Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the July twenty eighth City Commission meeting of the Bozeman City Commission.

We're glad that you're here.

Um a few items just to highlight how to participate before we kick things off.

Um there's a few ways to follow along where you're not providing public comments that I want to highlight.

You can either watch the stream live on Cable Channel one ninety, you can call in via the phone number that's posted on all of our agendas, um, as well as just through our commission video page where you're not able to give public comment, but you're able to watch.

Then to be able to participate, um, we will have public comment opportunities associated with consent, our action items, and general public comment as well.

Um we'll start with public comment in the room, but also there will be opportunities for folks that are using our video conference features to participate.

And then third, um, to be able to participate in this meeting, um, anyone who'd submitted a public comment to comments at Bozeman MT.gov prior to noon today was distributed for the reading of this body.

Um, if at any point throughout the meeting anyone needs adaptive listening or handheld microphones to participate, um please let us know, and we are happy to make those accommodations.

One change to highlight, we do not have our city manager with us today.

We have Cole Rowley, our wonderful assistancy manager.

Um, are there any other changes to the agenda?

Yes, for action item I one.

The appellant has requested to continue the counter license revocation appeal.

Okay.

Um with that, just wanting to accommodate the request from that appellant, um, we're going to um do that, satisfy that motion now.

Um, Commissioner Magic, can you help us out?

Yep.

Upon request of the appellant, I move to continue the hearing on the appeal of the revocation of a Kennel license issued to Catherine Miller at 3309 Fieldstone Drive West to August 18th at 6 p.m.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded.

Mr.

Moss, could you pull the commission?

Commissioner Magic.

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher?

Aye.

Commissioner Bowden.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

Okay.

It is continued to August 18th.

Um.

Moving on to FYI.

Any FYI from the Commission this evening.

Seeing nods from Commissioner Magic.

Yeah, thanks.

Uh I'm doing a walk of Bozeman Creek again.

Um this Friday.

We're gonna do the morning.

Uh Friday at supposed to be 95 degrees.

So we'll start try to beat the heat.

We're gonna meet here in front of City Hall at 7.30 and basically walk from here City Hall to Bogart Park.

And we're just gonna look at some of the improvements and ideas that have come out of the Bozeman Creek Vision Plan.

And I believe the mayor, you're gonna join.

Special guest star.

I might be a little late, but I'm I'm planning to be there.

Late.

Okay.

We'll we'll wait for you.

Wow, the side eye.

Thanks.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um.

Yes, I have two quick FYIs.

Um first of all, I just wanted to let the rest of the commission know and the public.

Um the zone edge transition tours that um some of us conducted um yesterday and last week went really well.

They were attendance was a lot higher than I anticipated.

Um thank you, Commissioner Bodie and Commissioner Magic for joining those walking tours.

The um professional facilitator who drafted the questionnaire is compiling survey feedback and will have that to us in time for our August 25th work session.

Um then just a quick note about the urban parks and forestry board that met last week.

Um I understand we're getting a special presentation, so just a quick note that um at least two members of the board did signal support for um a little bit more robust tree retention language.

Um, and multiple members express support for a higher canopy coverage goal as well.

So just FYI.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further FYI from the commission.

Okay.

Any FYI from staff?

I have two items.

Our water conservation program was recently recognized by the Alliance for Water Efficiency, uh, a national organization with over 500 member organizations that promotes sustainable water use.

So their July best in class guidebook highlights smart practices in residential irrigation from across the country, including Bozeman's sprinkler system assessments, garden party, and water efficient landscape ordinance.

Uh so it's an honor to be featured alongside larger cities with long established programs and reflects the diligent work of our water conservation staff.

So kudos to them.

And number two is to be on the lookout for orange cones on Keggy Boulevard as sewer improvements start next week.

Um it'll replace aging pipes with new larger ones, and drivers should expect a full closure of South Third Avenue, South Wilson Avenue at Keggy Boulevard, and use South 11th Avenue to travel across town instead.

Um for the latest updates, they can visit uh Bozeman Streetreport.com or people can sign up for our street report e-notifications to stay up to date on those.

Great, thank you.

Moving on from FYI to disclosures.

Is there any disclosures from the commission related to any item on the agenda this evening?

Okay, seeing none.

Um moving on to consent.

There's anything on consent you want to highlight.

Um assistant city manager, are there any items on consent you'd like to highlight for the public?

Uh F3 is a partnership with University of Montana's climate office and MSU to install a snow pack measuring system and aid our uh famous water conservation efforts.

So that's a cool project.

Thank you.

Um now before bringing it up here for commission motion and vote.

Um we'll open up for public comment.

Any public comment on consent this evening?

Um, specifically F items F one through F eight in the room this evening.

Second request for public comment in the room.

And the final request for public comment in the room.

Mr.

Moss, what are we seeing online?

I'm showing no request for comment, man.

Okay.

We'll close public comment portion of consent and bring it up here.

Commissioner Sweeney.

I move to approve items F1 through F eight on the consent agenda as written.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded, Mr.

Moss.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Bodie.

Aye.

Commissioner Magic.

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

All right.

Consent is approved five to zero.

Now we're moving on to public comment on non-agenda items.

Um so the etiquette for how we'll be going through public comment this evening.

We'll start with public comment in the room and then move to online public comment.

We just ask that anyone that provides public comment, you'll have three minutes.

Um begin with your first and last name and your relationship to the city, and then you will have your three minutes.

Good evening.

Good evening.

I'm Jerry Pate.

I'm a Boseman broker.

I spent 13 years on your city planning board, and I was the realtor of Yellowt County for the same period of time where my work saved the county taxpayers upwards of $8 million.

I hold a brokerage interest in Census Tract 11.02, well under one percent of it.

And the projects that I'm concerned with today are not my own.

I'm here to talk to you about the vote that occurred on June 23rd when you chose to raise to discussion uh a matter of which census tracts to forward for OZ 2.0 standards and consideration of the governor.

Your own economic development staff worked very hard to put a number of things together in this regard.

And they also provided a letter of support uh and other letters of support for the application for tract 1102.

It's a very strong application that never reached the state, and I'm here asking you to reconsider that today for the following reasons.

You have a series of priorities you adopted in March with housing as the center priority, particularly affordability gap and starter homes.

Your growth policy says the same.

Compact residential mixed use infill.

Nothing in your adopted priorities or your growth policy puts industrial development ahead of housing.

And that's what would have to occur in tract six.

By its own terms, the track six application is an industrial and employment redevelopment case.

Adaptive reuse, traded sector jobs, midtown on the polyard.

The 1102 application is housing, roughly 15 residential projects already in review, anchored by Alpenglow at KDN 19th, which is nearly 300 residences breaking ground this September.

It's important to note that every one of those 15 or 16 projects has spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to get to where they are now.

So measured against your own priorities, the tract you forwarded is the industrial one, and the tract left off is where the housing is.

A decade shows money avoids industry.

This is not theory.

It's 10 years of program data for opportunity zones.

Novigradic out of San Francisco is the national accounting firm that tracks opportunity zone investment for the entire industry.

They are the standard source of everyone in this field.

By their tracking, less than two percent of opportunity fund equity went into the operating businesses over the life of the program, and the urban institute's assessment was blunt.

It said opportunity zones became housing and real estate program, not a jobs or economic development one.

The best project level data we have is from Ohio, where 66% of OZ capital went to housing and just six percent went to industry.

So industrial redevelopment and adaptive reuse for tract six is not something OZ investors will invest in.

The good news is it's not too late.

The governor's window is still open and tracks can still be added.

I have been to Helena.

I have arranged meetings with commerce with economic development and the policy writers there, and in order to address this matter promptly.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room.

Good evening.

Hello, Marsha Caveney, Bozeman resident.

Um thanks for this opportunity.

So I'm speaking first as a private citizen.

Just a couple comments.

I wanted you to consider um adding public input opportunities as a regular part of commission and advisory board work sessions, just to get more active involvement from the public.

Um, because right now they typically don't have any input from the public during during or after work sessions.

So last week at the Urban Parks and Forestry Board, we had an unexpected and really appreciated um opportunity to offer public input during or at the end of a work session.

So please consider that.

And then also a big thank you to Rebecca Harbage for at that July HPAB, or not HPAB.

Now I'm trying to think of which meeting it was.

I think it was the HPAP meeting for reminding the board members when they were hearing input that all input is meaningful and try to refrain from labeling it as pushback or fear from the public.

It really just hit home with me because I've used those words, and I've had those words used with my comments.

And I and um but she encouraged them to think about it as differing opinions, just offering greater discourse uh for discussion on a topic.

It's just maybe an opposing opinion.

And I wanted to thank her for that and and let you guys know that.

Now I'd like to go into my role as a BTC Bozeman Tree Coalition co-founder, and you're having a special presentation tonight, and we listened to that, several members listened to that last week.

And you hopefully got a chance to read our comments today.

But we had a couple additional things.

One, with more thought, we just want to encourage everyone to keep in mind the audience for the um the plan.

And I see I'm going way too slow, but we'll keep it quick here.

And it's a guiding document for staff and the commission and the public.

So it would be good to reduce redundancies and marketing language.

We'd like to stick to the agreed upon goals, like keeping the heritage program and also uh policy recommendations.

I would we would suggest um we thought of this today, just add tracking the loss of trees to development, um, including going back several years, if possible, as a forest management tool, because it will help with a canopy overall if we actually know how many trees we're losing on the average with new development.

And um finally, incorporate external stakeholder groups in discussions before and during the public comment period starting on August 10th.

They uh external stakeholders have not been used beyond the surveys, and we'd recommend that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh Daniel Cardi, Bozeman resident first speaking as myself.

I want to thank Commissioner Sweeney, Bodie, and Magic for leading Zone Edge Transition Tours on the North Side.

I always learn a lot on these tours, especially when you're standing in somebody's backyard and the over and you're being overlooked by, you know, somewhere between uh 50 and 60 foot uh building with people peering at you from the windows, talking on their cell phones, having parties, and you've lost all your privacy.

So going forward in zone edge and zone edge transitions should really be about fairness to existing properties.

Now I'm gonna switch gears and speak as a member and founder, co-founder of the Bozeman Tree Coalition regarding the urban forest management plan.

Boseman's current canopy cover is about 10 percent, and the consultant is only recommending 12 percent, which is way, way too low.

With the city ever expanding into green field development, it presents an opportunity for the community development department and the commission to require developers to protect existing trees with existing tree protection codes and require developers to plant many, many more trees as a city.

Let's be bold and set our 10 to 20 year goal at 16 percent, which is similar to similarly similarly situated cities.

Next on the voluntary heritage tree program, the consultant appears to be backing out and suggesting specific program guidelines or recommendations.

They should not be allowed to do this.

They're getting paid plenty of money.

They should supply at least two templates from other cities of similar size for a voluntary heritage tree program.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room this evening.

Good evening.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh Mark Campanelli, I'm a Booger Park neighbor.

Uh I am the president and anchor up for Booker Park Neighborhood Association, but not uh representing them in these comments.

Uh I said I'd come back after the discussion about solar um and I did model my main rooftop, and I can get like five to six kilowatts, I believe, on that.

Um still eight to ten years on that um because at our 13 cent per kilowatt hour rate, you know, it actually that does show up in that payback.

Um what's more interesting is I make like a thousand kilowatt hours.

These are all my own estimates.

Um it's not like I got a uh a proper estimate, but I'm okay at doing this, I think.

Anyways, uh there's like a thousand kilowatt hours, even with my wasteful teenagers in the house.

So I got my utility bill out.

That money goes right back to Northwestern, or I put last fewer panels on my root roof in order to try to get a better payback.

So a true community program.

Oh, I also talked to my neighbor who has the, you know, so very correlated sample size of two.

We both have good south facing exposures.

He has given an extra six megawatt hours over the three or four years that he's had solar.

He also didn't max out the panels.

Um they stubbed in places for a couple more panels in case he gets his own electric vehicle.

Um I just calculated that out.

I think I calculated right that's about $800 over maybe three years.

We are both have progressive parts, you know, like we would like to help the community by being help the city meet its carbon goals, help uh community uh members who can't afford their electric bills.

I'd happily pay back at cost, like at the wholesale rate, not the retail rate, to help out somebody and get a lower shortened my payback.

Right.

There are incentives that can be done.

Um I know you guys send lobbyists to Helena, maybe get this on the agenda.

And also my neighbor mentioned uh Tucson Electric Power, who is a pretty exemplary um example of uh a power company that actually works with the community to try to accomplish these goals.

So, anyways, thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Good evening, um Emily Telego, Bozeman resident.

Um during the long storied UDC update, uh I don't think I was shy about my thoughts when it came to the drift to a form-based code.

Uh even when that meant uh some contentious disagreements with neighbors.

That being said, I absolutely think architectural design review is really appropriate on a district level, a subdivision level.

Most of Bozeman has that built in.

Um as I've watched the conversation about zoning drift more and more and more and land use conversations in general, drift towards what our town will look like.

I think it's been at the expense of recognizing zoning um has a lot more implications than just aesthetics.

Um the 18th, you guys are scheduled to take up special assessments.

In the past, I mean that is always, you know, we've had this very fixed way of assessing things for a long time, and it's linked to zoning.

We have new zoning districts.

We have an entirely new development code.

We have a new commission, and as it stands, you have 30 minutes scheduled for that.

I'm not sure if it's fixed yet that August 11th is is canceled, canceled.

I don't know if that's been up and voted on yet.

But I would encourage you to dig into that right now.

I will follow up with a written public comment about this.

There's a fun story about me going down the rabbit hole trying to do a parking management strategy and what ensued from there about who's actually paying for the streets.

Um digress.

So it could also be an opportunity on the heels of the conversation last week about boards.

That something like this could be a really nice pilot for you guys to get together, synthesize what questions you would like your boards to come up with answers to to help you make a decision.

It's just an idea.

It's not binding.

I understand there may be concerns, but rocking the boat with very stable funding sources that are fixed to parcel sizes as opposed to taxable values.

Um Bozeman's grown a lot, and I think it's high time for you guys to really revisit that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room this evening?

Second request for public comment in the room.

And a final request.

Mr.

Moss, what are we seeing online?

I'm showing no request for comment, Mayor Okay.

We will close the non-agenda public comment portion of this agenda and move on to our first special, first and only special presentation from our wonderful parks and urban parks and forestry crew and our forester and maybe somebody else.

I'm not sure.

Maybe somebody joining us online.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners.

For the record, my name is Mitch Overton.

I'm the director of the Bozeman Parks and Recreation Department.

And tonight we have a special presentation for a mid-process update of our urban forest management plan.

So as the clerk cues up our consultant team from DJA and Planet GO.

And before I turn it over to them, I will just quickly address some of what I've heard.

I want to be clear that tonight is a mid-process update, special presentation.

It is not a work session over the first draft of the urban forest management plan, which we started as Commissioner Sweeney alluded to or stated that we started that last Thursday on the Urban Parks and Forestry Board.

And we do really appreciate these public comments and the engagement that we're getting on this.

It is definitely going to make us a better better plan.

This is an update to an update to an update to an update.

To our 2016 plan.

Okay.

Josh and are are you guys able to hear us?

Can uh consultant team can you guys hear us this time?

Okay, great.

You guys have the floor.

We we lost you and you just came back.

Um right.

I'm sharing my screen.

Can I get confirmation that you can see that?

We sure can.

Excellent.

Um, thank you.

Good evening.

It's it's nice to be here and have this opportunity to share with the commission um what we're doing.

And as Mitch said, um, the purpose of this is just to make sure you're you're aware of you know what what's going on in this process.

And um so that when we we come back in three months and ask for your approval on this plan, um it's not the first time you're hearing about it.

Um you did cut out there a little bit, and so I I think Mitch may have introduced us, but uh uh Alex and and Mitch are in the room there.

Um I and Hannah are both with DJA, and we've got Chris Piper with us as well from Planet Geo.

Um so real briefly here, we're gonna discuss um the project schedule, um, engagement opportunities that are available to the public, um, staff survey and the results we got from that, and same with the public survey that we conducted already.

And then we'll we'll do a brief introduction to the tree inventory analysis.

So as far as the schedule goes, um, we're finished with phase one.

We're now in phase two, which includes um public involvement and drafting the urban forest management plan update.

Um we are toward the the end of this process in that we've um I think you've seen the preliminary draft that we've submitted and is currently being reviewed um prior to turning that into a draft, which will then be made available to the public for a 30-day comment period.

Um and so then once once we gather all that public comment, we will kind of move into phase three where we'll review those comments, uh incorporate that into the plan and develop the final version to then go through a review process and ultimately approval by the commission.

Um we've held uh four work sessions so far with the urban parks and forestry board.

And we've got a fifth one coming up where we will use that to review um changes that resulted from the uh public comment period on the draft document.

And as far as public engagement meetings go, um we've we've held two so far, and the the purpose of those was really to make sure members of the interested members of the public understood um what this process was going to look like and how they can be involved.

And we also held a the public survey, which Hannah's going to talk about in a little bit, just to gather input on what was important and what should be included in the plan.

And then we're going to have another the final two public meetings will be centered around this public review and comment period on the draft document.

And so we'll have one at the kickoff of that process that begins at 30-day comment period to introduce the draft document and help it not seem so overwhelming to folks.

And then another one later in that process after they've had a chance to review, so we can we can have more discussions about that content before the period ends.

