The City Council will hold this public hearing open until they take up the item for final consideration on March 27, 2023.
Mayor Jordan Hess We do have one public hearing, and this is the Rattlesnake-Ten Spoon Winery conservation easement. We have Donna Gaukler and Zac Covington here with our staff report.
Zac Covington Hey, good to meet everybody and see everybody. You might stand up so you can see me…. wait for a second. I'm Zac Covington. I'm the new open space program manager for
Mayor Jordan Hess We could, and I think it’s off now…
Zac Covington Not yet, yet…..Do you hear me? Is this better? Okay.
Marty Rehbein Now we can hear you.
Zac Covington Okay, thanks. I’m gonna ask, Marty's gonna help me advance through my slides here and I apologize I couldn't get my presentation to pull up, that sounds a little better. Thanks Marty. In attendance tonight, we have Erik Anderson who's our current Open Space Advisory Committee chair and Andy Sponseller and Connie Poten. I don't think Connie is here, but Andy's here tonight, the landowners…
Mayor Jordan Hess That’s fine yeah, if you want to do that….
Zac Covington All right, sorry about that. We've also got Elizabeth Erickson here with Worden Than who is our contract and legal services on the project, and we've also got Donna Gaukler, Director of Parks and Recreation. Next slide. I think I've presented a lot of this to some of you and in past meetings and so I'm going to kind of go a little bit quickly, so I don't repeat myself too much and I realize we'll have time for questions at the end, but if, if you want me to go back to a slide, please let me know. The project location is in Rattlesnake Valley, as you may know right on Rattlesnake Drive. The property owners or Connie Poten and Andy Sponseller, 21.5 acres, and it's a current winery and vineyard. It’s a, the project is a conservation easement that the property owners would like to donate 100% of the value of to the City and this, this project and part of this resolution that you're considering is for up to forty thousand dollars in non-personnel legal and due diligent consulting costs for the project and none of this funding, I just want to be clear that none of the funding is going to the landowners, it's just going to reimburse staff, staffing efforts, and legal services, so. Next slid. On February 9th, the Open Space Advisory Committee unanimously voted to approve the motion that you see before you, provided an example of the letter from the chair in support of the project and as a recommendation to the Council that this project meets the open space goals in, in the 2018 open space bond and other, other city and county and state documents and plans. Next slide please. Another recent presentations include Parks and Recreation Board and Climate, Conservation and Parks Committee, both in February. Next. I just really quickly wanted to show how this project furthers the objectives of public policies and programs, the 2018 interlocal agreement of the open space bond, it's, it's included as an easement, a conservation easement. It's, it's adjacent to several cornerstones in the 2019 Missoula urban area open space plan. Next slide. You can see in the first column there, 2019 Missoula urban area open space plan, it takes a lot of boxes here and I just wanted to kind of give you an overview so that you, you understand what we look at as staff and as Open Space Advisory Committee, as, as that committee is taking a look at these projects. It checks the boxes of agricultural, land protection, historic and scenic land protection, corridors, greenways, trails, recreational, aesthetic, economic health. Next slide. This is a map of the cornerstones in the 2019 Missoula urban area open space plan and the little purple leaf there that you can see is where the project is located, North Hills and Mount Jumbo cornerstones. Next slide. The, the conservation easement is for, as you know, a Ten-Spoon Vineyard/Winery. There's eight acres of working vineyards. There's a commercial winery, beautiful area. You've probably been up there and driven by. There's beautiful views and vistas, beehives on the east side of the property maybe something that I, I didn't know that you may not know that. There's, there's some good educational resources there for, for honey production. There's a lot of education that goes on at the vineyard itself. There's a community gathering space for educational activities, community events, weddings and celebrations. There's a lot of wildlife that frequents the area and moves through the site, being in proximity to Mount Jumbo and, and closer to, to Rattlesnake Creek, kind of that in between corridor. Next slide. I wanted to put this slide in, in response to some of the questions from Climate, Conservation and Parks Committee meeting, just about conservation easements. There is a voluntary legal agreement between the landowner and a land and