for the other issues.

It's also possible, depending on the scope of what they ask us to do, that they may ask for so much it's no longer called housekeeping, and we'll see.

But um, yeah, it's I would say fall.

So I guess do you do you have uh any kind of it seems like our options here could be to suggest amending this, and then you need to kind of deal with the noticing, or we could talk about it and give you a suggestion to include it in the next round.

I'm not critically attached, I think it should be addressed.

I'd love to hear what other people think, but I would love to do it in a way that you know kind of supports the workflow of staff.

I appreciate that.

I think um because we have an ordinance that is addressing short-term rentals at the moment, it it would be nice to address the issue at the same time.

I think that would be easier that for staff rather than bringing up short-term rentals again later.

Yeah, but I will also say I've not had it come up from short-term rental hosts as an issue.

Um, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it's just not come up yet.

So we don't have people right now prevented from doing what they want to do that I know of.

Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's not such a big change.

Um, it seems like it'd be fine to include it now and update the notice.

Um what do we think about um, yeah.

I mean, I so I like because I like the idea of the owner being able to empty nest the main house.

Um, but you know, from a community standpoint, if we're letting that main house become a short-term rental, you know, maybe that's not the best outcome.

Maybe the best outcome is you know, it's a larger house that could fit a family, and so maybe we I don't know, maybe we want to, yeah.

It's hard to say because I mean, you know, families come for short-term rentals too.

It's they're visiting their kids at MSU, they're visiting their kids that had grandkids.

Mom or grandma wants to cook at home.

Everyone's staying together, so I mean, you know, I do think that short-term rentals are a legitimate use of property, you know, so long as we're not overwhelming neighborhoods and blocks with them, or so long as we're not, you know, undermining the rent the long-term rental market, but anyway, those are my initial wonderings.

Yeah, maybe I'll just jump in since after the motion.

I mean, I think um that is really interesting perspective, right?

I think with all of these, it's like okay, what's the long-term versus short-term trade-off, short short-term or long-term rental trade office?

I know of several people, including friend of mine to live in in other communities that that have used a strategy like that.

I bought a home, they can't really afford the mortgage, you know.

They kind of subdivide it and live in the smaller part of it because they're you know small or they separate from their partner and they only need the small thing, you know, but now they need to pay child support or something like that, and so that they're you know, kind of benefit from living in the smaller thing into the bigger thing.

So I think overall, just kind of like the last thing, I think that people I I'm of the mind that the individuals generally make the best economic decision for themselves, and we shouldn't be trying to do that for them.

Um that so I think that's kind of where this motion's coming from.

I do see your point also that um like perhaps this has a higher chance of taking away longer term rentals.

Um, so yeah, I would be curious to hear what what everyone else thinks.

I have a question, sure.

Um, so I guess maybe just for clarification, if the owner is using the ADOs as his primary residence, but he can rent out the short-term rentals for 70% of the year or 30% 70% of the year.

But he's occupying the ADU.

Who occupies the main residence or short-term rental for that 30%?

Does he have to then move back in?

Or how would that work?

Does that make sense?

I think that's a very good question.

I'm happy to help answer that.

So, um, in order to be a type 2 and a normal type 2, which is a 2A, it's kind of the first version, is it's your primary residence.

And then 2B is written as uh an ADU on the same lot as the host primary residence.

So I think what Eric is suggesting is if you kind of turn the tables on that.

If you say that the ADU is the primary residence, we do um in application, we have uh the hosts who apply for their permit sign an affidavit that they live in the unit as their principal residence or primary residence at least 70% of the year.

So I think if this amendment was made and passed and ended up getting implemented uh by city commission, then uh it's just a tweak to the wording in the code, but it's a tweak to the wording on the affidavit as well to make sure that we're clarifying which unit you're living in.

So if the ADU is your primary residence, then you could rent out the main structure on the property in theory all year long.

So I think that is an implication to think about.

Uh an ADU is a smaller structure, uh an entire house means the entire house could be rented as a short-term rental all year round.

I can just offer a comment.

Uh I think generally speaking, I I I agree that people tend to make the their best uh economic choices and giving them more flexibility makes sense to me.

Uh my only my only hesitation in supporting um your that as a motion is that I don't want this to then cause like the main motion to get like bogged down uh when it goes in front of city commission for that.

Like I have a good friend who was in that exact situation.