And the the key elements to that plan are well, one the engage Bozeman project page where there's documents are available and uh folks know how to access that.

Um, the five work sessions I mentioned with the urban parks and forestry board, and I'd like to note that uh Commissioner Sweeney is is on that board.

So we've got uh an insider there.

And we've uh had those four project specific public engagement meetings that I mentioned on the previous slide.

And then two engagement opportunities here with the city commission this uh mid-process update, and then in November, most likely we will be back to present the final plan and ask for your approval.

Uh I will turn it over to Hannah to talk in more detail about the staff survey and the public survey.

Thanks, Josh.

We initiated a staff survey for the Urban Forest Management Plan update, which was open from March 27th through April 23rd.

This survey was distributed to approximately 23 individuals across multiple city departments and divisions.

We received responses from 17 participants across 11 departments and divisions.

Those are listed there on the left side of the slide.

During and post survey, we have had ongoing communication through Alex with the forestry division as a whole, and follow-up conversations with specific individuals across several departments and divisions.

Next slide.

So there were four main takeaways from the staff survey, increased public awareness coordination and education, tree planting and maintenance, interdepartmental coordination, an increase in that and policy updates as a focus.

Another main through line in the survey responses was increased collaboration between forestry and parks divisions specifically to better establish responsibility for street trees and park trees and their care and maintenance.

Next slide.

We discussed it at multiple work sessions as well with the Urban Parks and Forestry Board.

The survey consisted of 38 questions, and we received responses from 137 participants with an average of 117 responses per question.

The majority of respondents have lived in Bozeman for over 20 years.

Over 70% of respondents are homeowners, and the majority of respondents are over 55 years of age.

These demographics in survey respondents help identify future courses of action to engage the broader Bozeman community with the urban forest management plan update, including a paid social media advertisement campaign about future engagement opportunities for the project, which is currently in progress, and we hope to help bring out even more folks to engage with the draft plan when we present it next month.

Next slide.

Okay, the four main takeaways from the public survey were first to maintain existing trees while increasing new tree plantings.

Second, there was a split opinion on city involvement with private trees.

Third, respondents strongly support species selection options and considerations, noting that species diversity is important for maintaining wildlife habitat.

Finally, there's a desire for tree maintenance education for the public.

This information has helped to further refine the content presented in the urban forest management plan, and we continue to solicit public feedback and comments during work session meetings and at project specific engagement opportunities that Josh highlighted earlier.

I'll hand it over to Chris now to talk about the data.

All right, thanks, Hannah.

So our analyses, uh, what we've heard from staff and the community and the draft plan itself recognize that Bozeman is managing a significant public asset.

And there are about 28,000 city trees that were inventoried.

And most of them are uh young and generally in good or fair condition.

So that tells us the city has been investing in planting and maintenance and has a strong foundation from which the city can grow future canopy benefits.

The main concern though is that ash trees make up roughly 22% of those trees, which is more than the industry diversity guidelines recommendation.

So the UFMP looks to recommend planting other species while steadily transitioning away from those ash trees over time.

And on the next slide, I'll share some top-down canopy highlights.

So when we look citywide, multiple tools show Bozeman's canopy in the 7 to 13% range when viewed from above, which we then summarize as roughly 10 to 12% canopy cover today.

But for tracking progress, we chose one consistent repeatable measurement, 9.8% as the official starting line, the baseline and this 9.8.8% ruler for measuring changes to canopy cover in the future.

And based on detailed modeling of growth, losses, and planting capacity, we're recommending a 20-year goal of 12% canopy, which means increasing total canopy citywide by about one-fifth in a semi-arid growing city.

So this is an ambitious but achievable target and not a conservative one that will require a shared commitment from the city partners, developers, and the community as a whole.

Reaching it means retaining the large trees you already have, not only planting new ones.

And so that's one reason the plan recommends a heritage tree program, beginning with public trees, and we've outlined criteria and model programs that Bozeman can build from.

And implementing this will likely lead the state in this effort to retain our largest, oldest trees.

So on the next slide, I'll highlight some other plan recommendations that are data and community driven.

Operationally, Bozeman is already doing a lot of proactive work from neighborhood pruning, plantings, removals, and response.

And the inventory confirms that many trees are being cared for.

The analysis shows that to fully meet best practice pruning cycles of these public trees, the long-term workload is larger than current production.

So the UFMP lays out a path to close that gap gradually rather than doing it all at once.

We also recommend uh strengthening risk-based maintenance and data-driven planning so that pruning removals and plantings are aligned with safety, budget, and canopy goals for the city.

So, next I'll discuss another proactive way the city can maximize canopy benefits while balancing costs.

So the highest consequence tree pest risk for Bozeman is the emerald ash borer, because ash trees comprise 22% of that public tree inventory, even though Emerald Ash Bore or EAB is not currently in the city.

So our professional recommendation is an aggressive but necessary goal.

Reduce your ash trees to around 10% over 10 years by ramping up planned removals and replacements now, while the city can still act on its own schedule and budget.

So taken together, these four slides that I shared show the UFMP using data on inventory, canopy, maintenance, and pests to build on Bozeman's strengths and lay out practical steps for the planning team to close key gaps over time.

All right.

Once again, I'd like to thank the commission for this opportunity.

And we look forward to seeing you again in November with the final polished up plan.

Great.

Thank you for that presentation.

Um we're not taking any action this evening, so there won't be public comment, but I understand there might be questions from a few commissioners for staff and the consultant team.

Commissioner's meeting.

Thank you.

Um, actually my questions were for my fellow commissioners because the questions were answered by staff and the consultants at the last meeting.

So I don't know how you want to handle that.

I I don't think we can have a discussion on that.

If our city manager or assistant or assistant city manager or city attorney have a different guidance for us.

Didn't like that question.

I apologize for that.

Traditionally, when you do special presentations, it hasn't been noticed as an opportunity for the public to be involved or for you to have a discussion.

The work session category of a meeting is the opportunity to do that.

Okay.

So I guess I could ask one clarifying question of the consultants.

Sure.

Thank you guys for being here.

Good to see you virtually again.

So just a little more clarity on what is coming down the pipeline for us as a result of this plan update in terms of a heritage tree program.

How much are you planning to flesh that out?

It looked like in the implementation phase, it was a recommendation that we do that as a city at some future time.

So clarification would be great.

Thanks.

Yeah, we appreciate you bringing that to our attention as well as the Bozeman Tree Coalition.

And I'm gonna let Chris answer that.

Take it away, Chris.

Yeah, thank you.

Chris Piper with Planet GEO.

So as part of the management plan, you see the recommendation for the Heritage Tree Program.

And also we've heard that through the engagement sessions and uh looking at best practices as well as innovation the city can take to protect and expand canopy and ultimately reach the goals of the management plan itself.

We look to provide an overview, an outline, a guideline on heritage tree program establishments.

So there is a supporting draft study uh draft report that lays out the purpose and function of these types of programs.

Uh we looked at seven different model communities, model programs, and we've and we first looked at our benchmark cities that were done in the analysis process, and then on a broader scale, and what we found is that you know this type of program is unique to the region and to the state.

So we want to give it in the hands of the city to uh finalize this and you know, really spearhead this protection program.

But the the guiding document that will support the plan, you know, looks at what are the criteria, the frameworks, who is the authority overseeing these programs in those seven other communities that we examined, and then what are the different designation criteria?

What defines heritage or significant tree specific to Bozeman, not just what you're seeing for other communities.

We also look at the levels of protection and maybe starting out first on you know, those public trees in city parks as a starting point, and then perhaps voluntary heritage tree designation for private trees.

And the guiding document lays out the um different criteria and some of the considerations that go into that.

And then we also look at what coordination among other boards, the historic preservation teams uh are should be considered when establishing a program like this.

And then uh also you know, what are the next steps?

The plan itself makes this recommendation, this action, and using the supporting document, uh, hopefully we'll set up the the city for success based on what the commission, the community and staff ultimately see as a heritage tree program.

Thank you for that clarification.

Deputy Martin.

Thank you.

Sure.

So do you mind if I follow up on that, Mr.

Pfeiffer?

Um this plan will give us as a commission informate enough information for us to essentially draft a draft you know, create a program, or are we going to have like a model um like model legislation or anything like that?

Um both parts.

So the guiding document provides the outlines of those other communities, and then um, you know, from administering to who makes the nomination, what does the nomination form look like?

Um, how where is this house?

Does it become an ordinance, or is this uh a memorandum, or you know, what is the city process for establishing the program, identifying the designated authority and record keeping, and as well as recognition.

So it lays out what should be included, but not specifically what to do.

And so that you'll have the example cities and the criteria for establishing it.

That's helpful, thank you.

Sure, thank you.

Commissioner Bode.

Yes, thank you, and thanks for this presentation.

Um, I have a question that might be obvious to um you know urban forest managers, but uh isn't isn't to me and maybe to some folks uh listening.

I I saw our goal is to increase our canopy cover, but we're also going to be removing a bunch of ash trees.

And um I I know that we're facing uh some pestilence and uh a risk of the emblemed ash borer kind of making it to Bozeman.

And so I I guess I'm just curious why we need to remove those trees rather than keep them in place and continue to plant other varieties.

And I'm hoping you can just kind of refresh my brain on you know, like density levels to reduce pestilence, etc.

Right.

And so I can maybe start in the city or DJ can expand.

I do want to mention that there's an emerald ash borer plan supporting this uh management planning effort.

So that really details uh the purpose, why to start on this thou with that 10% um ash population uh goal or that target.

Um one thing that we emphasize is that you know there will be a surge of removal demands and increased risk if and when emerald ash borer emerges in the city.

Ash trees become what they call snap ash, that when EAB enters, it's really a two-year time frame where these trees become very brittle and it you know creates an urgency to to remove.

So what the EAB plan lays out is not just a complete you know removal process, but selecting strategically the right trees to remove now, maybe the poorest condition, those in risk areas uh you know, assigned by an ISA certified arborist saying these trees should be removed and then keeping track, good data management, good cost um balancing and measuring so that you're using the right uh removal approach, as well as there are treatment options as well.

There are those high-value ash trees in prominent areas uh that provide significant canopy that maybe you want to treat for the short term, but it would be an ongoing thing for the tree's you know duration, it's normal lifespan.

So we also uh look into establishing canopy goals where we're also estimating that eventually this ash canopy will be lost.

So the recommended tree numbers account for that loss as well as um you know ramping up to have an increase in that 20-year time frame.

And then this is an ongoing effort where it's not just a removal program, I mentioned treatments, but also planting is ongoing as well at the same time within capacity, but the management plan looks to build capacity and and uh you know future programs to really reach those targets.

Commissioner Magic, do you have a question as well?

I do, yeah.

Continued question about the emerald ash borer.

I've never uh heard them referred to as EAB.

So that's new, but I'm curious um if uh is it anyway we keep hearing that these guys are coming here.

Is there any way to predict when that might happen?

Are they like making their way across the country right now?

What what's going on with them?

Yeah, um, so I will say, you know, resources like Montana State University has an IPM program, integrated pest management program that has full-on like details and guidance and what to do if you suspect you see an EAB and Emerald Ash Bore, um, you know, the signs and symptoms, what the pest looks like.

So that is really a go-to for your specific region.

And um the emerald ash borer management plan does speak to that uh in detail as well.

But I will say it has hopped to Oregon and they're really dealing with it now.

It started in Michigan in 2004, 2002 era, went east, and now it's uh emerging in Washington and um Oregon.

And so, you know, sometimes it's just a matter of like our eyes on this test, it could already be in your state, and the programs like Montana State are monitoring, but uh more eyes on it, the sooner you can uh identify and respond to it.

But we do suggest being proactive because ultimately the growing conditions are favorable with changing conditions and climate, um, it makes it even more favorable.

And as we recognize there is a large ash tree population, so seeing what benef what trees could be replaced while keeping good species diversity targets will make sure that you keep canopy cover and associated benefits.

But again, the Montana State University uh if you Google that or search for it, um, will be uh really good information along with the supporting EAB plan.

Great.

One follow-up.

Um Chris, you seem knowledgeable on this.

I'm curious as a follow-up.

Why the current management uh, and it has been for some time is tree removal.

Why is there not a management that attacks the EABs and are people working on that?

Yes.

So there are chemical treatments that are injection, there are soil treatments.

There are also other biological or cultural methods.

So this isn't just you know, thinking chemical or thinking eradication of ash trees.

The management plan for EAB does look into a strategy around trap trees.

So looking at your declining trees that aren't posing a risk to people or property, being a host to these and then being able to um eradicate properly dispose of wood waste to get rid of the pest is one other way.

And then this pest has been around for a while in the Midwest and the Northeast, and it is recognized that there are now natural predatory insects.

So that is something that extension services and research and the Forest Service are looking more into that, you know, without introducing an invasive pest of itself, there are other biological controls that may be options.

But um, you know, focusing on those trees that are in poor or declining condition that would pose a risk is one approach, but keeping in mind those others I mentioned.

Great, good to hear.

Thanks.

And Mitch, if you have anything you wanted to add or clarify.

Yes, Commissioner Magic, I would add a little bit.

The a couple of things.

One reason you don't see a lot in our current management plan about EAB activity is that we did a separate emerald ash bore course of action plan at that time when we did that management plan.

So it's its own plan.

At the time we did that plan in 2016, um, ash trees represented about 44% of the total population.

So that plan already called for us to reduce the ash and start with those in poor condition or in poor spaces.

And then when you talk about the movement of the insect, it's it unfortunately it's we're we're we're probably facing more of a when the insect arrives and not if it arrives.

Recently it's been identified in Boulder, Colorado, and again, which is a bit of a um of an island, and it hasn't been found around there.

So likely they uh suspect it's not through flight, it's through the movement of firewood.

So um, and that's that's really what is suspected.

So now there's a whole movement about not moving firewood and not taking it from place to place, specifically because of the transport of the animal dash borer.

Um so unfortunately, in an area like ours where people um come to camp, um, that might be one of our um more dangerous activities is the is the movement of firewood.

And then lastly, um the preparation and to Commissioner Bodhi's question.

Communities that have not been able to prepare for this in advance are hit all at once with some of the issues that Chris called out.

And so it's not just a financial impact, it's an environmental impact.

Um, and so environmentally, you're dealing with all of these dead trees that do that are very brittle type of tree that just can't stand there, and then all of the benefits that we get from those trees are it's it's it's detrimental the communities that have seen this and not been able to prepare.

Um, and what they look like.

It's it's um it's super unfortunate.

It hits the budget hard, it hits everything environmentally as far as stormwater retention and everything else, um soil retention, all of that.

Um it's so we're trying to get ahead of this and and be prepared and do it in a way that where we're also diversifying um the population.

Great.

Any further questions?

Okay.

Oh, Deputy Mayor.

Just one uh clarifying question.

There was we've gotten some public comment about um kind of this balance between removing trees versus like a need to kind of focus on not removing trees in addition to planting trees.

I'm just uh just wondering where does that fit in in the maybe you mentioned it already, but where does is that something we'll see some maybe some guidance on in this in this new plan?

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think a big part of that is establishing the routine maintenance cycles for pruning and specifically for young tree care.

Um I would say we have a pretty good balance of focusing on getting trees planted and how we can reach that canopy goal.

Um I would say we have a pretty good balance of focusing on getting trees planted and how we can reach that canopy goal, but the baseline of that is what are all of the procedural maintenance activities that need to happen before we can even think about reaching those planting numbers in an effective and sustainable way.

And another part of the plan is figuring out how Alex's team is going to be able to do that because they're kind of at their capacity right now.

So, you know, the plan is going to also have recommendations for maybe some staffing and budget increases or trade-off, depending on where the forestry division is going to set its main priorities for the next 10 years coming out of this plan.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any further questions?

Okay.

Seeing none.

Uh thank you to our uh our staff that are managing the side of the project.

And thank you, Josh Gannon and Chris for joining us and answering a bunch of questions with us this evening.

Um we're looking forward to our November chance to uh dive into this a little bit more.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay, well, moving on, um, we will start to bring up our wonderful community development staff for our discussion and work session on landmark on our local landmark program.

And neighborhood conservation overlay district design standards, project updates and discussion.

Good evening.

The PowerPoint.

Oh, yeah, the PowerPoint.

Okay.

Good evening.

Should we wait for the deputy mayor to come back?

I I think you're good to go.

Good to roll.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Commission.

My name is Rebecca Harbage.

I'm the deputy director of the community development department here for the city of Bozeman.

And I am happy to be here tonight to talk to you about our historic preservation program and provide some updates on our local landmark project and the neighborhood conservation overlay district design standards project.

I don't know how to orient myself here.

There we go.

Okay.

Okay.

We just have three topics to cover tonight, but we will cover a lot of ground.

I want to start off with kind of a where we've been.

So we'll we'll start with some context, move on to update you on where we are right now with these two ongoing projects, and then we'll wrap up with some questions for you.

And again, three is the theme.

We have three questions for you.

So three agenda items, three questions.

And I will pause between sections of the agenda to see if you have any questions as we move forward, but please just feel free to interrupt me if you have a question about something that I said.

All right.

Again, context.

I know that a lot of this is not new, but I do think it's important information to keep in mind that kind of lays the foundation for where we're going further with the presentation tonight.

So we're going to start all the way back in the 80s.

Um we're starting from the beginning.

Bozeman has a robust historic preservation program.

