Applicant to rebuild um Love Lane to standard just in front of their property or to build a trail that isn't connected to other trails.

And on the other hand, when we see this incremental development, we are often left in kind of a challenging position where our infrastructure network doesn't keep up with the cumulative development impacts.

Um that's just a constant frustration that we have and it's unsatisfying, I think, to the public, and it's I just want the public to know it's unsatisfying to us as well.

Um, but nonetheless, uh, I think this proposal fits squarely within the um applicant's property rights and uh meets the letter of the law.

So I'll I'll vote yes on the motion.

Anything else?

All right, we'll call the question.

All in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion passes three to zero.

All right, moving on to regular agenda item number eleven discussion and decision on a request to amend Calico Industrial Park final plat in the four corner zoning district.

Still mourning for the moment.

Good morning, Chloe.

Good morning.

Um Chloe Bonson with County Planning.

I would like to enter my staff report into the record.

Um on June 8th of 2026, Scott Lowry of Middle Fork Cott Middle Fork Engineering, on behalf of JA Ventures applied for the Gallatin County Planning Department for an amendment of lot three of the Calico Industrial Park Major Subdivision.

The application is requesting to amend lot three um to abandon a portion of the existing utility easement on that lot.

The ban is proposed to accommodate for the construction of a can a second commercial office and shop building in the area, which is currently encumbered by the easement.

Um the property is located um within the Calico Industrial Major Park subdivision in the northeast quarter section eighteen, township to South Range Five East.

Um within Gallatin County, generally located on 78 Wildcat Way.

Um Calico Industrial Major Subdivision received final plot in 2006.

The utility easement was on lot three, was originally established to serve a drain field and septic tank associated with the building on lot one to the north.

In 2015, the building lot one was disconnected from the shared system, and a new individual septic system was installed for lot one specifically.

As a result, the utility easement on lot three is no longer um needed for its original purpose.

Uh the application was noticed within the Bozeman Daily Chronicle for June 27th and July 7th.

Notices were made mailed via certified mail adjacent property owners on June 17th of 2026.

We received no public comments.

I did route it over to the health department, which they provided uh a bit of feedback.

Um with them having one concern, uh, that if the second commercial unit is constructed prior to the installation of um permit number 29 ten as the existing unit would no longer have a valid wastewater system.

Um otherwise the other departments, including environmental quality and the Clerken Record well, environmental quality didn't have any concerns.

Clerk and recorder had some language change that was done to the plat itself.

Staff findings that the proposed amendment complies with the design standards of the subdivision regulations.

The proposed amendment keeps its 20-foot utility easement, which was required along the front of the property line and removes the non-required easement include that includes the uh old subject system.

So that is all I have.

Awesome.

Questions for staff.

Thank you, Chloe.

Is there an applicant presentation on this one?

Commissioners, Mike Lapp with Meridian Land Surveying.

Uh I'm simply here to answer any questions.

We had prepared the amended plat through Scott Lowry and assisted him with the application.

Um so I I think uh the only thing I would add to the county's presentation is uh they need to do it.

And I frankly, it's been really hard over the last even year or two to even think about prioritizing solutions or you know where do we start?

Yes, how do we do this?

Everybody has what what is what is the plan?

Yeah, this direction we needed to be really clear on who is doing what.

So that's I mean, that's I guess my remote.

Yeah.

Nicholas, you can call this meeting to order whenever you are ready.

Nicholas, uh, Jake and Tony are out today.

So Nicholas was the first here and has agreed to run our meeting today.

All right, let's do this.

Uh yeah, we call them meeting to order.

All right, I am here to support.

Um, so if you just want to make your way through, Nicholas and just make a way.

Any disclosures?

Uh any changes to the agenda.

How about we approve uh minutes for the last meeting?

Let's see.

I'll make a motion.

Oh, he's John motion you second.

Second.

Okay.

All those in favor.

I can take a roll call.

Sound good?

John?

Hi.

Amy.

Hi.

Nicholas.

I.

Sky?

I and Marley.

Aye.

All right.

And those are May minutes.

Have been approved.

Uh is there any public comment.

I don't see anyone in the room unless any of you would like to make a public comment.

Emily, do you see anyone online?

Any online?

All right, no public comment.

Looks like we've got a special presentation from McLaren.

We do.

All right.

Well, I will do a quick introduction because this is a project that we've been working on for some time, and I think you all um have been keeping updated on this, as we know everyone reads their full agendas before they come.

But um, so we are in contact with um Indigo West and McLaren and her team to create our parking vision plan.

Um I will just give you a quick um background and thank you, Nick and Ben with our parking division who are attending today.

Um we've been meeting for the last several months on this.

Uh we took a bit of a pause and decided that um getting some data and key insights together from um our users, our user pool, and when I say user, I mean people who use our parking downtown and do it consistently to take a pause and really get some feedback from them.

We have some short and long-term um priorities.

We've designated um and then we've taken the data and the key insights and formalized it into um this presentation, which we hope to take from here with your um comments and um discussion to into our vision plan that will be the document that we use um to work moving forward on our downtown parking plan.

So thank you so much.

And here's McLaren.

Thanks, Ellie.

Thanks for being here.

It is a wonderful to be here in front of all of you.

This has been such a fun project.

Uh I don't know about any of you, but the opportunity to read through one thousand three hundred and ten survey responses, which often included open-ended comments, was quite an undertaking and um and really a great opportunity to understand the emotions and the sentiments and the feelings behind how people feel about downtown parking and not just parking, but the whole kind of bigger picture.

So I'm giving you a little bit of sneak peek, but we'll jump into this right now.

So today I'm going to go through where we've been, what we've learned, what's happening now, and where's to come.

So when we start a project, we don't want to reinvent the wheels.

So we took a look at all the things that have already happened.

2021 to 2023, paid parking and curb management exploration happened, paid parking was denied.

Then in 2024 to 2025, we had the parking working group with long-term and short-term priorities established, as Ellie mentioned.

And then in 2026, this is when we've been digging into the data and the audience insights.

And then what's happening now and what's to come is really forming up that public education campaign based on everything that we've learned.

Long-term, short-term key initiatives and evaluation metrics, as well as the priorities.

So again, not losing sight of what's all the work that's already been done.

So what we've learned to date, first we'll talk about the data.

And this was based on 2023, Walker consultants did work with the city of Bozeman to quantify what the parking supply was.

So we have on street capacity and then off-street capacity.

Again, just keeping in mind all the data that already exists.

All right, so after we looked at capacity, we then wanted to look at the occupancy data.

And this is new data.

This is data specifically for the parking lots and the parking garage collected by the city of Bozeman.

So don't squint too hard.

There's a lot of numbers on this, but this takes a look at from January of this year to June of this year.