Um he lives in the ADU that he built his backyard, he rents out the main house.

It's a long-term rental.

I imagine that he would be happy if he could rent out the main house as a short-term rental and get more rental income from it.

Um I mean, yeah.

So I see the benefit of just don't like like we're we're like a little bit in the weeds ourselves right now, and I don't want to see like the whole thing kind of get tanked on this question of you know, like the like pretty niche situation where uh homeowner chooses to move out of their uh primary residence.

I also think the owner might be able to comment the same thing, accommodate the same thing if they turn their primary residence into a short-term rental, and then 30% of the year is moved to the ADU when they wanted to rent out the main unit.

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

And they I think I mean definitely when we bought our first house in Bozeman, it was a duplex, we rented out the other half.

That's how we're gonna for the mortgage.

We rented out long term, and at least for us, we found that we made more money by doing that.

It was way less hey, so um, I think it's worth thinking, you know, recognizing that is still an option that's available as written right for someone who wants to live in the the ADU.

They can live there all year round, as your friend does.

So thanks for bringing up that uh example.

Yeah, I mean, I think kind of either way of the close question.

Maybe I'd like to hear staff.

What your like, I don't know, which way would you like your judgment?

You know, your as far as um I guess both the both the practical, are we are we complicating a simple thing too much?

Uh and also just as to the but also the underlying substance of the actual potential change.

Yeah, thanks for asking.

Um, now that I've heard that discussion and the good points brought up, I think um my recommendation as staff would be to leave that out at this time.

Um, because I am concerned seeing what we've seen in applying the regulations, uh short-term rentals are quite lucrative, and there is a demand here.

I think I do think there is a strong likelihood that um some long-term rentals may get converted to short-term rentals.

I mean, that's this is just theorizing.

Uh normally I like our staff recommendations to be mostly based on um, you know, just the zoning code and the criteria, but I think we have the added element here of experience from applying this code for a couple years.

So I do think what I'm hearing some concern about is a a likelihood that could um could change the uh the outcome uh in a way that was not intended.

Yeah, I wouldn't feel more comfortable with a change like this too to the extent that we were able to maybe marshal some data in advance to have a sense um and um, you know, including even I'm not sure how practical this would be, but I mean there will be some time in the future to where the type two the owners could be queried either informally or formally through the the platform of like you know, oh if you had the option, would you just move into the ADU and you know run out the main house?

And if so, long term or short term.

But it is a probably a pretty um small segment of the market.

Um, but you know the idea that I don't know, someone might empty nests into the smaller thing is is like appealing to me because I feel like a lot of a lot of people are somewhat like mortgage trapped into their big nice family home that the kids are out of, and you know, there's probably families that would love to live in those houses, and maybe even the people living in them would like to downsize if they didn't feel sort of mortgage trapped in them.

But anyway, maybe all too complicated for this moment in time, yeah.

I think after the conversation, which I really appreciate, all everything that was offered.

I think I'd like to withdraw the motion.

Okay.

I mean, I think I'm I'm convinced, and uh and I think uh, especially that that these these could those situations can be accommodated with a long-term rental, which is seems like a pretty great solution in general.

So I think if someone wants to do this, they should kind of come to us and make a case for why it's gonna be great and then we can reconsider it.

If not, then we'll you know, kind of consider that we I would consider that uh you know the needs of those folks are being uh accommodated with uh probably long-term rentals of the main house.

So all right.

Um if there's any other uh potential motions to amend speak up.

If not, then we'll have try and call the uh vote on the main motion, which I believe was made by member Aggie and seconded by member one.

All right, mover.

I member Bonnet.

Member Metro.

Aye.

Member Delmi.

Aye, thanks.

All right.

Um so that was our one action item.

Now we're moving to public comment on non-agenda items falling within the purview and jurisdiction of the board.

So uh, good Miss Clark her first crack at that again, and if not, we'll go to the okay.

I don't see her approaching the podium, so um is there any public comment online?

No public comment.

All right, then we'll move to FYI discussions.

Uh, item one under that is the engagement framework update by uh uh city staff.

Uh Takami Clark.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Takami Clark.

I'm the city's communications and engagement manager, and I'm here to chat about our engagement framework update with you guys.

Um I have some questions for you guys to think about as I'm going through the presentation, um, and these will make a little bit more sense too as you're listening to everything.

