Document Missoula_doc_6ab678ed2c

Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 1 of 34 MISSOULA CONSOLIDATED PLANNING BOARD MINUTES June 2, 2009 - 7:00 PM Missoula City Council Chambers, 140 West Pine Street MEMBERS PRESENT: Don MacArthur, Chair John DiBari Kelley Durbin Jonathan Haber Tim Ibey Heidi Kendall Jerry O’Connell Jerry Petasek (7:12) ALTERNATES PRESENT: Don Latham Tim Skufca MEMBERS ABSENT: Jennifer Clary STAFF PRESENT: Roger Millar Mary McCrea Sharon Reed OTHERS PRESENT Rod Austin Charlie Beaton Brent Campbell Dan Cederberg Ken Duce Matt Ellis Anne Guest John Horner OTHERS PRESENT Jinny Iverson Kim Klages-Johns Matt Loomis Manning Lynn Redding Colleen Rudec Melissa Schmitt Kent Watson Please Note: Written comment and meeting handouts received at this meeting are available for review at the Office of Planning and Grants. Planning Board, City Council and County Commissioners have received copies of the comments for consideration. Photocopies may be obtained from OPG. An administrative fee is required for photocopies. I. ADMINISTRATIVE BUSINESS Don MacArthur: I’ll call the June 2, 2009 Missoula Consolidated Planning Board to order. [7:03 pm]. II. ROLL CALL Don MacArthur: Can we have a roll call, please, Sharon. Roll call indicated that 7 members and 2 alternates were present. [Jerry Petasek arrived at 7:13 pm] Sharon Reed: Don, we have missing members that are County-appointed, two of them, can Don Latham fill in for one of the County appointees and then Tim Skufca, the City alternate, fill in, also. Don MacArthur: Yes. Sharon Reed: Thank you. III. IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Don MacArthur: Okay we have approval of minutes, April 29, 2009, May 5, 2009, May 6, 2009, May 19, 2009? Do we have May 19th in our hands, yet? Sharon Reed: May 19th was completed today, they’ll be reviewed and you’ll approve them at your next meeting. Don MacArthur: So any additions or corrections to the first three: 29th, May 5th, May 6th? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 2 of 34 Don Latham: I move the minutes be accepted as written. Tim Ibey: Second. Don MacArthur: Second by Tim, any discussion? All in favor say ‘aye’. [All Board members answered ‘aye’.] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] The motion carried. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Don MacArthur: Next on the agenda is public comment, anyone who would like to speak on an item that is not on our agenda tonight? We’ll get to you, Mary, in a second, it doesn’t look like there is any public comment. V. STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS Don MacArthur: Staff announcements? Mary McCrea: Good evening, for the record Mary McCrea with the Office of Planning and Grants. The following public hearing items are scheduled for your June 16th meeting to be held in the City Council Chambers: The first item is a Rezoning Request at 2330 Higgins Avenue, the Denny’s Copy Stop site. It’s a a request from Dennis Louquet, represented by DJ&A, P.C., to rezone a portion of Lot 12A located in the northeast corner of the Higgins Avenue and South Avenue intersection, from R-1 (Residential, 8 dwelling units per acre) to BN (Neighborhood Business), legally described as Lot 12A of Block 13 of Residence Addition. And Janet Rhoades will be bringing that project to you. And second public hearing will be Seeley Lake Regional Plan Update – County Growth Policy Amendment. The Missoula County Rural Initiatives Office has been working with the Seeley Lake Community Council on an updated land use plan for the Seeley Lake area including that portion of the Clearwater River watershed in Missoula County. Rural Initiatives will present a summary of the key provisions and land use designations in the plan, a summary of issues raised in the planning process, a discussion of outstanding issues, and a compilation of public and agency comment received on the Public Hearing Draft. The Plan would be adopted as an area-specific amendment to the County's Growth Policy. The intention is to zone in accordance with the Plan’s land use designations soon after Plan adoption. And Nancy Heil will be bringing that to you. I have one Governing Body Action to report. On May 27th, the Board of County Commissioners approved the Homestead Vista Subdivision as amended. The Commissioners agreed with all of Planning Board's recommendations except as follows: a. The Commissioners added condition language addressing the crossing of an off-site irrigation ditch, including verification of the crossing location, appropriate culvert size, and a requirement for a Riparian Resource Management Plan requiring road-related disturbance to occur to the least extent possible. b. The Commissioners added a condition requiring a walkway along one side of the off-site access road; and c. The Commissioners retained Planning Board’s recommendation for a public access easement that connects through to Sleeman Creek Road on the west side of the subdivision, but they eliminated language requiring construction of the gravel emergency access road. And tomorrow at PAZ, the Plat, Annexation and Zoning Committee meeting, there will be a presentation by Greg Sullivan, who is the current City Attorney for Bozeman, who was the former Planning Director in Gallatin County; and he will be doing a presentation on Transfer of Development Rights. And that will be second on the Agenda at PAZ, which is from 10:05 am until Noon, tomorrow. That’s all I have. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 3 of 34 Don MacArthur: Okay. Any questions for Mary? VI. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Downtown Master Plan The Downtown Master Plan is a 25-year community vision spear-headed by the Missoula Redevelopment Agency (MRA), Missoula Business Improvement District (BID), Missoula Parking Commission, and the Missoula Downtown Association (MDA). The Plan outlines the fundamental concepts of future land use and transportation, as well as strategies for implementation, which will ensure the long-term health, character and vitality of Missoula’s urban core. The Plan was developed through a public process facilitated by the Missoula BID and the MDA in 2008 which included four public workshops and eighty-five (85) stakeholder meetings. The Plan incorporates the input from this inclusive process and reflects the community’s vision for the future of downtown. Don MacArthur: All right, we’ll go to public hearings; we have one public hearing tonight, the review of the Downtown Master Plan. I’m not sure who’s giving the presentation. Rod or...okay. Matt Ellis: Members of the Planning Board, I’m Matt Ellis, I’m a member of the Steering Committee for the Greater Downtown Master Plan and we appreciate your time tonight. We have…we’re glad to be here, we’ve been waiting patiently since you had a busy schedule the last few months and we’re very excited to continue our process of getting this Master Plan approved for the Downtown. I’m myself and Rod Austin and Linda McCarthy are here to be lead presenters, representing the Steering Committee and the community at large for the creation of this plan; and we’re going to do a quick presentation and then we’d be happy to answer questions that you might have. With you, I gave you all a packet that we put together and what this packet consists of is a first section, which is basically our PowerPoint that the audience can see in front of us for you to have and then the second section is letters of support from the sponsoring agencies and then the last section is some additional letters of support. In addition, I’m not sure how many of our supporters today are going to speak at the public hearing due to time and issues so I’d like, if I can, to have all the people in the audience who are here to support the Master Plan please stand up. And I’m going to go through a PowerPoint here, which is that first part of your section that’s basically going to just kind of recap a little bit of what we’ve gone through as a process, talk about some key points to the plan. We’re under the assumption that you have all read the plan, you’ve received it in advance; we also have presented to you our long presentation on the details of the plan in great detail, so since we were told we have no more than ten minutes, we do not want to try to do that today. So we’re going to, like I said, assume that you guys have absorbed the plan in some form and hopefully that’s correct. So, today, I’m going to go through a brief recap of how we got there for everybody out there’s pleasure and also so that we can lay the groundwork for this public hearing. The purpose, once again, for our plan was to lay out the future of Downtown Missoula, provide a direction for positive change. We wanted to indicate how much and what kind of development was appropriate for the downtown, provide reasonable certainty and predictability for potential investors, provide guidelines for day-to-day decisions by governing officials and Boards like yourselves. Some other purposes were: to suggest the impact of changes over time, provide better vision, definition to the downtown, visual definition of the downtown…we’ll talk about the…what the boundary line of downtown is and that’s a topic that our community has debated a little bit, to serve as a document for the citizens to understand, propose changes and put them in the proper context to define obligations for government officials and those who follow in decision making. Elements of the plan: Our goal was to have planning for the physical development of the downtown area, ensure that the plan was future-oriented; we wanted to also insure that the plan is geographically inclusive ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 4 of 34 and looks at the entire downtown, not just businesses, not just central district, but residential and how the downtown not only affects centrally but also the entire community at large. We also included a designation of preferred land uses, development of public facilities, and analysis of transportation and circulation patterns. We initiated this project with a 25-person Steering Committee in January of 2007 and we did our best to represent all interests of the community: Historic Preservation, Business Community, Downtown Association, Neighborhood Representatives—that’s just to name a few. We spent several months developing our purpose in the elements and the study area, and then we had an RSP and advertised it nationwide. We had 36 planning firms apply, we interviewed six, and we selected Crandall Arambula of Portland Oregon in December of 2007. Our Steering Committee is listed on the screen here and in your packets and you can see it’s very diverse and we did our best to include everybody that was wanting to sit at the table. We then created a 25-year plan for downtown and I think it’s very important that you realize that this is a 25- year plan. One of the biggest hurdles we’ve had in educating the community is that everybody’s assuming that everything in the plan is going to happen tomorrow. And so not everything in the plan is going to happen tomorrow. We’re seeing great progress and we’re going to talk about that later in this presentation that are already happening even without the plan being adopted yet, but it is a 25-year plan. Streetcars in downtown is a 25-year goal, for example. We had six consultant visits, we had four public workshops, we had 85 stakeholder meetings, we had more than 2,000 participants in these meetings, we feel that it was a very open and welcoming process and all of our document and for those viewing at home, are available currently at missouladowntownbid.org. Linda McCarthy, from the MDA and on the Steering Committee, took it upon herself to take this presentation farther than just these public hearings and events that we had. And she actually did additional outreach along with some other people’s help to organize this effort and went to these groups listed on the screen (and you were one of those) and basically presented a long PowerPoint that showed detail about what our plan included and got feedback and it helped develop the plan in additional ways. So what’s unique? We have a significant community-wide planning process that we initiated and followed through with. It was initiated by private-sector investment, we managed…we were managed…we managed this by an organization outside of OPG, so it wasn’t a City-run organization; $450,000 raised for consulting services, including $25,000 from the Big Sky Trust from a lot of the people behind; it was definitely a pri…a public-private partnership and we had nearly 60 financial contributors to make this thing happen. The next two pages will show you people that contributed to this venture; and I encourage you to, when you look at this list, look at the breadth of the list in terms of location, in terms of who they are and what they represent in this community. And you’ll hopefully agree with us that this process was very much an open process for the entire community and that this Downtown Master Plan is indeed a community Master Plan. The next slide is our capacity diagram, and we’re not going to spend time here in great detail, but the one thing that I do want to show you and you’ll have to look at the screen behind you to see it in greater detail because your copies are black and white in your packet. Just look at the color differentials and you’ll see the density in the core of downtown and you can see—at least we feel you can see how we’ve really tried to emphasize maintaining the residential component of downtown and protect it while having the core…be…have the density in the core…so…of use. So you can see by the colored buildings and also by the residential in the light brown that we definitely had a strategy to try to make sure that that happened. Fundamental concepts, just some quick overview of some of the concepts that came out of our plan: Land use framework, we have a retail hotspot, it’s in the core downtown; the idea is to maintain, expand a mix of retail and provide a more efficient and strategic parking sites that are attached to that retail. Open space, we want to improve and expand our parks and open space and create a public square and you’ll see that in our plan. More land use framework, we had housing, housing is a major component of our plan, we want to increase downtown housing options and the density of that housing. We also want to encourage well-defined ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 5 of 34 infill where appropriate. Yet, at the same time, it’s very important to us to maintain the character and preserve the history of our residential areas. Some of the exciting things for me, personally, is seeing like Pine Street’s character brought through downtown to St. Pat’s, which is one of the ideas that was thrown up in the plan. So some real exciting things…not only are we protecting the neighborhood, but we’re also bringing the neighborhood more into the core. Employment, maintain and encourage downtown employment; cultural and visitor, we wanted to create opportunities for civic arts and cultural activities, we want to utilized tourism for economic development, our downtown is one of our best-selling points of our community to outside visitors. This is a…a brief diagram of how that land use fits, how all those things we just talked about work as one cohesive unit in the downtown area. You can see the retail hotspot in the center, and you can see how all this all works together with housing and such. Next page is our retail hotspot in detail and you can also see where we identify some anchors for retail. You can see where we’re looking to do parking structures and such. Next page for fundamental concepts is our circulation and framework. Naturally, transportation issues are major in Missoula and so this plan is very heavy in it. Bicycle-pedestrian system: we really wanted to enhance our pedestrian environment and improve bicycle facilities; we’ll talk later that we’re already making headway in that regard. Streetcar, improve and expand public transportation options. The streetcar has a real positive effect to investment into our downtown area. Two-way streets manage traffic and improve access to the downtown area. The next slide will basically show you some of that circulation framework, there’s a lot more detail in the Master Plan if you want to go to it and look at it, but you can see that we haven’t left out any mode of transportation for the downtown area. Management strategies, in addition to this Master Plan, which I want to emphasize that you guys are here today to approve, hopefully, the Master Plan Document itself. There are other separate from the Master Plan, management strategy documents that were created through this process that have a lot more detail on things like parking, housing and retail, employment, and tourism. We have a strategy for how to vet and improve those management strategies; they are not through this process today. The parking strategy is going to go through Missoula Parking Commission and City Council. Now, the Parking Commission is going to bring Dennis Burns, who was the consultant on that portion of the strategy back into Missoula to have a public