What is the average occupancy rate in each of these parking lots in the parking garage or is it each of the parking lots collected at 1 p.m.

Monday through Friday?

So as you can see, no surprise come June of this year, we're seeing higher and higher average occupancy rates.

And if any of you all have tried to park downtown, as I know you all have, Black and South Wilson are definitely trending the highest in terms of their average occupancy rates.

I do want to call out one thing on this chart.

I want to clarify that.

Okay, just to clarify that.

All right.

So the other thing that we took a look at was Placer AI offers data, offers location intelligence and foot traffic data.

Aggregated and extrapolated from I'm not going to say this word, right?

And onomatized, automatized.

We're going to go with that.

Mobile device signals.

So this is data, this gives you a snapshot from 2025.

How many people came to downtown Bozeman?

Now, this data from Placer AI is only for US visitors, right?

We don't have European, we don't have international.

So it's just US visitors, but it gives us a good snapshot of those US visitors.

And that data can be segmented in various different ways.

We can look at different states, we can look at just Montana.

We can look at Bozeman residents by zip code, and we can also look at surrounding communities.

We captured Belgrade, Livingston, Big Sky, Gallon Gateway, Three Forks, Ennis, Manhattan, and Logo Logan.

So 1.3 million people experienced downtown Bozeman in 2025.

11% were from the greater Bozeman area as defined on this slide.

So overall visitation is trending down since 2021.

No surprise there, right?

That was our peak during COVID.

But we are seeing that it's up 8% versus 2019.

Okay, so we are turning down, but we are we're back up from 2019.

I also want to point out two other things that we found of interest in this data is that the total number of out-of-state visitors is up 22% versus the number of out-of-state visitors in 2019.

And then the total number of Montana visitors is down 20%, right?

So we're seeing a shift in like actually who's coming to downtown.

We also then went deeper, and as you can see here, this is the Bozeman area folks who are coming to downtown Bozeman.

And it's pretty stagnant, right?

You can't really, there's no like huge fluctuations, you know, there's nothing statistically significant.

However, it's not keeping up with the pace of the area population growth, right?

So that's kind of interesting to like take a look at that data through that lens.

So population growth in Bozeman 2019 to 2024, up 14%.

Downtown visitation from Bozeman holding steady for most part, right?

Surrounding communities, population growth up 17%.

Again, downtown visitation from surrounding communities holding steady.

So just things to keep in mind when we think about why and who and what we are targeting when we think about a public education campaign, right?

So we we know that we probably don't need to be talking to out of town visitors, right?

We don't need to be taking, we really need to be talking to Bozeman community greater area folks to talk about parking in downtown Bozeman.

Also of interest, and Nick had a really fun time pulling this data.

We looked at overtime citations.

All right.

Overtime citations are collected, they're enforced via license plate recognition technology.

So before any of us are like, well, hey, the parking, you know, officers are just targeting people with Montana license plates or the number six, it's not done by that at all.

It's actually just it's done, what would you call by like automated?

How is it?

Yeah.

So it's automated, right?

So the no one's going around and being like, I'm gonna pick on all my neighbors and give them you know parking overtime citations.

It's done automated.

So again, looking at these larger numbers, we have if out of state visitors, right, they make up 74% of total visitors, but only 29% of overtime citations.

Bozeman folks, 597515 and 59718, 7% of total visitors, 44% of overtime.

And then surrounding communities, again, 4%, 14% of overtime.

So those of you, including myself who live in 59715 and 59718, um, we definitely carry a higher percentage of overtime citations than anyone else coming to downtown Bozeman.

Again, this is really helpful insights for us as we think about that public education campaign.

Is that can I go back real quick to that?

Say that again.

Can I go back to that slide?

Yeah, yeah, please do.

Maybe Nick, is that because I'm trying to normalize?

Is that because we're at a greater frequency of downtown versus you know, I'm gonna be downtown six times a day, and yeah, I'm out of state, maybe here one time a day.

I don't know if there's a way to look at the Placer AI data, that's not showing necessarily frequency, it's showing like one time, you know, it's measuring by one time visit, right?

So there could be definitely a point there.

That's a good point, John.

Um matter what, whether it's frequency, there's definitely that higher.

And and by the way, that isn't by the way we calculated those citations.

It wasn't by the number of citations each person got.

It was by the individual receiving the citation.

So we tried to keep it like as much apples to apples as as we could.

Well, and the reason for that is you mentioned at the very beginning, because it to me that signals that's who we should be targeting to help fix the parking problem.

Yes.

No offense to our visitors, that's not an that's not the issue.

It's it's people with the the five one five and one eight zip codes with six license plate that seems to be the target we need to hit.

Okay.

Yes, absolutely.

And it seems like they just need a solution to be like, okay, if I accidentally go overtime, like if this meeting lasts three hours instead of two and I'm parking with two hour parking, that needs to be able to roll into a three-hour solution, which you guys have heard me harp on this, but if we had just like an automatic rollover with a timer, it just would.

It would trigger you and you'd be like, yep, add more time.

We we get into this in the FAQs.

Like we talk about, okay.

So these are seems these are some of the frequently asked questions that we want to be able to address.

Uh and is there a dollar value associated with these overtime citations?

So the question is is there a dollar value?

Um attached to what's the ballpark?

Yeah, you want to come up?

Yeah.

How much have we paid?

How much are I?

Each citation is $23.50 starting out.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

$300.

Great questions.

$50,000.

Yep.

Okay.

All right.

So safety safety citations.

Now these.

That's one year.

That's over the just one year.

That was 2025.

Yes.

Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, just one year, 2025.

And then safety citations, just one year, 2025.

Now, these are not collect, these are collected manually, right?

So there's someone going around.

This is based on officer observations and community complaints.

So total safety citations, 1,480.

Again, the higher percentage is going to Bozeman and surrounding communities.

Right.

So after looking at the data, we also looked at opinions.

And one of the things we wanted to understand is whether or not downtown Bozeman just has parking challenges, right?

Are we an anomaly?

And the answer is no.

We're not an alarm anomaly.

Interestingly enough, Gensler Research Institute just last year did a city pulse asking people about their parking sentiments and core business districts.

76% have unfavorable sentiments about the cost of parking.

70% have unfavorable sentiments about the availability of parking.

So City of Bozeman, downtown Bozeman, we are not alone in people being frustrated.

We also did 17 one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders to understand and have a little bit more in-depth conversation before we distributed an online survey to understand what their perspectives and their opinions were about downtown Bozeman parking.

And they definitely varied by individual.

In fact, it was really interesting to see, and something that I had never taken into consideration, is that downtown parking can not only vary by individual and user type, but also by where simply they are working or shopping or visiting downtown Bozeman by block, right?

Whether you're north of Main Street, south of Main Street, east of black, west of black.

Like I mean, there's very huge variability in there.