Um, what do you want to see in an updated draft of our engagement framework?

If you have thoughts and recommendations on how we can help residents feel more heard, and then improvements that need to be made to our communications and engagement processes.

All right, um, so just a little bit of history on engagement at the city.

Um we've been doing it for many years, um, but we didn't have a dedicated program with staff and budget until recently.

Um here on the right is just an example of how long we've been doing it.

It is a picture from two thousand the year 2000.

They were talking about Bozeman 2020 um under the tagline of that logo is shaping our future together.

So thought that was a pretty fun photo.

And then our modern sort of current engagement program.

I really see the start of that with the birth of our neighborhoods program back in 2007.

And then we've also had a number of residents who have engaged with the city through our boards, whether that's serving or just getting involved and commenting.

That's one way that we've historically gathered input.

Also in 2018, the city of Bozeman launched a strategic planning effort.

And we under that strategic plan called for the creation of a community engagement plan.

And that is what we refer to as engaged Bozeman and the Engage Bozeman Framework.

So that was passed in 2021, and we shortly launched the Engage Bozeman platform after that.

Why am I here today?

So in 2023, the Montana State Legislature passed MLUPA, which really overhauled land use as you know, and set MetaMill requirements for public participation.

So that was a big part of that law was not just overhauling land use, but telling cities how public participation should be done.

We are broadly doing what is called for under that law, but we wanted to update our framework so that we can draw the direct line between MLUPA and our framework and make sure that everyone knows how we're in compliance with that law.

We're looking at our processes during this time and reflecting and thinking about how we can improve our program as well.

Not a lot of people, I think there's still many people who are unaware about both at LUPA and how to engage with the city.

So here on the right is an image of our engagement framework, and it outlines basically the overall strategy of our engagement program.

So this isn't talking about individual projects, it's more talking about how do we want to do engagement as a city broadly.

So it has guiding principles, the IAP2 approach, which is the international association of public participation.

This is a organization that works with a lot of local governments and provides guidance and structure for how to do engagement.

We also take time to define what engagement is, which is a two-way conversation between residents and the city on different projects.

We talk about the decision-making timeline, which is the different points in a project in which we can do engagement and make decisions and use engagement to inform our decisions, and then we also have information on the level of engagement that we're soliciting and put around.

And then when we do engagement and when we don't, tools and techniques that we use, the relationship between engagement and communications, which is a really critical one, and you can't really do engagement without doing good communications, and then the community engagement life cycle.

So the start of engagement to the end, and what that looks like, as well as next steps for our organization.

Here on the right, if you're familiar with seeing our engagement plans, that's just a sample of what one looks like.

This is the bike fill plan, and this is the more like focused plan that talks about individuals' projects and how they want the engagement to go on an individual project.

So we started using this template in 2022 with the Fowler Road project.

That was our first engagement project that we did under this new framework.

The process is that we fill out the template, the communications and engagement team reviews it along with the city manager, and then we share that finalized plan with the commission.

The template also includes project leads and overview of the project, our community engagement purpose, key terms that we need to define to the public for technical projects, partners that we want to hear from, especially the decision making process, so this the different stages in which we're soliciting input, key questions that we need to answer about each question each project, the level of engagement that we're soliciting input on, and then the project timeline that people can expect, as well as uh engagement wrap-up, and that is the what how we want to uh basically report on the engagement efforts and how we're measuring success, and then all of our improved engagement plans go up on our engage boseman site, which is engage.boseman mt.gov.

Um, and this is basically our hub for helping to facilitate engagement.

All right, a little bit about MWPA.

Um, as you all are likely aware, it requires cities to adopt new land use plans and unified development codes.

Um it also really importantly front loads public input, and so um instead of having public input at the end when you're talking about individual projects, it's saying we're not gonna collect input there, we're gonna collect input upfront in these big plans and issue plans.

Um, it also asks cities to implement specific housing strategies.

So these were during the UDC process that um big list of strategies that we asked residents to help us choose five, um, and we did narrow in on that through that process.

Um also the law asked to ask cities to update their development review processes, which we have done, and then to adopt a land use plan and create a planning commission.

Also things that we have done.

Um specific to public participation, um, this is not exactly what the law says, but it's sort of the broad points that the law asks for in terms of public participation.