a land trust or organization such as a city that limits the use of the land in order to protect conservation values, offers flexibility, but provides a permanent guarantee that the land will not be developed. It does not need to require public access, but some do. They qualify as tax deductible charitable donations for the landowner and the amount of the donation is the difference between the land's value with the easement and the value without the easement. Next slide please. Also in response to Climate, Conservation and Parks meeting questions, we, we did a little bit of mapping of our currently held city conservation easements and there's six easements currently, Garden City Harvest, Stahl, O'Keefe and Apple Grove HOA, Hough, and Green Bow, and I'm going to say Jess, maybe someone can correct me….Guest or jest, maybe no one knows, but in the purple there on the map, you can see where those are located. They're fairly spread out among the community. Next slide. We were also asked about long-term costs to the city for conservation easements. It's very low cost. I put two to five hours annually, it's probably more like one to two hours annually just for monitoring of the site and the easement, just to make sure that the conservation easement is staying compliant year after year and there's also a self-monitoring tool that can be sent to the landowners that they can fill out the, the monitoring information for themselves. Next slide. The Ten Spoon conservation easement largely is a rural agricultural easement that's, that's the main purpose, but there there's a lot of other values as we've already discussed scenic views, a wildlife corridor, outdoor recreation, and water and watershed protection. Next slide. This is a simple map of the building envelope that's, that's proposed in a draft form for the easement. You can kind of see the, the red outline there on the north, I should say top left corner and I won't get into a lot of details, but essentially allows up to four 11 work structures, sheds, barn, parking, solar, winery building, provisions, etc. Next slide. One thing that's really unique about this conservation easement is that the landowners are wanting to donate a walkway, pedestrian walkway easement across the property. That's not common with agricultural easements so this is very unique, very generous of the landowners to do so. Generally, that, that connection would be between the Lincoln neighborhood and Rattlesnake Drive, excuse me and location to be determined, but that's, that's a very unique feature of this conservation easement. Next slide please. We were also asked to look at adjacent land uses and current zoning, that's part of our process, but we had some good questions about that last time or in the CCP meeting. The property is currently un-zoned and surrounding zoning is mostly R20 and planned unit development. I think there's some R40 in there too. Current surrounding lots range from 1/3 to 1/5 of an acre and future zoning and densities for un-zoned areas in the city, as we're learning and as I'm learning being fairly new to the city, talking to the Community Planning, Development, and Innovation are those un-zoned areas. The zonings determined by a combination of growth policy and adjacent development. Next slide. As I mentioned, this is an agricultural conservation easement largely and in the kind of darker tan color, you can see that those are all soils that indicate farmland of local importance, and it covers the entire Rattlesnake Valley. And I'll just mention that there's really not a lot of large tracts of land left in that area with significant farmland soils of local importance or other types of soils. Next slide. Just wanted to quickly mention the vegetation and wildlife communities on site, largely non-native species, but there's been a lot of work done on the site to, to improve some of that, some of the vegetation types soil stability. There are a lot of ground nesting birds and things that utilize some of the vegetation on the site. There's some native species including big leaf sage, American vetch, some junipers, and Ponderosa pines. Next slide. There's a lot of wildlife that crosses the property and I think that's just generally, make their home in the rattlesnake area, and I won't read through all those, but it's, it's pretty impressive, a lot of ground nesting birds, the birds that actually nest in the grapevine, seasonal birds, and a lot of you know predators, bobcats, bears, coyotes, and there's also of course deer, sandhill cranes, and others. Next slide. I'm not going to read through this, but I've included it in your presentation, so you can read up on the history a little bit, if you're interested. I wanted to highlight that in 1991 Connie Poten and, and other landowners bought the field there, really largely to conserve those fields and now currently, the landowners are to the point on this particular