And I think that's what we're seeing too in the comments and the feedbacks and the opinions is that it's it's very, very personal.

Um key takeaways as a whole is you know, employee parking, top of mind as it is and has been for the parking working group.

Um concerns about what is perception versus reality, parking opinions, and people's public um parking opinions, and then the economic impacts that those opinions could have and downtown Bozeman.

Definitely this need for education, a data-driven strategy, and better understanding infrastructure and capacity.

So really fantastic to have a chance to talk with those 17 individuals.

From there, we fielded an online community survey, and this is a lot of language on this slide, but this is basically in summary that this survey was not a random sampling.

It was not a scientifically based representative sample.

It was what we call a convenience sample.

That means that we were able to qualitative cap qualitatively capture perceptions and sentiments.

It was easy for us to field.

We weren't trying to get make sure that it represented the US census.

Um just threw it out there and saw who responded.

What was really fun to see is that even though we weren't um again, like it wasn't a US Census representative sample, the folks that responded to this were those people in the Bozeman area who frequent downtown Bozeman.

So we had over 1,300 respondents, 74% of them either visit, spend time, work, live daily or weekly in downtown Bozeman.

90% live within 15 miles, 64 within five, 26%, which equated to 340 respondents were downtown employees, and 11%, which was equated to 148 respondents were business property owners.

So we really felt like we got a good snapshot of people's opinions and perspectives that we need to really hold dear, right?

So if we're trying to target that Bozeman area, right?

We we successfully captured qualitatively their opinions and perspectives about parking in downtown Bozeman.

Okay, so this slide attempts to capture the feeling that we all have that downtown Bozeman parking is really complex, right?

We've got different user types, we have people, some people who are like, everything's available, other people are like, nothing's available.

We have traffic concerns, we have thoughts about pedestrians, signage, development, vehicle types, tourism, like there's all it's all there, right?

I mean, even people, what we found really interesting was the number of people, and again, these are Bozeman area residents primarily, who were talking about how they hate parallel parking and downtown Bozeman.

Um we even laughed.

I was like, I'll teach people how to downtown, you know, how to parallel park.

I love parallel parking and downtown Bozeman.

One time I had to do it in front of the crystal bar with a loud large audience.

It was great.

Um, anyway, so just this gives you a sense of all the different types of themes that came out from um the community survey.

So two things we want to touch on is again employee employee parking that came up again and again.

Over half, just over half, 51% of downtown employees categorize themselves as having significant issues finding legal parking spots.

We included a quote here.

This is an example of sentiments shared.

These are their opinions based on their personal experiences.

So I'm just gonna read this out.

It is incredibly frustrating as a college student who deals with parking on campus to come to my full-time job downtown and stress about parking and pay insane fines.

I do not feel supported as a downtown employee and would love to see more support for those who work downtown and help this area thrive.

And then it gives you a little detail about who this person is and their age and how long they've lived here and where they live, etc.

The other thing we wanted to pull out is we asked people how important it was to them to add more parking spots.

And so again, this is an example of sentiments shared.

77% said it was important.

And this is an example of sentiments shared.

And this is again their opinion based on their personal experience.

But this person said, we need more spots and they need to be bigger.

As much as a perfect world would have no vehicles or need for parking, it is a fantasy and not reality.

The more you build, the more parking spots you need.

We drive big vehicles and need more spots that can accommodate big four-wheel drive vehicles that tow stuff.

So again, you know, these are an example of some of the sentiments shared.

We also asked them to rate their agreement levels with a variety of different responses.

And top line, people have mixed feelings, obviously, about downtown parking.

For example, availability and proximity.

28% never have significant issues.

63% typically park within two three two to three blocks of their destination.

Two-hour parking, 57% find it convenient, 55% find it inconvenient.

Downtown experiences and timing.

77% enjoy the array of experiences offered offered, 72% visit when there are fewer people downtown.

As you notice that question about enjoy the array of experiences offered, we wanted to rule out the possibility that people weren't feeling like downtown was relatable to them.

Like we wanted to make sure that this wasn't like, oh, there's nothing to do, or they don't enjoy what's there.

They do, right?

So we know that's we know that we don't have to focus our public education campaign so much around like, oh, there's an array of experiences.

Um larger vehicles and parallel parking, as you saw by that previous quote.

Some people struggle to find spots big enough.

And then 39% prefer not to parallel park downtown.

McLaren's offering a class every Tuesday in front of the crystal, 5 p.m.

The other topics, parking experience and avoidance.

Twenty-five percent that they have say they have a positive overall parking experience in downtown.

33% are neutral.

41% will say that they will avoid downtown at times because parking takes too long, is is one of the possibilities, one of the examples.

Traffic and safety challenges, and this was something that you know, when I said we were talking about like the bigger issue, it's not just about the parking, but it's also those concerns about traffic.

Um, 74% find downtown traffic patterns challenging, 51% worry about the vehicle pedestrian collisions.

Do we know if that's between visitors and Bozeman?

With that was what?

With the traffic patterns, do are we able to bifurcate that and say, hey, here's the X percent of Bozeman residents that find it challenging versus tourist.

And I'll just tell you anecdotally, I had someone drive down with a Tennessee license plate yesterday on the wrong way on the case.

I'm like, oh my gosh.

All right.

And I I would say, John, that this is like they it's not so much that it's not so much that they're challenging to the respondent, but that the traffic patterns are challenging as a whole, right?

Like the one ways don't go the right way.

There's no or very few, if any, left-hand turn signals, right?

There's no time for the pedestrians to cross before the left-hand turn signals can go, right?

So there's so there's all these different aspects that definitely that definitely came up.

So that bigger picture, that kind of more that Montana Department of Transportation picture emerged for sure.

Um rules and awareness, 45% worry about receiving parking citations.

15% aren't sure where they can legally park.

And then facility preferences, this was something that stuck out to us as well is that 15% choose Bridger parking as their first choice.

We want to see that flipped, and that's one of the things that we've called out as a great opportunity.

31% find it easy to park in public surface slots.

So in summary, no doubt parking is an emotional topic.

How to best solve it, as you all know, is not black and white.

People have a lot to say about parking.

And it's really not always easy for all downtown parking users to find a spot that works specifically for them.

You know, it's that individual basis that we were talking about.

The other thing too is people's perceptions become their realities.

And then their realities and their sentiments, that starts affecting their behaviors.

So when we work on this public education campaign, we really want to think about those perceptions that we've learned from all this work.

There's also opportunity to, you know, really address like those visual cues and existing communications, because those are starting to reinforce how people feel.

Um based on all the open-ended responses we read, there's a lot of misinformation about parking, and it's a great opportunity.

Um bottom line, we believe that clear communications can definitely successfully impact sentiments and behavior, and we can whatever the challenge, whatever the final parking solutions might be, for right now, we can have we can make an impact just with that education and clear communications alone.