It focuses on our historic downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods.

We have sites and districts that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the mid-1980s, over 3,000 properties were surveyed to gather information about their significance and connection to Bozeman's history.

There are eight national registered districts that are wholly contained within the neighborhood conservation overlay district, or NCOD, as I will say tonight.

Those were recognized in 1987.

They were recognized because they were able to meet the stringent qualifications to be included as listed on the national register.

But I do want to point out, and you'll hear me say this a couple of times tonight, that listing on the national register does not convey any regulation or protection.

Moving down and forward in time, we see we have the neighborhood conservation overlay district or NCOD.

This was established in 1991 to apply local regulations to the newly recognized historic districts.

So like I said, they didn't come with any regulation, so we had to create the regulation ourselves.

We applied that to a broader area than just the districts, uh, with the idea that there may be other districts that may yet qualify to be nominated and listed on the national register as historic districts.

It takes a lot of work, it's expensive.

It is a tough process to get listed on the national register.

Um, and so I think the city at the time recognized there might yet be more work to do, and we just haven't gotten there yet, so we want to broadly protect this area just in case.

The NCOD provides certain additional requirements on top of what is regulated by the base zoning.

So all of the city is zoned, and then we have an overlay district on top of this particular area.

Those requirements that are in addition include application and review processes that are spelled out in our code for proposed development projects and demolition.

So things like a certificate of appropriateness and a certificate of appropriateness for demolition.

We also have allowances or code flexibility, zoning deviations that allows some restoration projects that may not otherwise comply with our modern code.

And then we also have design review for all exterior modifications within the NCOD.

This is the application of our design guidelines through our review of a certificate of appropriateness application.

And that brings us to 2006 and the design guidelines.

So initially, when Bozeman kind of established the NCOD and the code that applied to the NCOD, we were attempting to apply the Secretary of Interior standards to guide the design review within the NCOD.

My understanding from talking to staff who have been here much longer than I have, some of whom may be in the room, is that when those guidelines were found to be very challenging to apply, local design guidelines were developed to help us implement and interpret and apply the federal guidelines to our specific situation in Bozeman.

This is among many other goals of establishing the NCOD itself, but the guidelines were supposed to help us apply the federal guidelines to our local context.

Speaking of context, just I think it's important to situate us geographically and know that you are all very familiar with this area.

There may be folks joining us tonight or who would tune in to this recording in the future who don't know what we're talking about when we talk about the NCOD and historic districts.

So what you see on the screen now is a zoomed-in map.

You'll see an outline that represents the NCOD itself and some colored blobs in there that are our historic districts, as well as some dark shapes, and those are individually listed sites on the National Register within the NCOD.

Going even further back, I think it's important to take a look at where we are within the city when we talk about the NCOD.

It aligns very closely with the historic city limits.

So it's actually really neat to go on to Laserfeach and look at some historic zoning maps, perhaps the 1940s zoning map, and you will see a shape that looks very similar to this.

Of course, we are all aware that Bozeman looks a lot different today.

So again, Bozeman has a very robust historic preservation program.

We led the way for many other jurisdictions that have looked to Bozeman and the way we have an NCOD and applied design review as an example of what they could do to implement historic preservation.

So why are we talking about this tonight?

Why are we talking about updates if we have this great program?

I would say even good things are worthy of review and consideration and to be updated periodically to ensure we're still where we want to be.

And so more specifically, we have identified a handful of challenges with our existing program.

And you'll see some of those listed on the slide.

And we have not kept up.

Moving on, our historic resource inventories are out of date.

As I mentioned, it was the mid-80s when we surveyed and inventoried over 3,000 properties.

A lot of our inventories have not been updated.

Some have.

We've made some good progress in having updated surveys in the, I would say in the late 2010s and early 2020s, but there are many surveys that are out of date.

Oh, I was okay.

Yes, Bozeman's historic preservation program has focused primarily on the NCOD.

There may be other areas in the city that deserve recognition.

We know that there are other areas of the city that may now qualify due to their age to be considered historic.

So how are we approaching historic preservation in areas outside of the NCOD?

Right now, we're not really.

So that's another reason that we need to update our program.

And then finally, the last bullet the 2006 design guidelines are vague and challenging to implement.

Even within the NCOD itself, it is difficult to implement guidelines across such a large area that contains unique historic districts as well as more modern construction.

It also contains our downtown commercial core and 12 zoning districts.

Additionally, the guidelines themselves use words like should and compatible that are very challenging to implement.

I'm sure legal would agree with that.

It leaves room for interpretation as staff do their reviews.

Interpretation can be good.

It can mean more flexibility, but it also means less predictability and less consistency.

And that's both for applicants as well as for neighbors who want to know what to expect.

Staff have done a very good job over the years applying sentences like use roof forms that are similar to those seen traditionally on the block.

What we've heard from the community recently through some of the walking tours we did in our community engagement for this project is that generally speaking, our existing guidelines have done a decent job.

They've resulted in better designed, more compatible homes, just not for all types of buildings or in all zoning districts.

So moving right along, for all of those reasons, we kicked off the local landmark project in 2023 to begin the work of updating our historic preservation program.

Phase one of that project involved research, data analysis, and significant community engagement.

And it resulted in a final policy report that was presented to and approved by commission in May of 2025.

The recommendations in that report included several that we are currently working on and that I'll be updating you on tonight.

First, create a local landmark program.

The local landmark program was intended to allow sites with historic or cultural significance in our community to be nominated for recognition locally.

It's recommended as a way to broaden nomination and designation to include sites that the community of Bozeman considers important to our heritage without requiring them to meet the rigid qualifications for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

So AKA, let's recognize more sites.

Also, it was recommended as a way to potentially broaden recognition of Bozeman's heritage beyond the boundaries of the NCOD.

So in other words, apply our code standards and design review to significant sites outside of the NCOD.

Another recommendation was to conduct some code revisions.

So there were code sections that were flagged for updates as part of the phase one report.

Those included the certificate of appropriateness process and requirements, as well as our demolition regulations, zoning deviations.

These pieces were all set aside as part of the larger UDC update process because we wanted to have a consultant with historic preservation expertise help with revisions that were specific to the NCOD.

And it was always the city's intent to come back and complete these updates in a timely manner following the UDC adoption.

Here we are today.

Finally, a design guidelines overhaul.

The phase one report recommended a complete overhaul and replacement of the existing design guidelines due to the numerous updates required or recommended in the report.

And I want to just pause on that note.

I think words are important, but words sometimes get in our way.

And I want to be as direct as possible in addressing something that we continue to hear through some of the comments on this project.

This little snapshot is page 44 of the phase one policy report, where it describes the recommendation related to the design guidelines.

It specifically states the call-out in the gray box on the screen, which I will read for the record.

The city should prioritize completing an update to the design guidelines as soon as possible.

Existing design guidelines should remain in place until a full overhaul is completed.

At that time, the old guidelines can be repealed and the new guidelines can take effect.

Recommendations for full design guidelines overhaul include but are not limited to, and it goes on to detail some of the recommendations.

Recommendations that were included in this report are not small surgical updates.

It is a larger project.

Things like take into account any updates to the Secretary of Interior standards.

That is a big effort.

Create district-specific guidelines based on the different areas of the NCOD and local landmarks and districts.

That's a large project.

Emphasize resilience and sustainability through incorporating appropriate building materials.

Again, that's a larger project.

So with that said, I will move on.

And we're back at our agenda, so I'll pause there and just see if there were any questions.

That covers kind of our look backward before we start talking about our updates.

Great.

Any questions on the where we have been section?

Commissioner Bodie, any questions?

Commissioner Sweeney, any questions for staff on this section?

Just maybe a clarification of the NCOD design guidelines in 2006 were meant to help the community interpret and apply the Secretary of the Interior Standards, but they also addressed a lot of local preferences and concerns and compatibility based on like local Bozeman streetscapes and other things that we recognized as part of character.

Yeah.

Yes, I believe that's accurate.

There are descriptions of different districts and what what those districts are made up of and how they feel when you walk around them.

Okay, thank you.

I have just one that I wish I would have sent ahead because it's somewhat technical.

Just what, and I think I've seen it come up before.

What is the percentage of the surface area of the city limits that the NCOD I've seen that somewhere.

Six and a half percent.

Six and a half percent is coming from Chris Saunders, our planning managers.

Um, that's my only question.

I think we're ready to move on to the second chunk.

Great.

The amount of information that Chris keeps in his head is incredible and impressive.

Okay, so moving right along to update you on our current projects.

There are two separate but interrelated projects that we have ongoing right now in community development.

First, we decided to continue with our consultant, the community planning collaborative, to revise the identified code sections and develop a local landmark program.

We've extended the contract with our remaining budget through the end of this calendar year.

So we are currently under contract with community planning collaborative to continue work on the local landmark project, what I'm calling phase two here.

We also opted to get started on the major effort of a comprehensive update to the design guidelines based on community input and the fact that we had a historic preservation planner on staff to help us manage a second large project.

We selected the Lakota group to work with us on the project due to their experience with design guidelines and other jurisdictions and their expertise in historic architecture and urban design.

Unfortunately, as you are all aware, we had to terminate our contract with the Lakota group due to an incident of unprofessional behavior at an HPAB meeting earlier this month.

And we just we felt that that undermined trust in their work and in our process, and so felt it was necessary to move on.

We do intend to continue work on this project.

It is an important effort for the city.

And right now we are thinking we, with your input tonight, um, we'll select a new consultant to complete the work later this year.

So the winter 2026 is kind of up to you to help us direct.

All right, so starting with our project updates with local landmark program.

Um we started discussions with the Historic Preservation Advisory Board or HPAB, as I'll be referring to them tonight, um, around the purpose of such a program as well as the significance and integrity criteria for eligibility to be designated as a local landmark.

I do have a snapshot of some of the criteria that HPAB has considered that is in a backup side if anyone is curious later tonight.

Um largely I would say that the criteria we've discussed with HPAB for local landmarks is very similar to the nomination criteria for the national register, but it does call out a site or district's contributions to our local history and culture.

Um, so things like connection to a significant event or person movements or construction periods, stuff like that.

As an aside, sort of, uh, this program was intended to help address some of the common concerns that we have been hearing.

And so some of this will sound familiar to some of the challenges I listed on a previous slide.

There is concern that the city hasn't nominated, has not nominated any more historic districts to the National Register since quite a while ago.

The NCOD was initially put in place with the understanding that there may yet, as I said, be more historic districts in the area.

Nomination of a district to the national register is an expensive and time consuming process that is typically led by residents, neighborhood champions within that proposed district.

National register listing, as I said, also does not convey any regulatory protections.

Those are entirely local.

Our consultants and the state historic preservation office have confirmed our understanding on that.

And we thought since the regulation would be local anyway, a local landmark program perhaps would lower the administrative bar, so to speak, by allowing Bozeman to decide what the nomination and designation process would look like, what documentation is required, what we want to recognize and how, whether that's through celebration, incentives, regulation, et cetera.

It also was intended to address a concern that areas outside of the NCOD are not protected in the same way.

So the vision of a local landmark program is that we could recognize worthy sites and districts all across the city, regardless of whether they currently fall within the boundary established in the 1990s.

This project, I will say, is currently on hold.

And why is it on hold?

We initially thought that the recog the creation of a local landmark program would be something that HPAB could get creative about, that the community would get excited about.

I think that there are significant conversations that are going on related to some of our other historic preservation work that perhaps should go first before we create a new program.

What we found through conversation with HPAB and through their direction was that it is difficult to get excited about expanding what applies within the NCOD now if we're not excited about what applies within the NCOD now.

And so perhaps what we need to do is clean up what we have before we think about expanding it elsewhere in the city.

And so HPAB did agree with that when we spoke to them earlier this year and preferred to prioritize code revisions and the NCOD design guidelines update first and then come back to developing a local landmark program.

And when I mentioned timelines on these next few slides, please just be aware that it is this is what staff are currently thinking.

But of course, we're here tonight to get your input and we'd like to hear your feedback about timing and how you'd like to see these pieces move forward.

So more on that to come on future slides.

Okay, so I mentioned that development of the local landmark program is sort of on taking a little time out for now.

Um and what we're actually doing.

Oh, sorry, I'm I jumped ahead of myself there.

I'm gonna go back one because I did not talk about up next on this slide.

Um, just to finish out the context of the local landmark program, I did mention that HPAB discussed the purpose and the eligibility criteria.

So what else is required to develop this program?

We would need to move on with that discussion and talk about what we want to apply if something is designated as a local landmark.

So initially we thought, okay, maybe we would apply the same package of regulation that applies within the NCOD.

So that would be like requiring COA, requiring a COA for demolition, requiring design review.

There are questions about would we want to apply regulation to local landmarks when they're designated, or would we prefer honorary recognition or incentives or some other way of recognizing landmarks when they're designated?

That's a further conversation that needs to be had still.

And then once we decide what we want to apply to these landmarks, we would need to walk through the conversation of the process.

So how do we apply what we decide we want to apply?

For example, if we choose to apply regulation, our legal team has advised that our authority to regulate land use is within our unified development code in chapter 38.

So, in other words, we need more conversation to understand if we apply a landmark district, does that mean it's a zone map amendment and it's an application of a zoning district?

And like I said, more conversation is needed there.

This is we, as I think Mitch maybe said that he's gone.

This is mid-process, right?

So we're providing you with an update.

We are mid process.

None of this has been decided yet at this point, and we are not asking you for a decision tonight either.

So more investigation and research are needed because we need to find the right balance, as we heard from HPAP.

We need to balance making the landmark designation something that people are excited to pursue.

We want this to be an exciting thing for the community, but we also have to follow the necessary process steps to apply new regulations to private property if that's the direction that we need to go.

We decide to go.

Now I can move on.

So as I said, um the historic preservation advisory board did prefer to move forward with the demolition code revisions first.

So currently, what we are working through with HPAB is we presented to them back in June about the reasons for demolition regulations as well as some of the limitations to regulating demolition of structures on private property.

We also presented to HPAB about our current regulations.

So in Bozeman, we do have regulations on the books that control demolition of buildings within the NCOD in three separate categories.

We consider historic structures, non-historic structures, and unsafe structures, and the process for applying for demolition differs for each of those different categories.

So I do want to emphasize we have regulation on the books today.

HPAB dug into our current code and provided us with a list of their recommendations that we have shared with our project consultant, the community planning collaborative.

Just as a few examples of what HPAB would like to see addressed.

We're currently working through these again with our consultant and our legal team, but they're interested in requiring updated inventory forms with demolition applications.

And as a note that would require additional cost potentially, either on the city or on the applicant.

They're interested in requiring some sort of documentation that property owners sought alternatives to demolition during a stay of demolition on a historic structure.

That's something that HPAB recommended to us.

And HPAB is also interested in being more involved in the review of demolition applications, at least for historic structures.

So that's just as an example.

We're going to be working through with our consultant and legal team and then HPAB to further flesh out what revisions to the code might look like that would help achieve some of their recommendations.

Hopefully, we will be able to come back to HPAB at their August 19th meeting to talk through what some of this might look like.

It is unclear right now whether with everything else going on, we'll actually have draft code pages to provide to them in advance for review.

But we are hoping that we're going to continue this conversation, and that will be the focus of our August 19th meeting with the board.

Okay.

Moving along from our landmark project onto our NCOD design standards update project.

I want to start with community engagement.

So we kicked off this project earlier this year, and we have gathered community input through a number of different opportunities, including stakeholder interviews, several listening sessions with different stakeholder groups, neighborhood tours.

I mentioned we did two neighborhood tours with community members.

We formed a neighborhood focus group and have had two meetings with that group where we have a representative from each of the neighborhoods within the NCOD to help sort of give the first look and vet and provide feedback on draft documents before we move them forward for public and HPAB and commission review.

We also had a community open house, and we translated many of the same or almost all of the same questions from the community open house into an online survey to just broaden the opportunity to provide input on the same topics.

And I just want to cover some of the summary of what we've heard in part for your information, but also just to reflect back for the record some of the community voices that have been raised up as part of this engagement.

And I will say there is definitely not time tonight to cover everything that we've been hearing.

So some highlights.

And as you read through these, I'm not going to read them to you.

You can read them yourselves, but as you read through them, I do want to start by calling your attention first, perhaps to what is not on the list.

And this is what I would maybe call classic detailed historic preservation of architectural integrity through regulation of design elements and materials.

And forgive me to any historic preservation experts who are listening who would probably have better words to use to describe that.

But we we shared a few draft documents that the Lakota group prepared with our neighborhood focused group and with the historic preservation advisory board.

And we wanted to give them examples of kind of the direction we were going after listening to all of this feedback and get their further feedback on the proposed structure, approach, and level of detail that we were thinking based on what we were hearing.

So essentially, we wanted to circle back and check in on our direction and say, like, does this meet your expectations?

What we heard loud and clear, and you would all hear if you went and listened to the HPAB meeting from earlier this month is that folks were not especially interested in increasing the regulation of historic homes.

So we very much heard that it is expensive to maintain historic homes and flexibility for homeowners is desired.

And so unfortunately, what we brought forward as our first example was a table of very detailed standards related to historic window treatment.

And we we heard, we heard you, community, that you are not that interested in very, very detailed regulation of historic window treatment.

I'm not sharing these materials with commission tonight, and that is in part because of the feedback that we have received.

