Yes In My Backyard Act

U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawai’i) introduced the Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY) Act to shed light on discriminatory land use policies and encourage localities to cut burdensome regulations. Instead of adopting inclusive land use policies that allow citizens of all income levels, backgrounds, and identities to live, work, and flourish in Bozeman, the city has erected paper walls of regulations that negatively affect and sometimes discriminate against low- and middle-income city residents. The YIMBY Act would require Bozeman and other cities receiving federal funding for housing to go on the record with why they are not adopting specific pro-affordability and anti-discriminatory housing policies.

Let’s see how Bozeman stacks up against the specific policies identified in the YIMBY Act:

(A) Enacting high-density single-family and multifamily zoning

B

The good news is that Bozeman has several good zoning designations for high density (R-5, B-2M, B3, etc.). The bad news is that these zoning areas apply to less than 5% of Bozeman’s total area. Elsewhere in the city, due to lot size minimums, off-street parking requirements, parks requirements, and other restrictions it is difficult to achieve densities higher than 8 units per acre net in Bozeman. The Bridger View Subdivision is a fantastic exception to this rule (achieving a net density nearly twice that of other comparable subdivisions)—but this achievement was only possible with 18 departures from existing code.

(B) Expanding by-right multifamily zoned areas

D

Although most newly annexed areas are zoned for multifamily, the City of Bozeman has never initiated action to expand multifamily zoning in existing areas. (In a few instances, specific areas have been upzoned at the request of a developer).

(C) Allowing duplexes, triplexes, or fourplexes in areas zoned primarily for single-family residential homes

F

38% of Bozeman’s existing residential land is set aside as the exclusive domain of single-family homes. Due to lot size minimums and other density restrictions in reality this number is closer to 50%. No duplexes, triplexes, or fourplexes allowed (except those those created prior to Bozeman’s modern zoning laws).

(D) Allowing manufactured homes in areas zoned primarily for single-family residential homes

A

Manufactured homes on permanent foundations are allowed in all residential areas.

(E) Allowing multifamily development in retail, office, and light manufacturing zones

A

Commercial and manufacturing zones currently allow multifamily development on upper floors.

(F) Allowing single-room occupancy development wherever multifamily housing is allowed

C

Although Bozeman allows single-room occupancy units under its “community residential facilities” definition, this designation is tied to off-street parking minimums, parkland dedication requirements, and lot size minimums that substantially limit the feasibility of single-room occupancy development.

(G) Reducing minimum lot size

D

In 2019 Bozeman reduced its minimum lot sizes from very large (5000 SF) to merely large (4000 SF) for (literally) 99% of residential areas. (Houston’s minimum, for context, is 1400 SF.) Lot size minimums are also enforced by other indirect minimums, including width minimums, large required setbacks, lot area coverage maximums, floor area ratio maximums, and off-street parking requirements. The research is clear: minimum lot sizes force people to buy more land than they want and drive up housing costs.

(H) Ensuring historic preservation requirements and other land use policies or requirements are coordinated to encourage creation of housing in historic buildings and historic districts

D

Bozeman’s NCOD is a significant barrier to the creation of housing in Bozeman’s historic district.

(I) Increasing the allowable floor area ratio in multifamily housing areas

C

Bozeman’s floor area ratios are higher in areas zoned for multifamily housing, but are pegged to zoning district not housing type.

(J) Creating transit-oriented development zones

F

To date, Bozeman has not engaged in transit planning as part of its transportation system or land use planning. Bozeman should identify future high-frequency transit corridors and then upzone along these corridors.

(K) Streamlining or shortening permitting processes and timelines, including through one-stop and parallel-process permitting

F

Bozeman’s permitting is notoriously slow. Best case scenario it takes eight weeks in Bozeman to obtain the same building permit that Belgrade issues in one week. In practice, subdivision and building permits can be mired in review for years. Parallel-process permitting could dramatically reduce permitting timelines.

(L) Eliminating or reducing off-street parking requirements

F

Bozeman’s off-street parking minimums are very high and one of the most commonly cited barriers to development in the city. Parking minimums force people to own more parking than they want, increase housing prices, and encourage driving over other modes.

