Building our Future Together - Development Code Update

In case you missed it, please note that one of our Commission meetings regarding the Unified Development Code Update is being hosted as a Special Meeting outside of our normal Commission meeting hours. This meeting will be on Monday, July 14 at 1 p.m. in the Commission Room at City Hall (121 N Rouse Ave) and will focus on zoning districts and uses. Thanks for your patience as we navigate scheduling conflicts and a packed Commission calendar – this topic needed its own meeting as we anticipate there being lots of discussion. As usual, you can attend in person or view the meeting online/participate remotely at https://www.bozeman.net/departments/city-commission/meeting-videos. Please join us and share your thoughts on this important topic!

As a reminder, we covered the “Mass and Scale of Buildings” topic at the City Commission meeting on June 24 and will cover the UDC’s relation to “Natural Resources” at the August 19^th City Commission meeting.

Our City Commission and staff have been busy at work discussing Engagement results and next steps. You can watch the recorded work sessions online— check out the May 20 session, starting at 03:11:46 and the June 3 session, starting at 38:37. These discussions helped inform what topics the Commission will focus on in future work sessions. Further UDC discussion will be back on the docket on June 24 to discuss mass and scale and zone edge transitions. Future meetings will discuss zoning districts and map at a work session, and will address identified elements relating to the environment at a subsequent work session. We will update this page once meeting dates have been confirmed.

Hope to see you at a future Commission meeting and you can always leave public comment at comments@bozeman.net.

A reminder that the UDC Engagement Report and Next Steps will be discussed at tonight's City Commission meeting. Staff will present and discuss findings from engagement over the last six months, as well as provide an introduction to topics identified through this time of engagement to be discussed by the City Commission work session on June 24.

Please find the survey results and toolkit responses linked here. They are listed under Engagement Reports on the right of the screen.

• Deep Dive Survey Results
• Deep Dive Survey Individual Responses
• Deep Dive Survey Filtered by Owners
• Deep Dive Survey Filtered by Renters
• UDC Toolkit Responses

Hope to see you tonight at 6pm at City Hall!

Drawing from community input in the winter of 2024, the City conducted six workshops in the spring of 2025 to gather more detailed feedback on five areas of community interest relating to the update of the UDC. Topics were: Transportation, Environment, Growth, Housing, and Neighborhoods. A consolidated report of the notes taken during the workshops is now available. The document is available in the Participation and Presentation Materials folder to the lower left of this web page. The document title is "Supplementary Eng Phase II - Spring 2025 Workshop Notes - Final.pdf". The document is lengthy at 64 pages. This information will be used along with survey data, advisory board comments, and other sources to help the City Commission identify policy directions as the UDC update moves forward.

The UDC Spring Survey - Deep Dive is officially open!

We have received a lot of useful input from hundreds of citizens on the update to the UDC, thank you! As public engagement has moved forward, the level of detail being gathered has increased. Drawing from the previous input, with this survey we ask for more detailed feedback on topics identified as important by the community during earlier input. All previous input is still part of the project. Following completion of this survey, results will be posted here on Engage Bozeman.

What's coming up next?

Staff will present a summary of feedback gathered during Phase 2 engagement (including spring workshops, advisory boards, toolkit chats, and this survey) at the City Commission meeting on May 20. A work session to discuss potential revisions in policy direction is expected at the Commission meeting on June 24. Both are public meetings and the public may attend in person or remotely through the City’s website. Comments may be submitted through comments@bozeman.net. A new version of the UDC draft, incorporating Commission direction from June 24 (informed by public feedback to date) is expected to be released for public review in summer.

Find the UDC survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/UDCdeepdive and complete by May 8!

Toolkits are live! Engagement continues with toolkits to support community organized in-person discussions. Each toolkit provides instructions, some basic background information on the topic, and some questions to help kick off a conversation. You are welcome to participate in as many different topics as you choose to. You may let us know that you're hosting an event by completing this registration form. This will help us follow up with reminders and make sure we're gathering your input, but it is not required.

Select the hyperlink for each topic to download the toolkit.

What are the topic areas of the toolkits?

• Neighborhoods: character, preservation, and compatibility
• Housing: affordability, supply, variety and choice
• Growth: zoning, density, buildings (height & transitions)
• Transportation: traffic, parking, ped & bike infrastructure,
• Environment: open space, natural areas, parks, wetlands, urban forest, water, sustainability

When your chat is over, be sure as the host or notetaker to complete the Post-Chat Survey to submit the results of your conversations. Please submit by April 30, 2025 so your input can be reviewed in preparation for City Commission consideration and direction at our meetings in May and June. Please contact Emily Kiely directly if you have any trouble downloading the toolkits or submitting your feedback.

Once all input is collected, analyzed, and considered, the next steps will involve discussions with the City’s advisory boards and City Commission to determine the scope of potential revisions to the draft UDC. Following necessary time to write those revisions, city staff will release an updated draft for public review and comment. This will be followed by the formal hearing process, likely in the fall, for ultimate decision by the City Commission.