They are available with the July 15th HPAB meeting materials.

So if anyone is curious and wants to go look at what was proposed, please, please do, and we would love to hear your feedback.

What I will say is that the Lakota group proposed this additional detail because what they explained to us is that materiality and the preservation of design elements are common ways across the country to protect the integrity of historic structures.

And that these pieces, in their view, were lacking in our current guidelines.

But that said, we have heard the feedback and we will take that into account as we move forward.

And thank you to Marsha and her comment earlier.

This is good input for us to have.

This is the this is the process working, right?

We we start broad, we say, what would you like to see?

Then we attempt with a draft and say, does this meet your expectations?

Did we hit the mark?

We heard not quite.

So now we go back and we iterate and we try again and we'll come forward with something different that I hope will better align with community expectations.

So next, I want to dig into a piece that consistently does come up in comments, and that is neighborhood character.

So, what is neighborhood character?

We asked the Lakota group to help us analyze some of the comments through community engagement to give us a clearer picture of what folks mean when they talk about neighborhood character in the NCOD.

And you can see on the screen is a word cloud.

Um, this was pulled from a particular question that was asked on the survey as well as at the open house, so you can see just some like snapshots of the boards that we had at the open house.

And this question asked, what are the character-defining features of the neighborhood conservation overlay district?

There were similar questions asked of each of the historic districts, and that was intentional to see are there differences as we go from district to district that people really relate to or identify with that we should keep in mind.

So, boiling down all of the words that you see on the screen now, Lakota group pulled together the list that is on the screen at the moment.

This is a further synthesis of the responses that the Lakota group put together.

And you'll see historic character, for example, is included on the list, but many of the other aspects of character that came up through these responses are not things that are directly tied to historic preservation.

The design guidelines are unique in that they try to do both.

They're protecting the integrity of historic structures where appropriate, and preserving the unique feel of the neighborhoods.

Of course, I will say that neighborhood character is something that we planners think about a lot.

We are very interested in neighborhood character across the whole city.

We are hoping that as a city we're planning for neighborhoods that are safe, interesting, filled with character, and each neighborhood across the city, of course, will have its own unique flavor or take on what that means.

So out of curiosity, and actually early in the project, Chris Saunders, who is in the room tonight, pulled together a crosswalk of topics that are included in our current design guidelines to show where those topics may or may not be addressed in the UDC itself.

And so I just want to provide a few examples, and I emphasize examples here because Chris put together a table that goes more than two pages.

And I'm not going to fit that all on the screen in a way that you'll be able to read.

So I will throw a few up here.

And I know this is still a lot of words, but we do cover a lot of this in our UDC in our code currently.

So we have standards for sidewalks and boulevard width, setback, tree spacing, floor height, building height and width, windows and door placement.

So we want street facing facades to be designed in a certain way.

We have standards related to coverage of like building coverage on a lot and open space, pedestrian-oriented open spaces, common spaces, streetscapes, boulevards, street trees, zone edge transitions, building massing, like how bulky these buildings can be.

We address a topic of wall plate height, which is like that straight up wall that you see before it moves into a pitched roof.

We have standards that address non-motorized circulation, access to sidewalks, pathway design.

We do also have standards that talk about balconies and rear property line standards, looking at light, air, and privacy.

We have standards related to location and screening of service areas, like trash enclosures, where parking can be and how it must be screened.

And then, of course, we already heard tonight, we do have standards as well, and a urban forestry master plan related to trees and how we landscape and how we save water when we're making sure that our plants survive.

So a lot of this exists in the NCOD today.

And just for some visual examples, some screenshots, I wanted to emphasize some of the words that we use.

Our code is peppered with references to protecting character.

It says things about public interest, pedestrian-oriented streets, human-scaled detail, design details, comfortable, safe, engaging, and attractive streetscapes, clear and welcoming building entries, appropriate perceived scale.

These are all regulations that apply through base zoning and our development code across the whole city.

I share these examples because I think it's important that we keep in mind that Bozeman does currently regulate many aspects of neighborhood character, both within and outside of the NCOD.

And it is fair to check in and ask whether we're doing enough.

Conversations about how to better protect character within the NCOD should build on or fill gaps in what already exists in code.

And we should ask the question: are the additions or are these additional standards that we want in the NCOD, are these only necessary in the areas covered by the neighborhood conservation overlay district, or are they amendments we should make in the code where it applies citywide?

So that is a question that I think needs to be part of the conversation as it moves forward.

And moving forward, we are seeking policy direction from commission tonight.

So this brings us back to the status of our design standards update project.

Bulk, mass and scale, neighborhood character, these are issues that continue to come up.

They are important issues, and they are clearly the top concerns for the folks who are engaging with us and commenting on this project.

And I want to be very clear about that.

While these issues remain unsettled, it is challenging to talk about the other piece of this project, which is preservation of our historic structures.

Ideally, preventing those historic structures from losing their integrity or their ability to convey their significance to the district or to the community.

The reason we're seeking direction from you is that these issues can be and are addressed in a variety of different ways.

And these are policy decisions.

Tackling them through the NCOD and through design review is just one possible way to get there.

For instance, concerns about bulk mass and scale of buildings could be addressed.

These are four instances by changing what is allowed in the base zoning.

So that would apply in all areas across the city that have that zoning.

It could be addressed by adjusting the zoning map.

So adjusting what zoning districts are where that might mean as a note, that might mean amending the future land use map.

So just something to also be aware of as you think through this.

The issues could be addressed by implementing appropriate transitions between high and low density zones.

And I mentioned that we do have zone edge transitions currently addressed in the UDC, and you have a future work session coming up to talk specifically about that.

So I'm not going to go into it too much tonight.

You could also, as I mentioned, address these issues by modifying dimensional standards of the base zoning through an overlay district.

So I do want to be totally transparent.

That is an option.

You can decide that you want to further reduce the maximum height allowances of every zoning district within the NCOD by applying it this overlay district.

That is also an option.

Or you could move on and try some non-regulatory methods, like perhaps finding ways to incentivize what we want to see instead of regulating what we don't want to see, or looking at things like transfer of development rights.

There are a lot of options that can get at some of these concerns.

So as I mentioned, addressing them and dealing with them through the NCOD and design review is one possibility there.

And we will come back to this when we get to the questions for you all.

Which looks like that is where we are.

So I will pause and see if you have questions on any of that that I just covered.

I know that it was a lot.

Great.

Any questions from that section so far?

Maybe to Commissioner Bowdy.

Yes, thank you.

You were talking about the local landmark project a while ago.

And I I think I might have heard you say that we can use the local landmark mark program to create a less onerous and expensive way to inventory historic properties.

Did I hear you correctly?

Thanks for the question.

So to clarify, it would help us create a less onerous and expensive way to designate, but not necessarily on the inventory side.

So we could, as part of forming that program, decide that we want to develop our own form and choose what details we'd like to include.

Okay, sounds like I misheard you slightly there.

Just a follow-up to that.

So the difference between designating and inventorying is it that the actual property owner themselves is the one that says, I want to designate.

They solicit the process themselves, whereas the inventory is where we're kind of proactively going out and may determine someone's property is potentially historic, whether or not they're kind of soliciting it.

Trying to think through the best way of answering this question.

So they are related.

I would say this the city, so you all, thank you, have set aside some money in the upcoming budget to update inventories or do new inventories.

What we have understood to this day is that an inventory is about a thousand dollars to prepare.

Um that is something that if we have money allocated, the city can lead a project to update inventories, fill in gaps where inventories don't exist.

That inventory information then becomes the documentation or justification for nomination, either to the national register or to local landmark.

And so you sort of need the inventory to provide you with the information that would help demonstrate that your property or your district meet the eligibility criteria.

Does that make sense?

And answer your question.

Yes, I think that you're saying we we need the um inventory before we can designate either local landmark or you know, national historic.

And um, just for those listening, you said it was a thousand dollars.

You mean per property?

Yes, that's what we have heard from our consultant.

Commissioner Magic.

Yeah.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thanks, Rebecca.

That was a lot of history to go through.

Um during your presentation, you hinted at other items needing to go first.

Um, and that's kind of what you've heard from the public prior to the uh NCOD proceeding and the local landmark program.

Um can you please talk about what those items are?

What is the public saying or were saying should go first?

Yeah, that is a great question.

So we were feeling that this these two projects together were a lot to cover.

Um we were hearing from HPAB that it was a lot for them to cover.

Um they meet only once a month, so it is indeed a lot for them to talk about at each of their meetings.

Uh we went to them this spring uh to ask whether the order of operations that we were presenting to them made sense.

So we initially went into this thinking landmark program.

Um, and the reason I say first and that things have to go in in order is not that we're like entirely putting one on the shelf and only doing one thing at a time.

Um, it's mainly because we can only bring one topic, one like meaty topic forward to HPAB for a discussion at a time.

And so we were asking them what do they want to cover and kind of like check off and move so that they can go on to the next thing and what was that order?

Um their recommendation was that they were less concerned, I guess, with adopting fully developing and making ready for adoption a local landmark program, and they were more concerned that we tackle revisions to our demolition code and also the NCOD design guidelines.

They felt that those two things were the most important and that they wanted to hear about those first.

Great.

Thanks.

I know that building massine and neighborhood character are kind of rising to the top of the list of concerns for folks.

And is it your opinion that people are looking at the NCOD as the way to resolve those issues?

That seems to be what we are hearing in conversation.

Um, not necessarily that it is the way, but that it is a way, um, and that perhaps the the your conversation um around the UDC updates did not entirely resolve those issues or perhaps in not taking up the NCOD section of the UDC, you were putting that off to a future date for further consideration.

And so that is what we're hearing that there is interest in now how do we address those concerns with the NCOD projects.

And part of our UDC update was um rezoning areas of town, both the south side and north side in my mind rezoning in a way that matches um for the most part in a historic care area, which zoning is not always a good fit, but matches what's on the ground.

So that was part of our UDC action was you know, looking at the zoning and making, as you said, um adjustments to the future land use map.

And I'm curious if there is any talk out there, kind of neighbors taking the initiative to do something similar to the Bontan and Centennial, that they're seeing that as a path towards the building massing and protection of neighborhood character.

I can only say what I'm hearing.

Um, and we do not have formal applications before us for areas within the NCOD.

Um I have had some conversations with community members about their interest in rallying neighbors and coming forward to propose a rezoning.

Um that communication has um I hope clarified some of the umbe the impressions that were given during the UDC conversations that follow the adoption of the UDC, the city would or commission would take up some additional downzoning within the UDC of those neighborhoods.

My understanding from the staff perspective was that community members or neighbors would come to the city with an application if that's indeed what they wanted to pursue.

I know that there is interest in doing that.

And I do recognize that that is a regulatory burden.

There are like costs and there is process associated with that.

So I know that there is interest, but we haven't had any further conversations about the details.

Okay.

Okay, so I'll leave some of that for um comments.

Unless are we just asking questions right now?

Or is it okay?

I will not speak to my opinion.

I do have some slides with zoning maps on them as well once we get to the next section where there are questions for you.

So in case that helps.

Great.

Um we don't currently have a historic preservation officer, or is that that research hasn't been filled.

Correct.

We do not currently.

So Aaron and I have been moving these projects forward.

Uh we have been working um diligently and as quickly as possible to fill the position that was vacated by Sarah Rosenberg back in March.

Um we did, I think we we have shared with you, maybe we just shared with HPAB.

We did want to um do some revisions to the job description to make sure that it specifically called out qualifications related to historic preservation.

So that delayed our process a little bit, but um we have I hope well, I don't even know what I think we're close.

I think we're close to filling that position.

I I hope so for both of your sakes and take of the department.

All right, that's it for now.

Thanks.

Commissioner Sweet.

Thank you.

Um I just want to follow up on um Commissioner Magic's train of uh questioning there with the um hiring of a historic preservation officer.

Our code says that a member of HPAB may be involved in that.

Have you um and the director discussed whether or not you'd like to involve a member of the board?

Hello, Commission.

Um, thanks for asking that.

So um we did talk about code revisions as part of the landmark project.

It's not just demolition code and COA process, it's also some of that.

So we have guidance from our HR department as well as legal that is um inappropriate for the city's municipal code to um identify anything in there about an individual position requirements or process.

So that is going to be proposed for removal.

So uh we conduct our hiring process with HR and with staff, and um we are not involving board members on our hiring panels, but we actually already conducted interviews last week.

Okay, interesting turn of events here.

Um thank you for that.

Um another question I have is um the massing in the UDC update regulated through the wall plate height.

That only applies in zoning districts RA and RB.

Is that correct?

I believe, well, let's see.

I have have a table that I didn't put in the in the slides tonight.

I think it was too much.

Um, but we can provide just a simple table.

Uh there are wall plate height requirements or limitations for R A R B B3C um and for the NEMU district um if it is residential.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And um, I guess later when we look at the zoning maps, we will see other zoning districts in the um COD.

So it's fair to say that not everywhere in the NCOD is subject to a zoning district with a wall plate height.

Correct.

Okay.

Um I'm also wondering if we can get that two-page table that Mr.

Saunders put together.

I'd like to see it.

Um we can certainly follow up with that.

Thank you.

That would be wonderful.

Okay, I think I have one more question.

Um I was actually really surprised to hear the landmark program is on hold.

I thought only the NCOD project was on hold, but I guess um a question I had about the landmark program.

But I guess a question I had about the landmark program.

There's been some discussion about what we regulate.

And is it possible when we create a landmark designation, whether that's a site or a district?

Is it possible at that time to tailor what we regulate to that landmark district or site?

That is something that we have talked about as part of development of the program.

I think TBD further discussion with HPAB will be needed on that topic.

One potential concern that staff had would be just the the down the road, if we end up with a proliferation of landmark districts, how many different sets of requirements are we asking our staff to apply?

That would be, I think the primary limitation.

But we have talked about, you know, there are certainly unique character features of different areas and our current design guidelines as we have talked about attempt to apply one set very broadly across a whole big area.

Um and it's challenging.

So I think that is something that's on the table for a discussion.

Okay, thank you.

Um I think that's all the questions I have right now.

Thank you.

Okay.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I just uh I'm I'm having trouble understanding like kind of which trains are leaving the station, which ones are so let me let me just walk through this.

Uh and maybe with the question being kind of um make sure I've got this correct.

So um sorry.

So that we renewed the contract with our with our con with our consultant to help with the landmark program.

But HPAB had would prefer to kind of hold on that landmark program while we work on some of the elements of the NCOD, such as the particularly the demolition code and um and and uh and the NCOD guidelines.

But then we put the NCOD guidelines on hold while we're dealing with our consultant's snafu, and we're looking you're looking for guidance about when to restart that, but you're thinking sometime winter.

I mean you're thinking about pause for the NCOD guidelines to work on um to work on sorry, to that's where I'm getting confused.

Yes, uh the confusion is understandable.

Okay.

There is a lot going on.

Um so I I said this on a different slide, but words are useful and important and sometimes get in our way.

Uh we have a project called the Local Landmark Project that includes development of a local landmark program and all of the code revisions.

So we happen to have a consultant on the local landmark project who is very experienced and is in fact an attorney and who can help us with code revision.

So we have her still on contract, and for while we may be waiting on the further development of the local landmark program itself, we can still work with that consultant on the code revisions.

Got it.

I see.

Okay.

And so the guidance you're looking for are kind of how we proceed with um with the revisions to the oh, here we are.

Okay.

You're gonna get to that in a minute.

I'm sorry, I'm jumping in.

You're good.

All right.

And so um and then so what I'm hearing, and then actually, would you mind going back to the um that word cloud you had out of the out of the um it's always a while back, I'm sorry.

Um from the survey.

Right there.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Okay.

Because I just I mean, it was interesting having you know, mature trees, you know, stand out so big because it just seems like a lot of you know what when we talk about neighborhood character are really protecting, you know, kind of public assets rather than private.

And I think we we saw you know um saw that with the don't increase regulation of the historic houses.

But it does seem like what people really like about you know, kind of older neighborhoods lies in the public realm, like trees and narrow streets and alleys and parks and stuff.

And I just that's um and front porches, apparently.

Um but again, this is part of that NCOD kind of guidelines thing that we need to pause for you, or you're perhaps recommending we pause for a minute while we so we are looking for some policy direction from you all tonight.

So we're we're asking three questions.

One is kind of the order of how we'd like to proceed, and then another one is related to how would you prefer that we approach or regulate um neighborhood character or bulk mass scale, those concerns that keep coming up under the NCOD design standards project.

Right.

Okay.

Okay, so then are there other methods that the city might apply to protect historic resources, you know, and some of these things, this character defining features that beyond, say a blanket overlay district.

So the the things that that we have um thought through, or that I guess I I listed on one of the slides.

Um there are different ways.

So, yes, there is kind of this blanket overlay district approach.

Um where you're getting at something different.

Now we're yes, you said you said like you know, we could do it with through through the zoning code, we can do it through uh incentives, we can do it through uh so those are the kind of other areas and ways we could approach this, either in addition to or instead of a blanket overlay district.

Those are some of the options.

Um I think getting back to Commissioner Sweeney's question about could we tailor our guidelines to a particular nominated designated district, um, that would be another way of potentially doing it.

So if we were this is where it's it's really challenging to talk about all of these topics and not kind of like have the ability to zoom up to the 30,000-foot view and show how are they all connected and how do they play together?