So I'm gonna go into the opportunities in just a moment, but here are the four that rose to the top.

So what we've learned, employee parking priorities.

So what I think too, and Ellie, you can maybe speak to this a little bit more, is that this project has given, I think, a great opportunity for the downtown urban renewal district in partnership, working with the city of Bozeman to really address downtown parking together.

Um we had great conversations after we looked at the key takeaways from the online survey about okay.

So what are the opportunities here and what are the things that we can do collaboratively moving forward?

Exploring top-level parking, free and affordable options in the future, prioritizing employee parking needs and management decisions, subsidizing program, shared use program, right?

So this really reiterated some of the things that have been talked about, and I think gives us the platform and the mutual basis to a foundation to move forward.

McLaren, what do you mean by top level parking?

Top level parking.

Top floor of the garage.

So and we've talked about this for a little while on exploring this option, and and we think it is definitely a viable option, and I think it's why we took a step back on getting some of these key insights.

It's I think, and I think McLaren and and and Nick and Ben would agree that hearing from employees supported continue to explore this option.

It's it's a really low-hanging fruit solution, certainly.

Um there's some complications behind it figuring out snow removal, um, you know, obviously giving away something that has a cost, right?

And a potential revenue.

Um, and I think through some of these discussions, this was one thing that certainly rose to the top.

And you know, when I look at this list, to me, it's like none of these things are new or life-changing or you know, chattering solutions.

We've been talking about these for a long time.

But I think getting to this point where we say, yes, we came up with these solutions, and through all this process of us working together and getting feedback, it's still the solution that we want to explore and we can do it together.

And I I feel like putting this together and then getting to the point of the vision plan is really for myself and Nick, this is our action plan, right?

This is what we take and say, okay, these are the things that we are going to focus and do.

And so I look at this list and I think we can do this.

And um, and we have support from all parties, so that's that's where we're.

So I think those are um definitely were top of mind for us.

Other considerations, and this touches on what you were talking about, John, is like this is just one component of the downtown experience.

You know, people are thinking about turn signals, pedestrian safety, alleyways, other drivers, um, deliveries and ride shares, just stopping in lanes, right?

Just saying, yep, we're gonna we're we're gonna stop right here and let people out or pick up whatever needs to be picked up, and also too working with the Montana Department of Transportation to look at opportunities to enhance pedestrian safety, as well as implementing additional 15, 30 minute parking zones and expansion up to our parking zones as well.

So lots of different things at play.

Um but what was really fantastic for us was to really dig into the heart of how people were feeling and how those how those feelings and sentiments were impacting them and what we can do from a campaign perspective to have an impact.

Okay, so what's happening now?

Downtown parking, FAQs, parking and garage experience, employee parking solutions, vision for downtown parking, campaign positioning and key messages, that's next step, as well as campaign strategic plan and execution.

So I'm not gonna go through all of these, but you can get a sense of some of the examples of the frequently asked questions that we saw in the survey.

And some of these might be really straightforward for us, but they're not so straightforward for other people.

And why not take the time to better communicate what is downtown parking all about?

So kind of fun.

I I do get geeked out about reading everyone's responses.

I'm not gonna lie, and being like, okay, it's really interesting you think that way.

All right, we can address that.

Um, we've already talked about the parking garage um experience, about what um what are some possibilities there of how to make it easier?

So it's really changing the perception of being the last choice to the first place.

All right, I know you guys have had some questions as we've gone through this.

Any other thoughts that come to mind before we talk about what's next?

I guess I think it was in the second bullet point on you don't have to go back.

Okay.

I'm just there's a glaring hole from my perspective of not addressing the elephant in the room, which is more parking and the five million we've set aside.

And if it's not in this plan, people will point back and say, well, it wasn't in the in the plan here.

Where are we going with it?

So I think there needs to be a modification to this to say yes.

The dirt in particular wants to expand parking.

We are actively looking at solutions to get more parking downtown.

I think Ellie, the point you made on the the low-hanging fruit, yeah, those are all easy things, but really the nut to crack is where can we make this one-time investment to to get the most bang for our book?

And I think it has to be part of this plan.

Well, and McLaren, I don't know if you want to speak on behalf of that, just specifically because not necessarily your job to figure out the parking infrastructure thing, but we go back to that every moment.

That is the long-term solution.

So that is a huge active component of this.

Um we haven't talked about it a whole lot because you're right, it's the elephant in the room.

It is the one item.

So I don't know if we need to go back, but if you look on like the second, third slide, um, there is one long-term, you know, focus, and that is you know, infrastructure, um, adding to infrastructure.

So I mean, I know you have a couple more slides, right?

Where where that is mentioned, but I definitely glanced over that pretty quickly, John.

That would went, yeah.

Yeah.

And do you want to see it at the end, is what I'm hearing.

Yeah, it was in that list of like five things.

It was like explore top level parking.

Oh, yes.

Uh, you know, looking at to like just put it up there and say we want to expand parking.

Like we want to expand downtown parking.

Yeah.

Then I can point back and be like, yeah, look, we put it right there.

Yeah, and I don't know if it does not need to say something specific because you don't need to solve that problem, McLaren.

Right, right.

It does.

I wish I could people, I really do.

I have a magic wand.

Yeah.

But I also think like what this is telling us is that like it's not necessarily another giant garage, right?

Because people aren't utilizing that in the same way that we want them to.

Gosh, we wish they would.

But they're just not.

What they're utilizing is the I mean, the most is like these parking lots.

Um, and so again, like, you know, we have to re-incentivize them to use the garage if we want them to, and to put and and take them away from the on-street parking.

Again, that's like we we're gonna have to restructure the way that the entire system works if we want to push them towards the garage to do another garage.

But that is our problem.

Um, but I do think you're right, John.

We need it to be in there at parking supply.

It just doesn't have to be named what that is.

Yeah, great point.

And I think part of the reason we kind of went past this is because it is already in action, right?

At least we feel like it's that item that like is the URDs, you know, focus, priority, responsibility, allocating funds, wicking working towards that.

So, but it's a great point, and we should make it clear.

Thank you.

The other thing I just mentioned, and Ellie and and Amy have heard me say this in the parking work group is don't let perfect be the enemy of good, right?

So there's and and I know Nick can probably attest to this, right?

Let's try something if it doesn't work, great, we'll pivot.

But uh analysis by paralysis is the thing that I hate the most.

And so let's start implementing some of these things, see what works.

That's the only way we're gonna know if it if it's successful or not.

Yeah, 100%.

Apologies, I do have to leave.

So I know you do, John.

Do you have any more questions?

Because you John's up on campus.

Yes, he is you know, parking expert from a you know, different view.

Um, so yeah, any other things, any other questions or thoughts, John?

