[MissoulaGov] committee update 11-12-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

 

This morning in Conservation we set a public hearing for 12/8 to approve the master plan for the Fort Missoula Regional Park. Earlier in the year we contracted with a consultant to develop a park plan. That will be presented to the committee in full on 12/3.  There were a few people who were uncomfortable with the idea. Mr. Haines used the camel getting its nose into the tent analogy. First you want a park plan, next you will be asking for money to build a park. I am under the impression that building a park is the whole point. The city purchased that land long ago with the intent of building a park.  Public spending may slow down for a bit but we are not going to cease to function as a city.

We also had a presentation regarding the work of the city "Green Team." During the budget process there was interest in finding ways for the City to conserve more energy. A voluntary staff team headed up by Jackie Corday was formed to start working on things different departments could do. Here is a link to their report:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/Packets/Council/2008/2008-11-10/Referrals/CCReferralGreenTeamupdate.pdf

 

We had a short PAZ meeting with just one item. Montana Lil's is putting a casino at Brooks and Reserve in the old 4b's building.  OPG denied their sign package. They took it to the design review board who also denied some of the elements but compromised on some others. The applicant requested that the city council re-hear their appeal as our rules allow for. This is one of our goofy rules. It says we first have a meeting to decide if we will set a public hearing for the case. We did that today in committee. On Monday we will have the discussion again for the full council to vote. Then it will go back to committee to hear the actual case. Then we will hear it again at the actual public hearing at the council meeting. So we will meet on this at least four times.

 

The case itself has a few details that are interesting in a wonky sort of way.  The building has a roof that comes to a point in the center.  They want to build a box structure around the top and put signs on it.  Our rules forbid roof signs. But they do allow for Parapet wall signs. They are arguing that vertical walls above the roof line are parapet walls regardless of where in the roof they start. Staff is arguing that for it to be a parapet wall it has to be a vertical extension of the front wall above the roof line. Kind of like an old western façade. 

They are also arguing that since there is a little mechanical room inside that portion of the roof structure that it should be considered a parapet wall coming off of a second story and therefore get extra height consideration.

 

The DRB did not agree with these interpretations of the code and denied the "parapet wall" signs.

In addition they were also arguing the calculation of the square footage of their monument sign.  They are putting up one of those big video signs and through some ambiguities in the language of the code are arguing that it is 75 square feet. Staff calculates it at about 89 feet. The DRB made some minor adjustments but allowed it to be in excess of the 75 feet as a sort of compromise for rejecting the roof signs. There is clearly some risk in asking the council to reconsider this. I'm not so sure there will be a majority willing to make any compromises.

 

We cut PAZ short so we could all go over to the University to meet with the U administration to learn about what they are doing.  We all rode the trolley over and they served us a nice lunch. We learned a little about 5th/6th/Arthur (more later). They are planning to move the college of technology over to the new south campus bringing an end to the golf course. I think they said this will happen next year. I believe the tentative plan is for the school district to consolidate its administrative buildings into the old COT building. I'm not sure what the plan is for the old admin buildings. I hope something cool happens with the one on sixth street.

 

They are working on improving their stats for retention and graduation. I don't have the sheet in front of me but I think they are trying to push retention of first year students to become second year students to 80% and graduation to 65%. The COT is much lower. Something like 45%. But they said the metrics are deceiving. People often enroll in the COT for some particular kind of job training. When they finish the course they go back to work with the new certification. They never had any intention of graduating. The goal is to get the University in the top 25% of schools for these numbers.

 

There was some discussion about housing. Mr. Dennison explained that it wasn't long ago that they had too much housing as people really didn't want to live on campus. The economics of transportation and everything else have changed that some and now there is a shortage again. They are hoping to find commercial interests that would be willing to partner with the University to build student housing off campus. They also said they are making efforts to bring in more graduate students. If successful, this will also create a demand for some slightly higher end housing.

 

When we returned after lunch for A&F we covered a few items including the Hip Strip Study of Blight. The property owners had requested we form a tax increment district there. The first phase of this process is to perform a study to determine if there is blight as it is defined by state law.  This generally means that the area has impediments to being developed to its full potential. Surprisingly, the MRA study came back saying there was not sufficient blight to justify the formation of the district. I didn't think it ever went that way. But apparently there are a couple of examples of the studies coming back negative.  In the end it means that the property owners will have to try to move forward with their projects without the benefit of public subsidy or enhancements.

 

We then moved on to Public Works where we had a more in depth discussion about 5th/6th/Arthur.  At the recent University Neighborhood Council meeting we saw a presentation about the project.  The short version of the story is that the University does not like the way the route 12 traffic goes around that one block of houses just west of the parking lots. That block is pretty much all owned by the U and at some point they plan to make it part of campus. They want the highway traffic not to come further east than Arthur.  The state tried to put together a solution to the problem by spending a $1,000,000 studying and developing a plan to put a super highway through the neighborhood. This brought out the torches and pitchforks and they backed off. The University still wanted a solution. So they continued to work with the city public works people and came up with a much scaled down proposal. The State will no longer participate if we don't build their giant road so it is up to the U and the city to build it with our own resources. 

This raised some red flags for a few members of council. They wanted to know by what authority is the administration and staff negotiating to commit the city to help build this road?  It turns out it goes back to a 2001 MOU where the city, State, and U agreed to work together to rebuild the roadway.  The current proposal calls for the University contributing about $500,000 in cash and the city putting up about that much in like kind labor to do the work. The state may still kick in a little for the new traffic light at sixth and Arthur.

The plan is still in a preliminary stage so there is no formal proposal or request yet.

 

Then we went to committee of the whole to hear from the county fair people on what their plans are.  They informed us that they are bringing on Crandal Arambula to do a plan for them.  These are the folks doing the downtown master plan. Apparently they do Fair plans too.  There is some possibility they will move the fair out west of the Fort Missoula properties. John Hendrickson made the good point that as controversial as that discussion will be, the discussion over what will happen on the current fairgrounds will be just as difficult. They should make sure they are ready to answer the second question before bringing up the first.

 

Thanks for your interest,    

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us <mailto:bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us> 

406-728-1052

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