Um, so there must be a way to disseminate draft documents, an opportunity for written and verbal comment, um, public meetings after effective notice, electronic communication regarding the process, an analysis of and response to public comment, must document all public participation, and then the local governing body must adopt a public participation plan, which is the project that we are talking about today, the engaged boson framework.

All right, uh timeline of this project.

We launched it in April of this year, and we've been doing engagement since then with staff, commission, um, residents, and boards.

And then we in July will be drafting the update, and we'll post it online for all residents and everyone to review.

And then in August, we'll return to boards and commission for review and adoption.

So a little bit about the engagement process.

We've been, like I said, meeting with staff who are particularly involved in our engagement efforts.

So community development has definitely been a large part of that.

Also meeting with boards such as you all, Inc.

and Commission.

We opened up a survey to residents to hear from them on how they want to engage.

And then we've also had materials up at City Hall.

So those are those boards that you've seen out in the lobby.

And we've brought stuff along to our engagement events as well.

So these are like engagement events like our urban forest management plan or other events where we're already posted up.

We've been just asking residents to give feedback on our engagement program as well.

And then we hosted a webinar to educate on MLUPA as well, and developed a flyer to help educate the public too, to make sure that folks are really aware of the changes that were happening in public participation.

And that screenshot on the bottom is from that webinar.

All right, things that we're thinking about as we're making this update.

One of the things that we heard a lot from in terms from our staff was having some different tiers of engagement.

Staff wanted to have better guidance on when they should make really big pushes, like through MLUPA, or when they should be using more of like a middle push or a low push, depending on the project.

So we're hoping to better define that to staff so there's just better guidance, and then you don't have to fill out a huge form and think through a huge engagement effort if it doesn't call for that.

So that might involve establishing engagement summaries or responding to public comment and key themes.

That was a big part of the law.

We've also heard a lot too from residents that like as I've been just sort of looking through the initial survey data, there's a lot of folks who are really interested in getting response to their comment and to their feedback.

Folks are not necessarily always looking to see their feedback directly implemented, but they want to know that we've been thinking about it, that we understand their comment.

So there is definitely some changes that we'll be looking at making with regard to just how we're responding to the feedback, and then responding to things outside of our scope and making sure that people have a good understanding of what lies within the city, city's authority to implement and what's without what's outside of that.

And there's a lot that the city can act on and a lot that the city can't.

And we want to make sure that if people are submitting an idea and it's something that's not something that we can implement, that they're aware of that too.

Um defining the process for approving engagement plans.

So right now we've taken a lot of our engagement plans to boards and commission for approval to just ensure that we are, especially under MLUPA, being compliant and have some sort of approved engagement plan, but we may not need to do that with this new framework update.

Also looking at implementing great greater training and better training so that staff can have a little bit more consistency, especially for those who are going through engagement efforts for the first time.

We also want to create some predictability for the public too, so that there's not a huge difference in how they're experiencing engagement at the city depending on which staff that they're working with, and then looking at leaning on specific tools and techniques that we know our community appreciates.

All right, so here are your questions to think about.

Um, and I will take questions first if you want to do that, and then you guys can share your thoughts.

I'll ask a question.

Um, is in the in the field of like public engagement and um you know the resources you have.

Is there a distinction or a difference between how to treat kind of like an initial crowdsourcing or brainstorming versus like a later on where it's a more of an analysis and there's trade-offs?

So it seems to me that we haven't done the maybe the best job.

Like we we've seen to have taken the approach that like more engagement is better, but like in my mind, like more engagement is better when it's at the like conceptual stage, we want to make sure we're considering everything or all the ideas are you know um being given uh yeah, voice or consideration, but you know, the further you get down the process, I mean, you need to understand the various systems of play, the trade-offs and uh anyway, is there a way to like you know try to get that?

I mean, there are to be an education component to where if people are interested, they can get educated and help with that later, but it just seems like we sort of get we the city uh in general to sort of get like a lot of sort of like the same kind of participation throughout, and you know, at some point earlier it's maybe useful, but then at some point later it's not necessarily that useful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What you're talking about reminds me a lot about um the decision making process, and I can pull up some um show you like a pretty neat graphic, I think, that will help describe this, um, a little bit better.

And so there's different stages according to IEP2 that um a resident or um person can engage with like engage in a project on.

Um, and a lot of times we have like our projects kind of live in the evaluate alternatives stage or determine alternative stage.