Great job, thank you.

Thanks, John.

And thanks for being a one-on-one interview, too.

It's good.

You can blame him for everything.

No.

Yeah, right, exactly.

John, we want to hear how paid parking is going up on campus.

Great comment.

Yeah, right.

As you're walking out.

Oh, we're good.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Any other questions or comments?

I have actually a question.

How how comfortable are you in those numbers about the total the breakdown of total visitors?

So we have 1.3 million total visitors on town.

11% from Are you checking my math?

I'm just wondering.

I'm teasing.

I don't mean to be a smart ass.

Like if we're using cell phone data, right?

I mean, it's like you know, like like I'm wondering how many, like, say college kids are still like my daughter, for instance, 24 years old knowledge, but still on my family plan.

But she would be a Bozeman resident and know where she goes.

It just, I mean, I just it it feels intuitively like, wow, wait a minute, only 11% of Bozeman residents use their downtown.

I mean, that's that seems like it seems low.

But I don't know.

I could it's it is interesting.

And and keep in mind, that's Bozeman area.

Like that's 11% of the greater area.

So that includes Belgrade, Livingston, Big Sky, Gallon Gateway, Three Forks, and it's Manhattan Logan.

So I actually this is the description of Placer AI.

So I printed this out so I could reference it.

Um this is data that's collected by Visit Bozeman by the CBB um chamber, probably.

Yeah.

Um so it's not perfect.

Um they do stand behind the place where AI does stand behind it.

Um, should we double check it?

Yeah, we definitely I can definitely double check it, or triple quadruple check it.

But it is really interesting.

Um and I don't know, like I would have one of the things that I don't know, and this might address your question is this isn't someone like driving through, this is someone spending, you know, some quantifiable amount of time.

Um I understand why you where you're like, huh, right?

But I'm also thinking about like how many people now are, you know, how many people are are in this area.

Um but I think it too, like think about that 1.3 million, right?

So from the Bozeman area, we have 140.

So maybe it's this maybe it's the percentage that's tripping you up because the 100, there is 140,000 people who have visited from the Bozeman area.

They're just 11% of the total visitors.

So maybe that's what's the maybe that percentage, it's not the 11%, it's not 11% from Bozeman.

It's 11% from the total area.

I think that might be the mix up.

That's what that's where I was going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like only 11% of the Bozeman area.

In fact, it would be interesting.

Yeah, it would actually be interesting to see what is the total population, right?

By these numbers, and then how does that because it might be, I mean, 140,000, someone do quick math, but that might be pretty close to 90 percentile.

So we can we can we can definitely address that so it doesn't it's not confusing.

Yeah, that makes more sense to think about it that way.

Like out of 140,000, but out of 1.3 million visitors, all of those hundred and four almost all of those 140,000 are coming downtown at some point, if it's 11% of total visitors.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's a great point.

I I also think too, I that number really struck me.

1.3 million visitors, and it's like I just have to say it feels that like we should capitalize on that to some level in our our parking structure, right?

It's like well, they are coming down and parking on our streets and utilizing our streets and and walking on our sidewalks and they're shopping in our shops and they're spending all this money, and okay, maybe they're spending money in our parking garage, but maybe they're not.

So, where can we get them to spend money for parking and infrastructure in other ways?

And that's just US visitors, right?

That's just US visitors, does not include any international.

Is there any way to extrapolate, or is there any other data source that can find I'll check with Visit Bozeman?

Yeah, I'll check with um I don't experiences that I've had in the past is that's data's data is really hard to grab, but we might be able to get it from credit card expenses, like credit card charges.

Sometimes you can get non US data that way.

So we can tell we'll double check that.

Great.

Yeah, that's really helpful.

I mean, if you if you figure Bozeman has a population of 60,000, and Belgrade is a 15,000, let's say you know, that's basically everybody coming to Bozeman.

You know, it's uh that's twice the population of the region using them.

So it's like everyone in downtown.

Everyone in in the in the everyone in Belgrade and Bozeman uses the population.

And we get 95, 100 of another million visitors.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

Is there a way to say, hey, you've been here for two hours, and now you're triggering into now paying for this on-street parking, which is the creme de la creme of parking.

Um and that I mean, we're already doing that in the garage, right?

Which is so I I don't, I mean, I'm sure you guys have talked through some of this stuff, but I just think I just don't think we're past the idea of putting some sort of charge on on-street parking.

Well, I can interrupt really quickly and just tell you that some obvious further discussion has come out of this.

And some of it is just specifically, yes, do we capitalize on these you know, visitors that are coming here that clearly you know spend time in other places and don't have a problem paying a minimal charge to come downtown, right?

We are capturing some of that in the parking garage by them staying longer than two hours, but they stay two hours or less, we're not right.

Um, and so some of it is captured, some of it is captured through daily cost rates to the hotel, charging the hotel, right?

So we're not capturing that, but certainly the hotel is.

So there is a captured amount, it's just not us that's capturing it.

There has been some discussions about do we explore a full paid parking model?

Again, it crashed and burned, right?

It was very highly contentious.

Um I'm not sure who's you know willing to bring that up, but I'm mentioning commissioners because it's clearly not me.

Um, or Marley, but either way, um, but are there other solutions right to to capitalize on it to and a lot of discussions have revolved around the inconvenience of parallel parking?

Is that considered an advenience?

Is the two-hour on Main Street the creme de la creme?

Is it?

I don't know.

I think some people would say yes, it is parking right in front of your business.

But obviously a high percentage of people, you know, who don't like to parallel park or are intimidated by the congestion or whatever may not consider that the creme de la creme.

Um, that potentially our surface lots could be explored as an option for a paid parking model that that isn't traditional, that isn't what you generally see.

Um that seems to be so we've talked about that a lot.

I personally think that would be worth exploring just for the reasons that you say, and we can support that concept of it being a little bit backwards with the concept of people here in Montana are somewhat intimidated by the parking garage concept, at least if we're focusing on our Bozeman area residents and their parking, you know, um, the way that they approach parking or how they feel about it, um, and an opportunity potentially capitalized.

So just a thought, throwing it out, throwing it out there.

Yeah, it's I guess elaborating a little bit what you're talking about.

The results from some of the survey or just aiming towards what's the preference, and we need to get the community on board with something, a solution.

There's definitely some takeaways out of that mix.

Um, it's probably not a one large solution identified.

Um be good to have this data and explore what the solutions could be to really get the community invested in it and on board with it.

Well, and like John said, it's like we we cannot keep going back and forth with like killing the good for the perfect.

We just have to make a move in some capacity.

And I think this board has done a good job of being like, all right, not every person is gonna like our solutions.

We are willing to do that for the good of our downtown long term.

We're willing to stay neutral and say this is for the good of this community.

We're not saying, yes, this development is amazing, and this development is terrible.