hearing and an open house for the community to vet that parking strategy in more detail. And so that’s an example of how…why we think those things need to be taken to those areas of concentration so that they can be handled in a different manner. It doesn’t effect or change the basis of the Master Plan, which is what you’re going to approve today. Housing strategy, you can see who we identified to approve that as well as our retail strategy, the employment strategy, and also the tourism strategy. Other support documents are listed here. They are all available on the BID website for people to review and delve into on a deeper basis. Our adoption and timeline, which is our next slide here; this is going to show you what we’ve done to-date and how we’ve gotten to this point. Four major sponsoring organizations of this plan: Missoula Downtown Association, the Missoula Parking Commission, the Downtown BID, and the Missoula Redevelopment Agency. They’ve put the…three of those organizations, the Parking Commission, the Downtown BID, and the MRA did the lion’s share of the funding for this plan. The…those four Boards we took this to before went to a City agency and those four organizations all approved the BID on those dates…or the Master Plan on those dates, sorry. The City Council PAZ Committee had two separate meetings with us on April 15th and April 22nd to…while we were kind of in the holding pattern for your Board, we felt it was good use of our time to start talking about the plan, give them an opportunity to ask us questions, so that when we got to the City Council we didn’t have as big of a job. And we did that on April 15th and April 22nd. The…and then we’re here today on June 2nd, and then the goal is to take it to Missoula City Council in June or July. Endorsements, as a mentioned earlier, the MDA, BID, and MPC all recommended City Council approve this; their approval letters are in the second part of your packet and they’ve all asked that not only this be approved but incorporated in the City of Missoula Growth Policy. The MRA added an amendment, if you will, to that approval; and it is:” with the modification to the section of the plan dealing with the configuration of Broadway, ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 6 of 34 to continue the public process for design and review of alternatives for Broadway between Russell and Van Buren Streets.” And that letter is in your packet as well and we have this slide in your packet if you need to refer to it later for the exact wording of what they recommended. Our committee, as the Steering Committee, has made a decision that that amendment and whether or not it’s put into the Master Plan should be vetted out and discussed through your process and the City Council’s process. So we’re going to put that back on you to make a decision and decide if that’s something that you guys want to include in. Items to address in the future, these are issues that are going to happen right away that we need to look at and the good news is we’re already working on many of them. One is Higgins Avenue, it is in process, had a great meeting last week with bike people, with business people, with the MDT, the City, and it’s real exciting about the potential that Higgins from the bridge north is going to have bike lanes within the near future. And that, to me, is already an example of what this Master Plan was meant to do—bring people together that haven’t been at the table together and make good things happen for our community. Protected bikeway or on-street bike lanes, once again, it’s still…it’s in process, we’re already having discussions on which way this community would go and it’s looking like we might actually have a section of protected bikeway to actually try out and see if it works for our community and that’s an exciting thing. So we’re…you know, it’s a long way from…a decision hasn’t been made on that but the good news is that there’s a discussion going on in our community to make those decisions. Now, one of the reasons it was put on this list to address in the future is that we as a Steering Committee and as a community decided the Master Plan was not the place to make decisions on what Higgins Avenue and what the bike lanes were like. And that we gave alternatives in the Master Plan, you’ll see multiple different alternatives for each but we felt that it was something that needed to be vetted out when the money was available to do it. It so happens that we have opportunities on Higgins Avenue with some funding possibilities and some MDT work to make those things happen. So we’re working hard on them now to accomplish that. And that’s exactly what we felt the plan would do: was create opportunities for funding and create public discussions so that as a community we can come together and make headway. Design standards and regulatory updates, you know, there’s a lot of detail that still needs to be done in our downtown area and as you know with dealing with the zoning for the last few months, or year, or however long we’ve been doing that, it was decided that we would just mess up your process by trying to make our downtown zoning be a part of the Master Plan. And you needed to get your work done first and then we need to tackle Central Business District zoning at a later date. And that’s going to be in the near future. That’s one of the first implementation things this plan needs to do and that’s deal with downtown zoning—building heights and uses, neighborhood protection, those are all part of that discussion and that needs to happen sooner than later. The next slide is the points of discussion to date. I put…what we did on this slide was we decided to present to you any issue that might have had some type of negative or different opinion to what we have in the Master Plan. Now, understand, some of these issues might just be one person, it also…you know, we just decided we wanted to lay out anything we heard that was that was contrary to what we were proposing in the plan, so I’ll go through them: ƒ Broadway lane configuration—you’ve already seen our result of that discussion through the MRA’s amendment. There’s…that’s been a hot topic in our community for quite awhile now. ƒ Higgins lane configuration—we think that that is getting solved as we speak. And so, once again, we decided we weren’t going to make a recommendation but the Master Plan is bringing people together and then there’s going to be a concrete plan coming forward in the near future. ƒ Master Plan boundary definition—there’s some debate as what the definition of downtown is; for example, originally, when we started with our boundary, we had more of the University Neighborhood in, we decided, after talking with that neighborhood, that keeping some…that residential out was a good thing. Contrary to that, we had some discussion from people…well, one or two people that said South Higgins shouldn’t be a part of downtown. Well, there’s nobody on our Steering Committee that agrees with that and in fact, there’s a lot of South Higgins’ businesses behind me today that don’t agree with that. So they are included in our boundary definition. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 7 of 34 ƒ Zoning—once again, I explained why that is in an issue and we’re going to be tackling that right away. ƒ Neighborhood Protection—there was concern that we didn’t have enough neighborhood protection; I assure you that there is enough neighborhood protection in this plan and that this Steering Committee wants nothing to do negative to the neighborhood. And I think we’ve proven that through the Master Plan process and it’s in there and I think future zoning discussions are going to help solidify that protection. ƒ Bike Lane Configuration—once again, there’s just differences on opinion on what bike lanes we should have, what type, how many, and we’ve put that for the community to decide and Higgins, with the money being there, it’s going to be a starting point to start those discussions and make some progress. Our purpose with your board? Here’s our action item that we would like from you today. We ask that the Missoula Consolidated Planning Board approve the Missoula Downtown Master Plan and recommend that City Council approve the Missoula Downtown Master Plan and incorporate the plan into the City of Missoula Growth Policy. We think it’s very important that it is included in the Growth Policy going forward. For more information, anybody watching or on this Board, you’re welcome to go to the Missoula Downtown BID and there’s there. We have another slide at the end here of our capacity diagram and the reason that’s on here is in case we needed to refer to it, we didn’t have to find it in the middle of the presentation. So that’s our PowerPoint and we hope that that helped you guys start this framework for this discussion tonight. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Ellis. Is there anyone else from…representing the plan or Roger, do you want to comment briefly or not briefly. Roger Millar: I’ll comment briefly. I’ve spent way too much time with you guys the last couple months. I like you all, but way too much time. And I’m happy to be here on another subject: The Greater Downtown Master Plan. Your Chair asked that OPG, you know, kind of layout the work that we’ve been doing in this process and what I wanted to do is just briefly walk you through this…the document that I left on each of your places, there, I emailed it to you earlier today and there are copies out in the hall if anybody in the public is interested in it. Looking at just the issues of conformance with the Growth Policy, I thought that it would be ideal to have some of the more formal language in the record. I’m not going to read it, but I think by providing it to you, it’s in the record. Chapter 5 of the Adopted Growth Policy, it was adopted by the City and the County in 2006 deals with regional vicinity and issue plans. And this document, the Greater Downtown Master Plan, would be a vicinity plan. The timeline, it can be determined by the governing body, the content is out there to further the goals of the policy, the Growth Policy, and it says in particular it should describe how the following three forms of development can be guided without exceeding the County’s carrying capacity and these are the bullets on the bottom of page one and the top of page two. Housing projects will produce an adequate supply and variety; business activity that will provide good jobs and a reliable tax base; and infrastructure including public works, human and educational services and public uses of land, such as recreation. The Greater Downtown Master Plan hits those three right on the head. And in the process, what the Growth Policy talks about is making sure that it involves the public, and I think the sponsors of this plan did a great job as well. What I did on the middle of page three through page nine is I took the Community Goals and Objectives that I think are directly addressed by the Greater Downtown Master Plan, and listed them for you. These are not all of the goals and objectives that are in the growth policy, I think you can make an argument tangentially that all of them are addressed by this plan, but these are just dead-on; the Master Plan addresses them and addresses them in a way that our office feels is appropriate and consistent with the Master Plan. And then, on page nine, the last page of this, I wanted to spend just a couple of minutes with you on conformance with the urban fringe development area plan; as you know, back last fall you recommended ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 8 of 34 UFDA to the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners and it was adopted by both bodies in December of 2008. UFDA allocates projected population growth to various geographic areas within the Missoula Urban area, including the downtown. And we developed UFDA concurrent with, you know, in time, the Greater Downtown Master Plan—the two teams were talking to one another. They took what we were looking at in terms of regional growth and where it should go and we listened to what they had to say about what the downtown would be appropriate…you know, appropriately absorbed, what would be the right mix and, again, what is being presented to you tonight by the BID, the MDA, the MRA, and the Parking Commission is consistent with UFDA. The last piece of this is next steps. We participated while it was pointed out that the Office of Planning and Grants did not manage this planning process and it was not budgeted in our work plan, and it was not an effort of the City-County Office of Planning Grants, OPG staff did participate in the development of the plan. I sat on the Steering Committee, I helped developed the scope of work, I helped with the consultant selection process. The head of our Urban Initiatives Group, Mike Barton, was on the Technical Team; people from Transportation Planning participated; Laval, in her spare time, spent some time working on the Greater Downtown Master Plan. So we were involved and we commented extensively on the project. And one of the things that’s really important about these Master Plan projects, these vicinity plans and neighborhood plans and the like is that they be implementable and that they be implemented in a timely manner. And that really, from a land use perspective means if there are changes to zoning that need to occur, they should be tied to the planning effort. We were doing the rewrite of the zoning code at the same time that the sponsors of this project were getting it up off the ground and we talked a lot about form-based code, we talked a lot about some new ideas for how to guide development in the downtown and our caution to the plan sponsors was that the code as it exists today, Title 19, is such a mess that you really don’t want to start building on a foundation of sand or Jell-O or however you want to describe Title 19, it didn’t make any sense to do that, and bringing discussions of more sophisticated zoning techniques in while we were talking about City-wide zoning was just going to get everybody perhaps even more confused than they might have been otherwise. So what we did is, again, we worked with the consultant team, with Crandall Arambula, to…they looked over what we did, they made recommendations and Kirk incorporated some of those recommendations in to the plan. We reserved, and you guys recommended that we reserve a space for a downtown overlay zone, which was one of the recommendations that came out of the planning effort. And another discussion was doing some form of form-based or hybrid form-based coding that addresses the form of the downtown and design more than the map-kind of zoning that we’ve done, that you just spent an awful lot of time on, that what we call Euclidean zoning in the planning world. So, we’ve been talking with the project sponsors about you know, assuming one, that Title 20 is adopted, big assumption; assuming that you guys recommend and City Council adopts the greater downtown plan, that’s another assumption; but assuming all of those things happen, the project sponsors and our office want to embark shortly thereafter (we might take a little vacation, first) but shortly thereafter on a discussion about having a different kind of a zoning process perhaps as an option for the downtown, where an owner of property in the downtown could develop their property under the zoning ordinance as it exists or if they wanted, they’d have the option of adopting…or developing under a form-based code. I honestly don’t know where that’s going to wind up, but that’s the initial discussions we’ve been having and our office stands ready to work with the project sponsors to make that a reality when the time is appropriate. So with that, I’d be happy to answer any questions from OPG’s perspective and I think you probably want to hear what the community wants to say. Don MacArthur: Thanks, Roger. Okay, so I’ll open it up to public testimony now. Anyone who would like to speak. I don’t think that it needs to be pros and cons on this one, but just come to the mic and state your name and give us your comments. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 9 of 34 Linda McCarthy: Hi, I’m Linda McCarthy and one behalf on all of the folks that were involved in the process, I want to say thank you to you, Roger, and your staff, for helping us put this plan together and providing excellent leadership for us as we walked our way through. Obviously, we hadn’t done this kind of a project before for downtown, that is indeed the first of its kind and everybody that’s in the room tonight is indeed here to speak in favor of the plan; but nobody really wants to waste your time, you know, hearing us drone on and on and on about why it’s good and why you should adopt it. You know, there might be a couple specific points to make, but generally people are here just to show unified support for the plan. So, you know, I don’t know that we want to have everybody come up to the microphone and speak to it; but obviously, they are here in support of the plan. Don MacArthur: Okay. I guess we certainly want to give people an opportunity to address their concerns, if there are concerns, or if there are things that we should be considering for amendment or refinement of the plan as we deliberate over it. There certainly was a comment that Mr. Ellis brought up about the MRA and their recommended slight amendment to our action. So anybody who wants to speak on those issues or other issues, please come to the mic. Ken Duce: Hi, my name is Ken Duce. I happen to be the president of the Hip Strip Commercial Property Owners Association, but I’m here speaking on my own behalf, only. I am a live-in and a participant in the BID taxes as a owner in the Front Street Urban Renewal District and I’m also a part owner of the Penwell Hotel Building, which is in the Hip Strip, at the corner of Third and Higgins. I’ve been involved in this process from the very beginning, as well as the Zoning Rewrite. I think Crandall Arambula Team, which includes our team leaders from OPG, MRA, BID, the Parking Commission, the Downtown Association have done a wonderful job. I support the whole plan. I ask you to please adopt the plan as it is, I think it works and it…the whole plan needs all of its parts to work, to make it work, so that all of downtown works together. So I would encourage you to adopt the plan and not try to micromanage it and make changes. I appreciated what Roger just said about the implementation stage, we can have a plan if the zoning doesn’t get changed to help make it work or to allow it to work, it’s not going to do us much good. So I encourage you to work with our planners at OPG, the downtown team, and Crandall Arambula to work on the implementation of a zoning overlay for all of downtown zoning district that are parts of these plan, not just the CBG, the whole Downtown Master Plan Area which currently in the Title 20, if approved, includes various residential districts, C-commercial, CBD, and other districts and all of those need the help of a…of an overlay zone to allow the master plan intent to move forward where the Title 20 zoning won’t allow many parts of it to go forward. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Duce. Melissa Schmitt: Hi, my name is Melissa Schmitt and I am the representative from the Riverfront Neighborhood Council and I just want to speak in support of the plan. I’m also on the Steering Committee for the Downtown Master Plan and I’ve been very involved since Day One and have received feedback from many, many residents in the Riverfront neighborhood and in my conversations 99 percent of the people I’ve spoken to have been also in support of the Plan. And I would also like to mention that I think Crandall Arambula did an excellent job of, you know, protecting the neighborhoods as they are and protecting the character that we really appreciate in our neighborhoods surrounding the downtown area. So that’s it, thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Ms. Schmitt. Lynn Redding: Hello, my name is Lynn Redding and I represent Heart of Missoula Neighborhood Council and I’ve also been a member of the Steering Committee from the beginning of the process. And our neighborhood very often doesn’t have a lot of participation, you know, residents are often renters or, you know, there’s a lot of businesses and such. Recently we’ve had two meetings and more neighbors are coming out. And I think part of that is this type of process that’s going on with the Master Plan, with the UFDA, with the Zoning, etcetera and most of the people have been very positive and supportive of the plan ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 10 of 34 and I think particularly for Heart of Missoula it’s important because we don’t have a Neighborhood Plan. And this one, it goes beyond just a plan, it’s really a greater vision and the consultants and really everybody, soup to nuts, has, you know, put a lot of heart and soul and, you know, vision into this plan. And so I personally hope that it’s adopted and, you know, many of my neighbors do too. Thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you Ms. Redding. Anyone else? Kent Watson: You know I can’t resist, Don. Kent Watson, I’m a landscape architect and a member of the MDA Board and I just wanted to mention, once again, the hard work that Crandall Arambula did on this whole process and if I can get her to stand up and tell you, Anne Guest shared something with us this morning about a meeting she attended in Denver and how this Master Plan really was something, it was pretty astounding to the group that she spoke to in Denver. But I also wanted to point out the fact that, and this will sound a bit self-serving but I’ll go ahead anyway—that Crandall Arambula is really a firm of landscape architects and architects and engineers. And the process that they brought to you is the kind of process that we as professionals do all the time and I’m just delighted that the City and the group that put this together hired them to do this work for you. So, Anne, can I get you to come up and tell us what you told us this morning at the Board meeting? I think it’s important that you hear this, because this goes well beyond Missoula and I think it’s important that hear what Anne shared with the group in Denver. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Mr. Watson. Anne Guest: Good evening, Anne Guest, Director of the Missoula Parking Commission. I just attended the international parking institute conference down in the Denver and did a presentation with Dennis Burns from Carl Walker on the Downtown Master Plan. It was extremely well-received and the feedback that we got really convinced me that we are uniquely ahead of the game with doing this, that we’re way progressive and I think we should all be proud of this hard work. So, thank you. Don MacArthur: Thank you, Ms. Guest. Okay, anyone else? All right, I’ll close the public portion of this hearing and move to Board questions, discussions. Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: I like this plan but I…one thing I’m curious about is how…what the thinking was that went into coming up with the suggested road or route for the streetcar. As a rookie at this stuff I look at it and I see, geez, over on the eastside there, east of Higgins, you got east-west route, they’re only one block apart and then there’s about seven or eight blocks north of there that seem as much of an integral part of downtown and the rail misses those. So I’m just…wanted to know what the thinking was. Roger Millar: I can talk a little bit about this and Brent might be able to step in. I know George and Don, you know, Crandall and Arambula, from when I worked in Portland and when I worked in Portland I was the Project Manager for the Portland Streetcar, which was the first modern streetcar in North America since before WWII and we spent an awful lot of time in Portland connecting places, connecting activity centers, and the other thing that we knew, or we learned very early on in the process is you have to avoid what I call the Nome to Key West Scenario, you know, where you have to build all of it before you can build any of it. And we wanted with this project the recommendation and where Crandall Arambula came in is what is a starter system that connects known activity centers without having huge costs…you know, pieces to it. For example, it would be wonderful to have it connect to the University of Montana. Small problem with that is the Clark Fork River and the need for a bridge. You can build these tracks in the street for, you know, 15 to 20 million dollars a mile, which sounds outrageous but, you know, heavy rail systems cost one and two and three hundred million a mile to build, these streetcars are actually pretty inexpensive for the technology type. So what we were looking at were what were activity centers that we wanted to connect up and the activity centers that are along the alignment are St. Pat’s Hospital and the Northside/Westside Neighborhood on that end, the Government Campus with City Hall, the Courthouse and the buildings that are adjacent to that, the retail hotspot on Main and Front, which is why its on both streets and then a nod towards the cultural center and the employment centers that are on the east end of the greater downtown area and kind of pointing towards the University as a direction to possibly expand and maybe encourage the University to expand itself ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 11 of 34 across the river and take advantage of the streetcar alignment being there. So, that was the…some of the thinking…and the other thing we did is we didn’t want it to be on major traffic streets. Streetcars operate in the street with traffic and so Ryman as opposed to Higgins and Front and Main as opposed to Broadway and, you know, that was some of the stuff that went into the alignment thinking. Again, it’s a vision, it’s a placeholder, and just like with Higgins and with Broadway, you’re going to go back and revisit that kind of stuff when it becomes a little bit more real in terms of schedule and financing and the rest of it. So, we could spend a whole lot of time micromanaging where the alignment went but, you know, in 10 or 15 or 20 years when that…when and if it actually happens, they’re going to go through it all over again, so. Brent Campbell: Brent Campbell with WGM Group. We were part of the consulting team here, too. In addition to what Roger pointed out, you know if we’re looking at light rail someday on the Bitterroot Spur, we wanted a connection there and it obviously connected with transit, the bus transit. The other part of it is that there are two kind of stimulus infrastructure improvements to make to get redevelopment in a downtown to start to occur. One is parks and one is transit—fixed rail transit. And so the route actually is sort of designated in areas where we would like to see redevelopment occur and being on that transit line…and Portland is a great example, has actually spurred the redevelopment. And so you see two in the plan very specifically and they are there for a reason, and that’s that redevelopment. Don MacArthur: Anyone else want to follow-up on transit issues? Okay, other questions. Heidi. Heidi Kendall: Against, perhaps, my better judgment, I do want to jump into the Broadway issue. And I have to say that I like the MRA amendment but I’d love to have the, you know, two-minute explanation of how the plan came up with the four-lane and then what the discussion was like at the MRA meeting, if anybody could do that. Rod Austin: I’ll try that. I think what Crandall Arambula were looking at was the plan that came out of the Broadway process that we did several years ago and in fact incorporated some of the direction that came out of that plan, initially. And I think that’s why you see there’s…at the end of that, four lanes was ultimately recommended based on the amount of traffic that was going to be on it at some point in time. The conversation at MRA, I was there, and Matt, if I goof it up, you can straighten me out. The bicycle advocates wanted to be sure that there was going to be a conversation at some point in time about whether or not Broadway actually would turn into a four-lane arterial again. We always looked at it that if it does go to four lane (we being primary Steering Committee and Master Plan) it would be a completely different type of four- lane street, it would not be this, you know, big, wide expanse that was difficult to get across, poorly lit, it would be more developed, you know, the way you develop businesses along that street. But I think that internally we always thought that that discussion would take place again. The fact that the plan really stated, I think if you look at…I can’t remember what page it is, Linda might remember, 94 or something like that, there’s a little arrow that says four lane Broadway and that was kind of the rubbing point. And so the bicycle advocates, you know, as the Boards were adopting this Master Plan, you know, BID, MDA, MRA, and Parking Commission, they were at each of those meetings and asked to be heard and were heard and they were basically saying the same thing: we just want to make sure (and I don’t want to put words in their mouth) but we just want to be sure that there’s going to be a discussion, a public discussion, and we always felt that that would take place. Matt Ellis: Rod said it real well. A couple quick points is this is one of those areas where I said, and I emphasized that this is a 25 year Master Plan and the four lane is not in there and you can go through the Master Plan and see all the alternatives that we put in there that show that it’s not meant for it to be a four- lane road tomorrow and I think that’s very important to realize. And one of the concerns with some of the bike advocates was that that was going to be the case. In fact, some…one presentation that we saw showed pictures of what Broadway used to be. There’s no one on the Steering Committee, nor is there anybody that has helped put this plan together that wants to go back to what Broadway used to be and I think that’s proven in the Master Plan, I think the detail is there. I think the point is that corridor process, that plan that came out of that whole West Broadway corridor process says that eventually Broadway has to be four lanes due to traffic. Now there could be debate on that, but so we felt that instead of hiding from that we would be ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 12 of 34 proactive, put it as four lanes, with alternatives to make it work for everybody and make sure that we put safeguards in there so it doesn’t go back to what it was before. And so that’s the thought process. The other thing that I’ll add is we did not address it more than what we did in the PowerPoint for the sole reason that our Steering Committee decided that this process was so encompassing of the public that it was not our place to approve or disapprove the MRA amendment at that late stage of the process. We had no more public events geared towards defining the Master Plan, we had a final document for your approval, and so we just felt the best thing to do with that amendment was to bring it to you, bring it to council and have you guys give us your recommendation as to whether it should be in there or not and not try to play God, if you will, and decide whether it should be there or not. Heidi Kendall: Can I follow up? Don MacArthur: Please. Heidi Kendall: Thanks to both of you, that’s a really helpful explanation. You know, one of the things that I wonder about is whether that even needs to be stated specifically, that’s kind of what’s running through my mind, whether it needs to say four lane at all. And I don’t know if the MRA amendment would modify, you know, four lane street, or if it is a substitute for that bullet point, I don’t know., and… Don MacArthur: What page are you on, exactly, so I can follow along? Heidi Kendall: I’m on page 66 of the Master Plan. So that’s something that I’m kind of mulling over right now, and I don’t know if Roger or any of the spokespeople for the Master Plan have thoughts on that. And I actually don’t want to get into a big long discussion about it and I see there are no people here to comment on this specific issue, which surprises me a little bit. So that’s probably a big thing, maybe we’ve kind of moved on. Linda McCarty: Well, let me add my two-cents worth. One of the things that we asked was that Crandall Arambula look at all the plans that we’ve developed in our community and knit them together. We did a Broadway Corridor Envisioning Plan in the short-term it calls for a three-lane through to Van Buren, but in the long-term, when volume exceeds capacity, it recommends that it become a four-lane, but that we change the type of roadway that it is. That we have, you know, the landscaped medians, the narrower lanes, the street trees, the reduction of driveways, the reduction of surface parking lots, that we virtually extend what we love about downtown through that Broadway corridor, you know, build those buildings right up to the sidewalks. Crandall Arambula initially said, you know, we think a four-lane is best, that you will come to a point where you’re going to need to have a four-lane through there because of the nature of people coming and going. But, you know, as a community we heard the concerns of people who did not want to see it converted back to a four-lane, that wanted to see it continue to be a three-lane; and so we incorporated both options into this plan, and it’s not just mentioned on one page or two pages, it’s laced throughout the entire document and this document leaves open the possibility of, you know, either option down the road. So, again, much like other issues, Higgins, etcetera, we’ll need to probably have more process about that when funding is available. So my suggestion would be that we leave it is and as we move through to a time when we need to address volume exceeding capacity then, you know, we know sort of where we’re going, potentially. Does that help? Don MacArthur: Mr. Austin. Rod Austin: I would also add that, and Matt alluded to it in the initial presentation, some of the coalition that has kind of come together to help change what’s going on in Higgins right now; there’s some dialogue and conversation, relationship-building that’s taking place that, quite frankly, is pretty unique. And I think that discussion about Broadway in the future is going to be a lot different than it was in the past. Don MacArthur: Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: On that topic, what’s the estimated timeframe before capacity is reach on Broadway? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 13 of 34 Roger Millar: I think it’s towards the end of the 25-year planning period that we’re talking about if at all. One of the things that we’re seeing in Missoula over the last several years is a flattening out and actual reduction in vehicle miles traveled on our arterial network. But for planning purposes, everybody is putting a one to two percent growth rate on stuff and I think, since we don’t have the money to do the project anytime soon, there’s really not a whole lot of sense to worry about it. One of the things that I concern myself with with planning documents like this is are you making a decision that precludes a further action. You know, if you say in the plan that it’s a four-lane street, and I think this is where the MRA was, if a project comes along to make it a three-lane street and that design precludes it ever being a four-lane street, then that project wouldn’t be consistent with the plan. The interesting thing about streets is you can add on to them on the outside so I think you could probably develop a quite attractive three-lane street within the envelope, if you will, of a future four-lane street without affecting the ability to do something later. So I think what you want to look at in a planning document when you have a project like this that you know if there’s any federal money in it at all, whether you call it a three-lane street, a four-lane street, or a 15-lane street, you’re going to have to go through an environmental process and revisit the whole thing again, anyway. So it’s just…it’s been discussed and I think everybody’s, you know, if you guys want to make a decision to change it, cool, but I don’t think anybody on the Steering Committee wants to change it. Don MacArthur: Sort of following up on that, it does seem like the ways that this plan is going to be the most effective is in helping in vision, helping in regulatory update, as we go forward. And there is a very concrete list of catalytic projects in here that I think are sort of first steps. And this document, I think, helps throw some weight towards those catalytic projects and maybe others like them. So those seem to be the things that are most important to me rather than the specifics of the language and in that vein, I guess one of the things that I heard several times when I was at planning meetings for this document were concerns about how this would…how this document would sort of bring forward the community’s ideas of sustainability and how could…how would this City Center plan, how would this Downtown Plan reflect the community’s will to develop a more sustainable framework. And I think certainly there’s an argument that cities in themselves may be more sustainable, but I wondered if someone could comment in particular about the catalytic projects that are listed and how those…you know, is there…is there money and effort being directed toward that sustainability framework in this plan. Is that…and I guess I’m sort of…you know, I read down the list here, and the list is…is definitely about health of the City in terms of retail and the…the framework for reducing vehicle miles and providing additional transit and…and bike access and other things that we might think of as traditionally green or sustainable framework aren’t really in the first ten items, at least not as strongly, and I wondered if someone could comment on that. Rod Austin: Well, I think the plan talks about, and I’m not sure exactly where it is in there, but it talks about creating an area where you’re at…where you are using your vehicle less because instead of driving into the City, you’re there, or you’re within that mile radius that they talk about. And, in fact, if you’re using your vehicle it’s to go somewhere outside of the City. And the fact that that saves money, I think at the time we were looking at it, during the planning process, gasoline was, you know, in that $4.00 a gallon range and some of the numbers that were being tossed around relative to the savings that would not be spent on gasoline because of a plan like this was in the millions of dollars that would create disposable income that could be spent locally. And I think that’s one of the big pushes from that sustainability standpoint that’s in the plan. I’m not sure exactly which page it is, but… Don MacArthur: Right, and I saw the presentation on that and I think it was quite convincing, I’m just…I’m more getting to the point, and maybe Linda wants to jump in on this, too, but more getting to the point of how did the first projects that are suggested in here and are public investment may be targeted towards how do those help get to that vision? Rod Austin: I’m not sure if they were specifically laid out that way, I mean, with that vision in mind, to be honest about it. I think some of it is finding the funding to do some of the projects, first of all, where funding would be available to help get things moving, to help get the plan moving along. But I do think that one of the projects that is going on right now is the North Higgins Project, as it’s being called, is going to create bicycle ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 14 of 34 lanes one way or the other, whether they are protected lanes or on-street lanes. And I think that’s a huge initial first step, and I think it’s going to set the pattern, or tone, if you will, of what takes place not just in development downtown, but I think it’s going to set a standard because it’s downtown for the rest of the community. Matt? Matt Ellis: Understand that the catalytic projects are not the list of projects for the whole master plan that we do, that’s not the exhaustive list, I should say, what they…what the consultants tried to do was identify a list of projects that were going to start up this master plan and give us successes on the implementation side sooner than later. So they identified projects that either…if you go down this list, you can see that each project something going on already in the past to get to an end result for this project, whereas the streetcar, at this point, has no process yet, so it can’t be a catalytic project because we haven’t done anything to do it. It doesn’t mean we’re not trying, we’ve already gone to a Board in town and tried to get funding for a feasibility study. But they identified projects that will create a lot of investment into our downtown and back our plan and get our plan started. The biggest thing about this plan is if we don’t show progress right away, the plan will die on the vine, and we don’t want that; we want a working plan that for 25 years of life has successes on a regular basis. Keep in mind, we’ve been doing this process for a year and half; I’m willing to bet that if we could go back in time and had the last two months of information on our plates, Higgins would be a catalytic project, because there’s funding in place and it’s going to be a success for the master plan sooner than later. And our hope is that within 12 months, Higgins is one of our first success stories, and that’s very sustainable. Don MacArthur: Mr. Austin first. Rod Austin: A lot of those catalytic projects have to do with creating the retail hot zone. And that was one of the basic premises of the consultants is that that’s one of the things that has to come first. If that is successful, if we’re successful in creating that, a lot of the other development will happen. A lot more private investment as well. Linda McCarthy: I think, too, to address your concerns about sustainability. You know, sustainability is very broad-reaching and has a lot of different flavors to it. When you look at the list of catalytic projects, and we’re talking about page 80 in the document, the catalytic projects includes: ƒ Macy’s improvements, keeping Macy’s in a historic building in downtown we think is sustainable. We think it’s good for the community, it’s good for people who work downtown, and it helps keep them from getting in their cars and driving, you know, to other places. ƒ The Front Street Parking Structure is to help provide parking for the new First Interstate Bank project and, eventually, we’ll be taking a lot of the surface parking out of the riverfront area, so that we can expand the green space and provide more park space. But we need to relocate that parking elsewhere. ƒ The East Main Street mixed use project, you know, creates more tax base, more choices, more housing—housing is a large component of this plan, I think we’re looking at about 3,000 housing units. Creating that, you know, live-work-play environment where we are reducing urban sprawl and building in a more congested area, where it’s appropriate in a community, is more sustainable design. ƒ A second anchor tenant has been a goal that we’ve had for the downtown for at least ten years, if not more, and that’s a way to generate more visitors, to bring more people, to have more jobs, you know, again that live-work-play. Part of the proposal for that particular project could include housing above the probably two-story retail store. ƒ The Front Street realignment and the conversion of the one-way streets to two-way streets; the one- way streets were developed when we very much oriented towards the automobile and getting us fast as we could from point A to point B. We think converting them back to one-ways provides better access to downtown, better access to businesses, will help slow traffic down and we think that’s sustainable. When we get into sort of materials used, I think that comes out in zoning and looking at the regulatory document, you know, we’ll have a starting point for that discussion. ƒ And then the Riverfront Triangle Project, the Fox Site, obviously, that’s a piece of property that could be generating a much higher tax base, could have more active use, more things going on there so we want to do that. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 15 of 34 Does that help? Don MacArthur: It does, I think, and I’m not quarreling with the Catalyst Projects. I mean I think they make sense to me, I understand the point of them. I think what I’m wishing for is that the plan would throw its support behind a couple of what the team thinks are the key sustainability projects that might be in transportation or other infrastructure and bring them up. You know, rather than them being sort of equally distributed throughout the plan, that somehow in the implementation there was a Catalyst Project section and then there was a, you know, Key Projects to be pursued as quickly as we can as a community in order to reach sustainability goals. I’m just trying to figure out how…I don’t think it should fit catalyst, I mean, that isn’t the right definition, but I think that it would good if that could be somehow brought forward. Linda McCarthy: When we initially did the goal-setting early on, sustainability was one of the goals, but it was down, sort of in the bottom of the lower half of the goals and, you know, I don’t think that, you know, we were really thinking about sustainability being front and center. But, certainly, when you go through here and look at the green transportation projects, you know, the government campus concept, keeping people from driving out for government services, those kinds of things, and, you know, maybe somebody else can add more to that. Don MacArthur: And I would say that I…maybe I wasn’t…I certainly wasn’t at all the meetings, but the meetings I was at, there was quite a bit of talk about it and I think the presentation from the consultant was, at times, quite focused on that in terms of how this was going to be…generate sustainability and the, you know, the whole graph on page…can’t see what page it is…4, but I guess I’m just trying to figure out what the key moves would be and have the document get us there. Roger, I have you next and then Brent. Roger Millar: Yeah, I just wanted to point out that the sustainability issue, there aren’t specific projects that are…here’s the sustainability project, if you will. My sense all the way through was sustainability pervaded the entire document and the notion that we were investing in downtown and we were creating a place where you could park once and walk around to do your thing; that we were creating a place that realized the most potential from the investment we’ve made in transit. It was interesting, I was in Helena last week at a Transportation Commission Meeting and they were talking about transit in Montana. Mountain Line carries half of the urban transit in Montana and one-quarter of all the transit in Montana is carried on Mountain Line. We certainly don’t get 25 percent of the money, or half of the urban money, we’re doing it with a very small chunk of money and it’s because of how we’ve organized our land uses. And so I think that the sustain… Don MacArthur: Let me interrupt…let me interrupt for a second, because I think that the…what I’m trying to articulate, what is fuzzy in my brain here, but I think the issue is that I think that there are some…there are projects out there that are about creating infrastructure. Infrastructure is generally in the commons, it’s not very much driven by private development monies, and this plan anticipates a lot of those infrastructure improvements and Mr. Campbell just talked about how two of the keys are parks and transit in our cities. I mean, those are the keys and neither of them are really going to be funded by private development. And I guess the question is how do we bring those key pieces of infrastructure to the fore in this plan and I disagree that those cant be prioritized. I mean, those key pieces of good downtown infrastructure that can help our entire City and region grow effectively can be prioritized and I’d like to…you know, I would hope that they could be. Roger Millar: I agree, I think they can. And I also think that by organizing our land use we can make those investments more effective. You’ve obviously, with your position on the Mountain Line Board, you know what’s going on in transit in our world. With the transit center right in the heart of the downtown, the more activity we can put around that existing investment, the better position we are and the better position we are to make the next step, if we’re going to go to bus rapid transit or fixed-guide way transit or something that; having a place there is really important. I think, you know, if you as a Board have ideas of projects that ought ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 16 of 34 to be moved forward, you know, the Catalyst Projects, I think quite honestly a lot of reason that they are on the list was because the funding was kind of sort of identified for them and like you heard, having a success early on is really important for the viability for these kinds of plans. But if there are projects that you see are sustainable that, you know, obviously the funding is not there now, but need to be emphasized and pushed by this plan, we’d love to hear what you had in mind. Don MacArthur: Mr. Campbell, can I have you first and then Mr. Ellis. Brent Campbell: Brent Campbell, again, with WGM Group. We worked really hard to get the two transportation element projects in to this plan and into the overall transportation plan that was just completed for Missoula. And, as you know, money is…is…it’s scarce and it comes through federal aid system, we get about three-and-a-half million a year for surface transportation improvements and a couple million a year for…for transit. And so we just don’t have enough money. I think that the transportation plan over three hundred million dollars in unfunded needs for our community in it. And so we were really happy to get two projects: the North Higgins Project and the Front and Main Couplet Projects identified for funding in the transportation plan and then they…that kicked them into this…our stimulus projects, our Catalyst Projects. In the end, we need to solve our transportation funding problem at the local level and we’re working right now on a three…or a five-cent…or maybe a 3-percent statewide gas tax that would come back to local cities and counties; we’ve been having a conversation around the state on that. That would be discretionary for cities and counties to spend, then we wouldn’t have to go through the DOT process and have the onerous sort of requirements that come with that in, you know, straddled with the project. So, it really comes down to a lack of funding, Don. I mean, we would love to have the protected bikeways all the way up and down Higgins, and on Broadway, that would be a fantastic first very, you know, very catalytic project, but there’s just no money for that and we’re…we’re spread very thin. Don MacArthur: But…while you’re up there, I mean, that sounded like Number One for you, if you were to make this list, based on the criteria that I kind of put out there, your Number One piece might be protected bikeways