parcel where they want to protect and, and provide a gift of sorts to the community long term. Next slide. Really quickly, I wanted to show you these photos. This is looking south over the vineyard. Next slide. And some of the community areas, gathering areas around, around the winery. Next slide. Kind of a cool aerial oblique shot of the rattlesnake area and the site in purple there, outlined in purple. You can see how it kind of connects to some of those natural corridors to the right and left or to the east and west, the left side being Rattlesnake Creek, the right side being Mount Jumbo. Next slide. So, in summary, the property owners are utilizing private property rights to leave a legacy to their community. The conservation easement is donated, none of the $40,000.00 that's going, that would, that's proposed or that we're asking would go for legal and due diligence costs, none of that money is going to the landowners. Conservation easement is one of the City's very few AG land set-asides and, and preservation areas. They include soils of local importance and it's and it's unique, especially as Missoula grows, the more urban and suburban areas they're losing farmland. This is, this will be an interesting conversation moving forward and I think this is a great project, in that sense that it, that it protects agricultural land and kind of a suburban urban area. This is a unique project and that it includes an east-west pedestrian pathway, walkway that connects the neighborhoods up there. It supports growth policy in that it provides a respite for the more densely developed areas of the community and public access across property. The, the conservation easement and access easement support agricultural, scenic recreational, and wildlife corridor conservation values per state code and local ordinances. And I think what we're asking the Council to consider tonight and over the next, over the public hearing period really is three things. First, that $40,000.00 or up to forty thousand dollars be approved for the use of due diligence and legal costs for this project. The second would be that the city would accept the, the donated conservation easement, and then the third would be that the City would accept the pedestrian walkway access easement, as well. So, next slide please. So, I've asked Erik Anderson our current Open Space Advisory Committee chair to share a couple of thoughts from an Open Space Advisory Committee standpoint and then I've asked Andy Sponseller if he would take a couple of minutes as one of the landowners of Ten Spoon to, to share a couple thoughts as well and then we'll have time for questions after that.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Covington. Mr. Anderson.
Erik Anderson Hello Council members. My name is Erik Anderson, I'm the current chair of the Open Space Advisory Committee or OSAC, as we're called. About halfway through my, my third three year term, so I've been there a little while and you know I've voted on quite a few of these projects, mostly really good projects because staff does a great job vetting them. This one is, is quite a unique project; I haven't seen one quite like this. It ticks quite a lot of boxes for open space values and the committee was generally very excited about it. We kind of dug right in and got straight into a lot of the details, mostly revolving around the conservation easement language. We have a lot of technical people on our committee and so we had a lot of questions like how's this going to affect grazing or how is it going to be restricted? How are fences going to be restricted? You know, how is wildlife going to be able to move through the corridor? And questions like that and I think actually the, the landowners and their counsel took a lot of that into consideration and tried to address a lot of it, so that's, that's definitely appreciated. So, yea, this ticks a lot of boxes. You know, it's, it's a great wildlife corridor within a heavy recreational use area. It protects scenic values in an urban area and most importantly though and I think this is what tipped the scales for, for several people on our committee is that it provides this great strategic public pedestrian corridor between two existing neighborhoods, which is super appealing, especially for the, the price paid for this project. The bond, bond this, this, we really felt like on the committee that this is a good use of bond money, and you know the, the, we're really just trying to usher this thing through the process, that's the way we see it. You know, with the expenditures, in comparison to past expenditures, this is a pretty small ask. So, in summary, the committee voted unanimously in favor, and we really think that it's a good use of bond funds and a good deal for the community. Thanks a lot.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Anderson. Mr. Sponseller. Good to see you Andy.