We're just saying this is for the good of everything and everyone.

Yeah, yeah.

One of my former bosses used to say, your solution to the problem now becomes my problem, right?

And that is the matter of the fact, I mean, that's just the facts, right?

Like that's just the way it's gonna be.

And just as we were talking about how challenges with parking downtown is really an in is it really by an individual level.

You're not cannot make everyone happy.

Like you're just not, it's not gonna happen.

We're gonna do our best to educate them.

We're gonna have a really good public education campaign out there.

We're gonna get everyone really, really happy as we can, but not everyone's gonna be happy.

Yeah, you know, um, when uh Terry Cunningham was mayor, he used to say like it was like a balloon, you know, you'd push one end and the other ended um inflate and and that sort of um analogy.

And I think that that's just so true with parking.

But the problem is is that because of that analogy, that's why we sat, right?

That's why we did get into kind of the planning and the you know the the paralysis of just you know what do we do.

And I think, and I I think Nick agrees with me that that is what we hope to get out of this.

That we look at this, that we get the feedback and nods from y'all, all the boards, this board, BID, DBA, transportation board, and then we hear this, and then we put this into a vision plan that really is Nick and I's you know action plan, like I said before, that we take this and that we're getting the nods, and it may not please everybody, but it's pleasing a lot of people and certainly has a focus on the user group, right?

The employees and the users, which we know is the focus, but now we have heard from them and we can really adopt this vision plan to really focus on that group.

So that's in theory our perfect our perfect solution.

So yeah, thank you, McLaren.

This is super helpful.

Absolutely.

Very illuminating, there's a lot of low-hanging fruit, I think.

Yeah.

Um where we can yeah, you've you've definitely uh outlined some some things that we can work on.

Well, we've all been working really hard on this collaboratively, and it's really fun to see it moving forward.

So happy to be a part of it.

And our next steps are that downtown vision parking plan as well as a public education campaign.

So goal is fall this fall to have that up and ready.

So great.

Yeah.

And we will take that um to you all um for um you know approval and and you know, a formal adoption if if if we'd like to go that route.

We will also bring it to the the city commission for their support so that you know both both Nick and I are you know have have both sides that this is a collaborative agreement.

So I just want to recap.

So I'm I really understand.

We are trying to solve for employee parking, we're trying to add supply, and we are trying to potentially add revenue, which would help with adding supply and long-term sustainability of maintaining that supply.

Correct.

That's that's a wonderful outline.

Yep.

Yeah, thank you.

And in the meantime, we're gonna help people understand what downtown parking is right now, right?

And how just the overall experience and how parking works, right?

So there is less confusion as it currently stands because it was amazing how much how many misperceptions we saw.

Yeah, thank you, McLaren.

And and the wayfinding and the safety, all of that as well.

It's a great other aspect of it.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you all.

All right, any other questions, and um, I think we should open up for public comment if there's anyone in the audience or online.

Any other further questions from McLaren before we do?

Nope.

All right.

Need public comment?

Yeah, yeah.

Emily, anyone online?

No.

No one online.

All right.

All right, thank you.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, um, do you all want to move on?

You have wanna have any further discussion about this or anything else for for me or no.

All right.

Well, thank you guys so much, and thank you, McLaren, for being part of it.

We'll keep this ball rolling.

We're pretty excited.

So, oh, do you mind closing out of that?

Sorry, I don't think I can.

Oh, right click.

Oh, no.

Sorry.

All right.

I got it.

Okay.

Perfect.

All right.

Thanks for clearing.

I will tell you that um this it's taken us um a while to get here.

We meet weekly, and um, this has really been a great process.

Thank you guys, you guys, for your support on this.

Um, you truly have the most skin in the game um with this with this plan, and I just really appreciate your support because I think um it's really helped myself um and Nick get on the same page, and and we're really excited about the future of this.

So thanks again.

All right, thanks for attending.

All right, so we do have another action item today, and that is our um vote to recommend to amend the downtown urban renewal district bylaws, and we will um potentially vote to um approve these bylaw changes, and it will go back to the city commission to um further approve them in um through resolution.

And you will remember that these included um the resolution changes approved by the commission.

This will formally change our bylaws to be um in coordination with um those changes.

This is these changes were made to be in accordance with um uh uh uh Senate Bill three that was um formally approved um at the state level about a year ago.

So this includes number of uh board members from seven to nine to include the county and state members.

This also includes um our language, very minimal language language to um be in accordance with our high performing boards board laws, high performing boards resolution.

So those are the two items.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Um but I was hoping that you all would in general be familiar with this going into it.

Any questions or discussion?

No, any questions on we have a motion to approve.

Emily, do we need to um open for public comment before our motion?

No, no one online, no one in the audience.

You can motion.

Do we have a motion uh to approve the amendment to the downtown urban renewal district bylaws?

Make a motion.

I'll second.

Great.

All right, and I will do a quick vote.

Um Amy.

Hi.

Nicholas?

Hi.

Sky?

Aye.

And Marley.

Aye.

All right, and that is approval of the amendments to the urban renewal bylaws, and this will go back to the city commission for final approval.

All right, well, we actually moved through that special presentation pretty quickly, um, but I think we can get you guys out of here early, but I will just go through the ED report very quickly, and then we'll just see if you guys have any questions and get out of here.

Um, flower baskets are looking amazing.

We do have um a new flower waterer who is also the um principal of highlight elementary, correct?

And um, so out there taking amazing um care of our flowers.

Sorry, I'm sorry, Heather is a little bit.

Heather is our flower water.

Yeah, can you water rock star?

Yes!

Chilling.

Well, apparently, and Emily can expand on this, but this is her chill moment.

This is her time.

Caroline's time.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

She's awesome.

So she comes down about 3 a.m.

about 3 or 4 a.m.

and waters all the all the flowers.

And you guys know that we have switched to all self-watering baskets, so um she only does it three, four days a week.

Um, and so it's it is all heather.

So gotta love that.

Super Bozeman.

Um, we also um hired a new general maintenance employee and um Adam, and he's doing a great job.

So if you see him around, say hello to him.

Um we did finish our um annual report, so I'll just open this up just so you guys can look at it really fast because we think it looks really nice.

Um, but take a moment to check it out.

Um, we're pretty proud of the overall new design with our new branding.

Um, we have some really great information, of course, pictures of us, um, you know, funding information, um, and we think it's great.

It's a great uh um annual plan, our annual report.

It did come a little bit later than general just because of our branding process.

Uh Bozeman Creek um vision plan is in full bore.

They are um port is here in town as we speak, and I'll be meeting with them this evening.

Um, really cool to see that project moving forward.

Um say the date for our Ihoe Pomeroy Peace Park is August 14th.

We hope you guys can make it.