on Higgins. Brent Campbell: I think Higgins is badly in need, especially South Higgins, of bike facilities, there’s no doubt about that, we’ve been working on that a long time. The bike lanes are going to help, the protected bikeway on North Higgins will be a great example, along with the…so those are good example projects, we just need the funding to finish the job. I also think we have the opportunity to do West Broadway between Front Street and California Street bridge with a protected bikeway there, kind of demonstration project, could almost do it in the right-of-way in what’s there now pretty inexpensive project, so that hasn’t quite made the list yet, but that…with redevelopment, there is, I think, a good opportunity for that. So those would be the first affordable ones, and then the trolley would be fantastic for redevelopment on an East-West basis in the downtown. That’s a major undertaking and wasn’t included in the current transportation plan, so it needs to be in the next update and conversation the community on that. Don MacArthur: And these are the reasons I want those elements in this plan somehow so that they do have impetus going into the transportation update improvement plan…you know, the other Board that I sit on can amend the transportation improvement plan. I mean, we…these things can be done if there’s momentum to it and if these documents suggest good reasons for why amendments should be done, then maybe things can move faster. And so I guess that’s my point here, I’m not meaning to be critical of the way the plan is written, I’m just wishing we could further that…the transportation in particular, and maybe also the parks infrastructure pieces quicker. You know, somehow highlight them, bring them forward, recognize that they take a very long time to fund, and start highlighting and tagging that right now. Brent Campbell: That’s true. So we did, in 2003, we did the downtown streets project. It had ten projects identified for to stimulate redevelopment in downtown; two of those projects are in this. But none of those of those made it into the draft transportation planning process, so there…it was because of the advocacy of this ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 17 of 34 group that we were able to get two projects into it. We’ve been in line for quite a while, I think, for downtown, but there’s so much demand and so little funding, that’s really the problem. Don MacArthur: Okay. Thanks, Mr. Campbell. Matt Ellis: Don, I respect what you’re saying and I think one of the semantic issues that we might have going on here is the definition of what a Catalyst Project is as presented in the Master Plan. If you go to Page 10 of the Master Plan, you’ll see the list of the Catalyst Projects as well as an explanation. And you’ll see on the far right the investment incorporated with that. And the idea…let’s not assume because you’re a Catalyst Project means that you’re number one on our list of importance; I don’t think that’s been said. We’re not saying that these eight projects are more important than any transportation or other sustainable project in the Master Plan. What Crandall Arambula is saying is these are projects that will stimulate, as you see at the bottom, a 1 to 11 dollar ratio investment into downtown and there…and have gotten some sort of progress towards that. As Roger said, there’s an identified way to fund those. So, these are catalyst projects, which are just that: catalyzing the entire Master Plan and help making it get done. We’ve never said that the Catalyst Projects number one through eight are number one through eight in importance. That’s for the community to decide as we implement this plan: what’s more important and what’s not. Don MacArthur: Okay. Jon. Jon Haber: Just to follow up on that. That was an interesting discussion, but I have sort of a process question, maybe for Roger. As an amendment to the Growth Policy, does the Planning Board really need to pass judgment on these Catalyst Projects or were these more intended just as a way of showing us where this is going to go? Roger Millar: The latter. Jon Haber: Okay. Don MacArthur: And I don’t…I mean I don’t think I have any misconception about what the Catalyst Projects were or were for, I think the idea from me is just thinking that they’re…that there is a lot of information in this document and at times it’s hard to determine which things the consultant and the team has decided were…would be the key elements for us to pursue as a community in order to get the vision moved forward. The one place where that is sort of pushed a little bit is this idea—here’s the first projects, you know, and I understand that they’re largely generated by the fact that there’s already been some momentum in them and they have some dollars behind them, maybe. But it feels like we also need a little momentum just in the public sphere to…or keeping momentum going in some of the key projects that may not have private investment that drives them. You know, a lot of those things really don’t have private investment, so we as a community need to keep re-upping our commitment to those projects so that they don’t die out in our minds. I mean when we have new elected officials every few years and there’s…it often is hard to keep the momentum long enough for the transportation funding cycle. Jon Haber: And I think those are some good points and I do have a couple other questions, since I got the microphone. Don MacArthur: Please, yes. Jon Haber: And first of all, I think it’s real exciting to see what Downtown Missoula might look like in my lifetime, if I’m that lucky. I’m not one of the people that was here when you presented the long version, so the questions that I’ve got might have been covered already; but a couple conceptual things. One is, the role of a convention center in downtown—I’m sort of surprised to see it treated a kind of an afterthought in a couple of the areas, it doesn’t seem like it’s a priority, I just wondered what the history of that discussion. I thought maybe it would be a driving force behind something. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 18 of 34 Rod Austin: I think the plan basically lays out a placeholder for that to happen when the downtown gets large enough, if you will. There’s enough folks to fill it up. We’ve got a, you know, couple of hotels that in the downtown area now that do have convention space, there’s at least one fairly-sizable hotel out on North Reserve that has sizable convention space. I think the placeholder that is in that plan is for a conference center, you know, which is different than some of the other ones. I think there’s an issue and I think the plan kind of recognizes that with some of the property that is in that place right now, if you will, putting all that property together and getting that done is not something that is not a…something that is going to happen overnight. But I think, primarily, it was there to create a placeholder, to get people thinking about that. When people travel to conference or conventions, even, if you will, one of the things that helps attract those…most of them are larger cities, I think, but is the downtown atmosphere. People who are traveling from somewhere else to go to a conference want to be near the downtown where there are a lot more activities within walking distance of hotels. Jon Haber: The concern that I sort of had was that there were a couple other things in the sites where you have a placeholder, it seemed possible that those could be chosen for other uses prior to the point at which convention center option might appear and maybe you need a little more place being held there, or something. The second point had to do with the waterfront. I was a little surprised there wasn’t some sort of a waterfront theme like I’ve seen other communities do when they’re on the river. And I think what you’re doing with the waterfront looks great, it just doesn’t jump at you as a focal point. Rod Austin: I think if you’re down on the river a lot, we…a good example of what can be done there is Brennen’s Wave. Prior to Brennan’s Wave, access from the trail system that travels along the river to the river, to actually reach out and touch it, was…was and I think still is an issue because of the levee that’s in there, and some of the growth that takes place over every few years before it’s cleaned out. But, you know, there is a huge expansion of that…the park that’s down there now, for sure, and I think connectivity…there are connectivity issues for the trail as well. Roger Millar: Something I’d add to that from the conversations…Crandall Arambula came in and when they first visited the community one of the things that they commented was how wonderful the waterfront was already with Caras Park and all of the investment that’s been made and what they had talked about was the connectivity issues where there are discontinuities in the system and there are places where you can’t get from the neighborhoods into that waterfront system very well. And they also really talked an awful lot about a park on the north end of Higgins and there was a lot of interest in that, and that’s not real high on the list; I think one, because of the cost involved and two, because of some of the just change in how the property is used up on the North end of town. But I think what I heard was you got a great waterfront already, there’s not a whole lot more you need to do. Parking garage, to get that parking out of there so you could expand it maybe a little more, you know, of outdoor active space. But there wasn’t, I think, a real push on a whole new waterfront as much as just, you know, cleaning up and adding to and optimizing what we got. Matt Ellis: That’s what I going to say is basically, they were eliminating parking and taking what we have and connecting it all the way along and I actually disagree with your comment, because I actually think with what we have now and what they’re planning on doing with taking out parking and expanding the green space, I think that whole belt becomes very dynamic, very dynamic. Rod Austin: We were…if I might add, we were just at a downtown conference for the…most of the larger communities in Montana, we were in Helena, and one of the comments that almost every city made was their jealousy of our waterfront, the river that actually runs the community and the access that we have to it that helps us do the things that we do successfully. Jon Haber: Thanks. Don MacArthur: John. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 19 of 34 John DiBari: I guess I’d like to follow up a little bit on what you were talking about earlier and this idea of sustainability and maybe tease out from you a little bit more if you searching for some kind of mechanism that would be a part of this plan that would get at some of those sustainability issues. Because to happen at a couple of different scales, you know, at sort of…let’s say let’s look at wastewater and gray water, perhaps. That operates at a scale where you’d have to do a lot of planning up front and make sure that there’s infrastructure there and available for it. And another scale might be you actually go to use paving on the street, you know, using pervious pavement and innovative curb and gutter kind of things. So, was that you were kind of looking for? Is there…searching for some kind of mechanism that we could insert into the plan that would…as time goes on and as projects develop that there would be this mechanism to bring back to the forefront this idea of sustainability? Perhaps even dealing with broader things—like urban forestry issues, you know, as parks, and energy-related items with the actual buildings that are constructed. Don MacArthur: Well, those are all sort of part of a sustainable city development, I think. I guess what had been in my mind more than anything was that I think in Missoula, Montana our biggest single use of energy is in transportation. And I think the transportation piece…how the downtown of the city can influence our use of energy in transportation I think is a big opportunity. And I guess what I was hoping for was that there some kind of prioritization of the pieces that would be most catalytic in reducing our transportation energy use as community. John DiBari: Which I would concur with that. I wondering with what I said if there’s a…if there’s something that we then need to do to make sure that there is this mechanism to address at a variety of different scales through the implementation of this plan, things related to sustainability. You know, some of the things that I’ve been dealing with recently is just looking at the mix of land uses and the kinds of energy and water and other kinds of sustainability issues that can be incorporated into mixed-use development and other kinds of actual land uses that would totally be appropriate for incorporating as this plan develops. But, again, it’s not a part of the plan and I’d like to…you know, how do we get that to be considered as we move forward in implementing this over time. Because obviously technology is going to change; things that are prohibitive cost-wise now might become more affordable and I think there’s probably a lot of things we can do that would address that sustainability issue. Don MacArthur: Yep, Roger, you have a… Roger Millar: Yes. One of the things, again, it wasn’t really called “sustainable” in the plan a whole heck of a lot but the notion of 2500 to 3,000 homes in the downtown and the proximity of jobs to housing, to shopping, to parks and the rest of that. You know, the greatest park and ride in the world is your own garage or not having to have a car to get along and do your business. You know, I’m fortunate enough that I can live where I can walk 20 minutes to work in the downtown. And if there were 6,000 more people in…that were fortunate to have my situation where they could walk to do most of what they did, we’d be doing more to reduce energy consumption for transportation than any investment in the road. And I think the downtown plan does that in spades. The other thing it does is it concentrates activity so that Mountain Line can be more effective. Because, again, the more people who are living, the more people who are working, the more people who are shopping within walking distance of that transit center, the better off we are, you know. If you go over to Arthur and go between the Park and Ride down on South and Higgins and the University, they have service that’s better than once every ten minutes, it’s just incredible bus service on that corridor and every one of those buses is packed. Most of the other routes in the City are half-hour service at best and they’re all done at 7:30 and they don’t run on Sundays. But if we had enough people living and working and playing in that downtown area that Mountain Line could make investments and have those investments pay off in ridership that allowed for a ten-minute corridor through the downtown or something better than that, that allowed for night time service in the downtown so you could go out to a restaurant and not have to worry about driving home; or so that you can go out to a restaurant and walk down the block to your place, because that’s where you lived—in the downtown. I think those are all sustainable things we’re doing, I think the stuff that you were talking about, we ought to be looking at city-wide and I would encourage that conversation—permeable pavement, and storm drainage planning that’s green and I absolutely think we need to do that, but I think ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 20 of 34 there’s a lot in this plan that maybe we took for granted—the sustainability as opposed to really pushing it for the reason we were doing it, but the jobs housing balance is huge and I think it’s a long ways towards the goals you guys are talking about. Don MacArthur: And I think the question for me is back to that creating momentum somewhere and there are lots of things in here that are sustainable and I basically agree that the whole plan is a sustainable framework. I think the question really is creating momentum for certain projects and trying to identify, get some interest, and not just have there be 50 projects in here that are sort of equally-weighted. And that was what I was looking for, I think, was the Executive Summary and the…here’s where we really want to put some energy because these over the consultant’s experience and the planner’s experience, these are the key pieces. And, you know, Brent talked about a little bit and you’ve talked about it a little bit and we need that vision, we need to have that vision presented and re-presented every time, I think, in order to get there. And I’m sure exactly how to do it. I mean, I could make a motion here or suggest a motion about something that I…really, what I think should happen and maybe this is the motion and I think that the consultant and the team ought to be challenged to come back with a paragraph or another implementation page that identifies the key in public investment toward…toward infrastructure, you know, in order to make the maximum effect for sustainability, for reduced-energy use in the community and the, you know, Roger, it might be what