Andy Sponseller Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, for the record, my name is Andy Sponseller. It's been a long time since I've been here. I think the last time I was here was when I was chair of the MPL and Martha was our staff person and some of you I know, some of you, I haven't had a chance to meet but the first thing I’d do is thank you for your service. I know how difficult this job can be and I’ve spent a few nights at two o'clock in the morning at public hearings over some fairly contentious items like Fort Missoula. I grew up in a family in Ohio, a republican family, and my parents were involved in our community. My dad was a plumbing contractor, and my mom was a schoolteacher and involved in republican politics on a community level. They participated in their community, and they contributed to their community. And Connie's family has a similar record of community participation, as well and that's the way we grew up and that's the way we feel about this town. So, we've been working on that farm up there for 25 years and it's become a community gathering place and has an extraordinary wildlife population. We put a lot of our resources, all of our resources into this place and it is an extraordinary agricultural installation as urban Montana goes, probably as any Montana place goes. We have a complete irrigation system, we have eight acres of vineyard, we have native grassland. It's, it's a pretty unusual place. One of the things that I feel strongly about is that agriculture, wildlands, wildlife habitat generally takes a back seat to development, almost every day, almost every day and I've witnessed it. Housing crisis come and go, they're cyclical. One thing that gets less every year is land that's available for people to recreate on and people to grow things on and for animals to use. There's almost no good place for animals to go anymore. You think all the mountains out there, there's all that room for animals. Well what's true about the climate situation that we're in is that the upper elevations really are difficult for wildlife now. Food Supplies are scarce at the upper elevations, and they're being pushed off the flatland everywhere and out of the river bottoms because people find them attractive. So, what does that leave for wildlife? What does that leave for the farmers? It doesn't leave very much. Now back when I was a welding contractor, I worked out in Frenchtown for the Sear family fixing their irrigation pipes out in the fields and I was down in a ditch welding irrigation pipe that was in six feet of topsoil. Believe it or not, there's that much topsoil in the Missoula Valley and I was standing in topsoil at six feet, so it went down further. And they know what they're doing with that now, they're building houses on it and some of the finest according to John Pierce our local botanist that Missoula Valley in places has the best agricultural ground in the state and we're building houses on it. Now there's going to be a day with climate change and water Supplies where this place is going to be look, wondering why we didn't do a better job of setting agricultural land aside. It's hard to see it right now, but it's going to happen, and it looks like California got a little bit of reprieve this year with the rain rivers, but they'll be right back in drought in a year or two. And the general, we have to look at the overall general trends and with so many of these things like people moving here, the, the environment, how much rain we get. You gotta look at the long term and the long term says that we should be planning to grow things here in the Missoula Valley. So, we think our, our property is an asset to the community. It's well equipped to grow food and we think that that's pretty darn important considering what we're facing in the future. So, I’ll, I’d tell you one other little aside, I was, I was up in the canyon above the house two summers ago and there's a grizzly bear, I had an up close and personal with, with a sow grizzly bear and three yearlings and I couldn't believe my knees weren't shaking more, but that animal, stood seven feet tall on her hind legs and she looked desperate, and she had three yearlings with her . They're come, they're getting pushed down out of the high country because they don't have enough food. They're getting pushed up out of the valley or put in a trap trailer and hauled someplace else so they can go through the whole cycle again. When are we going to take some responsibility for our impact on the creatures? And I mean, we pride ourselves on being a mountain state, a wildlife state, and we're making very few places for them to live. I mean, are the national parks and some of our wildlands just going to be zoos? I, I think that when we moved here, we kind of made an unwritten contract that we were going to fit into the place and the animals have a right to live here too. That's, that, that's all I can say, and we've made a commitment to our place to service a lot of different things that Montanans care about. I hope you'll share that with us and support the project. Thanks.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Sponseller. And with that, I'll open the public hearing. If anyone wants to comment, come on up.