Um, and this can be really hard, I think, for a lot of residents, like you said, to have good input on, like especially if um the issue is particularly uh technical, so you can kind of see that graphic here.

But we can do engagement in the gather information stage, which is really similar to what you were describing.

So it's um hearing from the public on different input that they have before a project even gets to developing alternatives, and so there's different stages, like you can you can even have engagement around the problem itself and how you define the problem.

Um you can have engagement all the way on the right with decision making, depending on the type of project.

Um, and there's there's a huge spectrum here, and I think that as city staff, we've we've traditionally kind of lived over here in the develop and evaluate section.

Um I think with more training, we might be able to talk through this better with staff and help to explain like, hey, there might be other places in this spectrum where it makes more sense to do your big engagement push.

Yeah, okay, thanks.

I have a question.

I'm curious.

Is you you kind of mentioned, you know, kind of structure where you're looking at revising things as you're kind of rethinking the engagement processes.

Um, I'm sure as a kind of professional in this field, you're pulling from lots of different sources to to give you ideas for how things might change.

Certainly engagement being one of them with the public here, but I'm curious besides what you've heard from the public, if there are other things that are kind of like driving um, you know, your and your staff's thinking about how you're you're thinking of potentially changing the structure or enhancing the process.

Yeah.

Can is this more just like how we're thinking about this program and like as it heads into the future.

Yes my understanding is that's kind of what you're asking for us is you're kind of starting this process of um how does this change as it moves into the future?

And my question for you is kind of like what different inputs are you gathering?

Maybe I missed that and you said it but um I certainly heard you talk about getting input from the public like for instance examples could be you know you've hired an outside consultant or uh you've looked at other communities regionally of similar size or you know yeah I don't know other things like that yeah gotcha thank you for clarifying um yeah so I uh I didn't have a ton uh I wasn't like oh I want to overhaul this program when I opened it up for engagement um because it felt like it was doing okay but I did want like it did feel odd to me to make updates to this program um without opening it up like that's how felt like a necessary thing.

So the the big thing that I'm looking at is this simply like how have cities in Montana um done their MLUPA plans specifically and like how have they incorporated those into their work.

And so far I haven't seen actually a city that has done a process like ours where um we had an existing framework and we're trying to like weave MLUPA in between it as we're writing it um or updating it.

A lot of the other cities have just simply like hired a consultant and they threw together an MLUPA engagement plan and they approved that.

And they have like if they have an engagement program they also have that separately so it seemed like kind of a disjointed process.

I wanted to do both and take a moment to just kind of make sure like with boards and commission does this like has this program been working for you?

Does it look good?

So not necessarily like overhauling hiring a consultant looking at other cities all of that.

And so far too the engagement that I've received from residents um doesn't seem to call for that either like it has generally been positive our feedback and so I think more what we're seeing is a sort of disconnect um between residents and the commission and wanting to see more of their um feedback directly acknowledged by the commission I would say is probably one of the bigger themes that I've seen um so yeah hopefully that answers some of your question great yeah thank you.

If I could jump in on that as well a little bit.

One of the things that combi and I spent many times discussing in helping this go forward is helping folks understand the places where engagement's available as we know under MLUPA there's been changes in that public process the city's been limited in certain things required to do certain things.

And um so there's some portions of the MLUPA elements for individual sites it's just in the code that is the plan is the code.

So this covers a lot more than MLUPA but we wanted to make sure that it also covered MLUPA because as folks are familiar with this community folks care deeply they want to be engaged and it's not only on land use decisions.

So we're kind of in this odd place where we have this one very directive element in state law but then we're trying to both keep it constrained appropriately but then widen it out um for a lot of other functions of the community that we we work with things.

So uh to come you I sorry you're kind of looking for input on these two questions.

Go ahead.

Um I've said uh on multiple occasions that perhaps a model, or perhaps like what the Forest Service does with like travel plans and forest plans, um, could be adopted where um you know the the basic substance of various ideas is restated, and then the response like this is like, oh, this is great, we're gonna recommend it, or uh, you know, we're not gonna recommend this, and here's why, or like that's more of a policy thing where the commissioners are gonna balance you know, level of service versus taxation burden or something.

Um at least that would make residents uh well, hopefully if they were like seeing it or reading it, um, not feel or say, you know, either just generally or to the commission, like you ignored us, at least if there's a stated rationale for, you know, why why the suggestion was handled the way it was.