We are half way through the UDC workshops for this second part of UDC engagement. We've already hit 200 attendees and we're looking forward to interacting with even more of you in the upcoming sessions!

If you missed the online workshops, the staff presentations are available to watch. Check out the Transportation and Environment recording and slides from Feb 24 and Growth, Housing, and Neighborhoods recording and slides from March 4.

We hope to see you tonight at Chief Joseph Middle School (4255 Kimberwicke St.) at 6 p.m. in the Gym to discuss Housing and Neighborhoods.

Mark your calendar for next week, too!

• Growth & Neighborhoods: March 10: 6 to 8 p.m. at Sacajawea Middle School, 3525 S 3rd Ave
• All topics (Transportation, Environment, Growth, Housing, Neighborhoods): March 12: 6 to 8 p.m. at Willson School, 404 W Main St. *Note that due to discussing all topics during this meeting, topics will be condensed and not as large of a deep dive.

We are working to complete the host your own UDC chat and survey. When these are available, we will post on this project page. Thank you to everyone who has spread the news, brought a friend, and attended a workshop. We're thrilled to have so many engaged community members!

Engagement continues with four in-person workshops held in various parts of the city, two online workshops, a toolkit for residents to host their own chat about the UDC, and an online survey. The purpose of this next part of the engagement process is to deep dive into the key topics that were identified during part 1 of engagement. The dates, times, and topics each workshop will cover are below.

• Transportation & Environment: Feb. 24: 12 to 2 p.m. online with registration to attend at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/uPwp9O1KQWGAdMguAl2Y1Q.
• Transportation & Environment: Feb. 26: 6 to 8 p.m. at Gallatin County Fairgrounds, 901 N Black Ave.
• Growth, Housing, & Neighborhoods: March 3: 12 to 2 p.m. online with registration to attend at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/s8ahgU-iRVK8or7x658DFQ
• Housing & Neighborhoods: March 5: 6 to 8 p.m. at Chief Joseph Middle School, 4255 Kimberwicke St.
• Growth & Neighborhoods: March 10: 6 to 8 p.m. at Sacajawea Middle School, 3525 S 3rd Ave
• All topics (Transportation, Environment, Growth, Housing, Neighborhoods): March 12: 6 to 8 p.m. at Willson School, 404 W Main St. *Note that due to discussing all topics during this meeting, topics will be condensed and not as large of a deep dive.

If you’re unable to attend these in-person events, there will still be opportunity to share input on the key topic areas. Be sure to stay subscribed to this page to be notified when the UDC chat toolkits become available and the online survey launches. Attendees will also have time to share input on topics outside of these towards the end of each event.

Once all input is collected, analyzed, and considered, the next steps will involve discussions with the City’s advisory boards and City Commission to determine the scope of potential revisions to the draft UDC. Following necessary time to write those revisions, city staff will release an updated draft for public review and comment. This will be followed by the formal hearing process, likely in the fall, for ultimate decision by the City Commission.

What is included in the topic areas?

• Neighborhoods: character, preservation, and compatibility
• Housing: affordability, supply, variety and choice
• Growth: zoning, density, buildings (height & transitions)
• Transportation & Environment: traffic, parking, ped & bike infrastructure, open space, natural areas, parks, wetlands, urban forest, water, sustainability

We have just about wrapped up all of part one of the Supplemental Public Engagement phase. Since December, we have launched a survey and hosted five in-person open houses, one webinar, five neighborhood meetings, two meetings with interested groups and one more to come!

We’ve been busy analyzing the data collected to identify your top concerns and priorities for part 2 of engagement. The survey results, including graphs and an excel sheet, are in the Engagement Reports folder on this page, so take some time to review if you’re interested. The open house/webinar input is also available.

We presented our findings to City Commission February 3 (link to meeting recording) and gathered direction from them on how to group topics together for the workshops coming up later this month. The main topics areas will focus on Growth and Neighborhoods, Housing and Neighborhoods, and Transportation and Environment, and we will have four in-person meetings and two virtual workshops.

The final details for the workshops will be posted early next week, so watch out for more communications from us!

We are so grateful for the time and effort spent attending our open houses and providing thoughtful feedback to staff and Commissioners. Spread over six open houses, we had over 310 attendees from all over Bozeman. It's clear how much people care about the future of Bozeman.

To review the materials from the open houses, please check out the display boards and slides, available under Presentation and Participation Materials section located on right (if you're viewing on your phone, keep scrolling to the bottom). If you weren't able to catch any of the open houses, feel free to watch the recording and flip through the slides from the virtual open house. We are also still collecting feedback by the Areas of Interest survey until January 8.

As a reminder, this phase of engagement was to hear from you and identify the topics that are most important to you that we can explore deeper in Phase 2. The Community Development team is working hard to transcribe the feedback received. At this time, the responses received on Housing Alternatives are available to be reviewed. You can expect a transparent report on the housing alternatives and top priorities in the coming weeks.

Again, thank you for taking the time to work with us in guiding future UDC conversations!