Jim Parker Thank you Mayor Hess and Council members, nice to see you all. My name is Jim Parker and I live at 3700 Rattlesnake Drive and I'm here tonight to support the request for the conservation easement for Ten Spoon Vineyard and Winery off Rattlesnake Drive. You've heard a lot of wonderful information and I'll try to summarize my points and why I'm supporting this. I, I've lived in the Rattlesnake Valley for most of the 34 years I've lived in Missoula and have often visited the winery and vineyard and even more frequently recreated near and around that land parcel. And as you've heard, it's quite a unique piece of land, both for Missoula and especially up in the Rattlesnake Valley. It's a large parcel, it's underdeveloped for humans, easily and generously inhabited by wildlife, a lot of critters and it's flat and it borders right on the urban wildlands interface zone. You know, I also see the agricultural use of the vineyard as have Andy and others have spoken of, so close to neighborhoods and houses this is a value that we rarely see anymore and it's an attribute both for us as humans and more importantly for wildlife. I currently live pretty close to the land, a short walk away and regularly at night, hear coyotes in the field howling, calling to friends, whatever they like to do. And you know, you get to view both wildlife, as we've seen that long list and you can think bears, deer, lots of small critters and such a variety of birds throughout the year, and they're not there just because it's cool place to be, they're there because it's a refuge and it's a safe place to be. It's clearly wildlife habitat and a corridor for those animals and as proposed for us humans too, linking both of us to even greater stretchers of open space lands nearby and around it. And again, as Andy was saying, most of the flat land in the valley and greater Missoula is grabbed by humans for their primary enjoyment alone, and wildlife and access often if not always is lost. This is a rare jewel, a rare opportunity to save these values for both humans and wildlife, and I hope you all see the importance to keep it this way in perpetuity with the season. As the campaign manager for the 1995 open space bond and ensuing years spent on the city open space committee, these land types and connectors to other trails, open spaces, wildlife corridors for both human access and animal refuge and corridors was and is a primary objective. And beyond all these attributes, both neighbors and the greater community equally share in numerous events, the winery and vineyard hold each year including community grape harvests. Nowhere else around here get, you get to do that, good wine, good food, a gathering place and often music going through the valley by our local performers in the evenings of summer. Of course, tourists like to come up there and see these values too, which they don't get to interface with so close to an urban area such as Missoula. So, there'll be much we lose in Missoula in the years ahead, but you know let's keep this parcel off that list of loss and enhance it for the benefit of humans and wildlife at the same time. Thanks so much.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Mr. Parker. Anyone else tonight? Come on up.
Edward Monnig Thank you Mr. Mayor and Council persons. My name is Edward Monnig, I am a resident of the City of Missoula. I thank you for this opportunity to comment on his proposed conservation easements of the Ten Spoon winery property. I'd like to just take a few seconds to thank Andy and Connie, your generosity just incredible. I get too emotional about this. I pulled this old book off my bookshelf, Sand County Almanac and it has an incredible essay on the land ethics and Andy and Connie…
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Monnig…..I just want to get you on the mic.
Edward Monnig Sorry…
Mayor Jordan Hess We’re grateful for your comments, but direct them to the microphone please.
Edward Monnig Yeah, sorry about that.
Mayor Jordan Hess No problem.
Edward Monnig I, when I read that essay again today, it just occurred to me that Andy and Connie just exemplify the highest order of that land ethic, so thank you. I watched some of the give and take of different Council people on the value of this easement. I find it a little ironic that we have to argue property rights to allow these property owners to refrain from exploiting their own property. It just doesn't make sense to me, so with these lands possess incredible ecological attributes and even those of us who don't live in close proximity to this property will benefit from their generosity. So, sorry for being emotional, but thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you for your comments tonight. Anyone else? Come on up.