Um it seems like you, you know, hopefully there wouldn't be a perception of being ignored.

Um that's like I think my my main thinking, um, I guess the other would be I think I saw I don't know if it wasn't like through engaged bosom, but I think there was a survey somewhat recently that sort of like walked you through the kind of the the background and the competing trade-offs, and I think it was kind of asking, and I can't remember, you know, what I don't remember what it was, but I mean I suppose that um to the extent you can try to get a shared uh context or a shared understanding of like what the situation is and what the trade-offs are, you could probably get more informed or meaningful um engagement.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I would echo that as well.

I've I've observed in the like the Forest Service engagement participation processes, and also the same thing with like federal agencies and uh I think that it if if it's possible to summarize kind of the diversity of voices that are heard, and then at the end of the public comment process, people can see their comments, whether it's comment that they provided individually or a comment that was broadly expressed by many people participating, and they can see that listed out, like just having that summary there.

I think, you know, like the great thing about voting is when you go and vote, then like afterwards there's a tally, and you'd be like, Well, like I didn't get my way, but like my numbers there, right?

Like I got to participate.

I think if you could do the same thing, summarizing feedback, uh, I think that that could go a long ways.

Um, it's hard for someone to say, like, well, nobody heard me if there's like a public comment summary, and like what like you said this, and like that's what is there.

So I yeah, I think that'd be great, and whether or not you know the response needs to come in the form of like a staff, you know, uh staff assessment of public comment or if it's just a summary that is is presented as part of a staff presentation on a controversial topic.

Um, and then the city commissioner acknowledges it in response to it uh around the dais.

I think either of those ways would go a long ways towards people feeling like their their comment didn't just go into a black box someplace.

Yeah, I imagine um that document would be helpful for you all as well in seeing just a summary of what people what kind of feedback we've received so that you guys can make good decisions as well.

And I will mention that we happen to live in an era in which there's an incredibly powerful technology that's really effective at objectively summarizing like large bodies of information like public comment that I think could be probably really well leveraged to um help uh facilitate that process.

Yep.

Yeah, I think I just had kind of on that.

What I would be really interested to see would be in such a report, would be uh you know, some kind of perhaps like coded quantitative um expression of general tendency in the comments, you know.

So it could be like a bar graph or a you know, uh a pie graph or something like that.

That's like, oh, you know, you could kind of broadly categorize the comments in these, and here's how they fall apart, and then or you know, around distributed, pardon me.

And then um, certainly, you know, a lot of the work that our practice does engaging with smaller groups of people, we're often really interested in what are the the kind of outlying perspectives as well, too, because sometimes there's great wisdom in them.

So we want to get that or have that be lost in the summary too.

So it might be kind of like here's A through Z, the different ideas that have been made, it doesn't really matter if one's been said once or a hundred times, and then maybe a graph that shows, oh yeah, this one was a hundred times.

Yeah.

So we should we understand that a lot of people share that perspective.

Um yeah, I'll bet I'll bet I can whip that up.

Um, in fact, I thought about doing that with our public homes too.

Um the other suggestion I would have, which is um, I I really like that graphic that you showed, and kind of thinking about where, you know, like you said, it's like we've often lived in these two phases and where might it it be most useful.

Um, and I could imagine that being quite specific to the project, um, though, in general, again, kind of drawing from our practice, I feel like um we get a lot from that that kind of second phase where it's like what what kind of interesting ideas do you have that perhaps we have not thought of?

Um and I think I saw a specific example of that in Missoula's out approach where they had kind of like their land use plan, and the public could comment on it, and it could was so it wasn't just like, what do you love about Bozeman or Missoula or whatever, but it was like okay, we're gonna read our land use plan, and people would be like, at this corner, you know, this really doesn't work, you know, and and someone else would be like RA should be here, you know, and and I thought it was a nice way that that um incorporated some of these comments where it just is which isn't kind of going to a black hole, you could see it, you could also see what your neighbors were thinking.

It was spatially, um, you know, kind of uh it would, you know, like a certain neighborhood, you can have a you know, a comment to a corner or neighborhood or a whole city or whatever.

So um that that seemed to me to be something that uh I I may you may have done, I just haven't seen it, but uh a particularly effective strategy that I think um I would suggest.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I like that.

