BOZEMAN — After over a year of planning and feedback, the City of Bozeman has decided to halt an update to the city’s Unified Development Code.
"The unified development update was a process for us to look at our code and basically to simplify it in a way that was more understandable," explains Bozeman Mayor Cyndy Andrus.
But members of the community have continued to express concerns regarding the update.
"What we have heard recently is that there were a lot of people who felt that they weren’t informed and were just hearing about it for the first time, and just had a lot of comments and suggestions that they wanted us to hear," says Andrus. "And so, as we looked at our calendar and time frame for when we would hear this as a commission it was evident to us that we needed more time. The community needed more time".
Although some community members have specifically begun to question the effect of zoning updates on their neighborhoods.
"We understand we’re a growing community, so how do we get more housing in a growing community? Some of the suggestions were to combine our zoning districts. And that’s the place where I think people have been the most concerned," Andrus says. "And then that’s also the place where we need to say stop, we’ll back up the bus, get more input, have more conversations with the community".
Andrus says that the UDC has been put on hold and, "The first of the year we’ll be talking with staff and the city manager on figuring out our next steps on how we will engage with the community on this."
