Bozeman’s Neighborhood Development Seeks LEED Certification

By Lucia Stewart, 2-13-07

	Caption: photo by Tom Ferris

Bozeman’s largest neighborhood development is gearing up to expand the city by a some 89 acres, with 1,100 residential units, 200,000 sq. feet of retail and commercial space and a sizable 34 acres of open space.

But its Story Mill Center’s true significant may lie in its goal of becoming one of the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certified Neighborhoods in the United States.

Although the project aims for a full build-out in just 10 years, the goal is to make it feel like a well-thought-out, long-standing development, not a throwaway, slapdash neighborhood where you can’t tell one house from the next and kids have to play in the street because backyards and neighborhood parks are non-existent.

The Story Mill setting is ideal, with spectacular mountain views and only minutes from Bridger Bowl ski area and national forest access. It’s situated close to downtown, amidst a historic mill district sprinkled with brick buildings and tin granaries of irreplaceable character. While some neighborhood activists have objected to the project, mainly because of increased traffic and the displacement of residents of a trailer park, the Story Mill development team sees the project as very much in line with Bozeman’s 2020 Community Plan. Mixed-use development and affordable housing are key components of the plan, and there’s even talk of a biomass power plant for heating.

“One of the concepts and guidelines of this development is we want it to be permeable to the rest of the community,” said Matthew Crocker, head of Blue Sky Development.

Blue Sky Development , a Bozeman-based sustainable communities development company, assembled 15 parcels of land on the north side of Bozeman over the past two years. Just a few years ago, the area was on the outskirts of town, and was an undeveloped, industrial zone with minimal public utilities.

The area has been a renovation dream of Bozeman since the property’s heyday in 1883, when it thrived as the largest flourmill in Montana and helped bring the railroad to Bozeman.

The Story Mill development is at the beginning phases of the approval process, and is seeking annexation to the city and zoning for what is currently county land. The project hopes to break ground by the fall of 2007.

The City of Bozeman created a 2020 Community Plan a few years ago to ensure the city grew in a logical manner. The city annexed 2,400 acres from 1990-2000 alone —close to 10 percent of the 2020 planned area— and it was clear that trend was going to continue. The Community Plan offers maps and guidelines on how Bozeman can promote neighborhood values, including maintaining a sense of place, preserving natural amenities, and supporting accessibility and urban density.

The City Commission and the public were privy to the Story Mill project at an early stage, with Blue Sky Development offering informal presentations and seeking feedback in an unusual holistic approach to neighborhood development. The City Commissioners were a bit taken aback in December when the largest development team they had ever seen confronted them to ask for input before their formal proposal was submitted.

“The community needs to embrace and support us for this to be successful,” said Chaucer Silverson of Blue Sky Development.

The addition of an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 cars a day down feeder roads and residential streets has raised the ire of the Northeast neighborhood, as has the displacement of 92 families from the low-income Bridger View Trailer Park. Concerns about wetlands preservation have also been raised, though the wetlands on the property are currently anything but preserved.

Growth is inevitable, particular in the Gallatin Valley. The “how” is the questions in its development. Bozeman may be the place where the left and the right brain collaborate, with conscious pragmatic design melding with a high quality of life.