Um you mentioned in your presentation um that you or the city various um departments have been kind of, or maybe it was just in your department, kind of like presenting the plans to the boards and the commission in advance, and and um saying that's maybe not uh required under lupa or that it isn't required under.

Um, I guess I'd just say like use your judgment as to um you you might benefit from passing it by just sort of a body that's might be looking at it from you know that sort of ultimate recommendation or deciding viewpoint.

So to the extent you think it could be helpful, maybe you could still do it even if it's not required, yeah.

Not to waste your time, but you know what I mean?

Like maybe have a sense of something's either sufficiently complicated or sufficiently significant that could be worth it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've thought about that too.

Um we don't want to make it necessarily a requirement in the event that people feel like their agendas, like commission agendas, um, then become this place where it's really hard to even start a project because people are trying to get on the calendar, it's so full of other projects that it takes them a long time, and then the project gets delayed.

Um so that's been a concern raised by staff, but I but I also agree that there is a benefit to having boards and commission dig into community engagement plans.

Um, and I think it's more from that perspective of like introducing a project and saying, here's this project that we want to work on, here's who we're thinking about talking with, and how we think we'll talk about it, um, and the boards and commission can have really helpful input in that regard.

Um, personally, I feel like if we're not doing the engagement plan or discussing the engagement plan, staff should still be going to boards and commission to at least talk about the project and get some initial guidance.

It's kind of similar to what I'm doing here, where we've done some engagement, but there is still an open process.

And if you guys were to tell me, like, hey, I have concerns and I want to make sure that we're really hitting these particular populations, or we want to see this particular strategy done, I would still have time to go back and do that.

Like I'm not far so far along in a draft that it would be sort of hurting my process.

Hopefully, those thoughts make sense.

Yeah.

Um, I guess I just had been assuming that um the staff is aware of sort of the difficulty or the lack of representation of certain segments of the community.

So I guess I kind of feel like you're always trying to reach out to make sure that you know the diverse um citizenry is being, you know, at least reached out to you know, I guess you can't make people participate, but um, yeah, so yeah, it's definitely like keep keep that up, yeah.

It is a challenge though, and um, I think one of the things that I have always wanted to do and encouraged staff to do is just to like uplift as many voices as we can and provide you with that information so that you guys can make a good decision.

Um, but yeah, it is a challenge, and I think that you all are definitely in the harder seats being in the decision-making chair, um, because you will encounter really big rooms of people trying to tell you to do your decision a certain way, and um that's a challenge, and we want to make sure that like even if someone is not here physically at the podium giving their comment, that you still have their input and still know what it is.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think we've I mean it seems like the staff has been trying to do and doing a good job of representing as much of the situations in our community, uh, whether it's through data or whatever.

But um, yeah, I think it's um yeah, super important, um, because some of the some of the people most impacted by decisions and policies are maybe the least able to personally participate, but you know, it's important for us to do our best to identify, you know, every aspect of a decision and the communities that'll be affected.

Yeah, I would argue with that.

And I think in terms of helping people feel heard, I think it's important to communicate in how you frame an engagement process that uh participating and commenting engaging is not voting, voting is representative.

You're one person, you get one vote, one voter and outcome.

Participation, it it it never it never can and never will be representative.

It's a fact that like older, more property, more established, more privileged community members are going to be overrepresented in engagement participation.

Um, it doesn't make their perspective less valuable, but it certainly makes it more likely that their perspective will be represented.

Um, participation should be a marketplace of ideas.

And I think you just communicating that up front, it's like I think that having a numeric summary of of the perspectives represented is uh is helpful, but I think that it should be presented in the form of cross tabs where it's not just um you know how many express this view or that view, but if you can break that out and show that the breakdown between like older or younger age cohorts or uh renter versus owner status, I think it can um you know, people can see their their opinion uh represented, but also can locate that in the fact that um if you know 80 percent of uh property owners feel one way and 80% of renters feel the other, um, even if property owners outnumber the the renter comments like four to one.

We know in this town, 60% of people are renters.

So those cross tabs can be helpful, um, and just I think yeah, communicating this idea that uh that participating isn't voting, and even if um, you know, if I I hear sometimes people say, well, you know, I went to the meeting and um everybody showed up and said one thing.

There were 80 people there, and they all said one thing, and then the commission did something else.

Um, and then people would say, like, clearly they didn't hear us because we had a clear majority of people in the room saying one thing.

Yeah, yeah.