Anja Heister Good evening Mayor Hess and Council members. My name is Anja Heister. I'm originally from Germany, so that's where my accent is from. I don't want you to be distracted by the important message I have. So, yeah, my name is Anja Heister, I've been in Missoula for 23 years now and first of all, I want to thank you for the for considering the conservation easement at Ten Spoon Vineyard and Winery. I hope that you will vote in favor of it. Having lived in Missoula and been part of our wonderful community for the past 23 years, I truly value our open spaces. I'm from Frankfurt, all I saw throughout my life are buildings, cement, streets, cars….The unobstructed view of the surrounding mountains and even Lolo Peak in the distance or in the far distance is only one of the many reasons that make Ten Spoons so exquisite. I have taken visitors, family members, lots of them and friends, also lots of them to Ten Spoon many times throughout the years and everyone comments on how extraordinarily beautiful the area is. Ten Spoon provides many opportunities for entertainment, especially in the summer and it is a valued destination for families and other social gatherings. The community grape harvest in October is so special to me that I have never missed it, since 2012. While I realized there is a need for affordable housing in the Missoula Community, there is also, there needs to be a balance between our new growth and protecting open spaces. And open spaces are not only needed for our own human, mental, physical, and, and emotional health but also for the wild animals who are using the Ten Spoon acreage as much needed corridor to travel from one mountain range to another, either in search of food, habitat or mates. We've heard about this all evening. So Connie Poten and Andy Sponseller are giving us an incredibly generous gift and please support them and vote in favor of the Ten Spoon conservation easement. Thank you very much.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Anyone else?
Beth Judy I’m Beth Judy and I'm speaking as an individual and a lower Rattlesnake resident in support of the conservation easement at Ten Spoon. I hope the City will accept and hold a conservation easement on that whole property. COVID, supply chain difficulties, and the Ukraine Russia War have made me a believer in the wisdom and foresight of local food systems. We need more of that and having prime AG land up the rattlesnake would be a huge boost. Keeping that land undeveloped and open has other important values too. I'm glad to live in a dense place, the lower Rattlesnake similar to a lot of Missoula neighborhoods, but I'm also glad whenever I can go up the canyon and see that wide open agricultural land. It reminds us of the original nature of the Rattlesnake and the Missoula Valley so our heritage the view is stunning, but it also reminds me why I live here and what is special about Missoula. It literally allows me to expand and breathe. It's also a potential place of safety in a fire for neighbors to gather and for a fire camp. In my opinion and experience, protecting the Ten Spoon land is a wise investment that future generations will thank us for. In addition to reasons of local food, open space, heritage and public safety, it's good for wildlife, trail connectivity, and water health. To me, that's a lot of bang for our bucks. Please support this opportunity to protect this land forever.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. Judy. Anyone else?
Larry Gard My name is Larry Gard and I'm speaking just on behalf of myself as a resident of Missoula for about 35 years. And I am in support of the easement, and I think that what occurs to me is that people that are leaving other places to come here, there's something that's appealing to them here. It's not congestion, it's not the high cost of living, and those are the things that we'd be inviting if we use that land unwisely, and I think keeping it in perpetuity as an agricultural land is, is a wise decision and more long sided than just building a lot of housing. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Anyone else tonight? Anyone online? Come on up.