Um, eHO's and Jinju is gonna be out there grilling and having um great snacks and and food from EHOS.

We have live music, it's gonna be a great um a great event.

Uh, we do also have lots of construction, road construction going on.

I'm sure you guys have noticed the work on Babcock, and thank you, URD board for supporting our um our curb extensions, those are on Bozeman and Black Avenue.

So you are all are helping to create um pedestrian safety measures um with that project.

So that is a city CIP capital improvement projects, um, and we did step in and approve um uh paying for the curb extension.

So again, just uh an element of safety for our pedestrians downtown, which is one of our priorities.

Uh downtown urban renewal district board meeting, of course, today, tomorrow um or tonight is our um city commission meeting.

They will appoint um uh Mike Waterman, our school board member.

I can't imagine it won't be of course approved.

He's awesome, and he's gonna be a great member.

Um I did give him today off.

He was planning to come, but I said, wait until you're formally appointed.

I will I'll give you the day off today.

Um, and then I am waiting to hear from the county to approve their um representative, and that will be appointed at a later date.

Uh, we do have three board um uh terms um expiring.

Amy's John's and Skies, and you guys have all reapplied, so thank you.

We have a great board here and big jobs going on and and big roles.

So thanks for thanks for sticking with us.

Uh let's see, we do have BID board meeting tomorrow.

We are gonna see the same parking presentation, and Bozeman Creek is gonna present there.

Let's see, anything else under here.

Oh, I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I am um in discussions with um Bozeman School District about doing an ADA compliant um playground at Wilson School.

Um, you know, we haven't supported many um school projects.

And the reason we haven't is specifically because as you all know, because you know our bylaws and our urban renewal plan so well that we remit back um to county and to school, right?

So um so we are not um by statute required to support county or school um projects within our district.

But I think this is a great opportunity um to work with our school um school district and create a 88 compliant playground.

So they utilize that area by Wilson School a whole lot more for a like a day school.

It's called the day school, Wilson Day School.

Um, and so it's just a huge opportunity to have a public park over there.

And we're looking at just really cool playground equipment that are like handicap handicapped compliant and you know, like wheelchairs can use, like it's it's pretty um state-of-the-art stuff so going on.

So I'll keep it.

Ellie, and where is that going?

Is that going in between like Babcock, like on that corner of Babcock?

Super weird spot.

You will actually have to go up and check it out.

So go up on will up to Wilson School, you know, that parking lot that would be on the west side of the school parking lot.

Just if you're standing in the parking lot and you're just looking east, just to the right of the building, there's just a big gravel pit.

Um it's right where most of our head admin, including um our superintendent, um, looks onto that kind of gravel pit area.

Huge opportunity.

You wouldn't even think of it until you go up and you go, Oh, this is this is a great spot.

So cool.

Yeah.

Sorry, I thought you may have a question.

Oh, yeah, you skipped past that like last thing of video recording.

25th.

Oh, height.

Height.

Oh, thanks, Marley.

Pointing that out.

No, um, yes, no, I I am very sorry.

I forgot that I had actually added this.

So August 25th, and maybe Douglas, you can go into this with a little bit more details.

Um, we'll be bringing back the idea of um our building height um regulations within downtown.

I know this is gonna be really fun discussion for everyone to have again.

Um, but we they are gonna bring it back around.

Um, myself, Douglas, Jake, and Tony met to discuss, you know, what are the plans on how we approach boards and you know what are the board's opinions or what is downtown's opinions.

Um we talked through what I think what we thought may be the right solution, and that is we have requested that staff help us get through this because staff is designated to attack this from a UDC update perspective, and it is not clear to us that our boards have a collaborative opinion, or frankly, have enough background on this specific issue to make a collaborative decision to get back to the commission.

So that's where we lie right now.

Maybe Douglas, you can expand on that a little bit more.

Um yes, the so the commission when we passed the UDC, there was a lot of um hullabaloo over what was what's the proper height for for the B3, which is our downtown kind of core district.

So B3 core, which is kind of your B3C, right, which is our our kind of main street to the alleys or to Mendonhal.

I keep forgetting where to Alley.

Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

Um there you have uh you can go 45 feet high from the street, then you have to step back and then you can you can top out of 60 feet.

The rest of the B3 area um is you can go up to 90 feet right now, right?

And part of that was based on a downtown 2019 downtown um plan that said uh 90 feet was appropriate for for this downtown district.

That was seven years ago at this point.

Um I I think the commission just felt uh that that we need to examine that um those assumptions.

What's and assess what's the correct height?

You know, it's it's interesting, nobody's talking about should we be 105 feet, should we be 200 feet, you know.

But a lot of people were saying it should be closer to 70 feet.

Um part of that is because we have we have gone, we have switched from using stories um as a as a kind of a as a limit to uh using feet.

So the the old the old UDC used to be seven stories, and you were allowed a maximum height of 15 feet per story, which actually would have been 105 feet as your maximum.

We can get into the details here, but but basically the short end is we're gonna get a lot of opinions on this.

And I just you know, me personally, uh, you know, I'm hope I was hope I was hoping that we could, which is why I asked to meet with Ellie.

And you know, you guys have a lot invested in this downtown, and so does the business improvement district.

You're our key advisories on things that go on downtown.

And it would be helpful if you guys wish to have you know, kind of either an opinion or just be able to to relay as your commission liaison to relate to the commission during this discussion that here here were kind of the the questions and the either the conclusions or the non-conclusions that were brought up during a discussion with the urban renewal district, right?

And Jen Magic, is it Jen Magic who's the BID um uh yes?

Uh you're the B the B ID liaison will you know will do the same, I believe, if they have that discussion.

Yeah, I was we submitted a letter in December.

Yeah.

And then do we have another board meeting before December 20th?

Or I'm sorry, August 25th.

We do.

Oh, sorry.

So maybe we can just carve out some time to have that conversation before that next year.

Yeah, and I did get that date to to Chuck to see if we could you know potentially have a staff member here.

Yeah.

So Aaron George, the director of the community development will be here to kind of walk you through that.

Okay, great.

So great.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

I just saw that and was like, oh, seems like a point.

And the other thing that's on the commission agenda that's right that is is the transitions.

So when you have B3 up against, and we did put a lot of residential, you know, districts up against.

How do you um you know you make how do you stay true to the need to keep B3 intense and and and dense, but also respect kind of the height limits of a um less intensive residential district.

So Douglas, is there um I know that the state went to a mandatory 60 foot in B3 zones?

So like you can't build less than 60 feet now.

Is there a conversation around going taller now to back to 105 feet, or is it just about going?

It's B3 height.

Could we present that like, oh, now are you since the conversation's open, now let's go higher?

It certainly could.

Certainly could.

Yes.

There's no um it's just height in B3, right?

It's not like a 90-foot height.