I definitely agree with that, which is why I think too that the substantive addressing of the issues and an explanation is, you know, maybe uh so helpful or necessary because it's you know, yes, the marketplace of ideas.

Here's the ideas that we heard, here's the response.

Um I think you guys pretty much summed up what I was thinking, but um I agree with engagement being ongoing.

I think like the chart is the chart with all the different phases.

I don't even know where I would want to put it because I think it should be available the entire process, and I think that like you said, we should be inspired to comment throughout the process because I do know things can change, and if maybe somebody comments in the beginning one way they don't want to flip or they you know what I mean, many things happen that could possibly make somebody not want to comment a second time, so just opening that up and making people feel comfortable doing that and comfortable participating, I think is a big thing.

Um there's a few times that I participated in other city situations where there was a project starting, and for example, um, this was back home in Ohio, but they were doing like a series of art installations on corners, they were beautifying corners, right?

And we actually had a meeting where the entire public was able to come and draw.

We had like all these giant, right?

Like those flipped boards or whatever, and they it what it didn't end up being drawing, but they wrote out words that were important to them and what they wanted to see, and it ended up being this like brick sculpture of a Jeep because Toledo manufactured jeeps, and that was really important to this neighborhood.

We were just gonna put like potted plans, right?

So that information session with the public I think was super helpful.

I don't know if Bozeman does a lot of that right now, but I think in regards to public spaces and development, I think that's a lot of times where people here feel really passionate, and I think that maybe more interaction in the development phase where we're getting ideas of visually what things are gonna look like might be a helpful spot to engage.

Um then again back to yes making correlations at the end of public engagement to find out where things are lining up, who's in agreement with who and how if or how we can draw bottom lines from that.

I think would be really helpful.

Thank you.

All right, any uh anything else for Takahami while we have her or while she has us?

All right, well, thank you very much for your work with the city and our community.

Thanks.

All right, the last item on the agenda on our FYI, upcoming items for July 6th, 2026, for uh this body and potential cancellation of said meeting.

Yes, we do not currently have anything that is a scheduled item that is also the Monday after 4th of July weekend, and so um there's the opportunity for the board to decide that that would be a good meeting to take a pass on for the for that day.

Or not, I motion to skip the July 6th meeting.

We could as well.

I second that motion.

Yeah.

Alright.

Any uh any discussion?

I don't know that we need the vote.

I think we can take that as part of this.

Um so all right.

So alright, thank you.

We'll uh schedule accordingly.

Uh a couple other just information item pieces for your awareness.

Uh the Gucci plan, which by the way is getting renamed shortly because there was some confusion with another Gucci plan, and so we're trying to make sure that they don't get confused.

Um that uh started out public outreach since we were just talking about public outreach last week.

Um variety of um focus groups, uh other government agencies, landowners, other folks, um, were all uh invited to come over and visit with Sandbell, who's our consultant for that.

So that process is moving forward.

Uh there is a engage uh Bozeman page for that if you want to keep an eye on that project.

Uh also on engage boseman, there is a survey that is open for any member of the public regarding the update to the landmark and design standards language, so feel free to participate or share the information with others to participate, and then um one other just truly FYI piece.

Um, it looks like the UDC draft won't be publishing in Municode in its typical lots of different levels able to search and everything form until August.

There was some delay at the uh code processor for that, so taking a little longer than we'd hoped for, but uh felt this board might have an interest in being aware that that's the timeline.

I'm not sure if that's the beginning or end of August either, but um, so we we were hoping to have it up and running by now, but it's what it is, okay.

So that's the that's like in the meeting code where it currently is sort of the giant, just a big old monster PD or uh PDF at the moment, so uh we're hoping to get it like the rest of it where you can you know tab down through individual sections and pull out chunks.

Well, good to know that that uh what's there isn't the isn't the intended end result.

No, no, there's still work to happen, so um uh that's that's all I have to contribute for the evening.

All right, thank you.

Any other closing FYIs?

All right, I was remiss at the beginning of not announcing that uh the uh Bozeman B podcast has a somewhat new um episode out now.

That's the one that uh our liaison Mayor Morrison is doing, and the most recent episode is with the uh new president of Montana State.

So they're always always interesting and informative for anyone that's uh interested.

All right, seeing uh no further business before this body at uh 803 mountain daylight time.

This meeting is adjourned.