[MissoulaGov] Committee update 7-22-09

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
This morning we started with Conservation and the Green House Gas and Energy Conservation Team. We approved a policy statement regarding forestry practices. Here is the link to the document. It was amended some in committee beyond what is on this link but just to clean up the language: http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=1844

We also discussed the various goals of the committee. They have a number of projects they are working on including a cash for bus commuters program they are hoping to launch this year. The city pays for all of our employees to have bus passes. The program hopes to increase ridership by offering city employees a dollar for every bus ride they take during the three month period that the program runs. This is expected to cost $6500. The hope is that during the time of the extra incentive, more folks will discover that commuting by bus is cool. I offer my employees a dollar a day for not driving. It's a nice little perk and it saves on our limited parking.

In PAZ we picked up where we left off on Home Occupations. We made a number of adjustments which for the most part made the ordinance less restrictive. Everyone is for supporting small business so most of these votes were unanimous or close to it. We got rid of the restriction on hazardous materials since that rules out any businesses that have to do with landscaping, woodworking, photography, and lots of other stuff. These things are already regulated by the health department and other entities.  We also scratched the prohibition on machinery not normally found in the home. We already have a noise ordinance. If it doesn't violate the noise ordinance who cares what kind of machines you are running. We spent a lot of time talking about how many people you could have on site. The draft called for one non-resident employee and up to two customers. We changed it to say three non-resident people regardless of if they are employees or customers with the exception of twice per month. So the pampered chef lady can have a big crowd over twice a month and still comply.
We also spent some time talking about parking and the storage of vehicles. Everyone knows of a landscaping business with a bunch of pickups and trailers parked out in the street.  There was some interest in regulating this but Nugent pointed out that registered vehicles and trailers could park wherever they want as long as they don't exceed the weight limit (8000 lbs) and move every 120 hours. There is also a state law prohibiting us from regulating what people do with vehicles on private property.

Next was neighborhood character overlays. This allows people to create their very own zoning district to meet the desires of their immediate neighborhood. It applies to a minimum of five acres, or about two standard city blocks. There is of course some risk that we will end up with a different zoning district every two blocks but we were OK with that. The only change we made was to remove the requirement that it could only be used in areas that had a neighborhood plan or were part of an historic district.  Residents will still need to go through a rezoning process which costs about $4000 and is subject to protest.

 After that we did temporary uses.  We made a few changes here. The draft allowed for a temporary use to go on for ten days. You had to wait thirty days to do it again. We changed it so you can only do that four times in a year. In commercial and industrial districts a special use could be for 90 days per year. This matches the current rule and covers things like the tree sales in the Rosaurs parking lot or the velvet Elvis's, sunglasses, and chainsaw bears out on Reserve.

We were out of time to get into lot line houses so we talked about the schedule for a few minutes. Still no one likes Tuesdays. Our normal 10-12 slot is taken next week by the quarterly meeting with the commissioners. But we will fit PAZ in at some point on Wednesday. The topic will be signs. The time will be worked out and posted on Friday when we get referrals finalized.

Our last item was to confirm the Mayor's reappointments to the board of adjustment. There were no new applicants so he reappointed Lee Clemmensen, Joe Easton, and Jeff Ralston-Clemmer.  Things got ugly when it became apparent that Lee was not going to get the support of a majority of the committee. All three votes were 7-5 with Joe and Jeff being reappointed. We'll get to fight about this again on the floor on Monday.

Thanks for your interest,

Bob Jaffe
Missoula City Council, Ward 3
1225 South 2nd West
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 728-1052

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