Community Development Board hears updates on annexation numbering, UDC meetings, website search and legislative developments

The Bozeman City Community Development Board received multiple informational items on March 3, 2025 covering project scheduling, internal numbering changes, public outreach, and state-level developments that could affect the Unified Development Code (UDC) update process.

Community Development staff announced a public hearing scheduled for the board’s March 17 meeting on a Fowler Road zone map amendment (project 24492), which staff said involves roughly 10 acres. Staff also described a change in the city’s numbering for resolutions and annexations: the clerk will now assign numbers with a year prefix (for example, “2025-7”) corresponding to the year the commission acted, rather than a continuous sequential number across years. Staff said the change does not alter review criteria but will appear in future staff reports.

Staff reported the City Commission recently passed a revised annexation policy resolution; the update keeps existing policy content but clarifies language and removes redundancies. Staff said applications already in progress will continue to move forward under the revised presentation format in upcoming reports.

Board members and staff discussed the project information portal on the city website. A board member said the main site search box does not reliably return application documents from the portal and suggested highlighting or making the project portal more discoverable from the home page. Staff said the city’s IT group has indicated limited ability to change the existing site search but that staff will consider improving direct links or navigation to the project portal.

Staff also summarized the UDC public-engagement schedule: three remaining UDC “deep dive” meetings on March 5 (Chief Joseph), March 10 (Sacagawea), and March 12 (Wilson School), each 6–8 p.m. Staff reported strong turnout for the first meetings (combined in-person and online attendance over 100) and described the current phase as focused on identifying the elements of building form and neighborhood character that people support or oppose, rather than line-by-line code drafting.

A staff update noted the state legislature’s transmittal deadline (the meeting referenced the deadline occurring the week of the meeting) and said bills that do not clear transmittal will not advance this session; staff said some bills remaining alive could affect the UDC project and that a mid-session update could be provided at the board’s next meeting to summarize which bills remain relevant.

A board member also reported a Montana Supreme Court ruling in a case generally described as challenging 2023-era state law changes that would have allowed certain densification measures without a public hearing; the speaker said the Court rejected plaintiffs’ substantive objections to duplex/ADU provisions but upheld concerns about public participation, meaning the public hearing requirement remains in place. The board member framed the ruling as relevant to the UDC process because it affirms the need for public participation steps in local land-use actions.

No formal board action was taken on these FYI items during the meeting.