(M) Ensuring impact and utility investment fees accurately reflect required infrastructure needs and related impacts on housing affordability are otherwise mitigated

A

By law, Bozeman cannot charge impact fees in excess of needed infrastructure. The City also gives breaks to lower fees for infill projects.

(N) Allowing prefabricated construction

B

Prefabricated housing is allowed so long as prefabricated housing meets certain standards of looking like other housing.

(O) Reducing or eliminating minimum unit square footage requirements

A

Bozeman’s minimum unit square footage is based on the International Building Code. Current limits are 120 SF. (However, reductions in lot size minimums would be necessary to make small units actually viable to construct and bring to market.)

(P) Allowing the conversion of office units to apartments

B

Office in Residential Office zones can be converted to apartments. In other commercial areas where offices are permitted residential units are typically limited only to upper stories.

(Q) Allowing the subdivision of single-family homes into duplexes

F

Subdivision of single-family homes into duplexes is explicitly prohibited in R-S and R-1 zones. In practice, off-street parking requirments and lot size minimums prohibit subdivision where otherwise allowed by zoning.

(R) Allowing accessory dwelling units, including detached accessory dwelling units, on all lots with single-family homes

C

Bozeman currently allows ADUs by right in all residential zones but stops well short of progressive ADU policies implemented in other cities such as on-demand permitting of pre-approved plan sets or allowing two ADUs per parcel. Bozeman’s otherwise reasonable ADU policies suffer from poison pill requirements such as lot size, lot width, and paved off-street parking minimums for ADUs.

(S) Establishing density bonuses

D

Bozeman does offer density bonuses—but to the best of my knowledge no developer has ever voluntarily used Bozeman’s density bonuses. Density bonuses that never get used on account of being too watered down or difficult to exercise are worse than no density bonuses at all.

(T) Eliminating or relaxing residential property height limitations

A

Bozeman relaxed and streamlined its height limitations in May of 2021.

(U) Using property tax abatements to enable higher density and mixed-income communities

D

Bozeman does not currently use tax abatements to enable higher density and mixed-income communities. It’s unclear if state law would allow the city to do so.

(V) Donating vacant land for affordable housing development

—

The Bridger View subdivision is a great example of how effective this strategy can be (though donated by the Trust for Public Land, rather than the City of Bozeman). Bozeman should allow underutilized parkland to be converted to housing (that meets requirements for Affordability). Gallatin County should strongly consider relocating the fairgrounds and converting the existing site into a community land for permanently affordable housing.

The Final Word

The bad news is that Bozeman’s housing policy is littered with discriminatory and anti-development policies. The good news is that this recognition is a call to action (not a cause for despair). All of these policies are within our power to change. Many of these policies may be specifically called out in Bozeman’s pending consultant-led code audit. If we need a little help rewriting our code to be more equitable and pro-housing, the Biden administration is advancing a $300 million annual grant funding program to help cities and town like Bozeman remove zoning barriers to the construction of affordable housing.

Can’t do Infill – Lot Width Minimums

I’m highly interested in building some sort of infill project in the northeast neighborhood. My primary intention is add additional units of housing (in part to offset my own guilt about being “part of the problem”). I also just think it would be neat to build something add something to the neighborhood and community.

The only problem is: Bozeman’s code makes infill development all but impossible. I’ve investigated a half dozen opportunities in the past year, and each time there’s some “gotcha” in the development code that ruins otherwise great infill opportunities. I thought maybe I’d document some of these, so if/when Bozeman decides to get serious about supporting infill, I can provide some reasoned suggestions with examples.

A 21,000 SF property on Church Avenue just went on the market. That’s a half-acre of land, listed just below $1m. It’s zoned R2, so right off the bat we’re thinking a theoretical maximum density of three 7000 SF lots, each with a duplex and ADU. Housing units before: 1. Housing units after: 9. Sweet!

Only, there’s a little problem: the lot is only 118 feet wide.

