[MissoulaGov] Request for feedback about Health Dept. "position" on healthy built environments

[Greg Oliver]

Hello all,

 

The Missoula City-County Health Department has been working on nailing
down a "Department Position" related to healthy built environments
(HBE).  Over the last few years, representatives from an in-house team
have been occasionally showing up in various settings and ways to
advocate for elements of HBE.  We decided recently to try to consolidate
our thinking into a brief summary.  I would value your feedback and
thoughts about the attached document.  Clearly we in public health are
relative newcomers to many aspects of the land use arena but we are
convinced that there are powerful public health effects and potential
benefits from land use decisions.

Thanks for any attention you can give this draft. 

 

Greg Oliver

Health Promotion Division Director, MCCHD

oliverg at ho.missoula.mt.us  258-3686

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 11:21 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committee update 7-22-09

 

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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