Bozeman staff outlines Unified Development Code revisions focusing on traffic, parking and bike access

Bozeman Community Development staff summarized Phase 1 engagement and a second draft of the city’s Unified Development Code on March 26, outlining proposed changes to how the city measures traffic impacts, manages parking and requires bicycle parking.

The city’s long-range planning manager, Chris Saunders, told the Transportation Advisory Board the UDC update implements goals adopted in 2020 for land use, climate action and housing and must be completed under state law by May 17, 2026. “That is our hard deadline,” Saunders said.

The revised draft seeks to make regulatory text easier to use and to align zoning with state-required housing actions. Staff said outreach produced widely varied and often contradictory public comment; transportation and parking ranked among residents’ top concerns in the Phase 1 engagement. Saunders pointed board members to the project materials on the Engage Bozeman website for drafts and outreach summaries.

Nick Ross, director of Transportation Engineering, described several substantive changes staff is proposing: (1) clarifying and simplifying nonresidential parking requirements while retaining a maximum standard, (2) elevating bicycle parking to its own section that distinguishes short- and long-term bike storage, (3) adding standards to require traffic analysis for local streets when development would increase…