[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 10-21-09

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
This morning in conservation we approved a contract to spend about $12,000 to develop a new comprehensive trail map for the city.  It is being paid for with grant funds and going to a cartography firm in Boulder, Colorado.  It looks like a great project. My only regret is that we couldn't find a local company to give it to. The only local to return a bid would not agree to make the source files available to the city which was one of the requirements.
We also approved a contract to HDR engineering to prepare a plan and design documents for a bunch of fixes to the Northside pedestrian bridge. The contract is for $18,000. There is also a budget of about $125,000 to actually do work to the bridge.  The priority is to address water sealing issues with the steel supports beneath the concrete decking. There is a bunch of rust forming. It is not considered to be a structural issue but the goal is to make sure it doesn't become one.  Also on the list is to deal with the pigeons, making it easier to clean graffiti, Making it harder to hide and sleep in the structure (or find places to go to the bathroom), Installing water lines so the thing can get cleaned, make a little structure to hold the porta-potty on the south side, move the lamp post that is right in the way when you come off the ramp on the south side on your bike, make a little park on the north side, and figure out if there is anything we can do about the elevators. There will not be enough money to do all of this stuff but this is an initial wish list.  Once the structural issues are addressed we will see how much is left and then start a neighborhood dialog to see what people want.
The money for this project is actually from one of the stimulus pots. We originally planned to spend it to do a bunch of park upgrades but the proposal was denied by HUD because parks were not considered infrastructure. So the money got redirected here.

In PAZ our main issue was the Historic Preservation Ordinance.  The basic idea is that the historic districts are a valuable asset in the community.  If we allow too many changes in the district that are incompatible with the historic character of the district we put the historic district's designation at risk. So the proposal is to require any project that modifies a property within an historic district to receive an historic preservation permit. There are a couple of main concerns. One is that this creates a whole new hoop to jump through for folks who are trying to build something. There can be delays of up to sixty days (ninety if demolition is involved) and additional costs. This may be reasonable if you are getting ready to tear down St. Joseph's School or build a bunch of houses all around the old Lincoln School. But what if you are just building a small addition on a single family home? The suggestion is that the vast majority of cases will be determined by the Historic Preservation Officer in a matter of minutes and no hearings will be required. But this makes some folks nervous.

The other concern is that this is some kind of violation of private property rights and creative expression.  Why shouldn't a person be allowed to choose what style home they want to build?  Again, I'm not sure how much of a concern this really is considering that the art museum addition and the "corner" building at Brooks and Higgins are both considered compliant. It's hard to imagine what you would have to do to be out of compliance.
The idea of limiting the scope of the ordinance to contributing structures in a district or even just structures on the register of historic places was discussed.

The public hearing on this proposal is on Monday night. This is one of the ones that is very much up in the air going into the hearing. If you have a strong opinion on this I encourage you to come to the hearing or send your thoughts to council at ci.missoula.mt.us<mailto:council at ci.missoula.mt.us> (and cc them here). Here is link to the draft ordinance:
http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2280

In A&F we discussed the zoning fees again. This time they put it all in context of the current fees and it sounded a little more reasonable.  Some of the changes include replacing the fees for Commercial Gas $5200; Liquor and Beer $5200; Enterprise Commercial $4160; and a few others that now under the new ordinance will be considered conditional uses and only cost $805. The sentiment on council is that no one wants to have to charge for anything but this is how we have chosen to pay for this stuff. Most city services are just covered by general taxes. But our land use review services are financed by fees with a 50% tax subsidy.

Here is the link to the fee structure: http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=2399. The hearing will also be on Monday night.

Last item of the day was a Public Works discussion of the use of our Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds. This is how we finance stuff like Missoula in Motion, the Bike Ped office, Mountain Line, Street sweeping, bike lane striping, and a bunch of other related stuff. A couple of interesting points came up. One was the suggestion that maybe it is a good time for a wholesale reconsideration of how we address the issue of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) in our community. By most accounts we have been very successful in our efforts over the last decade or two and maybe we should just keep doing  what we are doing. But it may be a good time to reevaluate what is working best and how we can most efficiently expend our resources. It was also pointed out that the Bike Ped office and its various programs only represent about 3% of the CMAQ funds.

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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