Because if we move were to move forward with a local landmark program, um and let's say we had a local process for designating additional districts that deserved some sort of protection or recognition or what have you, whatever the city, whatever you decide should apply.

Um, yes, that would be a potential avenue for applying some sort of protection neighborhood by neighborhood rather than a blanket overlay.

Okay, all right, thank you.

I think all of my questions were answered.

I was just except one that I think we'll kind of get into in the in the next of these questions, but is really the there seems to be one thing that stood out listening to the HPAB meeting um earlier this month is how much the consultant was emphasizing the concern of using overlay districts to rectify or correct the discrepancies between what's on the ground in and what's on the ground or what's buildable within an overlay versus the base zoning elsewhere.

And I and that just stood out to me, and I think that's been really a central tension that they're that we've been exploring.

But I'm just kind of curious like what is where does that consideration land in these kind of next step three questions?

Or is that question two, question three?

I think it's related to question two.

Um yes, we are we are certainly interested in hearing from you.

I think from staff perspective, we do have a lot of um, we do have so HPAB reflected this to us as well.

We have a very complex UGC as it is.

Um adding additional differences that are perhaps in a different section of the code makes it additionally challenging for property owners or potential property owners to understand the limits of what they are working with.

So when someone comes to Bozeman or wants to come to Bozeman and they want to purchase a property, um how do they know and where are our sort of like guideposts pointing them to what their limits are?

Um and adding too many modifications through an overlay district leads to further complicating that question for property owners.

Um so potentially you would end up with since we have 12 zoning districts within the NCOD, 12 additional height limitations for those zoning districts if they're within the NCOD.

So it just adds complication that even HPAB seemed to be in agreement, perhaps is not the direction that we want to go.

Okay.

Any further questions on this section?

Okay, I think we're ready to move on to the questions you have for us.

Okay.

And this is a work session.

So I'm gonna run through the question slides because as I mentioned, there are a couple zoning images on there that I think will be helpful, but then leave it up to you how you'd like to incorporate public comment and your discussion from there.

So yeah, to telegraph, I guess, for both yourself.

I guess all three, the commission, public, and yourself, um, to go through the questions we have for us if there are clarifying questions from us before we can proceed, then open it up for public comment and then commission discussion.

That sounds great.

So as I mentioned at the beginning, which was a while ago, we have three questions.

Um, some of them, I think maybe one of them has some sub-questions, but first question for you all is do you agree with the proposed sequence of work?

Um, and as I mentioned, uh, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're entirely setting down certain things, but that this is how we will move pieces forward before HPAB.

And if it depends on what you would like to see, potentially we could move things forward and bring item by item to commission in a certain order, or what we were initially planning was to kind of work through all of these projects with HPAB and then bring you one big package updating our historic preservation program.

It doesn't necessarily have to be like that.

So this is what staff is currently thinking, primarily based on some circumstances that I've mentioned.

So we have a consultant on contract right now who can help us work through our code revisions.

Um so we are proposing to move that forward first.

Um we recognize that the NCOD design guidelines, design standards, update is an important project for the community.

It is overdue, it needs to be done.

Um we do want to pick that up.

And like I said earlier in the presentation as well, I think it will be helpful to do that before we move forward with finishing development and then adoption of a local landmark program.

But we could certainly shift things around if we want to perhaps think about a different way to apply design standards to districts instead of one big overlay.

So that's question number one.

Do you want me to run through all of them and then get your questions?

Or do you want to ask them?

I I think there are only three.

Wait, one minute.

Then now meaning we ask questions of this question.

Oh, no.

Answer this.

Oh, yes, once we're at that part after public comment.

Okay.

I kind of want to know what all the questions are because I might start answering something else.

Yes, I think it's a little bit more.

And then we'll answer one at a time.

After public comment.

Okay.

That sounds good.

So this one has some sub-questions.

Question number two.

Um, do you want to modify the dimensional standards that are established in base zoning districts through the NCOD?

And if yes, we are looking for some guidance from you about which standards the NCOD should modify.

So would that be modifications of allowable building height, building width, setbacks, lot coverage, et cetera.

And then further, because everything that we are putting in code needs to have a justification behind it.

Why are those modifications necessary in the NCOD?

Or here, do you want to take a different approach, right?

And address the ongoing community interest and concern in a different way.

And so I do have this is where I mentioned I have additional slides on zoning maps.

So, like I mentioned earlier, we have 12 different zoning districts within the NCOD.

Um, you can see those called out with the little arrows on the legend there.

It is a large and diverse area, which makes it really challenging to apply a blanket set of regulations.

Um, it contains our downtown.

Um, the NCOD contains older single family style neighborhoods, it contains the Seventh Avenue corridor, the Northeast Historic District with some new manufacturing, maybe old and new manufacturing uses going in.

It contains the density around the university area.

It is a big area with a lot of different um zoning districts, as I said.

As you review the zoning, see maybe where some of the concerns or the conflicts might be.

So seven are in B3 and two are in B2M.

Many of these examples are right on the edge of their zoning district.

So that's, I would say not surprising if you think about where there's property that has not already been redeveloped.

It might be on the edge.

But as you look at this map, most of these buildings are within B3 or B2M, which is where that type of construction, that type of density, height, et cetera, is currently allowed in the base zoning.

From a planning perspective, just a couple kind of comments to add.

A lot of times, a lot of different places, you will traditionally see zoning districts themselves used as transitions.

That may be a better approach to consider to than trying to sort of manipulate on a zone edge building design so that it is kinder between high density and low density.

I think that it is difficult to achieve an outcome that will be satisfactory to everyone with that kind of juxtaposition of, for instance, B32RA.

Also, I think it's important to keep in mind that zoning is not just about the building form, it is also about uses.

And so we we have incorporated some form-based aspects into our code, but it still does also regulate what uses are allowed in different zoning districts.

And so what you're seeing here, a lot of these buildings are high density residential buildings.

They are on the edges of commercial districts, but on an edge between commercial core and a residential zone.

So perhaps a residential use is a type of transition.

I don't know that that is getting at the concern that we're hearing from community members.

But just to put those things up in your minds.

If you agree with the order, um, we are interested in hearing from you about kind of the high level, what outcomes you'd like to see from regulating demolition.

So as I mentioned earlier, we do currently regulate demolition of historic structures, non-historic structures, and unsafe structures within the NCOD.

We are working through updates to our current regulations with HPAB.

They have provided us with some recommendations.

We are working with our consultant and with legal on those and hope to come back in August and say, you know, here's what we think we might be able to do in our code to address your recommendations.

But I think understanding from commission, if you have any like high priority concerns or like nagging issues that you would like to see addressed through demolition code that will help us shape and focus the revisions that we're working through so that we bring to you something that actually achieves the outcomes you want.

And then as a reminder, we do currently only regulate demolition through planning applications in the NCOD.

Everywhere else in the city, we're just talking about a building permit for health and safety protection.

It is just in the NCOD that we require the COA process with a demolition.

Those are the questions we have.

Okay.

Any questions for staff on the questions posed to us?

Commissioner Sweet.

Thank you.

Um is the decision made not to put the Guthrie on the map of 11 buildings that the community objected to.

I didn't realize that it wasn't.

Oh, these are all built.

Gotcha.

So thank you.

These are all things that folks have reflected on post-construction as being incompatible or problematic.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Seeing no further questions.

Is there a slide with all three questions on it?

No.

Okay.

That's not a problem.

We can look through them one at a time.

We'll open it up now for public comment.

So this is your opportunity to provide any public comments and guidance on our discussion regarding the local landmark program and the NCOD.

We'll start with public comment in the room.

Good evening.

So I just had a point of inquiry because this is a work session.

I think you guys know what a lot of people in the community are thinking, but I have no idea what you guys are thinking.

Would you guys ever entertain suspending the rules so that we could hear what you think first and then respond to that?

Just an idea.

Yeah, I don't see why not, or even a second round of public comment.

I mean, we can open up whenever.

Yeah.

It's just an idea.

Just for me.

I don't know if anybody else feels that way.

But thank you.

Okay.

So I guess we're still open for public comment.

Um on this item in front of us.

Good evening.

Hi again, Mark Campanelli, Bogur Park resident.

I would definitely run out of time if I had to then also respond to your guys' ideas, but I'm not totally against that idea.

Um let me move right through this.

Uh some of the hardest conversations I've ever had with my kids are helping them deal with the world as it exists today without getting completely stuck on how we would like it to be.

So idea ideologies, including planning ideologies can quickly make everyone miserable.

Um the recent zoning walk, I got a sense of conflict by zoning design.

Um whatever happened to incremental zoning relative to what exists on the ground today.

Um I Googled uh this is an AI results to take it with a grain of salt.

Research on how humans deal with incremental change.

And if I can find it.

I'll just read a few of these quickly.

Reduced resistance, small step-by-step changes bypass the brain's threat detection response, lowering the fear and anxiety associated with massive overhauls.

Behavioral social impacts, lower backlash, risk mitigation, blindness to decline, which is like the flip side of that.

Also, this could be a boiling the frog argument, which I'm not sure is necessarily a good argument.

But anyway, something to think about.

Uh I was not a psychology major.

I do think there is some value in psychology.

Um, especially for happy people that live in our city.

So uh do we plan a given neighborhood's character, or is there something more organic to not disincentivize here?

I think Nina's wonderful neighborhood eclectics seem way more planned but organic.

The copper and Bozeman Yard seem way more planned but not organic.

Um a disclaimer, if I were dictator, things would go downhill quickly.

Anyone who threw a cigarette butt on the ground would spend a night in jail.

Like I'm not kidding.

I would literally implement that law on day one.

They'd have kids at home, they'd be horribly neglected, right?

There'd be tons of unintended consequences trying to do the right thing with my big plan.

Um I too view the NCOD as merely one of several tools for placemaking across the city.

Uh kudos to Ms.

uh Harbaj, sorry if I misspoke your name for recognizing this.

Um we are all special while we are all not special.

It's this duality that we kind of have to hold as we navigate this, in my opinion.

Um I want to thank Ms.

Harbaj for surfacing the sticky points relatively early in the process.

I did not get the sense that this courageous adult conversation process was followed in the UDC.

My favorite scene from Jerry McGuire.

You think we're fighting.

I think we're finally talking.

It's a great scene.

That's a great movie.

Um obviously we want to always stay civil.

I'm not saying don't be civil.

Um as a callback, the L Street Annex I thought would have made a great environmental and workforce heritage site, which is not a nice historic home on Wilson.

Uh maybe that ship is sailed, but if not the L Street Annex, then let's make the Humbug House an historic landmark with Dark Skies exemption and a TIF-funded light bulb fund.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Any further public comment requests in the room.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Lila Sabula of 508 North Forth in Bozum for 44 years.

First, I want to share a comment from a customer at my workplace.

They said that they were so happy that the city of Bozeman worked with them and helped to support their homegrown business, not just to survive, but thrive instead of letting them slowly dissolve away.

And I don't support tearing down sturdy older buildings that could instead be reimagined or repurposed.

Sorry.

I love all our mature trees that are of a variety of species.

But some may need a lot of TLC for them to be safe.

We have a great microclimate that can grow many varieties of food that other places can't.

For example, apricot trees, pea trees, pear trees, and rhododendrons.

Here's a good place to put a plug-in for all to watch a new documentary called Pharmacy of Light, spelt F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, Pharmacy of Light.

I am okay with three-story buildings that allow for landscaping that includes more trees and other green vegetation.

So it would not be good if the building took up a whole lot.

Thank you all very much for your time and hard work you give for the city of Bozeman.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room.

For Emily that asked earlier, I I mean, I think if you want to give us guidance on this, this is the time you should give it a try.

And we're gonna really hold it against you.

It's embarrassing.

Um Bozeman resident.

Um so just a couple of notes that I took as this was going through.

So I think it's probably pretty clear.

It's not it, we're not talking about, you know, we say, should we do more?

I don't know that it's more.

I think it's different.

And I think that's the whole idea about the landmark program.

Uh like just as a proposition, you know, as a pathway forward.

Um Landmark program is on hold right now.

Sounds like a landmark district would have its own overlay.

Um the good news is it's actually less than 6% because the downtown uh B3C already has its own designated zoning thing, so it's actually not that much.

Um the update from uh to the local interim government committee at the state legislature on MLUPA implementation.

We reported that 73% of Bozeman subdivisions are governed by private covenants conditions and restrictions.

They have their own architectural design review committees.

Neighborhoods that predate that reality.

Um it didn't make sense at the time, right?

Bozum was small enough that like the commission was that.

Um, we've looked into um what it would take to do retroactive HOAs and covenants.

Because trust me, I don't I don't know that anyone wants this on the planning department.

Like I if I had a magic wand and tomorrow I could say there is a midtown uh, you know, and you know, version of like what is it, B3C.

So if it was like Midtown's version of that, and we had the Midtown Architectural Review Committee.

And it never, we never had to have this conversation ever again through planning.

That would be the magic wand.

It's the question that we asked during our UDC meeting with um uh Doug Fisher, Emma, you came to our UDC meeting that we gave, or we said, what is the right planning tool for this?

At that point, we were told an overlay.

So there it is.

Um, so I just wanna say uh it's actually it's overdue work.

I think committing to it and getting it done, and somehow creating some structure like that.

So that again, like Boseman's a big place now.

I don't know that it's that appropriate for this to keep happening at this daisy anymore.

But we if you're abdicating that responsibility, we have to put another structure in place.

Um there's all kinds of ways you can justify anything you want to do.

The authority's yours.

Um I think, yeah, that's about it.

So thank you.

Second request for comments in the room.

And a final request.

I'm showing no request for comment, Mayor.

Okay, we will close this public comment portion of this item.

Um we want to break.

Okay, let's go till 825, six minutes.

We'll go on a short reading.

Um and we will move on to the commission discussion.

Could we get to the first question?

Um, Mike's on it.

Did you hear my scolding from the lobby?

Um, okay.

I think we are to read a commissioner Bowdy.

I think you are getting to kick us off.

Um it seems like question two is maybe the I mean, two and three are pretty juicy.

One is maybe a little uh it would have been embarrassing if I wasn't here then.

Um I I don't have much to say on this one.

I I think that this uh proposal on the sequence makes sense, kind of given um our constraints around which consultants we do and do not have.

Um, and also it it seems to be in alignment with what our historic advisory historic professor wow, R HPAP has recommended to us.

And um, if you know, if uh Commissioner Sweeney has other um guidance, I know you sit in those in those board meetings, and so um I'd be interested to to hear if you've got a different perspective on it, but generally I feel okay with this.

Commissioner Magic.

Uh, I do as well.

Um, I trust both staff's guidance on this and also the historic preservation advisory board.

Um that's not to say I don't want to get these projects done, absolutely do.

And I think we're on our way to doing that.

Um but I do think things like the demolition um code.

Um I can see why that's um being prioritized to it kind of given the gravity of demolitions.

Um so I'm gonna support the sequence.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Thank you.

Um generally, yes.

Um as I said before, I was a little surprised to learn that the landmark program is on hold as well.

Um not just the NCOD design guidelines because of um losing the consultant.

Um I have to say that I have really strong reservations about us proceeding with the NCOD design guidelines project update, overhaul, whatever it is that we're doing with it.

While the Guthrie lawsuit is ongoing.

I think there are some really, really important components that will be sorted out by a resolution to that that will then feed into how we can proceed.

Um and I would also really like us to have a historic preservation officer on board to guide that work before we go too far back into it.

I realize that that leaves us incredibly vulnerable.

Um the former mayor said the design guidelines were advisory and not compulsory, that upended decades of established norms and has put our community in a really precarious place right now.

And so it is incredibly important, but I don't think it's something we can address while the elephant or the Guthrie is still in the room.

Um I would like to see if there's possible progress we can make on creating a local landmark program.

Um I must have missed that direction from HPAB to pause that as well.

Um and and my reason for that will become clear as we answer next questions.

But um yes, generally revising the preservation codes super top priority.

So thanks.

Okay.

Deputy mayor.

Yeah, thank you.

I I I have been thinking a fair bit about this, and I actually take a little exception to the order of this here.

And and because I I feel like what I'm hearing from a number of different sources is that the NCODs is trying to do too many different jobs across kind of too large and historically arbitrary an area, right?

Um covers 4,000 properties, so on and so forth, right?

Historic historic districts, dozens of individual listed properties.

And and there are a ton of other tools that kind of we can explore.

And so I'm wondering, and then we could decide, okay, how does the NCOD as this big overlay district?

You know, even though it's also six percent of the town, but this it's a big district with um you know, what's the kind of contemporary assessment of what properties of streetscapes warrant protection?

What what you know what is the unifying kind of you know themes that that we can find.

And I think that might emerge as we develop and think about a local landmark program.

So I frankly, I think personally I'd like to see us revise historic preservation code sections.

I think that's that's great work.

Let's keep that working.

And then frankly, I would flip it and say, what would a local landmark program look like?

What would what does a preserve what preservation system do we want to have in Bozeman that would work, you know, is we want to have in you know, say 10 years from now, and and and beyond a blanket overlay district, you know.

It's like I'm concerned that we're asking one tool to do too many different solve too many different problems, and that we're gonna keep running into problems as we try and update an NCOD design guidelines, if that's our kind of one tool that we're gonna use.

Um thank you for those those thoughts.

