[MissoulaGov] committee update 2-25-08

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,

This morning in Public Safety we had Don Verue from the building
department give a review of the Outdoor Lighting Ordinance. The
ordinance was approved a little over a year ago and mandates lighting
standards intended to cut down on light pollution.   One of the concerns
when enacted was that there would be a landslide of citizen complaints
of non-compliant lighting. Thus far there have been eight. Six of which
were resolved over the phone. It took a little while to get the
architects up to speed on the submittal and design requirements for new
construction but now most everything they see is compliant.  The one
area that needs some adjustment is how to deal with small commercial
installations. An example of a recent complaint is for an apartment
complex that wants to add a couple of outdoor lights in their parking
lot. It is only a couple hundred dollars for the electrician to do the
installation. But to get the permit there needs to be some sort of
lighting plan document. To create this will take some number of hours of
work.  So the submittal requirements may exceed the cost of the actual
installation. We asked Don to work up language to exempt installations
under a certain size from the submittal requirements and bring it back.
We will need to set a public hearing to revise the ordinance. The intent
is that the small installations will still need to comply with the
ordinance, they would just be exempt from the paperwork.

 

In PAZ we started with another session on the parkland dedication rules.
After much discussion we voted to require parkland dedication on minor
subdivisions (3-5 lot) where the zoning allowed for multi-family.  The
first vote (that failed) was to require it for lots greater than 5400
feet. The idea being that affordable units are generally built on
smaller lots and that multi-family units would be on bigger lots.
Overall this is not really hitting what everyone wants. I want everyone
to contribute to parkland but I don't want the cost of housing to go up.
Of course this isn't possible. 

The next time we take this up we will consider changing the rule for
what kind of appraiser is allowed to do the park dedication appraisal
for minor subdivisions. We also need to look at alternatives to the way
we calculate the dedication. We currently base it off of a percentage of
acreage. We would like the option of basing it off of the number of
units. 

 

We then switched gears and returned to the Chickasaw subdivision. We
inched closer to support for some kind of project. But considering we
recessed the meeting with a motion on the floor to deny the annexation,
the future is still uncertain.  The proposal with the most support calls
for three acres of agricultural land on the eastern portion of the site.
This ag land will be a distinct saleable lot with deed restrictions and
covenants.  The road will connect through to Stallion lane. There will
still be 30 building lots. One item still in dispute is whether there
will be a building lot allowed in the very SE corner separated from the
rest of the subdivision by the ag parcel.  

Again we had to recess until Monday at 6:00pm. The neighbors and some on
council still want the ag piece to be along the northern border so it
serves as a buffer to the adjacent properties. A few still have trouble
requiring any mitigation for agriculture at all.  Some may like the
design but are uncomfortable giving preliminary plat approval for
anything that is still so undefined. I'm pretty sure this was Mr.
Wilkins' sentiment when he made the motion to deny annexation.

I have no idea what will happen Monday night.

 

In A&F we had Joel from MCAT give us an update on the Government Channel
Cable Advisory Commission. This is the group that advises MCAT on the
what programming to put on the civic channel.  We started the process to
change the name of this committee to Missoula Civic Television Advisory
Commission. In other business we made a new council rule that says if an
item gets tabled it disappears after six months if it isn't acted upon.
In most legislative bodies a tabled item goes away at the end of the
session. But we don't have sessions. We just keep going on forever. So
there was no provision for the disposal of tabled items.

 

In Public Works we discussed a contract to hire a consulting firm to
assess and develop a plan for how to deal with the stink that is coming
from the vicinity of the sewer plant. I say the vicinity because it is
not all the sewer plant. Eko-Compost is also one of the sources. There
may be others. One of the problems has been that the odors are
intermittent and inconsistent. But they are definitely a serious quality
of life issue for anyone who lives on that side of town. 

There was some hesitance to spend $74,000 for an "odor characterization
study."  Can you think of anything more absurd than hiring a fancy
consultant to tell you something smells like shit?  But staff assured us
that the bulk of the work actually had to do with designing an
implementation plan for the facilities. This is a substantial project
that could run into the millions of dollars so the initial planning work
is well justified. We asked for staff to come back next  time with more
details on how the money would be allocated in the contract.

 

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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