[MissoulaGov] committee update 1/21/09

[Jim McGrath]

Bob,

re the parks issue.
I was surprised to learn when I got on council that the only thing zoning seems to do a good job protecting the community from was home ownership.
I remember a guy on the Northside who owned a duplex and wanted to sell both units to individual families-- he had to go through a PUD. I think that's still the case. Adding a parks exaction would be even worse (I know you are currently exempting 2-lot divisions, but the issue doesn't change much). 
I also was surprised to learn that an owner of a large lot zoned single family could build as many additional detached units as he could pencil but couldn't sell them. nor could he built the same number of units sharing walls, even though it was more efficient in many ways, including land.
If someone owns a lot with four houses on it, at least three of them must be rentals (unless it's a commune I suppose -- I think communes should be a permitted use only in the university neighborhood, ha ha, just kidding). Now in order to allow new homeowners to buy them, not only do they have to subdivide but they have to carve out a tiny park. Another brick defending us from homeownership.
To me parks have always been a public good and the argument you make for sidewalks is much more relevant for parks. Hey, my neighborhood as a permanent SID for street lights! which probably half of us don't care for -- the lights, not the SID which probably have few fans. how fair is that? 


-----Original Message-----
From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com on behalf of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wed 1/21/2009 10:12 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] committee update 1/21/09
 
Greetings,

We started the morning again with a series of board interviews. Animal
Control, Open Space, and Planning Board. Lots of great applicants.
After finishing all the interviews we were in PAZ discussing the park
dedication amendments. 

Subdivisions are divided into two groups. Minors are five lots and
under. Majors are six and over. We currently only exact a parkland
dedication on majors. Recent changes in the state law allow us to
require parkland dedication on minors. The debate generally focused on
the issue of affordability versus the need for parks and park
infrastructure. There are a number of policy goals being developed that
encourage infill. So should we be creating new costs for small
subdivisions? Sometimes individual subdivided lots will contain multiple
dwelling units as in the case of apartments or condos. So we debated
whether to exempt minors where the lots would have single family homes.
We also considered the case where a lot has multiple homes already
existing and the property owner is subdividing them in order to sell the
homes to individual owners.

It got pretty complicated but we ended up asking Jackie to come back
with two versions. One that is more restrictive and applies the
dedication to 3-5 lot subdivisions on lots greater than 5400 square
feet. The size limit is based on the theory that 5400 foot lots would
only be for single family homes and generally for projects targeting a
more affordable home price. If a developer thought their project should
be exempted because it was targeting affordable homes or for some other
reason they could ask for a variance.

The other version would exempt single family housing.  So if the
individual subdivided lots are going to have multiple dwelling units on
them the developer would need to dedicate parkland (or pay cash in
lieu). We will take this up again in a couple of weeks.

 

In public works we started with the slant street sidewalk project. Last
week, Doug Harby from public works explained how the project areas are
defined and prioritized. This week he explained the various policies
involved with deciding which sidewalks needed to be replaced within a
project.  It is generally driven by the people who sue us after they
trip and fall.  I believe he said we are currently $30,000 into
defending ourselves in a suit that involved an edge on a sidewalk that
stuck up only 4/10 of an inch. So we want to take care of trip hazards
as well as anything that will become a trip hazard during the life of
the project. This means the next twenty years. So if there is any
deficiency they will want to fix it. This of course gets controversial
when we tell people they have to pay thousands of dollars to replace the
sidewalks in front of their home that only has minor cracks in it and no
immediate hazard. 

I asked about preventative maintenance and Doug said the sidewalks that
last the longest are the ones where the people take care of the
boulevards. If the trees are reaching across to the front yard to find
water they will wreck the sidewalks over time. He also said people are
allowed to perform preventative maintenance on their sidewalks like
sealing cracks and replacing broken corners and grinding.  

 

In this particular project there was the opportunity to use some grant
money to pay for some of the improvements. Some the slant streets have
very wide right of ways. The homeowners were given the option to have
grant funds pay for the sidewalks if they went in on the outer edge of
the right of way creating the 25+ foot boulevards that are so nice in
that neighborhood. If the homeowner wanted to put the sidewalk at the
code minimum seven foot boulevard than they had to pay.  There were a
handful of very large assessments. One property owner hit with an $18000
assessment came in to voice his concern.

 

Every time we do one of these projects there is an outcry from some of
the residents that this is a community benefit so they should not have
to bear the cost alone. The cost of neighborhood sidewalks should be
evenly spread throughout the neighborhood if not the whole city.   I
pretty much agree with this but every time I have brought it up I've
been thoroughly shut down by public works staff with all the reasons we
can't change the way we finance sidewalks.  For sure it is problematic
but the idea of street maintenance districts has been gaining some
acceptance lately.  If the economy had not turned sour we would probably
have seen them introduced for FY2010. My guess is the idea of
introducing this new "tax" will be put on hold for a while.

 

We also voted to approve the contract amendment for the peer review on
the 3rd and Russell project.  The request evolved into an updated and
more sophisticated traffic analysis of the corridor and various
intersections. The consultant will help to integrate the new information
and any changes in design it informs into the final EIS. We selected a
firm Kittleson and Associates.  The price tag on the review ballooned to
$186,000. This caused some sticker shock. But this is a thirty to forty
million dollar project. There has been great public outcry as to the
design of the project. This analysis should help to validate the current
design or modify it in a defensible way. I'm hopeful that a more
sophisticated traffic model will show that some of the design features
can be reduced. If we are able to knock out one turn lane from one
intersection we save more than $186,000.

 

Here is a copy of the contract:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/packets/council/2009/2009-01-12/Referrals/HK
MPeerReviewAmend4.pdf

 

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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