Why is that a problem? Although many of the existing lots on Church Street are only 30′ wide, the City of Bozeman (in an apparent effort to limit infill and keep housing prices sky-high) requires a minimum width of 40′ (when a lot has alley access; 50′ otherwise).

Note, the lot width minimum is in addition to other lot geometry requirements:

  • Lot size minimums
  • Setback requirements (15′ up front, 20′ out back, 5′ on each side),
  • Lot-area coverage maximums
  • Floor area ratio maximums
  • Off-street parking minimums

These multitudinous requirements all effectively do the same thing in different ways: impose a minimum on the size of a lot.

And, thanks to the City of Bozeman’s “white glove” approach to variances, a subdivision plan with two 40′ lots and one 38′ lot would never fly (the 38′ lot would be a “self-imposed hardship and therefore ineligible for any sort of exception to the rules”).

Assuming building costs of 2.5x land costs, a $1m lot implies $2.5m in improvements. That could be one $3.5m single family house on one lot, two $1.75m single family houses, or a maximum of two duplexes and two ADUs with an average cost of $583k. Without the lot width minimum, we could get nine units at an average cost of $388k per unit. While $400k isn’t cheap, it’s within reach of many Bozeman middle class families, in a way that $600k just isn’t.

If we’re going to have lot size minimums and setbacks, we don’t need lot width minimums. Having both subjects potential infill to double jeopardy. In this situation, with a half acre of available land, minimum lot widths mean that the smallest possible subdivision of this lot is two 10,500 SF lots. If we’re going to have affordable housing and compact neighborhoods, we’re going to need to allow small lots!

New Bicycle Crossing at Peach and Rouse Completely Unacceptable

The Montana Department of Transportation has recently reconstructed the Rouse Avenue corridor. At the intersection of Peach Street and Rouse, MDT has taken away the existing bike lanes on Peach Street to install two additional vehicle lanes.

Strava’s Global Heatmap shows that Peach Street is the most significant E-W corridor for cyclists anywhere East of 19th Avenue. This is an essential connection for cyclists to access the businesses located in the Northeast Neighborhood and connection to our regional trail system, including the path to the M.

This situation is dangerous for cyclists and completely unacceptable.

Any intersection that requires cyclists to ride in mixed traffic fails to meet a standard of “appropriate for all ages and abilities” and fails to support Bozeman’s goal of improving multimodal accessibility.

Given the importance of this corridor, the City of Bozeman should not only fix this intersection, but should improve the safety and comfort of Peach Street for cyclists by removing the seldom-used parking on the north curb of Peach Street and installing proper buffered or separated bike lanes from 7th to Rouse.

Source

This intersection must be fixed to provide safe passage for cyclists on Peach Street to cross Rouse Avenue. Removing car storage for a half-dozen vehicles to improve the safety and comfort of a heavily used bicycle corridor at the same time just makes sense.

Summer Reading List

Interested in some light summer reading? Consider picking up a copy of Bozeman’s Unified Development Code! Carve out some time, though—it’s longer than Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle combined. Critics are calling Bozeman’s little book of rules:

“A haunting chronicle of stifling and inhuman bureaucracy—Kafkaesque in the fullest sense.”

“Essential reading for affordability advocates.”

“Byzantine!”

Contained within is the secret to understanding why it’s so hard to build anything in Bozeman, why generic “Anywhere USA” buildings are easier to build than anything with character, and a big part of why housing in Bozeman is suddenly astonishingly expensive.

List of popular books by reading length(Reading list adapted from howlongtoread.com)

Is Bozeman serious about affordability and sustainability—or not?

Bozeman will never achieve its climate or affordability goals without updating its zoning code to allow small lots, small floor plans, and more shared walls.

Bozeman’s development code bans small lots. A ban on small lots is, effectively, a ban on affordable, sustainable and desirable missing middle housing.