you just said, that the community ought to invest heavily in housing downtown because the biggest way to reduce energy. But I guess I’d like to hear back from the consultant to say, yeah, these are the ways…these are the most-effective things, these are the top-priority things that the community wants to invest in reducing the…the environmental impact of our dwelling in this place. Roger Millar: And I understand the desire for that, and I think we could probably sit down in a small group with yourself included and come up with a list that we thought was qualitative; but to be able to quantify what is going to give you most bang for the buck for energy and the rest of that is just beyond the scope of what we’ve got left for this particular project. I think that might be a good next step in implementation. You know, if we’re going to start looking at the zoning and the rest of that, maybe we’d find some resource to do that kind of a thing. But between now and the time that it’s adopted to be able to come in and say you’re going to save more energy doing this versus that…if that’s where you’re going, Don, I think maybe we could do that, but maybe we do that later on. But I think if you want to get a here’s a good idea of direction to go, we could sit down and do that in a couple meetings. But if you want to… Don MacArthur: Well maybe it doesn’t have to be in the document with an actual list, but it…but there’s a paragraph in there that says this is…you know, that there’s a desire to have Missoula be…and maybe there isn’t, you know, maybe Council wouldn’t agree with this if we put it forward but that there’s a desire to respond to this sustainability criteria recognizing the volatility of fuel costs in the future, wanting to remain competitive as a City, blah, blah, blah, here’s the ways that, you know, that we want to engage in the process to identify projects that would be the most effective in reducing our impact. Roger Millar: How about we put together some whereases in the resolution that goes to Council and work with you on, you know, that’s one of the reasons we’re doing this plan. That’s something we could do. Don MacArthur: Okay. Mr. Campbell and then Mr. Austin. Brent Campbell: I think we did a lot of what you’re talking about, too, Don, in the infrastructure elements part of this. It’s less kind of sexy, you know, we’re talking about sewer and storm drain and…but we have a pretty comprehensive list of projects in that infrastructure elements portion where we didn’t try to prioritize them, but every project that we saw come out of the master plan, we kind of put it together in a big list that’s what we would call kind of the initial stages of a CIP, a Capital Improvement Program. We addressed storm water and we recommended primary and secondary treatment for all of the stormwater outfalls before they go into the Clark Fork, for instance. I think we already use permeable pavement in Missoula because we have sumps and they provide for a groundwater recharge and we like primary treatment before they go into a sump, but I think that’s already a sustainable practice for Missoula. So I think those things are in there. I think that’s ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 21 of 34 another conversation as we get some funding for some of these things to what is going to be the highest priority for that list. So I think we’ve done some of that. It doesn’t take care of the statement part of that, but I think there is a good list. The other…the major… Don MacArthur: I just flipped through, maybe I didn’t find it carefully but stay up the mic because, you know, we might have a dialogue here. But, you know, I flipped through and I don’t see…there is no prioritization and there are…there’s 50 things in here and they are all good; I mean, I’m not saying they’re not all good. The question is more how do we, as a community, know which ones. I mean, which are the key ones? Which are the first ones? When we try to invest our money, how do we invest our money in order to be most effective and I think that’s the task of planning, isn’t it? To identify where…you know, how to be effective, how to make change so that we are more effective in the future than we are now. And if we have everything out as a menu then we just wait to see what happens and say whoops, that wasn’t the right one. Brent Campbell: Well there’s…there’s…it really is driven by funding. There is some Army Corps of Engineer money that has been authorized but not allocated to a project to clean up the riverfront on the Clark Fork in Missoula. We could finish a trail, we could get rid of the rip-rap and that would…and get rid of some of the weirs that are causing floating issues. That is a six million dollar project if the funding is authorized by Congress through the Army Corps of Engineers, that will be a project. The parks department, there’s a list of several different parks projects in there as you start to do a comprehensive parks plan, hopefully, this plan will get rolled into that and then there will be a prioritization process within the parks planning process. Transportation planning happens the same way. And then if you said okay, we want to do the art craft building up there and the North Higgins Plaza—that’s going to be driven by a redevelopment project. That’s going to be some developer coming in, buying the whole block, saying I want to make this happen and the park is the stimulus to make it happen and the Pearl District in Portland is a good example. So, it’s hard to prioritize it, it’s a symbiotic thing, you have the plan, you have the vision and then when an opportunity comes along, you move that forward, you bring a public-private partnership. Don MacArthur: Right. Let me say two things, one is that five years ago, no one would have anticipated the Stimulus Money. The communities that had, you know, transit plans or the need for transit money and had already been working on it, boom, they got it or are getting it. Brent Campbell: And North Higgins is a stimulus project. Don MacArthur: And here we are, we’re at an opportunity when we can start saying, these are the things…there’s no money right now to do this but if get in line and we have vision and we say these are the things that are important for our community, then, you know, it’s always to be better to be farther down the road when there is money that becomes available, that’s number one. Number two is the thing that you said earlier, which was, you know, that we’re going to have to start funding transportation infrastructure locally and this, I agree completely, I think we’re going to have to and…and we need to start thinking that way and thinking what’s really good for our community and how do we evaluate what’s good for our community in transportation infrastructure and then putting it into plans like this, and getting momentum to fund it. So, for both of those reasons, I still think it’s a good idea to start prioritizing. Matt Ellis: The proof is in the pudding and I think if you look at how we’re already implementing this plan, you’ll see that sustainability and transportation have come to the forefront because of opportunities that we’ve had, which tells me that this plan is working and that this plan has identified those sustainability and transportation and circulation use in a positive way that has prioritized it, there’s 21 pages in circulation use alone, and almost everyone of those pages is sustainable—every one of those pages is sustainable, even when they talk about cars, they talk about how does cars and bikes and pedestrians work together. And if you go through this page-by-page, you’re hard-pressed and I haven’t done it, but I would be willing to guess that 80 percent of this plan has some connection to sustainability. And I really find it hard for a community to sit down and prioritize all those, because who’s to say what’s important? And, in fact, we made decisions to not prioritize on purpose because we didn’t want to create dialogues that were destructive to the process and ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 22 of 34 created the type of arguments that our community has done in the past to slow down the positive energy that we might have from this plan. And Higgins is a great example of how we did not make decisions on what was a priority versus protected versus bike lanes on the street, how many lanes. And it’s going to work out to our benefit, because we’ve created a dialogue and we’ve all come together to make it work. And that’s one of our first success…that’s going to probably going to be our…one of our first successes from the Master Plan, and that is not on the Catalyst List. Don MacArthur: Okay, I’ll leave this—John, you shouldn’t have brought it back up. Rod. Rod Austin: Actually, I get a sense of where you are headed and I think that maybe Roger’s suggestion about something in a resolution making a statement that gives us some legs…I will tell you that I’ve had conversations already as a result of the Master Plan and housing downtown with Missoula Housing Authority and Bob Oaks about how to make sure that we have a diverse group of people living in the downtown and I think one of the issues we have is how do we leverage that public money to help us get the type of housing we want in…if we’re going to keep downtown Missoula a diverse place to live. Don MacArthur: And bring some higher income people down. I mean, really, that’s what…the diversity is not that there’s too many affordable housing units, or too few affordable housing…there’s probably more than they probably should be proportionally. Rod Austin: Right, there is now. But my goal is to create that middle ground. Don MacArthur: Okay, and back to affordable housing, the issue really has to do with, again, if that’s the key, to provide mixed-income housing downtown, then it would be good to have support for that vision so that MRA can start being creative in expanding their districts to help fund that and other things. So these are the kinds of visions that I think are [inaudible, Rod Austin speaking] Rod Austin: My comment is that I think that I would love to have that tool to use. Don MacArthur: Right. Roger Millar: And our goal all along was to create a compelling vision that grabbed the community’s attention and got them excited and I think that’s what the Steering Committee with the consultants’ help, and the community’s help, what thousands of people’s help has done has put a compelling vision together which is going to give us the energy to put the projects that are one this list in higher priority. Because, you know, prioritizing the projects within this Master Plan Area is one thing, but, you know, going to the TPCC and prioritizing region-wide is a whole different critter, or you know having it out with MDT about state-wide funding and the rest of that—we’re never going to get it all resolved right down to the, you know…so getting this vision adopted as Growth Policy is the first step. And then you have the force of…it’s the policy of the City to go this direction, which means the next time they’re updating the CIP on water or sewer or streets, whatever, these projects have an emphasis that they didn’t have before. I think that’s what we’re trying to do. I agree with everything you guys are saying and I think we’re on track to do that but I don’t think we’re going to get that done before this plan gets adopted. I think we adopt the plan and we use this planning process and the adoption of the plan as the catalyst, if you will, to get those other things to happen over time. Don MacArthur: You know, what you said makes sense, the compelling vision makes sense. I do agree with the plan in general, it’s not that I disagree. I do think that the reason that the plan had such participation and interest is that the community as a whole is going through this transformation of vision about what Missoula is. And I think at the root of that is this idea of sustainability and if there were expression of that in the plan as a priority, a recognition of why there’s so much…this has been so galvanizing for the community that it would actually help create the compelling vision. So, I’ll leave it there. Jerry, talk about something else. Jerry Petasek: I will. I actually want to talk about affordable housing a little bit, since I’m the Board’s token affordable housing developer. So, actually you just said something that I thought was pretty interesting, and I ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 23 of 34 marked it in here, it says currently there’s a large amount of affordable housing downtown and I guess that you guys are saying that there are, and you agree that, but to me I see that the Wilma has just been converted, the Babs has just been converted, the few homes that were at the corner have just been converted, I think the Montagne’s perhaps were considering being converted to condos. So it seems the…and maybe that’s good, maybe that is what supposed to be happening is that we’re supposed to be transitioning to having more home ownership in the downtown area. And that kind of leads into the other thing, which is the affordable housing focuses mostly on rentals and it says somewhere in here, I’m jumping around, but that the primary focus is on rentals and I’d like to hear a little bit about that before I go into some other stuff that I see. Why did you pick primary rentals. Rod Austin: Well, one of the points, and I’m not sure if it’s in this particular document, it might be in the housing portion, I believe it talks about the need for the public sector to help create that type of housing through one form or another. I think Don was alluding to, you know, if you’re create the expensive condominiums, you’ve also got to create other housing that other folks can live in as well. And I think the affordability aspect of it, there’s a lot of folks living in and around the downtown that are in, for Missoula, considered to be affordable places. Maybe they’re not as large, I mean, there’s a lot of old buildings that have apartments upstairs, four-plexes, those kinds of things. I think that’s what I was thinking about when I was talking about that. Jerry Petasek: The map with the big AH orange circles, how did you come to…it’s on page 105. Don MacArthur: Which page, 25? Jerry Petasek: 105…it’s…I’m not disagreeing with this, and once again, I’m forgetting my college ways, I think you have a really great plan, obviously a lot of work went into it and I really appreciate all the work that’s gone into it. But you always get five seconds of praise and then we nit-pick it to death until 1 in the morning and so I apologize for that. But how did you…you know, I don’t disagree that I’d love to see affordable housing the Millsite, or I’d love to see the Brownfield’s site on the north side of the tracks cleaned up and have a big development there and I don’t disagree that…as a matter of fact, I built some affordable housing over on the West Broadway Corridor…but how exactly were those chosen—just because of the vacancy of land? Roger Millar: I think what Crandall Arambula did is those are…those are the sites where the emphasis is on housing and there is affordable housing on all of them. Jerry Petasek: Okay. Roger Millar: You know, there’s the opportunity throughout the Greater Downtown Area to put housing above shops and stuff like that but the big opportunities for housing in a focused way are the Millsite, the West Broadway Area, the Riverfront Triangle and if and when the MRL property ever happened north of town. And so all of them are places, you know, going back to the Pearl District in Portland, it’s known as a place where a lot of rich people live. What a lot of people don’t realize is that only 50 percent of housing in the Pearl District is market—the other 50 percent is affordable housing for people making 80 percent of median income and less and some of it for people making 50 percent of median income and less. And I think that what George and Don were saying was affordable housing needs to be integrated into everything that we do. Jerry Petasek: No, and I agree, I was just…I mean, I like the idea, especially since when the Millsite starts to get going, I mean, the potentially the City could use this as a pressure point to get some affordable housing into that Millsite Development, which previously wasn’t scheduled for any. Roger Millar: Well and we have the opportunity, again, that public-private partnership, we have the opportunity through if we’re going to invest in public infrastructure, we want to see the private investment happen but we also want to see public policy goals stressed. Affordable housing would be one of them. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 24 of 34 Jerry Petasek: The other thing I was noticing was obviously the good stuff, recommended financing and management strategies. And I thought I’d heard them all and you don’t have to explain them all to me, I’ll look them up later. But one that I thought was missing and maybe it’s just been renamed to something crafty but there was talk about doing like a URD/MRA contribution to affordable housing—was that still out on the table? Roger Millar: It’s on the list of things that the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Team is looking at. I don’t know that it’s specifically in this document or not; but, yeah, it’s on the list. Jerry Petasek: Okay. And the last thing I just kind of took offense to was the second dot down, it said, under affordable housing development strategy, should include minimum design standards to ensure architectural compatibility, quality, and durability. And I think that we have a handful of SHODOs in town right now who take amazing pride in their work and what they do and, you know, we should have minimum design standards for all development, not just affordable housing. So I was just going to throw that out there. And I guess that comes back to my first question, which I forgot to ask—what’s affordable? And I’m saying that to be flippant, I’m just saying that, you know, my job as an affordable housing developer, when I take federal funds, I have a definition. I have to build homes that go to 80 percent of…that go to people who earn less than 80 percent of the area median income. I think that, you know, if the City of Missoula were to have their own pot of money to define affordable I’d like to see, you know, maybe 120 and below and I’m just wondering how this… Roger Millar: And the definition of affordability and the rest of that is contained in the housing policy that the City Council adopted last year with the help of the Mayor’s Housing Team, that you’re a part of and it’s…that’s when we talk about affordable, that’s what we’re talking about. Jerry Petasek: That’s right. Roger Millar: So, 120 percent and it’s basically looking for housing that costs less than 30 percent of the family income of family’s making 120 percent of median or below. Jerry Petasek: Well, that’s great. Don MacArthur: Well the fifth or sixth bullet point down there actually says build for full range of incomes below Missoula’s median family income. Roger Millar: And again, Don, I’m talking about the City’s Affordable Housing Policy, I’m not talking about the affordable housing stuff that’s in this particular plan. But this plan would have to conform with the City’s affordable Housing Policy. Don MacArthur: You know, that segues into once of my other questions which was the relationship of this plan to existing neighborhood plans, other parts of growth policy, things like you were just referring to, the affordable housing plan that maybe is in preparation. There’s a paragraph in the Overview that says something about, you know, and it says…and I’m on page 14, you know, the framework does not change any existing neighborhood plans or other policies and regulations. You know, and I guess my question is back to the analysis of this plan versus things like the Northside/Westside Plan or other documents that may have looked carefully at this study area. What happens when they’re not in agreement; what takes precedence? You know, this is the kind of thing that we’re going to unfortunately be dealing with down the road. Roger Millar: Sure. I think the conscience…the conscious intent of the Steering Committee and the consultant team was where within the greater downtown plan area where there was an existing plan, it was embraced and if there were…I don’t know that there were specific changes, for example, to the Northside/Westside plan. I think there was general acceptance of that, I think there was general acceptance of other plans, I think the historic districts were not impacted by this, I think the consultant went through and ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 25 of 34 analyzed all of those things. That said, I’m sure at some point an inconsistency will come up and when that inconsistency comes up, that’s why we have a Planning Board and a City Council. Don MacArthur: I knew you were going to say that. Roger Millar: That’s why we pay you the big bucks. Don MacArthur: All right. John. John DiBari: Well, I guess in that same regard, to what extent have you guys been looking at linkages to the remaining part of the Transportation network and I understand implicitly that once you’re in downtown that you can stay there, that you can get around well, but I don’t want to drive downtown, I want to know how we can…how we can do this planning process, foster opportunities so that we can find alternative ways of getting downtown so that when we are there, we can take advantage of what’s being put forth here. Roger Millar: You’re absolutely right, that’s what we should be doing as a community and under the Mayor’s leadership, that’s what we’ve been doing as a community: is we did the UFDA planning process at the same time we were doing this, at the same time we were doing zoning, at the same time we’re doing affordable housing, we’ve been kind of busy. But, as you can see through this planning process, representatives of all of the affected neighborhoods were at the table during the planning, representatives with all of the public- private partnerships were downtown at the table. And our transportation planning people were at the table, and Brent and his team did a great job making sure that the linkages where you went outside of the plan boundary, that those things were addressed. None of these is ever perfect, but I think that, you know, under Rod, and, you know, and Linda’s leadership with the Boards of the BID and the Parking Commission and the MDA and the Renewal Agency and, you know, Ellen Buchanan, who’s on…she’s out of town this week, but she’s put an incredible amount of work into this. A lot was done to make sure that those connections were there and that we didn’t have any gaps or overlaps in what we were doing. That said, it’s never perfect, but it’s integrated and it’s well-thought out and everybody was engaged in developing it. So, I’m fairly comfortable with it. I think as Brent said, the problem we’ve got right now on the transportation side of things is we have over 1.2 billion dollars of identified need in Missoula and less than 250 million dollars to spend on it. And so that’s the kind of odds you’re up against when you’re looking to fund a project. And we’ve done the best we can in that kind of a world. John DiBari: I’m wondering if we can the University for example…as an example, for example, with the satellite parking lots that are down by Dornblaser Field and over north by Montech. You know, if there are opportunities where if people can get to a place reasonably, easily, either with their vehicle so they don’t have to drive downtown and then use some of the transportation facilities that you’re planning here and sort of beefing up Mountain Line, perhaps, or…to keep people from even wanting to drive downtown, that’s kind of where I’m getting…are there…are there other ways that we can use some creativity to like fully realize what it is that’s going on here and once they’re…obviously, once they are downtown, there’s a host of opportunities. But we’re talking about what’s happening at the periphery so that either folks don’t have to drive downtown, literally, you know, across the river to get downtown and park or they don’t have to leave their house in a car to get downtown. Roger Millar: You know, you look at…start with the transit side of things, you look at Mountain Line until the stimulus package happened, Mountain Line was scared to death about replacing the stuff they had before it fell apart out on the street and what we’ve got now is 14 new buses coming in and all of those old beaters will be gone. And just getting on a new, attractive, quiet, efficient, you know, you look at the bus that the University has been running—that new bus, it’s kind of slick, everybody wants to be on that bus. We’re going to have a bunch of that. That will give the Mountain Line Board the opportunity to maybe use some of the money that they were going to use for capital replacement to look at, you know, do we start running more like a BRT service with maybe fewer corridors but faster service…I mean, those are decisions that that agency needs to make. I think what this plan does is it gives that agency a client to serve that’s been organized efficiently. You know, we have the same problem when you look at our bicycle and pedestrian network; one ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 26 of 34 of the big things that is in the Downtown Plan is closing the gaps, fixing the disconnects on both sides of the river, which make it very difficult for somebody who is not a professional road biker to get out on the road and feel comfortable, you know, riding your bike to work on Higgins or Orange or something like that. I think a lot of effort has been made there. I think that this plan links into all of that, I think this plan will help drive some of that. And I think all the parties are talking, so I think it’s a positive thing. Don MacArthur: Yes, Kelley. Kelley Durbin: I’m rested up. I love this plan and I reviewed it pretty extensively and also met with some folks about it from around the community, some of them involved with downtown, some of them involved in development, some of them that lived downtown and that made it even more fun and brought it to life. I agree with the idea that we need some wins right off the bat to keep the momentum going and I do see the value in the Higgins, as well as some of these other proposed projects. And in the top eight, two of them do include housing. So that would help start to create some of that that you talked about earlier. Also, the importance with this is the economic viability and the businesses down there are competing with north Reserve and it’s, I believe, important that we continue to develop the businesses and the economic viability of the downtown and create situations where businesses want to be there and also where customers are going to want to come and we do have streets, obviously, that need to be repaired to make that happen and that’s in the top eight, which is good, and not that they are prioritized because I didn’t say that, listed eight, not top eight. But, anyway, so far I’m in support of what I’m seeing and I appreciate the commentary about all of the sustainability and environment issues, agree with them, but I also agree with Roger in that this in and of itself is creating sustainability if you look at the City as a whole and I think, Don, you were agreeing with that as well. Don MacArthur: Let’s see, I had one more comment or question about the implementation piece of it. I’m…I’m interested to hear more about what you alluded to, Roger, about the process for zoning, bringing this forward to zoning and it gets, presumably, Council will adopt this, if we recommend it and they see fit to do so and then at that point the question is where does it go, how quickly does it become implemented and many of the…and I guess the background of this question is many of the things that are in here actually require zoning change to require things. You know, require certain kinds of uses in certain places, require certain minimum densities in order to develop and you know those sorts of things—that’s where the rubber hits the road with this plan, when it no longer becomes just optional, market-driven, but it becomes more powerful than that and there’s actually regulations supporting it. Roger Millar: You’re absolutely right. I think when you guys make a motion tonight and put the plan, hopefully, in the Council’s inbox for action, once they make a decision, with any luck, we’ll have a brand new zoning ordinance that works better for us, we’ll have this vision plan and I think the partners who put this plan together are very interested in taking that next step and beginning that process of zoning. And there are two things that need to happen, as you’ve heard countless times from experts like Mr. Sehnert and others, we need to rezone some properties in the downtown and Crandall Arambula has actually got a list of recommendations of places to start with the rezoning, the map amendments, the changes to the downtown that are in a document that are on the BID website. And we also need to look at some text amendments in creating that downtown overlay. And there is a lot of interest, as a professional planner, I don’t think form- based zoning is a panacea, I think it’s a different way of doing business from what we do, and I think it makes a lot of sense for places like downtowns and I think with a modern zoning ordinance in place, we might be ready as a community, we might trust each other enough, or understand each other enough where we can take that next step and look at form-based zoning. And I think the partners are interested in making that happen. Obviously, it takes resources to make that happen. But that would be the next step and just as our office did not lead this planning effort, we participated in it, we’re ready to participate in whatever the downtown community as a whole is ready to advance on. And… Don MacArthur: Well a couple comments. One was that…you said earlier that there might be a process where you would say you could opt into a form-based zoning or use the existing zoning basis, whatever, whether that’s Title 19 or Title 20, and, you know, my two cents is that a lot of these things are not going to be ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 27 of 34 functioning if there’s options like that. So I’m strongly advocating that you take a stance on the one type of zoning, not optional, and I guess the other part is from my perspective I think this is going to be controversial…you know, as soon as we hit controversial than it is right now and that’s the…again, that’s the sort of question about how to frame the right scale of project in the zoning arena, and to…to figure out how restrictive and how strongly we’re going to try to really adhere to the recommendations of this plan. I mean, do the retail hot spots guarantee retail in they are and at what level of retail does it have to be in order to go into the retail hot spot. I mean, all these things are complicated and will require a lot of information to make sense. Roger Millar: I agree that they will and when I spoke of the option of form-based zoning versus others, I was talking about something that I saw in Arlington, Virginia, which is probably one of the places in the country that’s done this as effectively as anybody. I worked on a streetcar project there on the Columbia Pike and they went through a form-based coding process and I’m not saying that’s what we would do here, but it’s an example of something that could be done…they weren’t through a form-based coding process and worked with the neighborhood to very…in very incredible detail, to say this is what the form of these buildings to be, but that form-based overlay, it was an option to the developer. If the developer wanted to use the underlying zoning, they could go through the county’s regular development review process; if they would take the form- based code and adhere to it strictly, they got a building permit in 30 days. It was an option. Everybody took the form-based coding, because everybody wanted the building permit in 30 days. And it maybe we’re ready as a community to start looking at incentive-based plans…or incentive-based codes like that. I don’t know. I agree with you that without some strict, you know ,the glazing, the doorways, you know, without that kind of stuff being regulated, we have less of chance of having success with this plan. What I hear from the business community is they are educated on that and ready to begin to take those kinds of steps. But I think we might have to see some incentives that are in there as well in terms of can it get done faster, can it get done cheaper, can it get done better. That’s the conversation we need to have a community once you guys… Don MacArthur: Well, can the public invest in it? I mean, really, what it comes down to is how does the public invest in it and how much and what are the mechanisms and, you know, the code works…the code review works some places but not in Missoula, because everybody gets a building permit in 30 days. I mean, not everybody, but you pretty much do. So, there’s no big incentive there, but there are incentives available around the questions about MRA participates or how other public money can be funneled into the project. Roger Millar: Well I agree, I don’t know that…Brent, would your partner say that we’re easy on developers? Don MacArthur: I didn’t say subdivision, I said building permit. Roger Millar: That could change. Don MacArthur: All right, anybody else or are we ready for motions? Heidi. Heidi Kendall: I’d make a motion. Don MacArthur: So, please do, and I guess the one question that I wanted to address before that came up is whether we want to take action on what MRA suggested—maybe that was the motion you were going to go, but I’m…I’d like to address that separately from the whole motion is you’d bring that forward first. Heidi Kendall: Okay, what I was going to do was make a motion to recommend approval, adoption of the plan as an amendment to the Growth Policy. And I was going to be silent on that. Don MacArthur: Okay. Heidi Kendall: Partly because my questions were answered. Don MacArthur: Yep. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 28 of 34 Heidi Kendall: I don’t know what was going through the minds of the MRA Board members and I respect them enormously, individually and as a group. But I don’t, you know, there isn’t anybody here this evening who’s talking about it. And my questions about it being an issue have been pretty well resolved that regardless of whether the amendment is included or not, there will continue to be public process around how many lanes West Broadway has; so, my motion would be without the amendment to start with. Don MacArthur: Okay. Anyone want to discuss it before we bring that motion forward? Jerry. Jerry Petasek: Yeah, I want to…I looked in here and both times that I saw it in the implementation part of the packet, it states that the…where is it, Page 100 is the first time, I think (it’s in here twice in the implementation part) and it’s pretty straight-forward: conversion of Broadway, west of Orange Street, to a four-lane section. And I heard pretty loud and clear from the folks in the audience that this is a 25-year plan and that, ultimately, we’re going to need to move some people through that corridor, and, obviously, I agree. When we started having problems with Broadway—I guess I should say when the problems on Broadway finally became addressed and the community had that microburst of interest and went out and all of the ideas were hashed through, the three-lane configuration, I think, was chosen and I don’t know exactly, but I going to assume based on costs and how quickly it could be done… Don MacArthur: Safety. Jerry Petasek: …and safety, as well. But I think, you know, to kind of take that into consideration, I think Broadway could be safe as a four-lane road. I think it’s possible to do that. I think it would cost more, and give you more lights and other accoutrements to maybe keep traffic controlled more. So, I guess, I’m not against the 25-year vision of the conversion of Broadway west of Orange Street to a four-lane street section. I guess what I’m against is that once we put definitives like this into a plan, it becomes definitive and it becomes harder to do other things. And I know that all the folks from the downtown that have businesses and whatnot really like the four-lane option. It moves traffic, it really does. But I think when we did that West Broadway Corridor Community Vision Plan, it was really focused on that corridor and out of that came the three-lane project. So I want to leave it open, and that’s what I think the MRA is trying to do, too, with their amendment. They’re not saying that the four-lane is out, they’re saying let’s keep all the options open on it. And, Heidi, I think you’re right, a lot of people aren’t here tonight arguing about the…aren’t arguing about the four-lane, the two sentences in here that say it should be turning into a four-lane street section, but maybe they think that the West Broadway Corridor Community Vision Plan kind of took care of it. Don MacArthur: Do you want to bring that forward as a motion? Jerry Petasek: I do. Don MacArthur: Okay. Jerry Petasek: I think it’s right here, although it’s a confusing…should I just…Roger, should I read this or just… Roger Millar: Well… Jerry Petasek: How about I just read this? I move that the instances of converting Broadway west of Orange Street to a four-lane street section be stricken and instead say that Broadway…that the configuration…that the section of the plan dealing with the configuration of Broadway to continue the public process for design and review of alternatives for Broadway between Russell and Van Buren Streets. Don MacArthur: That was very grammatical. Jerry Petasek: What do you want from me; I’m reading it straight from here. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 29 of 34 Don MacArthur: All right, I think we get the point, though, that you’re suggesting that it be stricken from the Plan where it specifically indicates that it get…Broadway be converted to four lanes and that it be left more open. Jerry Petasek: That we continue the public process. Don MacArthur: Is there a seconder on that? Tim Skufca: I’ll second. Don MacArthur: Okay, seconded by Tim. Discussion around the Board—Tim first and then Jerry. Tim Ibey: Well, you know, I tend to concur that there’s got to be something done with Broadway and whether there’s going to be pedestrian overpasses or tunnels, I’ve seen tunnels work; I know everybody’s fearful of maybe indigent traffic or something in both of those, but something is going to work for pedestrians and we’ve got a main thoroughfare there and I think that it does need to be left pretty open to planning when it comes right down to it. I am still and opponent of the Broadway Diet and I think we do need to move traffic through there better and so I’m in support. Don MacArthur: In support of the amendment or… Tim Ibey: I’m in support of the amendment, just because you’re leaving it wider open. I mean, I really actually remember seeing the plan that had, I believe four lanes of traffic, a parking strip, and a trolley car going down the middle of it. And I’m not opposed to that, either. Don MacArthur: Yeah. Okay. Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: Well, we got the people who built the plan saying that it’s already covered and MRA wanted to make sure it’s clearly covered, so everyone’s trying to get to the same place, so belt and suspenders, I say we include it, it doesn’t hurt anything and everybody’s happy. Don MacArthur: Yeah and I’m a little confused because I’m…what I think the motion is is to say don’t say specifically four-lane conversion but to say leave it open. It may result in a four-lane conversion, but might now and I think what we heard from the rest of the people who were involved in drafting the plan is that they think this is required and we ought to start thinking 25-years down the road that this is probably likely and it will help frame it, frame our discussion to have that already in place in our minds. I don’t know if that’s a good paraphrase but…Linda, do you want to speak to this? Linda McCarthy: Yes. I just want to draw your attention to Page 66, under Major Automobile and Truck Streets, under Broadway, and keep in mind that the Broadway Corridor Vision did indeed call for a four-lane down the road, if and when it was necessary and I think they had some statistics based upon when that might happen in terms of number of cars traveled per day. And under the Broadway section in here it says design Broadway as a four-lane street between Russell and Van Buren Streets and create a roundabout at Broadway, California and Toole and/or at Broadway and Burton. And then, in parenthesis, it says the feasibility of either one or both of these options should be reviewed by appropriate agencies. I think that’s another area where it does, indeed, leave it open for further review, discussion, and agency decision. Don MacArthur: So the difference might be between the motion is more in that public process versus appropriate agency, that’s a pretty big difference. Yeah, Tim first, and then Jerry. Tim Ibey: Well I think we also have to take into consideration that we can have a plan and we can want to implement it all we want to, but I believe that’s still a highway, isn’t it? Isn’t part of the State Highway System? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 30 of 34 Don MacArthur: Yeah. Tim Ibey: So, I think we have some input, but I think it’s also a State Highway, so probably state DOT is going to have something to say. Don MacArthur: Yep, okay. I’m kind of on the fence about this myself. I feel like on the…I don’t think it really hurts that much to have the four-lane street in there, the conversion of it, I think it that it will still be reviewed carefully when it comes down to that decision and I do think it would be good for the community to move past this and stop…you know, stop beating it up. I think we obviously know that if it is four-lane, it has to be a safe four lane, that it accomplishes all the goals that the three-lane was put in place for and so I think as long as we have enough…keep our priorities straight when we make the decision about it down the road, it’s not going to be a big problem for the community. I don’t know what that says about how I’m voting; but the motions on the floor, any other discussion? (I get to vote last.) I think we need to have a roll call, just on the amendment. The vote was as follows: Sharon Reed: John DiBari. John DiBari: Yes. Sharon Reed: Kelley Durbin Kelley Durbin: No. Sharon Reed: Jonathan Haber. Jonathan Haber: No. Sharon Reed: Tim Ibey. Tim Ibey: Yes. Sharon Reed: Heidi Kendall. Heidi Kendall: No. Sharon Reed: Don…excuse me, Mr. Chair, I should have mentioned that when Jerry Petasek came in, it made it where Don Latham would be the only alternate voting. Okay. Don MacArthur: Okay. Sharon Reed: Okay, so… Don MacArthur: Is that correct? Roger Millar: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Don MacArthur: Yes. Roger Millar: Tim is the City alternate and Don is the County alternate and Jerry is a County representative, so wouldn’t Tim be the alternate voting? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 31 of 34 Don MacArthur: Well, except that the other person missing is a county representative. Roger Millar: Yeah, that’s true, you’re right, you’re right, then, it would Don. Don MacArthur: But don’t we…don’t we have ten members, and two alternates? Sharon Reed: Nine members and two alternates. Don MacArthur: Okay, proceed. So the voting members are: Tim is not voting, Don Latham is voting. Sharon Reed: So, Don Latham. Don Latham: Yes. Sharon Reed: Jerry O’Connell. Jerry O’Connell: Yes. Sharon Reed: Jerry Petasek. Jerry Petasek: Yes. Sharon Reed: Don MacArthur. Don MacArthur: Yes. Sharon Reed: Did I get everyone? Don MacArthur: John, did you vote? You did. Okay, I think you did. Sharon Reed: Okay, you have six votes of yes and three votes of no. The motion carried with 6 votes of ‘yes’ and 3 votes of ‘no. Don MacArthur: Okay. So, the motion carries. Heidi, do you want to bring forward… Heidi Kendall: Sure. I move that we recommend approval…sorry, I move that we recommend adoption of the Downtown…the Missoula Greater Downtown Master Plan as amendment to the Growth Policy as amended. Tim Ibey: Second. Don MacArthur: Okay. Discussion on the main motion? Heidi. Heidi Kendall: This is wonderful and I’m really impressed by the work product here and the unity this evening. It is a refreshing change compared to what we have been used to here for several months and I hope we can vote very overwhelmingly to… Don MacArthur: You know, I’d second what Heidi said I have been at times kind of picking at it tonight, but I think it is an excellent plan. I think that one of the things that is most exciting about it to me is the way that downtown business owners were able to help shape their own future and create a public-private partnership, even in the hiring of consultants to say yes we…like Brent was saying earlier about how we maybe have to fund our local infrastructure, well we have to fund our local planning, too, at times. And there’s not always money available for OPG to take on every planning task that’s out there and a lot of them still need to be ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 32 of 34 done and it’s impressive to see a group of business-owners and agencies that are concerned with how downtown grows come together to make an excellent plan and hire outstanding consultants to do a good product. So I have a lot of admiration for that and all the hard work that went in to and I think it’s going to be an excellent plan that helps us move forward as a community. John. John DiBari: I guess I would like to echo that. I think this is very thoughtful and is a quite a visionary document and I’d like to commend all your hard work on this. I guess I would add one thing and if it’s the will of the Board, I would like to try to find a way to include, perhaps, a sentence, or maybe two sentences that goes to what we were talking about a little bit earlier with regard to the idea of sustainability. That just describes the need to idea these key sustainability technologies or opportunities and perhaps work towards coming up with some way of prioritizing particular projects and avenues that would advance the vision of this document. Don MacArthur: Is that an amendment to…are you suggesting an amendment to the main motion? John DiBari: I am suggesting that we consider that as an amendment. If it’s not…if we don’t get any traction there, then we’ll just move forward with the way it is because, like I said, I think it’s a darn good document. Don MacArthur: And Roger, when you were talking earlier about a whereas statement that went forward with this to Council, were you thinking that that it was in the document or were you thinking it was part of… Roger Millar: We put it in the record, it would be in the record and it would be the intent of the Council. I don’t know that it would be in this Master Plan document itself. And, honestly, it’s been a week already this week, I don’t know whether it’s a resolution or an ordinance, or…I don’t that there’s any vehicle that implements it, but I think we can certainly get your intent expressed on the record and its been heard by the agencies and the individuals who put this together, it’s going to happen going forward. John DiBari: I just wanted to say, too, that, you know, with regard to the idea of transportation and housing you’re, you know, preaching to the choir, there. I think that there really are meaningful important steps identified in here that get at that. And I think, perhaps, what we were trying to do in that discussion earlier was get at some of the more nuanced parts of this idea. Don MacArthur: Well, nuance…yeah, I’ll say it for fourth time or fifth time, my part was more there’s lots of good pieces and nuance in here, it’s really a question of implementing and prioritizing and, you know, hoping to figure out as a community which pieces need to go first and how to get momentum behind those. And I’m, you know, from my own perspective I’m…I think it’s going to be hard to craft something that is good enough to just go forward through Council. I’m willing to let it be dependent on…and the folks who are in the room right now who are going to bring this forward to Council, to bring that discussion forward to them and they can certainly hear our record as well. Roger Millar: Don, another thing I was going to suggest is you, as the Chair, might want to speak to Council on that issue rather than having it be an amendment to this. You know, generally staff brings your recommendation forward when we’re quasi-judicial, it’s kind of that way. This is kind of a…this would be an opportunity you could speak to them on that issue personally if that’s something you as a Board felt strongly about. Don MacArthur: Be willing to sort of vote on the main motion as it is and then maybe we could sort of have a sort of go around the table or a show of hands as to whether you’d want me to do that. John DiBari: Sounds good. Don MacArthur: Okay, let’s have…I don’t think there’s any dissenters, but let’s have a roll call vote anyway. The vote was as follows: ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 33 of 34 Kelley Durbin Yes Jonathan Haber Yes Heidi Kendall Yes Tim Ibey Yes John DiBari Yes Jerry O’Connell Yes Jerry Petasek Yes Don Latham Yes Don MacArthur Yes The motion passed unanimously. Sharon Reed: It’s unanimous. Don MacArthur: Okay, so, let me thank you all for coming. Great work, I was going to try to read off when this…do we know when this is going to be heard by the City Council? Unidentified Speaker: [inaudible, not using microphone] Don MacArthur: July 13th might be the first possible day…can you turn on your mic, I think it’s… Rod Austin: It’s got to PAZ first, from here we’ll move forward step-by-step. Ellen Buchanan is kind of leading us through that bureaucratic maze, so…and we were on the phone talking about what those dates might be and July 13th was the first one that came up. Don MacArthur: And that will be on the DIB website where all the other information is as those things are schedule. Rod Austin: Yep, we’ll have them there. Don MacArthur: Okay, thank you. Rod Austin: Thank you, again. Don MacArthur: Yep. Roger Millar: And we’ll bring that back to you with the Staff Announcements at your next meeting. Don MacArthur: Okay, perfect. VII. COMMUNICATIONS & SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Don MacArthur: Let’s see, Communications and Special Presentations, I don’t think we have any. VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS Don MacArthur: Committee Reports. TPCC did not meet last month, I don’t think we have any other committees at this point. IX. OLD BUSINESS Don MacArthur: Old Business? X. NEW BUSINESS AND REFERRALS Don MacArthur: New Business, Referrals? XI. COMMENTS FROM MCPB MEMBERS ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board June 2, 2009 Page 34 of 34 Don MacArthur: Comments. XII. ADJOURNMENT Don MacArthur: Okay, we’re adjourned. The meeting adjourned at 9:34 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon E. Reed Administrative Secretary Office of Planning and Grants Transcribed by: Deni Forestek Administrative Aide Office of Planning & Grants