[unannounced public speaker] Hello, I’m sorry, I thought the meeting was starting at seven. I am here in support of the generous gift of Connie and Andy in, in offering up this piece of Missoula to our community, in posterity and perpetuity. And I am at the right time in the hearing? Okay, okay. So, anyway, we, we began the open space bond process in 1980 so we've been at it a long time because we've realized the special quality of this valley. We are not Bozeman, we are not Bozeman, we are not Helena. We are a very privileged valley to live at 3, 200 feet which means we have a strong agricultural base, and we also have a beautiful environment to live in, we have beautiful seasons, so, we wanted to protect it. And from what I understand, public open space is that this is the ideal reason why we have put aside this money all these years and it has been very, very successful. What Connie and Andy have built up is pretty unique, a winery in Montana. That's not something that is done overnight and it's not something that's not with without hard work and many of us, as we've spoken tonight, are very, very appreciative of that land, especially when we consider the historic nature of that. I don't know how many of you remembered the potato farms. I don't know how many of you remember the orchards that were up there, but this was one of the breadbasket areas of Missoula, and simply for that reason alone, I think we need to protect it. The other thing is, and I forgot my map, but I have been watching Missoula grow for all my lifetime and what I don't want it to become is anywhere USA. What I'm afraid of is that we're tearing down our history, we're tearing down our neighborhoods, and what will we have left? We will have left that the area is untouched and I'm just going to make one more point. My belief is instead of destroying West Side, Lower Rattlesnake, Hip Strip neighborhood, Slam Street, these neighborhoods with infill, I mean I don't I'm not against infill, but we're already dense. You have to understand we're the densest neighborhoods in Missoula, so, but what I'd like us to do is replicate our beautiful, walkable, sustainable, drivable, intense commercial, mixed use, and replicate it. And I would suggest we start looking at the Brook Street Corridor because when you have changed everything around us what we will have left is anywhere USA. So, I looked at, I've been looking at a little bit of maps for density and for land use. This is 21 Acres; I don't know what in heaven's name you think you're going to put on 21 Acres up the Rattlesnake in a corridor that's very difficult to get in and out of. So, my suggest, so we have 21 Acres there, but I found in looking, doing some research that Southgate Mall occupies 68 acres. So, my suggestion to you is to not look at our historic neighborhoods to look at the Brook Street corridor and the surrounding areas where we have acres and acres of asphalt, and we have many underutilized one-story buildings and that is where I think we need to rebuild a hip strip and rebuild a Lower Rattlesnake with all its diversities and all of its mixed use environment. So, that's what I'm suggesting, and I thank you so much for saving our beautiful, one little spot of the Rattlesnake for, for our Missoulians. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you Ms. [inaudible]. Anyone else tonight? Welcome, we are just wrapping up public comment on the Ten Spoon item. If, if you two are here for that, you’re welcome to, to come up. Okay. One last call for public comment on Ten Spoon. Okay, seeing none, and one last call for online comment. Seeing none online, this is anticlimactic because we don't take action now after all of your comments. We are going to hold this item until March 27th when Council will take final action. At this time, we can do questions from Council, if anyone has, if anyone has questions? But again, the public hearing will remain open until next week. Ms. Becerra.
Alderperson Becerra Thank you. I, I just want to thank everyone who came to provide public comment and to the property owners for this generous gift that you're proposing the City takes as a conservation easement. One question that I do have is in the documents that are attached to the agenda, in the financial section, the funding narrative, it talks about the city using 1.3% of the total donated value. It also talks about costing the city forty thousand dollars. Is that the same, are we talking about the same number? Or is the 1.3% an additional expense to the city?
[unannounced speaker] That’s the same number.
Alderperson Becerra Great, thank you.
[unannounced speaker] Yeah, it’s just comparing that forty thousand to the estimated value of the conservation easement.
Mayor Jordan Hess Okay thanks. I, I lost track of a few hands, but I have Ms. Sherrill and then Mr. Carlino and then Ms. Jones.
Alderperson Sherrill Okay thanks and I’m going to fight my urge to pontificate on this item until next time, so I won't do that, but I will say, I mean, we talk a lot about food systems, obviously. We have the food policy advisory board that we, we just recently put into, approved or whatever and you know food systems with climate mitigation and is really important and our ability to grow food in the valley, we have to have soil that to do that right? So, I'm wondering with the food policy advisory board, if they have given any feedback on that? And then I have one other question.
Mayor Jordan Hess Sure.
unannounced speaker] Great questions. We have not talked to that board at all during this but that's a great idea. I think we should definitely talk with them.
Alderperson Sherrill Thanks, and if they said they're looking….Oh, did someone raise their hands?
