[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 10-14-09

[David V. Gray]

Bob,

 

I find it hard to believe it costs OPG anywhere close to the cost they are
requesting for some fees.  The DRB and BOA are two boards I am familiar
with.  As an Architect I meet with OPG for maybe one hour for the entire
review process to the point of submittal for either board.  The meetings
themselves which are staffed by volunteers and a planner take 3-4 hours.
Add  a few hours to make a couple of copies and write an agenda.  That
should only be in the range of $450 assuming the staff does not cost more
than $50 per hour.  The majority of the copies are provided by the applicant
with the submittal.

 

An appeal should not cost anything if the applicant wins, it should be
deducted from OPG's budget.  This would make sure OPG is held accountable
for decisions they make which are not always based on fact.

 

An appeal of an "Administration Action" should be free.  An Administration
Action is not based on the Laws and Ordinances but what the zoning officers
wants to see occur.  These Administration Actions have been in the past, and
I do not see any reason it should change now, been so far off base that not
one portion of the Action's text can be found in the text of an Ordinance it
is supposedly "Clarifying."  This has always been OPG's big stick for
demanding without recompense what they want over what is written when it
comes to developments in Missoula.  I have been threatened more than once by
OPG that if I did not change a home or business plans they would issue an
Administrative Action so the project would have to go to BOA to request a
variance.  As you can see the BOA is one of the most expensive boards the
City has so that is a project killer 9 times out of 10.

 

The Pedestrian Overlay district already has several strikes against it in
the Zoning Code.  Why have such a large fee for providing a desirable
development format? 

 

The cost of the Neighborhood Overlay zoning is astounding high.  I have paid
less for cars.  That pretty much writes off protecting any neighborhoods
with that new tool.  What home owner or Neighborhood Council can afford to
pay $4160-$6,760 for this preservation tool?

 

Sincerely,

 

David V. Gray

1731 S. 11th West.

Ward 6

 

 

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:38 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 10-14-09

 

Greetings,

 

This morning in Public Safety we approved a contract with Solar Plexus to
install a 12.96 KW photovoltaic system at firehouse #2 for $62,500.  More
than half the bill is being paid by Northwest Energy and the rest is coming
from the 2006 firehouse bond.  It will provide about 25% of the electricity
at the firehouse and should have about a seven to ten year payback.

 

We also learned about the new PM2.5 air pollution standards and set a public
hearing to consider changing the regulations.  The current standard is based
around ten micron particles. These are just big enough to be filtered out by
breathing through your nose. The 2.5 micron particles get inhaled deep into
your lungs. The primary source is from wood smoke.

 

The new EPA standard allows for an average level of 2.5 micron particles in
the air to be up to 35 micrograms per cubic meter. Missoula is up to 35.2.
They let us round it down so we are still considered an attainment area, but
just barely.  Becoming a non-attainment area puts our highway funds at risk.
We will have to do a gigantic study costing many thousands of dollars and
many hundreds of hours of staff time to establish baseline data and show
what we are doing to fix the problems in order to get our highway money.   

 

The new rules essentially say that on bad air days you can't use a woodstove
if you have an alternative source of heat. The kicker is that these rules
now extend way out into the county where they told the health department
they would have to pry the woodstoves from their cold dead hands. After a
bunch of educational meetings folks came around some and it is not so
contentious anymore.  We'll find out more at the public hearing. If you
would like to see how the air is doing in near real time take a look at this
site:

http://todaysair.mt.gov/AirMonitoring/AirDataMap.aspx

 

There was no Conservation today and in PAZ we just wrapped up our discussion
about the findings of fact for the Sonata Park subdivision. Nothing too
exciting.

 

In Public Works we set the public hearing to consider the SID for the
Arthur/5th/6th project. The goal of this project is to reconstruct the
section of road that connects 5th and 6th to the Madison street bridge. The
university would like to get the roads to connect directly and not run the
loop around that block that comes into the campus.  They own all but four of
the houses on that block and plan to expand there someday. A few years back
MDOT put together a plan to build a superhighway through the University
neighborhood.  As expected, people came unhinged. It turned out they didn't
have the will to go through with a project everyone hated and it was too
expensive anyway.  The University continued to work on a more acceptable
design with a more reasonable budget. The current project will be paid for
with a $1.2 million SID assessed against the University of Montana. The City
will provide a few hundred thousand dollars worth of labor to do the paving
work. The state will throw in a few hundred thousand for traffic lights.  In
all, it will cost less than what was spent studying and trying to justify
the big plan that everyone hated.

 

The key difference is that the purpose and need for this project is based
around fixing current safety problems for bikes, peds, and cars. The other
project was based around providing capacity for the next twenty years.

 

The most pointed question of the day came from Renee Mitchell to Hugh Jesse
from the University. She asked why the U was pursuing million dollar roadway
improvements when the newspaper tells us they are going broke. The guy who
was qualified to answer that question wasn't at the meeting so Hugh punted
to the public hearing. We'll have to wait a few weeks to learn more.

 

After lunch In A&F we discussed the new OPG fee structure that needed to be
adjusted to match the new zoning code.  A couple of the sections caused some
heartburn. The cost to take a project to the Design Review Board is $753.
That has not changed. But now an appeal to a DRB decision will also cost
$753. There are a few others that seemed onerous. I'm not questioning that
they actually cost that much to process, it just seems like a lot to ask
people to pay. You can see the whole list here:
http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2399 The public hearing
is set for November 2nd.

 

In other news, I learned a few things at the League of Cities and Towns
conference last week. I asked folks about sidewalks, homeless, and crowded
rentals. I gained some preliminary information that I am following up on and
will have more details in the next few weeks.

 

Sidewalks:  Great Falls and Bozeman have tried a policy where they don't
make the developer build them until three years after final plat. That time
has now come and they are having trouble getting them to comply. But it
didn't sound like the other cities really do very many sidewalk
installations into existing neighborhoods like the way we do. It wasn't
really an issue on their radar.

 

Homeless: They "used to" just give them a bus ticket to Missoula. Of course
they don't do that anymore. In asking people from a number of cities the
theme was that they don't really have any services for homeless people so
they don't have enough of them around for it to be a real problem.  But in
Billings they have issues.  I learned that they have a "Crisis Center." When
people are passed out or dangerously intoxicated on the street they take
them to this place and they dry out there for up to 23 hours. They try to
refer them to other services. It is primarily funded by the hospital in the
interest of keeping them out of the ER.

 

Crowded Rentals: While waking doors for the campaign recently I got into a
conversation about the family definition law. This is a rule that attempts
to define how many people can live in a single family house. I have always
understood that we tried to do that here but it was ultimately determined to
be unconstitutional. I was told that Bozeman has a family definition law and
I should look into it. So I asked and it turns out that their law is now
being challenged and will likely end up in court.  I'm still trying to get
more details and will report back when I learn more.

 

 

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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