I mean, we're we're gonna look at whether 90 foot where we're 90 foot appropriate, but it would be nice to say to you know we could go higher.

We are we are getting a lot of calls to go down to 70 feet, and I'll just be honest with you.

But that's not like it's not like oh, that's it's either 70 or 90.

It's like the conversation is just open now about the idea of modifying potentially.

Right.

And I will say what another part of the conversation, just for your thoughts, is do we require some sort of uh uh give back, like some sort of like a uh affordable housing or cash in lieu of like some sort of a payment from a developer that wants to go above a certain level, like say you can get 70 feet by right, but then it's a million dollars of floor to go above that that you have to pay to the city in cash in lieu of, or you make a certain portion of your um development affordable in some by some definition, right?

It's that that's also part of that.

Or, you know, so it's it's not just do you go up to 90 feet or not?

You know, could you could also say, well, okay, you can go to 90 feet, but you have to step back a little bit from the like the armory is 110 feet, and no one seems to notice it in part because it steps back from the from the sidewalk and from the right.

Hey, do you guys have a list of all the buildings that are higher than 70 feet on record?

We I don't know actually.

I know Rob Pertzborn put uh you know, he he went around to all the different, I mean he did the the story mill silos, he did a bunch of different things.

Um the Baxter's hotel sign, the radio tower that's on Wilson and Bab and Babcock, right?

Um I mean the three three variants, right?

That I remember reading about in the I forget what the document was, but there were it's like the armory and uh I forget the other two.

But I will I think and I think Aaron George, I think community development has something of like the different buildings in town.

So I'll see if I'll put a note just to Chuck to see if we can get that to you.

Yeah, yeah.

And I can share that um that graphic that Rob Parts has been forward too because it's it's it's pretty good.

I mean some of it is maybe not apples to oranges or relevant to the discussion, but um but it's it's good.

I mean there's several buildings that are you know our highest buildings in Bozeman on campus.

Right.

So you know just this things like that.

Um I will tell you that um Jake and Tony, I think did a great job of of you know talking through this with Doug from Douglas from a URD perspective, and I don't get the feeling that many of your all's opinions have changed a whole lot since this past discussion, specifically because you all are readily involved in the downtown improvement plan process and our priorities, um the way that we budget, the way that we you know projects to to support, we base that all around our downtown improvement plan.

It's an active you know, um document for us.

It's not as active of a document for you know our other downtown boards, and so I think it is an opportunity for um them to be you know a bigger part of this discussion, and we think really it's important for the staff to stay involved, not as much through this board because of Viral's background and and knowledge of this, um, but maybe a little bit more important from for some of our other downtown boards.

That was my question.

Is when you say we're gonna ask the staff to be involved, it's more like an education process.

Exactly.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah.

And it could be as simple as just, you know, uh I I do remember your your your letter from December.

That wasn't we did this like kind of um um it was almost like three card monty on the on the height, right?

We switched it down and we switched it back.

And I think that letter came in in the midst of all that.

Um it just could be as simple as just like you re-looking at that letter and saying, yeah, that's that still holds, and then we stand by because I realize we've had this discussion, you know, a lot, but we've we've decided the commission for what you know, but our words decided one more time to really look at this without the whole this um UDC sitting in front of us.

Just these two items.

Just these two items.

Okay.

We will I just so you also know there are little small tweaks that we need to make.

In fact, actually, it's on tonight's agenda is a tweak to parking in the B3 district that is really just to bring the UDC into alignment with state law that's gonna have some changes in October.

I confess I don't even know the details, but it's it's a really technical amendment on parking in the B3 zone just to bring us into alignment because we missed it when we again there were a lot of moving pieces in that 500 page document.

And then in October, we're gonna we're gonna kind of you know look at this basically staff has been putting little things that they've been finding, uh uh uh you know, uh friction points within the new code that need to be tweaked.

We'll we'll open that bucket up in October and take a look.

Yeah.

And I will of course keep you all updated on any UDC updates specifically any of that you know directly pertain to us.

So and I'll keep you updated on this UDC update because I didn't know that was coming.

So tonight.

Yeah, tonight.

Okay, good to know.

All right.

Um sorry, I kind of skipped past that, but um, but obviously good discussion.

Do you guys want have any other questions about about that?

So August 21st is our next board meeting is that right?

Yes, I think it's August 21st.

Um, and we will make sure that that that's an active part of our discussion.

So however that you know ends up working out.

All right, and just um just a quick reminder that we are actively um moving towards the SALD for downtown.

Um again, this is in preparation of the URD sun setting um and just making sure that um our pedestrian lights are being mant maintained for into perpetuity.

Uh parking vision plan, of course, you guys got an update there.

And we are in full bore with our downtown events.

Our third music on Maine is this Thursday, and um events are going really great downtown.

So great attendance, great thing, great um great summary.

So any questions, thoughts, concerns about anything on this report.

Uh does it feel like busier downtown than it feels very busy, yeah.

Um I don't know if you guys keep up to date on just general tourism um numbers or um you know, just from our R C V B uh, but numbers are up.

Yellowstone Park is record um uh yeah, record record uh um visit visitations, which I'm sure is um you know why we see those higher numbers.

I equate it, and maybe I could be wrong, but um the World Cup being here and um and folks just maybe traveling more um to their national parks and around the area while they're here.

And I would also say clear skies too.

I think that's helping a lot.

And why?

So clear skies.

Oh, right, right.

I feel like the summer we've had more so far, we've had more routine showers, afternoon showers.

So exactly, Douglas, yeah, for sure.

Big time.

Yeah, weather for that definitely impacts the economic activity when it's looking really good.

Well, and I will just note that that place for AI data is remarkable.

Um we're figuring out new ways to use it every day.

So it was great that we could tap into it for the parking vision plan, but you know, I'm keeping it um, you know, front of mind for all the things that we want to go out and and get data for.

So did McLaren say that the chamber uses that data too?

So it's used widely amongst our community, sounds like.

Yeah, you know, it's a relatively new platform.

Um Big Sky jumped into it, of course, years ago, right when it, you know, first came out, um, because they're so visitor heavy that getting that information is is critical.

Um, you know, in Bozeman, it was a little less clear how that information would be used if the chamber jumped in and paid for it and got it.

I think um, you know, just uses for this data is becoming more and more clear every day.

It's it's it's really quite empowering.

It is amazing information.

It's just getting it, pulling it and using it.

That's that's the part that I think all of us need to get our head around.

But the parking data obviously is a great way to use it.

Um, yeah.

But yes, the chamber pays for it.

Um you do all have access to it as potential chamber members.

Um I do have a a uh geo fence around downtown, so we can get downtown specific data as well.

So all right, I think that's it.

Nicholas, if you'd like to, we can call this meeting to a glimpse.

Meeting adjourned.

Thanks everyone.