The current Bridger View subdivision being developed by HRDC is a case in point. Bridger View will provide 62 new units of housing on 8 acres of land, mostly in the form of single-family houses. Half of these units will be affordable “missing middle” houses. To accomplish this miracle of affordability and compactness the lots sizes within Bridger View (averaging 2500 SF) will be approximately half the size of a typical single-family lot in Bozeman (5000 SF+) and floor plans will be substantially smaller (800 – 1500 SF) than typical new construction. The result will be the most affordable and sustainable neighborhood built in Bozeman in living memory.

Artist's Rendering of the Bridger View Subdivision

Bridger View is only able to accomplish this by using a special provision in the City development code called a “Planned Unit Development” which allows relaxations in code requirements in exchange for better design. To become a reality, Bridger View requires waiver of nineteen sections of our zoning code, including at least four prohibiting small lots:

  1. Minimum lot size. The minimum lot size in Bozeman is 4000 SF. (Table 38.320.030.)
  2. Minimum lot width. All new lots must be 50’ wide (unless accessed by an alley, then 40’). (Table 38.320.030.B)
  3. Setbacks. Setbacks are the minimum distance between the lot line and the building. Per code, all lots must have a 15’ front setback, 5’ side setbacks, and a 20’ rear setback. The “required space for setbacks” formula is “Empty Space for Setbacks = 350 + 10L + 35W” where L is the length of the building envelope and W is its width. To build a 100 SF shack you would need an 800 SF lot. That works out to 100 SF of space for you and 700 SF for the planning department (Table 38.320.030.C). Of course, even without the 4000 SF lot size minimum, an 800 SF lot is impossible, since lots must be at least 50’ wide and have 20’ of empty space at their rear—1000 SF of empty space for the rear setback alone.
  4. Lot coverage. In addition to required setbacks, and a minimum lot size, city code also places a strict maximum on how much of the lot your house can cover. (Table 38.320.030.C) This is separate from the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) maximum that prescribes how many square feet of interior space you can have.

It’s not just the lot size minimums. The ban on small lots is also codified in our lot width minimums, required setbacks, lot coverage maximums, FAR maximums, block frontage requirements, street access requirements, off-street parking requirements, utility easements, and elsewhere. All of these different regulations do the exact same thing: they effectively prohibit small lots. This is redundant and counterproductive to the city’s affordability and sustainability goals.

We live in a city with an affordability crisis that bans small lots. Because land is expensive, a ban on small lots is effectively a ban on small houses (like many of those built in Bozeman in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s). Consistent with national trends, our average house size in ballooning, even as fewer existing Bozemanites are able to afford housing.

What justifies Bozeman’s ban on small lots? Why do we ban small lots but not large lots? Why do we prescribe lot sizes at all?

We live in a city that pays lip service to “sustainability” and yet over half of residential areas are zoned in a way that prohibits multiunit development or duplex conversions. Low density development fuels sprawl increasing our reliance of cars. Single-family detached houses are far less energy efficient than housing units that share walls. Obviously, many people prefer to live in a detached house that does not share walls, but why explicitly prohibit the occasional duplex or triplex across vast swaths of town?

In her book “The Five-Ton Life” (a profile of American communities that produce less than half of Bozeman’s per-capita greenhouse gas emissions) Susan Subak demonstrates conclusively that greenwashing with LED lights and solar panels does far less to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than reducing building sizes and sharing walls. Subak writes that tools such as

“technical improvements in building design and renewable energy … can be helpful, but they give incomplete guidance on the essential importance of smaller floor plans and lot sizes in general. More broadly, city and community governments have a role to play in expanding opportunities for smaller living spaces by changing zoning laws to allow for more compact development, multi-unit construction and single-house to multi-unit conversions.”

It’s time for city leaders to take tangible action:

  1. Eliminate lot size minimums (acknowledging that other code provisions such as setbacks and utility easements will ensure that lots remain adequately large).
  2. Reduce required front setbacks to 10’ and required rear setbacks to 5’.
  3. Waive lot coverage maximums for floorplans of up to 1500 SF.
  4. Modify our zoning code (based on the recent examples from Oregon and Minneapolis) to allow duplexes or triplexes in every neighborhood.

Are we serious about affordability and sustainability—or not? What could we possibly lose by allowing smaller lots and smaller houses?