I think I have yeah, been sort of grappling with a similar question that the deputy mayor has asked that I think we might also start to almost explore in the next two questions of just if if the North Star is a mechanism that protects historic properties and stops placing restrictions on non-historic properties, and it's not the and it's the NCOD or not the NCOD, or it's historic districts instead of the NCOD.

Like I think those answering that question is almost more important to me than to the timeline with which we get to the NCOD guide design guidelines.

It's the still the question of what is the thing that does that.

Um so I I feel supportive of going one three two, but I not strongly.

I think I'd actually maybe think we should go to the next questions and then come back to the order of this one.

Okay.

I have a comment.

Yep, Commissioner Magic.

Um I want to be careful that holding up the NCOD is not tied to resolution of the Guthrie.

Um, in my mind, I think that we can proceed with the update to the NCOD.

Um holding that up, the Guthrie resolution, and we can possibly punt to Greg.

I think that could take a while.

And I I don't see harm in moving forward.

But curious what our attorney has to say.

Is there anything you want to add to that?

So I'm not gonna get into any discussion about the actual litigation itself.

Um but what I will say that the Guthrie lawsuit is based on an application for development of that single property, and it was based on the law in place at the time the application was deemed complete.

And it was based that litigation was based on the review in the commission's ultimate decision of the appeal.

That's the basis of that litigation.

I see nothing that would prevent the commission, the city from moving forward with a determination of what you want the NCOD to be in the future.

Certainly we have some insights that we can share with the staff uh about sort of how to improve the regulations to ensure that confusion that may have existed doesn't exist.

Um but I see absolutely no reason you can't keep moving forward.

Thanks.

Okay.

Any further discussion on this question?

Are we ready to move on to the juicy ones?

Okay.

Umisher Bodie, do you still want to kick us off on this one?

Or do you want to move it along?

I'm happy to rotate it.

Sounds great.

Okay.

Commissioner Magic, do you want to kick us off here?

Sure.

Sure.

So in my mind, I agree with staff on this, that I believe that for clarity, it's better to have our zoning address, particularly dimensional standards, the ones that are listed here, height, width, setbacks, luck coverage.

Zoning is kind of the first people place people when they're looking to find out what they can do with their property and overlays more of an afterthought.

So my preference would be to make sure that our base zoning is what we want it to be.

Our zoning districts kind of match for the most part, what is on the ground and what we would like to see those neighborhoods grow into.

And I do believe that there is further room to make improvements in our existing zoning in the NCOD.

I think we made good improvements when we updated the UDC.

We made changes to the Bonton, we made changes to Centennial Park.

And I think in making those changes, we allowed for what we heard in public comment and what we've heard, I think back from the public, that we want to see incremental growth.

So growth, yes, but growth that doesn't wholesale change a neighborhood overnight.

And I do think that we've seen some of that kind of change because of what zoning has allowed in some of some parts of our town.

I think zoning is really the problem that we should take a good look at.

And that to put that on the NCOD, I think is too much and it's too confusing.

And I think we've got good examples of doing it through zoning, like I said on the Bonton and Centennial Park.

And let's see, bullet further, why are the modifications necessarily only in this part of this city?

I don't think they are only necessary in this part of the city.

Perhaps these modifications might be needed elsewhere.

But I'm curious to hear what my fellow commissioners have to say on that.

Thank you, Commissioner Magic.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um if we do not manage mass, scale, height, width, setbacks, lot coverage, those types of things in our neighborhood conservation overlay, we will be the outlier in the country.

Everywhere else in the country, overlay zones do modify those types of parameters.

And the reason that that is necessary, and the reason why it is maybe a little bit vague, is because this area was created before zoning.

So it is very difficult to create a zoning district specifically to address the aspects of community character.

This is why in the NCOD design guidelines, they use things like compatible because you're looking at things around you and making a subjective decision based on an understanding of compatible.

So if we do decide to keep an NCOD, we need to decide, we need to define compatible.

And that allows individual property owners the flexibility to have this organic, you know, funky character in some parts of town, um, and maybe more serious and astute character in other parts of town.

And so, you know, I I just I want for the record everyone to understand that across the country, overlay zones do regulate these types of things, an idea that has been growing in my mind as we have this conversation, it is becoming more and more difficult for staff to have to make subjective decisions and have that be defensible.

And so what if we were to create landmark districts?

I'm totally just spitballing here.

This will have to go through all the boards and all the consultants and all the things.

But what if we create these landmark districts that are more tailored to a specific area?

We work with the community.

It's not all on the community.

We need to be partners in this work because these are public assets, these neighborhoods, to designate landmark districts or character areas, and we define what that is, and at the time we do that, we decide what is regulated.

And we do that with the neighborhood.

And at that time, maybe they secede from the NCOD.

And slowly, as we have something else in place, our planners can apply base zoning and the landmark regulations.

We would have it be clear, it would be more tailored to a specific area, rather than this broad language trying to apply compatible to an entire overlay district.

So anyway, that's just an idea.

Something that I love that community planning collaborative says is rather than placemaking, we are now placekeeping.

And that's because they've been created organically over time without zoning.

So the historic preservation advisory board did suggest that if we continue regulating mass scale height, setbacks, things like that in an overlay, that we make the base zoning closer to what is on the ground, so that it is not creating this huge discrepancy right now in B2M, for example, if it's not in the B3 multifamily, the guidelines very clearly state that it should be within the range of heights seen in the area, and it should step back after the second story.

But in B2M, the development entitlement is huge.

So right there, we're creating this conflict.

And board member Wiseman used the term, you know, it's being challenged and eroded.

And so I think right-sizing the zoning is going to be a major part of this if we do not modify these standards with an overlay.

We're also going to have to, if we decide not to modify these standards, I think we're actually going to have to come up with some text amendments because there's a couple places in our code where it does say the stricter regulation governs and the NCOD supersedes base zoning.

So we might have some cleanup to do there if we decide not to do this.

Deputy Mayor.

Sure.

So the other thing I'm I'm hearing is in this debate is kind of how do we protect neighborhood character outside of the NCOD?

Um there we are relying on base zoning.

And so I think this we should look at this notion of neighborhood character, and we I think we should use, you know, and often that is it again, it's like things like um public assets in many respects, you know, in addition to size and scale.

It's also, you know, kind of narrow streets, canopy trees, alleys, parks, open space.

Um I think, you know, Lila Mespila, you you you you spoke to a lot of it, you know, unpaved alleys, mature trees, fruit trees, you know, landscaping, pocket parks, green spaces, right?

Um that I think a lot of that is what we're trying to do with base zoning.

Um so I I I tend to agree with Commissioner Magic on this one that that you know, no, I don't particularly want to modify the dimensional standards of establishing base zoning districts through the NCOD.

I do think, you know, we hear a lot about, okay, wait a minute, you know, I don't want the and these guidelines modifying, you know, controlling how I how I, you know, the floorboards I use on my front porch, the the new window shades.

Um you had a great example about your window putty, right?

Um in the public comment.

Um so maybe the NCOD, these guidelines, the NCOD guidelines apply to new building uh design and additions as opposed to kind of remodels, you know.

And maybe it applies to ADUs.

I those are the that's that's the area I would I would kind of go with.

Um those are modifications that kind of also you know contribute to this this kind of you know specific area or can can kind of you know um color a neighborhood.

And actually, Commissioner Sweeney, that's your comment about kind of the land, you know, creating going first kind of with some landmark districts that have a specific area, define what that is, decide how those kind of guidelines look or what that what the neighborhood is that's kind of why I I I go back to that question one of flipping that order.

There's a ton of guardrails we need to put in, you know.

I mean you tend to get the most politically organized and wealthiest neighborhoods that lock down and leaving kind of you know, you know, other neighborhoods or renters or or new arrivals kind of out of the cold.

But but those are things we could work out later.

But uh, you know, so we'll with some caveats, but uh that's kind of why I was thinking that it doesn't make sense to me to think about the NCOD without thinking about what are some other ways we could provide some of the protections that the NCOD does.

Commissioner Bode.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um I well, I'll just answer the first question first.

Um I I'm not interested in regulating height with the NCOD or kind of width and setbacks at at large, but I do think something that um really popped up in that word cloud that we saw, and we've heard again and again is roof lines.

And I can imagine the roof lines being different inside the NCOD than outside of the NCOD.

And that does kind of get to mass and scale for me, even if the the tip, the height of the roof or the wall plate height is is the same.

I I think that's um visually a very different feel for folks.

And I I remember going on a walk with um Commissioner Magic on Koch and Third, where we walked by what I think is called the Evergreen Apartments.

And you kind of pointed out how it was still big and boxy um and close to the street, but it had this in the middle of the building, uh a setback um that kind of broke up the sense of how big it felt, um, and that that was kind of unique to that particular neighborhood and and what we're seeing with these larger buildings um getting constructed today is that it's one kind of continuous wall, and that it might feel more at like a neighborhood scale if it had some of that um bash this thing around.

If it sort of like broke broke up um the structure.

And I I'm not an architect, so I don't have the the correct architectural words here, but I think there's something to do with rhythm or um maybe it's it's setbacks, but not uh saying that the entire building has to be set further back in the NCOD than outside, but just like a little bit more of this cadence.

Um and I I think that those are uh perhaps kind of softer ways to get at this mass and scale.

I I'm similarly to some of my colleagues here opposed to having a drastically different height allowance or setback allowance in zoning districts that are also inside the NCOD than the same zoning district outside.

I I don't think that is going to set us up for success.

Um but I think that these um qualifiers could be appropriate within the NCOD.

Um have heard some conversation both in the historic preservation advisory board and um you know Commissioner Sweeney just brought up like maybe it's not the NCOD that needs to do this, perhaps it's these landmark um districts or or something else.

And I I think what I I heard today and have have heard previously is that without a policy like the NCOD, our historic districts have no way to enforce any of their standards.

Um and it is the NCOD that actualizes our historic preservation.

And so the idea of completely nixing the NCOD is concerning to me because I do think our historic districts have a very important role in our community, and I want to be able to maintain those.

And so I am curious about these areas that are not inside a historic district, but are also inside the NCOD.

They don't have the two layers of protection.

They just have the NCOD.

And I think that has created a lot of confusion amongst our community of what level of teeth or protections they have.

And yeah, I'd be interested in having a conversation about how we might reconsider what areas should or should not be in the NCOD.

And this kind of gets to that whole like historic properties inventory, which is beyond the scope of this conversation.

But yeah, I would just caution us against considering the unintended consequences of removing the NCOD entirely.

And then the last thing, there's that that second bullet question here about like why are the modifications necessary only in this part of the city.

I think that there are really great modern roof lines and cadences that aren't really characteristic of our historic core.

And I do want to see our development community experiment and ideate in kind of new areas of town.

I don't want it to be impossible to experiment and ideate in older parts of town, but I do think that it makes sense to kind of honor that character in this particular area without unduly burdening the possibility of adding some density and some change.

So yeah.

Yeah, I uh I'll hop in here with just one.

I want to clarify if we ever did get rid of the NCOD in lieu of a different protection.

It's not like it would be get rid of the NCOD and then we wait five years to get the next protection mechanism in, you know, it'd be a it'd be a repeal and replace with with a different thing.

And I I actually do think that's uh a more effective direction.

And I think, and I've said this a number of times and gotten yelled at about it, that I think the the NCOD is not a rational uh intuitive historic zone.

If you are a lay person, you are walking around, you don't it it's hard to necessarily see like, okay, this is so intrinsically connected to the way the properties over you know eight blocks west of me look and the connection.

I mean, we within the NCOD, we have buildings that are almost a century apart in construction.

And so to me, the thing that we need is the landmark districts with the regulatory authority to decide design guidelines, et cetera.

And even within those, I would be comfortable with um height width, setbacks, et cetera, being a regulatory mechanism within those specific for historic districts.

Like I think there's this is this consistent oddity that I think in this conversation of just how the huge diversity of construction timelines and housing types and aesthetics of to say like, oh, this is what the NCOD is meant to protect versus you go to the Bonton and it's clear, like this is the Bonton style.

You go to any of these other um historic districts that we have, I think that is where that protection belongs.

Um looking in the literature, it's it's one far from settled science, unfortunately.

But there are a huge range of different approaches that that one can find.

But I think it's also about to me us trying to figure out when we from our view what should how do neighborhoods contribute to the overall goals and needs of the entire community.

That means housing people, that means having businesses that people love and cherish, that means having safe streets and infrastructure, um, et cetera.

And so it's been interesting to look at that.

There's in some communities uh the the most dense, most highly occupied areas are the historic districts.

Um that's not always the case.

Sometimes they do skew the lowest density, I suspect for us, especially if we're looking at construction in the last five years, historic districts are gonna skew lower density.

And if we're having to think about what are the what are the broader needs of the entire community that you know are at balance with what an individual neighborhood is going to do, individual neighborhood needs.

I mean, we don't need to rehash why, you know, I think myself and Commissioner Bodie, like we're reluctant to support RA in the in a number of parts of the UDC process, specifically for some of these points of saying, man, I I'd be comfortable with getting rid of a lot of the RC in the NCOD to replace it with RB.

I would never support making an RA.

And I think that is to me a more appropriate way for us to decide mass and scale rather than the an overlay.

Um further discussion on this one.

Just to uh push back a little bit uh um deputy mayor's comment that the NCOD shouldn't apply it to existing homes.

Um I would argue that it should not the level of front porch floorboards or window petty, but uh grander things and I think it's helpful to homeowners uh to have that framework and to get some feedback when you have an older home or you're in the historic historic that window shape matters and type of roof and type of dormers and you know that that's a kind of character building.

It kind of sets in time a structure.

So just wanted to stand up for that.

Okay.

Any clarifications or responses for this section?

Deputy Mayor, I can I can accept that pushback.

Um I just I just want to be clear that you know, kind of to echo some of the comments here.

The the question I don't think isn't whether Bozeman should preserve the historic places.

We absolutely should.

The question is whether we're using the right tool.

Um so I'm just I'm saying it's like what are we trying to preserve?

What's the least restrictive way, the tool that accomplishes that?

And what does it does that tool still allow us to grow?

That's kind of the framing I'm I'm using as I as I look through these things.

And so I I kind of, you know, Deputy Mayor, I mean Deputy Mayor Mayor, Demo Watch it.

Uh you know, I just I like that.

I like your your framing.

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

I just want to clarify something that I think is worthy of distinction.

Um there are certain structures that are definitely deserving of this really you know acute attention to the detail and the architectural materials and you know things like that.

Um maybe there is a pathway forward where those structures, we just say we're gonna apply the Secretary of the Interior Standards to these structures and everything else.

You know, there's tons of little boxy mid-century modern infill in all of these neighborhoods, and they don't need, you know, well, you had aluminum windows in your house in 1956, and you gotta keep those aluminum windows.

You know, those kind of there's a lot of ordinary neighborhood houses that don't need that level of architectural micromanagement, but some definitely, definitely do.

So we resolved with this question.

Does do you guys feel like you got what you need, or is there any clarification?

Oh man, if Aaron's coming up, that's not a good sign.

We weren't clear.

I'm giving Rebecca break.

Um good evening, Al Aaron George, uh community development director for the record.

Um thank you for this great discussion.

This that we've we really appreciate this.

Um recall from the UDC work sessions, I got pretty good at kind of assessing what I'm hearing.

So I just wanted to check in on that.

So what I'm hearing on question two is four of you are interested are saying no, you do not want to modify the base zoning through the NCD guidelines.

That's what I heard.

Does that sound right to you for four of us saying we that the NCOD these dimensional elements of development should not be regulated by the NCOD?

Correct.

Yep.

That's what I heard was four of you.

Okay.

And then um I heard uh a few other ideas, and I just thought it might be helpful to flesh a couple of those out, perhaps.

So I heard a couple of you kind of questioning the tool in how we are regulating all of this.

And I heard discussion of landmark districts and historic districts in relation to the NCOD.

And I did want to mention that early in the landmark project, part of our intro to those projects was mentioning some past policy reports in 2009 and 2015 done by prior consultants that uh were teeing up maybe starting similar efforts, and then it kind of it kind of died during COVID.

But those reports do exist.

And two kind of common threads in those reports were discussion of the NCOD and its boundaries needing adjusted and perhaps over time converting to something else.

And so I heard reference to a few of those concepts, and I just wanted to talk about that.

That um in such a scenario, if that was something commission was interested in pursuing at some point or in the longer term, it would be helpful to know because I do think it would help us structure our landmark program and the NCOD design guidelines.

So the NCOD design guidelines uh as we were envisioning them could have different tiers, and Lakota had started to talk about that that apply to different areas.

And there could be the most strict tier apply to historic districts and landmark districts and have a subset of guidelines that are the strictest that apply to those areas, and then have less strict things apply to other areas.

Now, if there was a scenario where commission wanted to only regulate those areas, that could be feasible with the white the right wording in the code and in the guidelines.

And then you would be essentially over time replacing the areas most in need of protection with either a historic district if they qualified for national register or a local landmark district.

That would take a quite a bit of time, um, probably a number of years.

But the in-between areas, if they didn't qualify or didn't get nominated, maybe over time they're not in need of that layer of of regulation.

So just heard that bouncing around a little bit, wanted to get a little more feedback on that if you're willing.

Sure.

Commissioner Magic.

Yeah, I am open to the idea of boundary um changes of the N TOD.

Subject to public input.

Um I mean, I'm open to it, but I want to, you know, I'm not gonna decide any anything until the public voice in on that.

And then if you want to go on the next.

Yeah, so I just want to clarify.

I think you said 2009 and 2015.

I think it was 2015 and 2019 reports on the right.

I'm going for memory.

I was like, is there a report on that?

I'm going for memory.

I have not read.

Okay, good.

Um the reason I didn't bring up the tiers that the consultant recommended was because I don't think they were well received by either HPEB or the neighborhood focus group.

So that that it felt very complicated and not well defined.

Um which I think is what we're exactly trying to get away from.

So I I don't personally am not interested in pursuing those tiers.

Um also I just want to say like there's no area inside the NCOD currently that I would feel comfortable leaving without some sort of additional um regulatory framework overlaying the base zoning.

So that's just my opinion.

With no there's no part.

No.

Okay.

So I'm I'm agnostic as to how, but I am definitely interested in that seeing how the NCOD can evolve into something that's it's not trying to overdo, you know, not trying to do be the one tool that that does it, we do everything with yeah, I I'm interested in trying to leverage multiple tools to to achieve um the type of neighborhood character that that our community has asked for.

And I I think um keeping uh an open mind to like in which ways the NCOD can do that and in which ways other projects can feels appropriate.

Yeah, I I think and appreciate Commissioner Sweeney bringing up the the tiers, because yeah, it it seemed to fall a bit flat with with the with the board.

Um, or that there seemed to be some discussion of making it only three tiers instead of four.

Um I do think that's sort of what I'm trying to get at what is the thing that's more prescriptive, um more restrictive for some parts of the community than others.

Um because I uh you know I that's why we wanted to clarify because I I find that shocking um because I feel like there's such a huge range of properties and protections that I think would would be intuitive within the NCOD.

Um that just range, you know, there's a huge range.

Um but so I think that's whether it's tiers or dissolving the NCOD for historic districts or some other regulatory mechanism.

Um I that's what I'm supportive of.

Even if the the tiers, yeah, the tiers did make me a little nervous.

Okay, thank you.

So I'm hearing majority interest in exploring potential evolution of the NCOD over time, but I'm hearing some hesitancy, and that is okay.

It absolutely needs more looking into.

So we can factor that in when we're writing the scope for the next consultant that we hire for the NCOD guidelines.

Um, maybe ask them to go in more depth looking at the existing areas and what areas maybe could be those kind of between areas, or which areas have cohesive character, that sort of thing to help tease out what you were talking about, Commissioner Sweeney, of certain kinds of structures and areas of housing that don't need the detailed requirements and those that do.

And I I absolutely think there are differences there that we can we can use.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Are we moving on to the demolition question?

Yeah, Deputy Mayor.

Can I ask would this be the time to like maybe go back to the question one?

Because the demolition question is separate.

So it's all right.

Assault developments are not oh no.

I know.

Sorry, that went down the wrong way.

Um just to go back to number one, because you know, this I mean.

Yep.

But uh I don't I don't know if that's I'm still locked in on one, three, then two.

Some is there more?

We haven't moved Commissioner Magic.

Commissioner Sweeney's maybe interested.

Commissioner Bodie.

You're asking if I I could be swayed about one, three, then two.

Yeah.

For the the question, the first question.

Yep.

Yeah.

The order of the first question.

I can be open to that.

I'm on board with one, three, and then two.

Okay.

Commissioner Magic.

I'm I'm open that I I quite honestly I don't care too much.

I trust you guys and HPAB, just figure out the best order.

I guess the with the one question I wanted to make sure, because I think there was some amount of consideration in our in our two on twos that we when we met with you guys is leveraging the consultants that we currently have versus consultants we will need to go get.

Um does that throw anything off severely here.

So the the consultant that we currently have who would be for number one, right?

For number one would also be the consultant working on the local landmark program.

So that is that has been the same consultant for one and three.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then I think just another clarifying point, like I would say the reason we initially went down the road of landmark program first was exactly what you all have just discussed, that how we differentiate between different areas within the NCOD makes sense to figure out in some form or fashion.

Great.

I should also note if it's um helpful to know if you change the order to one three, then two, just full transparency, it's entirely possible that will carry past the end of the year just in the work that needs to be done.

Um and we may need to come back to you to further extend CPC's contract if necessary.

Um potentially add a little money and then come back to you know, after that hiring going out to hire a new consultant for design guidelines, which also may need additional money, unfortunately.

Um we got a very good deal with the previous consultant, and we have used just over half of that budget for the work done so far, a lot on community engagement.

Um so I haven't talked finance about this, so sometimes they're good at finding money that doesn't need to come back to commission.

Um, but just heads up on that.

Okay.

Thanks.

Okay.

Now on to the demolition question.

Um Commissioner Sweeney, do you want to kick us off on this one?

Sure.

Um so in the phase one local landmark program report, um, they do talk about um implementing regulation for demolition beyond the NCOD citywide, and I love that um idea for multiple reasons.

Um one of my biggest concerns with demolition is that it's really bad for sustainability and environmentalism.

So the less we can take to the landfill, the more we can adaptively reuse, the better.

Um so I would love to see any kind of you know, regulations, incentives, things that move us toward less demolition, also outside the NCOD, we have historic resources we haven't even identified yet.

Um and if we have no method of um sort of just checking that before demolition permit is issued, then you know we could be losing treasures and parts of our history.

Um I'm thinking specifically like barns and a lot of agricultural stuff, um homesteads that are mostly intact, things like that.

Um something that Mizzo just adopted is an adaptive reuse overlay, which could maybe incentivize less demolition if we can figure out how to suspend certain parts of the code and allow people more flexibility if they're going to keep a certain existing structure or a portion of existing structure.

Um, you know, that could be an incentive to preventing the demolition.

Um I also in our code right now, um the definition for a historic structure.

I don't want to see us weaken that language.

Um right now it includes things that are on the national register, whether they are part of a district or individually listed.

And there's been a situation recently where the status of a structure was changed, and I I want to see us not do that locally.

Um if it's on the national register, there is a process to go through for delisting that.

And if we're going to change the status of a structure, I want to see it go through that process.

Um Deputy Mayor.

Sure.

So I kind of go back to some.

I gotta go back to some significant you know, the core beliefs, right?

That the historic significance, you know, deserves protection and neighborhood preference and neighborhood character deserves some consideration.

But neither really creates a right to prevent a growing city from changing.

And um so and I've I you know I fear that sometimes we you know demolition that this demolition process has become a way to kind of throw some um some sand into the gears.

And maybe that's maybe that's appropriate in some ways, but but there's a balance that that we need there.

Um I've never quite understood why we have a two-year-old stay if we can't come to an agreement.

And I I just I feel like it's kind of a it seems silly to have on the books, for instance, that the city's gonna work with a property owner.

It's rather not so silly, it's it seems presumptuous to say that the city's gonna work with a property owner to find a way to sell the property, for instance, if you if if the city doesn't agree with the design or if the um the replacement, I mean it and that you just have to the property owner then just has to sit and wait two years to kind of run out the clock.

Um I just I I've never fully understood that.

So um I'm just looking for ways to kind of um again kind of you know um preserve identity.

But also, you know, we preserve our identity precisely because in some ways because we change.

And um, and so how do we kind of find that balance?

I don't want to make it harder to add homes to add uh in in places where we've said we want we want homes.

And we um and so um again, finding that um I don't want to see demolition become a tool to kind of um freeze things and and add a barrier when we're not gonna really we we have no ultimately no way to really stop somebody from doing something with their property.

How's that for a model?

Sounds good.

Commissioner Bowdy.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um I I think my understanding, and I'm not the city attorney, but uh is that we can't prevent somebody from ultimately developing their property because of private property rights, but we do have the authority to delay that process for a time certain.

And I I don't I don't know the history of why we arrived at two years.

Maybe that was the maximum we could, or maybe the you know um there there's there's history there is all I'm gonna say.

And I I think that I share some of your your question marks about like how effective is it actually to delay for two years um if the property owner ultimately can kind of stop doing all property maintenance, allow that property to go into disrepair and then justify the demolition um two years later anyway.

And uh perhaps the the you know economy has changed and it's no longer profitable for them to do what they had originally attended, and and then we're kind of just at like the whims of you know the globalized housing and um development market.

And I I think that that's a really challenging place to be and not a problem that we can solve entirely here as just the city of Bozeman.

So um just you know, with with that context, I'll I'll dive into this question.

Um I I think that I am generally uh a real um fan of adaptive reuse and uh am delighted to be in old buildings that were used for one thing and and have um found found a home in a community in a more modern way.

Um this building is case in point.

Um sure.

Yeah, uh and I I also recognize that it's not always possible to do that.

And so I worry about putting um too many barriers in place for us to um uh that would yeah, gum up the gears of um uh moving towards like a a new use for that that piece of land.

And I I think there's a bounce to be struck.

So what I'd like to see from our demolition um regulations is that we make sure we're considering what is possible with the existing structure, um uh attempting to do adaptive reuse where we're possible and allowing for change.

Um I don't feel that our current demolition code is horrible at this.

I I think that we have kind of that order of operations of what can we do?

Um have you considered this, and I certainly think that there is improvements that can be made um as as our community has has told us, and it's you know rising to a priority for for revisitation.

Um I am interested in some kind of policy that would encourage the reuse of materials when demolition occurs.

Um I know that this is really complicated, both in that like the deconstructing itself can damage the materials and that there's a lot of pollutants and toxins in deconstructing.

And so um I I worry about a regulation or policy um of that nature, increasing the cost of making a new building uh and making that kind of an impossible.

Um and so I I would be curious about a future conversation where we could kind of identify the um most bang for a buck sort of items that we might try and incentivize our um development community to uh adaptively uh to reuse and and recycle.

And I I don't have the the skill and knowledge base to know exactly what those things might be, but um perhaps there are certain types of tiling or certain types of um fixtures that uh we could partner with like Habitat for Humanity or other local groups.

Um I don't think that's anything that we can require, but I'd I'd be excited to explore like a way to incentivize that and take kind of an initial step without kind of requiring the the whole hog.

So I will pass on.

Yeah.

So thanks to my fellow commissioners, um very much agree with some of the comments that I've heard.

Uh I do agree with the idea of expanding demolition beyond the NCOD boundaries.

Um I think our historic um structures aren't limited to the NCOD.

They go beyond the boundaries, so preserving those.

And I I think our demolition demolition permit and that two-year stay um offers uh opportunity for folks to kind of think about their place and maybe kind of get some education about the options for that place, one of being, you know, restoring it and and I have loved um in particular our annual event uh uh run by HPAB.

It's the showcasing of um historic projects, and just to find ways to kind of inspire that culture and that activity and that embrace of old things that are could be pretty cool.

Um cool homes and people have spent a lot of time and resources preserving these old things so they can live to see another hundred years.

So I love finding ways to kind of regulate that, but I also love trying to find ways to nudge people to do that.

And like I said, kind of creating a culture that really encourages people to do that.

Um Commissioner Bodie, your comments on SABIN and kind of reusing materials completely agree with.

Uh, I think that we have become this throwaway society, and our homes uh have become just as easy to throw away as the washer that has stopped working.

So I am actually redoing the floor of my porch on my house because it's rotted after a hundred years.

I've gotten permits, I've gone through all the process.

Um, and I've found that my old chimney was stashed under the porch.

So just loads of brick and cement, and my builders like, you know, you're gonna have to get rid of that.

And I've got a dumpster, and I'm like, God, I cannot take that all to the dump.

So I'm finding a way to use that brick in my yard for a path.

And you know, just kind of thinking outside the box of how we can kind of use some of this crazy stuff, but it's cool stuff that's meant to last.

It's good wood, it's good brick.

Old glass is incredible.

We don't make glass like that anymore.

So embracing some of the craft that women to making some of this awesome materials.

Um, yeah, Commissioner Bodie, go for it.

Or Commissioner Sweeney, sorry.

Thank you.

I just I just want to add uh all of your comments have jogged um a few more thoughts.

Um so yeah, anything that we can do further to um prevent demolition by neglect or punish demolition by neglect, obviously that is very highly subject to state law and even federal law, but anything we can do to disincentivize that.

Um I support all of the recommendations that the historic preservation advisory board members sent to you guys and to the consultants, they did an amazing job addressing issues within our current demolition code and maybe some gaps.

Um I just wanted to speak to the two-year stay of demolition.

Um the consultants did recommend that we keep that.

And the reason, so so the reason we have that in our code is it's not just a two-year stay, and everybody you know twiddles their thumbs.

The city, there's language in there that says the city and the applicant are supposed to work together to find alternatives.

And I'm not sure that we have had bandwidth to hold up our end of that.

There actually is a lot of money out there for historic preservation, for um incentives and grants.

And you know, something I would love to see us do is really commit to historic preservation in this community and resource it the way that it should be.

Um that will allow us to uphold our end of that.

Um, you know, the idea that you purchase a historic structure always came with an understanding that there were rules and responsibilities with that.

So, you know, sort of re-educating the public and potential buyers that no, there there are responsibilities here.

You are taking on the responsibility of a historic resource.

Um that could be really important.

And also I just want to say having the base zoning more closely match what is already built will deter speculative demolition.

A lot of times what happens when the development potential awarded to a parcel of land is so much greater than the structure on it, the structure becomes meaningless, valueless.

The land is what they are trying to get at.

So I think base zoning comes into this question, an equation of demolition.

Um, thank thanks for all of those considerations.

Many of the things that I wanted to talk about were covered in there, but I'll just to add my name to a few.

One, uh, I think to Commissioner Buddy, what you were just, or Commissioner Sweeney, goodness, that you were just saying, is the I think that's exactly why I find the two-year stay somewhat arbitrary.

Is like if you do buy a historic structure, yes, you should be told that.

But not every building within the NCOD is a historic structure.

And I think that's sort of where I feel like if we are gonna restrict and clarify what counts, and that has the two-year stay, that that feels completely appropriate to me.

Um, or whatever that stay should be.

And I don't know what the industry standard is.

Two years does feel kind of odd versus um other you know, uh thresholds, milestones, et cetera, that somebody would have to undergo.

But I of course some of those maybe we can't do.

Um I think I similarly would uh think that these would make sense to extend beyond the NCOD in part because in a in a way many of the properties that are not within the NCOD are actually probably easier to reuse because they are not as old.

Um so I'm thinking of things like in my neighborhood, west of 19th, like those we should actually make it even harder to demo because there's a lot of life left in those bones most of the time.

Whereas a lot of the buildings that do get demoed within the NCOD fell into disrepair and all these things that made it more costly to rehabilitate than to demo.

And of course, we know there's speculative investment that that plays a part in this as well.

Um so I think that's sort of where generally I land is that to say if if it's a historic structure, it should be harder to demo.

If it's not, uh there's it there should be some hurdle to to demo.

Um, but I don't feel strongly that it needs to say here's the amount of time, maybe it's an incentives, like what are the things that and unfortunately many of the really cool incentives about materials and facades and things like that um that were from the feds uh got uh got doged and aren't around anymore.

But um I think that's generally where I feel like I kind of land on the demolition question.

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

So I just want to clarify for everyone.

Um not every structure in the NOD is subject to the two-year stay.

So if it is classified as a historic structure, then it has to go through that economic viable life left analysis.

Um if it fails that, in other words, if it is less expensive to rehabilitate to a habitable condition, then to demo and replace with a structure of the same size and type, then the permit is denied and they're made to wait the two years.

But a lot of the structures in the NCOD are not classified as historic.

So they have no barrier that I am aware of um to the demolition.

It's just do it safely.

So thanks.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Just um wanted to thank Emily to like oh and Scott in really great thorough comments.

And just don't want to miss the fact that we do all this talking, but you guys provide a tremendous amount of input and insight into all of this.

I know Scott's not here.

Emily stayed through the whole thing, but thanks to our party members of the public.

Yeah.

Commissioner Bodie.

I have a comment that's not on any of these three questions.

Is it kind of the wrapping up thoughts?

Okay.

Yeah, is there anything further on the this question here or anything that Aaron's coming up?

Again, thanks for all your thoughts.

Um trying to summarize this one's a little more varied in the feedback we heard.

So the one issue I heard consensus on from three of you was that demolition requirements should potentially extend beyond the NCOD.

And I want to clarify that.

Did you mean demolition requirements for historic structures, not for non-historic structures?

Yes, okay, I'm seeing that's okay.

Um I did not hear three of you, I heard two of you interested in reuse of materials, but maybe I miscounted.

Are more than two of you interested in that?

I mean three, okay.

If if it is Yeah, I don't I don't know what things we can we're allowed to kind of dabble in.

We do definitely need to look into that more.

Um we've discussed with HPAB a few times that the city's climate action plan does have a um uh policy in there about uh or an action, I forget which it is, saying that um the sustainability division is going to develop a um deconstruction handbook.

But that's just to be clear, that's guidance that will not be regulations.

And as I understand it, that is not started yet because um they've been doing other things, so I don't want to make promises on their behalf, but that is something that was in a plan at some point.

Um I do understand from Natalie, our sustainability manager, that there are some challenges in Bozeman in terms of lacking some vendors that make that sort of thing easier, that is more possible in Missoula, for example, with the vendors that they have around to um handle some of those materials.

So maybe over time that will become easier.

Um other topics.

I heard two say um demolition should not be used to slow or prevent development, like gum the gears, put sand in the gears.

Heard two of you.

I mean, that's not necessarily direction, but could be depending on what you want us to do with that.

But that's only two of you, unless I missed one.

I heard Fisher and Bodie say that.

Oh, yeah.

Joey agrees.

Okay, so that's three.

Um so with that in mind, trying to figure out what we do with that, and of course, we'll look into this and get back, but uh get back with our board as well.

Um, we have those three categories, as we've talked about historic, non-historic, and unsafe.

Unsafe is totally separate because it's regulated by building code under the authority of the chief building official.

Um but the historic and not historic are based on those historic inventories, and that does change potentially if an updated inventory happens and the structure is changed.

And so that is a sticking point that sweet uh Commissioner Sweeney mentioned.

Um that um if something is um if some changes have happened, like the recent example, it was in the 90s before our NCOD guidelines were in place that changes the structure uh from contributing to no longer contributing, um, then under our code, we have been processing that for the the entirety of our historic preservation program, so several decades, we have been changing that status with the historic preservation planners um approval of an updated survey to change that status from historic to not historic.

So that changes what level of review is required.

And the key differences are in the code right now.

Demolition of a historic structure requires uh a COA, of course.

It requires the economic analysis that Commissioner Sweeney explained to uh prove whether it's allowed to be demoed.

And if it is denied for demo because they fail that test and the two-year stay applies.

Um if it is non-historic, it does not have to do the economic analysis, but it does require COA if it's in the NCOD today.

So just wanted to get that out there, and then public notice is one of the differences too.

Currently, a historic structure proposed for demo requires public notice in our code, and a non-historic structure proposed for demolition does not require public notice in our code.

So those are some of the differences, if that's helpful.

So would you like to give just a tiny bit more feedback on that if that would be helpful?

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

So I just want to explain my concern about reclassifying a structure based on an updated inventory form.

The structure is maybe not necessarily beyond restoration.

If a new buyer came in and said they want to restore this structure, that's absolutely possible.

And so having an updated inventory form.

You know, it's still listed in the national register as part of the district when the district was created.

So it's it's not beyond redeeming if the right buyer came by.

And I feel like by allowing that reclassification on a local level, we are preventing a future possible restoration.

And I don't I don't know how you guys feel if I would like to see us stop doing that.

Um then there was one other thing that I was gonna respond to.

Um I definitely think there should be notice for all demolition, and the reason for that is that sometimes these structures do have toxic materials, and um it's also really loud to tear down a structure.

So neighbors may want to just go on vacation that week or cover their garden, or whatever, you know.

So I would like to see notice on all demolition.

Is there currently any policy for like if you're demolishing a building with asbestos or like known toxinogens, like a policy for how you maybe protect your neighbors from that?

Yes, and actually um, Rebecca just did some research on that with the DEQ, so I'll let her speak to that.

This is digging into my memory.

Um I did contact DEQ's asbestos control program to ask about that.

Um, and it depends on the type of structure that is being demolished.

So there are um it's actually under the air quality, the Clean Air Act at the federal level, there are regulations related to asbestos for commercial type structures, or if the proposed um reuse post-demolition is for a commercial type of use.

Um if it is a residential, I think it's three, I can't remember if it's three or four units or less.

DQ and these based on the federal standards does not require testing for asbestos, and then does not require any sort of regulation of the asbestos.

I'd want to get off on a tangent.

Um I tend to agree with the posting of demolitions.

It just seems like a good neighborly thing to do, similar to posting a building per min on your door.

Um I think if it's like uh a sign in your front yard and not like you have to mail all of your neighbors within a half mile or something like that, you know, it's not like overly onerous.

I I don't see why that would be an issue.

You gotta keep it song because the notice on the front door probably would like be gone.

So I'm hearing three interested in public notice for all demo, but to clarify, do we want that for just the NCOD or for the whole whole city or just for historic structures versus non?

I think I heard historic versus non is irrelevant.

You want public notice for all demos.

I heard that on three.

And then the other question is notice versus comment period is another piece.

Or city attorney is I think you can keep it.

And I just want to make sure that I think you have your policy discussion, but I don't want to guarantee that that can actually happen.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we'll look into that more.

So what's the remaining question here that you're trying to see?

I think the remaining one is the three of you don't want demolition to slow or prevent development.

And I think I'm just looking for what about our existing regs, do you want to change in order to achieve that goal?

And I understand you don't have the existing regs in front of you.

I'm just wondering if you have anything in mind that would help us steer this.

If it's helpful, I'll go ahead.

I think I can hop in.

Like I think there is a reason to make demolition is costly to the community, to our sustainability goals, et cetera, that it should it shouldn't be it shouldn't be easy to demo, frankly, almost anything, especially historic structure.

And I think it feels as though there is like and I'm not sure how to expedite or simplify the process of how someone justifies economic life.

I think that's part of it.

How do we make that simpler for someone to justify or prove?

Um I feel like that's at least from folks that I've heard from that it felt like that's particularly onerous.

Deputy Mayor, anything you'd want to add to that?

I don't know that I'm gonna add, but I mean this is almost where I'd rather I'd look to incentives.

Like I could bet we could get an astonishing reuse rate if we said you could walk out of uh the building permit with a permit if you're gonna show how you use you know x percent or whatever, or you could get your permit within two weeks or whatever, right?

I mean, I think that there's power there that we could explore in terms of maybe reusing or or you know, avoiding a demolition or something like that.

That a demo, you know.

I think something I'll just add is that um the the two-year stay, I think isn't a win for people who are opposing the demolition.

They're sort of like, I guess I get to enjoy my neighborhood character for two more years and then it's gone anyway.

Um and it's also like not really a win for for the person who owns the property and wants to do something else with it.

It it just kind of feels like we're yeah, we're delaying the inevitable with with the policy.

And I think perhaps the intent is that in the meantime something else is figured out, and I just don't see the support or the info the metaphorical infrastructure to make that alternative actually happen right now.

And so I don't think the two-year stay is is serving the intended purpose.

Um and so I I guess I would be interested in um learning more about like what is it that we could be doing in that two-year window that we are not the city, or is this like we need to be leaning on other partners, or is it just entirely like there's no way to make this thing work and instead we we need to um do more of our work on the front end uh instead of expecting this two-year thing to like have stuff work itself out.

Okay, thank you.

And I'll just add on the two-year stay for your awareness.

Um I a couple of you were correct that um the two-year stay was put in place and the way it's written is to um encourage applicants to look at other methods during that time with the hope that uh they will find an alternative solution to demolition.

And that we've talked about this at length with our consultant and actually both of our consultants when we had the other one.

And um stays, demolition stays are common around the country.

They have told us that two years is the longest they've seen.

And um the intent is similar around the country to you know, hope that something will come out of it and the building will ultimately be saved because they found some solution.

We have talked with our planning staff who've been here for 20 years, uh, Brian Kruger, and he is not aware of the stay saving any building from demolition.

So I think that's a relevant point.

I would just to add that the two-year stay, I've got mixed feelings on it.

But it also leads to vacancy, and I think we have vacancy issues as a you know already.

So um just another thing to add to the mix.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that context of it never having done what it intended to do, I think is um important context of what is if the goal is facilitate or encourage adaptive reuse, it's probably an incentive.

It's probably something other than just saying it has to sit for two years.

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

So just for clarity, um there hasn't been staff bandwidth to help facilitate the activities that were supposed to happen within that two year stay.

So if we did have staff bandwidth to help applicants find a buyer to restore the property, find grants that would change that economic analysis or find um tax credits available both statewide and nationally.

Um that could change this outcome.

Um also that I just want to remind you the consultants are not recommending getting rid of the two-year stay.

That's correct on the recommendation from the consultants.

But as far as staff, um, I'd like to speak to that quickly if you don't mind.

Um, the way the code is written is not that um the staff is doing anything.

Um the way the code is written is it's on the applicant.

And uh the way we implement that is at the time that they come in at the end of a two-year stay, they are uh to demonstrate at that time what alternatives they have explored during those two years before we will then approve the demo.

So um that's the way it's worded now.

But again, we're working on this code, so we can certainly uh explore tweaks to that, but the concern um on capacity is a real one.

Um if we were to expect if we were to write it in a way that required staff to take action in during a two-year stay and be um finding grant opportunities for private property owners, that is a substantial change to the position we have now and um would add to the the workload that I don't think we could accommodate with the just replacing the one person that we have because they have all these other review responsibilities and their role is really not to find grants for private property owners, but maybe in the future with an additional position or something that could be feasible if that was the commission's will.

Thank you for all the feedback.

I do just want to read the existing code.

Um because the UDC is not properly codified yet and is still in its PDF.

It's gonna give me a minute here.

Okay.

It says if an application for demolition or moving is denied due to failure to meet X section of the code is blocked out, issuance of a demolition or moving permit must be stayed for a period of two years from the date of the denial in order to allow the applicant and city to explore alternatives to demolition or move, including but not limited to the use of tax credits or adaptive reuse.

Um there is also um outlined you know conditions for terminating this day early.

So I guess I don't know.

How are we interpreting that as the applicant and the city explore alternatives if it isn't staff?

So um I see Greg sitting up if you'd like to speak to that.

Thanks.

So um I was involved in the drafting of that code, what 2013 maybe?

Oh, Chris was nodding, I got that right.

So um, uh a few things.

It please recall the context of what was occurring in the city at the time.

Um there was a few really important uh buildings that were slated for demolition.

Um we also realized that the state had really cracked down on uh adopting the demolition or the property maintenance code.

And so demolition by neglect was clearly not a tool the city could pursue.

Um when we reviewed the case law, clearly when we went the two years, that was the longest we found.

And honestly, we were a little nervous about is that supported and it's worked over 13 years.

So I'm not so concerned about that anymore.

We will need to review current case law to see if the two-year stay is still valid.

This is takings kind of territory.

Um the intent to answer your question directly, the intent was really to put the burden on the applicant.

Um and to have the applicant sort of have an incentive to reduce that stay if they could somehow work with the city to figure out how to reuse that property.

Um that provision comes in context with the ability to actually terminate the stay earlier.

So if they could demonstrate that they had gone through a bunch of work and there was no opportunity to sort of reuse or protect that property in the long run, then they could come back and get uh earlier termination of the stay.

So those two things kind of work together.

That's the way I remember it.

Thank you, Craig.

And just to add to that your question about interpreting the words, um, I think it's important it says allow.

It doesn't say shall, so it says allow the applicant in the city.

And so how we've been applying that is the applicant is doing what they're doing to explore their options financially.

Um not everyone can absorb sitting for two years on a property and and waiting.

So some folks just sell it and walk away from the project.

Other folks um just wait because they can afford to wait.

And then there are a few folks I think are the minority that do look into other options, and if they approach us with questions about those other options or asking about terminating the state earlier, then of course we will work with them.

Okay.

Um thank you, everyone, staff, public, my fellow colleagues.

Um we knew that was gonna be a big item.

Um we have Mayor, I just have one more.

What do you got?

Overall, I know, I'm sorry.

Um I I just want to address a public comment that we received written and kind of in person about um how the majority of the city is kind of inside of um covenants or an HOA of some kind.

And um I first of all just really appreciate both of the comments that we got.

I know you all spent a lot of time on them, and it was good context.

Um, I actually live inside a neighborhood that is um controlled by covenants, and I I think there's kind of this narrative that it's like a really regulated and and safe to development kind of um situation.

And I just wanted to share um the the six things in my covenants.

Um they must comply with zoning, all new buildings.

Um it said no multifamily housing, but it was later changed because somebody owned 50% of all of the land.

Um and so they could just change it and later added townhomes, no home-based businesses, no livestock, no only new materials can be used for construction.

So no prefabricated homes, and you can't even move an old home onto the property, and then people can't live in trailers and garages.

And that's that's it.

That's that's all that my covenants say for my neighborhood.

Um, I I can't speak for everybody's covenants, and perhaps there's some neighborhoods that have a lot more control, but um I I would say that those are certainly not you know to the level of what the NCOD provides for um folks inside of that that area.

And um if I were to have a neighbor who I felt was not enforcing or not um complying with those those six covenants, there's no review authority body or committee kind of you know that I can go to.

I have to personally sue my neighbor if I want to try and correct that behavior, and so it's um it's limited is mostly that I wanted to share.

Um and and I also uh appreciate the sentiment that that is more protections than than nothing.

So I'll extend to 10 10 um so we can get through a couple of appointments.

Um first step is our downtown business improvement board.

Um will before we make a motion, we'll open up for public comment.

Any public comment in the room on appointments to the downtown business improvement district board.

Second request in the room.

Mr.

Moss, what's going on online?

I'm showing no request for comments.

Okay, close the public comment portion.

Commissioner Magic.

I moved to reappoint Eric Bauman to the downtown business improvement the historic board for a term ending June 30th, 2030, and I move to appoint Eric Nelson as the chair and Elena in der Lynn as the vice chair.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Mr.

Moss, would you poll the commission?

Commissioner Madden?

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney.

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Bowie?

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

Approved five to zero.

And now the downtown urban renewal board.

Um, this is to appoint up to three citizen members to the downtown URD.

Um, any public comment in the room on the downtown URD appointment.

Mayor, commissioners, Emily Tlego, Bozeman resident.

I admittedly, I am going to stretch this.

Um, to be totally honest, it's not about the appointment or the downtown renewal board.

Um, but I don't know that I'll be able to participate over the next month as your deliberations go on.

So that being said, one thing that was in my letter that there's a new there's a need for clarity about.

Because I heard a couple different things, and I'm not, and I just asked Rebecca, doesn't sound like we have clarity if there is a commitment to addressing the zoning discrepancies right now or not.

Because the speculative aspects have been very, very hard on the neighborhood.

We are stuck in this loop.

It is a very strange feeling.

You could never say to Harvest Creek, who is a subdivision that is exclusive for single family homes, right?

You could never say to them, we're looking to see what we need to get out of a neighborhood.

I'm in midtown.

We do our part.

We are one of the most economically productive areas in the city, so I don't want to hear about what it costs to fix this.

Deputy Mayor, you said that we want to see growth where we said we're gonna see growth.

What I need clarity about for my neighborhood is does that mean what we want is that where there's a single home right now, this may be operating as a duplex, maybe operating as a single thing.

Is the vision of this commission for that to not be there anymore?

And for there to be an eight unit put there.

That is what people need information about in order to make decisions about their lives because they're not gonna pick us off one by one, right?

They're gonna pay an assemblage premium for the whole block and we're out.

We need that clarity sooner than later, please.

Thank you.

Any further public comment requests in the room on the appointment for the downtown urban renewal board?

Second request in the room.

Mr.

Moss, what have we seen online?

I'm showing no request for comment, Mayor.

Okay.

Um we'll close the public comment portion, bring it up here for um the commission liaison's appointments.

Yes.

Deputy Mayor.

So I move to appoint Amy Horton, John Howe, and Skye Cook as members of the downtown urban renewal board for terms ending in June 30th, 2029.

And I move to appoint Ryan Finn as the Gallanton County representative.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Mr.

Moss, would you poll the commission?

Deputy Mayor Fisher?

Aye.

Commissioner Bodie?

Aye.

Commissioner Magic?

Aye.

Commissioner Sweeney?

Aye.

Mayor Morrison.

Aye.

The appointments are approved five to zero.

Um now moving on to FYI.

Is there any FYI from the commission?

We need to extend the meeting.

Did to um can I make a comment just based on the public comment?

I'm gonna be really quick.

Yeah, of course.

Um as far as rezoning, I spoke to it, I believe it needs to happen.

I would like to see similar to the rezoning requests that we've had in the past year, uh, citizens initiating that process.

Um it could be wrapped up into a larger process that we the commission or the city ultimately uh wraps into something else, you know, and helps with the cost, but I I I can't see doing that if we don't have um a petition, you know, showing property owners within a certain district saying, hey, we want this done to our neighborhood.

Any further FYI?

Yeah, Commissioner Sweeney.

I have two that I'd like to speak to.

Um earlier when I brought up the issue with the heritage tree program, I just want to share that what I'm nervous about is that we're gonna get to the end of this urban forest management plan update, and we are going to have to hire yet another consultant to get us across the finish line on this program that the public has been demanding.

We've put off from the 2016 urban forest management plan, and we've fobbed it off from HPAB.

So I'm just nervous that we're gonna have to like have another consultant.

Um then I just want to speak to uh what Commissioner Magic just said and what the public comment said.

Um we do have a priority, um, a commission priority that includes looking at the zoning map.

Um since that is our priority, it would be my preference if we get you know a neighborhood coming to us that within our priority within the within the process of executing that priority of updating the zoning map.

We don't require that neighborhood to pay the exorbitant fee for a zone map amendment and make them go through the full process of a zone map amendment that we could kind of do it as a UDC edit uh or cleanup in one of our work sessions.

Um so that would be my preference.

Thank you.

Any further FYI?

Okay.

Um I'll just share one that I meant to share at the beginning.

Um we haven't settled exactly what time our meeting next week is starting, but it's earlier than our normal start time, and it'll be posted as such.

It's either going to be 1 p.m.

or 3 p.m.

Looking like 3 p.m., but it'll be posted, and I wish we had a confirmed answer by tonight, but unfortunately we don't.

Um so just to telegraph to those that that are following along um to make sure that there's plenty of room um for the lengthy discussion on the future of the of our housing program.

Okay, seeing no further business to come before the commission, this meeting is adjourned.

Goodbye.