Donna Gaukler This is Donna Gaukler, Director of Parks and Recreation. We did receive a letter of support from the food policy board. We have spoken with CFAC, super supportive and so, the focus on agriculture for Park staff has been huge because it's so difficult to set aside AG lands, especially AG lands with soils of local importance that are already irrigated.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. You want a followup?
Alderperson Sherrill May I have a followup? Yeah.. And I forgot to just say thanks, I want to first thank Andy and Connie, and really thank everyone for coming out. It's, it's nice to hear everyone's passion about this issue and I have spent most of my life in conservation, and it's just nice when you're sitting on City Council and you get to kind of hear, hear all your people come again. So, I, I, you know, I guess, I don't have any question that I don't think…. I was going to ask about CFAC and that is the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, just in case people don't know. I knew that they had weighed in. I'm glad to know that the food policy advisory board weighed in as well. I'm sorry if I missed that. I don't, I don't, I guess I don't have any other, other questions, most of them are comments and I'll save those for, for the 27th.
Mayor Jordan Hess Okay, thank you. Mr. Carlino and then Ms. Jones.
Alderperson Carlino I’ve got three questions, if I can run through them?
Mayor Jordan Hess Go right ahead.
Alderperson Carlino For the first, I was wondering, will this ever be shut down for private events or we're all events be public? And if so, could we estimate what the cost of hosting an event there might be?
Mayor Jordan Hess And maybe if I could, if I could if I could start Mr. [inaudible]
unannounced speaker] Is this appropriate?
Mayor Jordan Hess Well you're welcome to answer the question, but I think this is, this is not an acquisition, so we don't control the, the nature of the use other than the agricultural restriction. So, the city doesn't have a, a role in dictating what events could or couldn't be held here, it's, it's really just about the agricultural.
Alderperson Carlino Great. And then my other question was, I was wondering if the pedestrian path through there, is plans to, is planned to be open 24/ 7? Or if, if there, if it would ever be closed for some reason?
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Sponseller, you’re welcome….
Andy Sponseller Well, I don’t know if I understand the question. Is it a public house?
Alderperson Carlino So, the pedestrian path that's proposed to have public access through there, will that be open 24/7? The path?
Andy Sponseller Well, actually we have some housing that's provided in the easement in terms of future, and some of the housing is for employees and one housing unit would actually be available for the public to use, as….
Mayor Jordan Hess I think the, more about the, the pathway that's proposed that connects the, the …..
[inaudible speaking]
Alderperson Carlino Sorry, I was just asking about the pathway, the pedestrian path, we have some path…..
[unknown speaker] No, the pathway would be subject to the same regulations as the pathways anywhere in the city. And those are generally from 6:00 a.m. in the morning until 10:00 p.m. at night. And of course, they would be available during those times. I think for security reasons and correct me if I'm wrong, Donna, you, you could address that issue quickly. But for security reasons, 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. is a good time to close those pathways for public security…
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you.
[unannounced speaker] Is there anything else? I mean I'm happy to answer questions…..
Mayor Jordan Hess Okay. Thank you. Next, I have Ms. Jones and then Ms. Anderson.
Alderperson Jones Thank. Zac, could you talk a little bit about? I understand that there's kind of a carve out for some workforce housing to go in and I think it's workforce for the AG lands, could you just flush that out? So, I have a better picture of what that amounts to and what that's going to look like actually in the future?
Zac Covington Yeah, yeah. Thanks for saying potentially because I think this is, yeah conservation easement is currently in draft form and so it is a potential, but, but currently as, as proposed, I believe there's up to four residential work-live units proposed total, completely on, on that site. So, within that building envelope and that includes the existing residential structures and so, that, that could be for, some of it would be for workforce housing for the site, but others would be for, for potentially owners and workers, seasonal workers, whatever, what may have. So, so, I, I'm not really sure there's a lot of specifics on that yet but that's what's been proposed so far.
Alderperson Jones Followup?
Mayor Jordan Hess Followup.
Alderperson Jones So, it sounds like just in general potentially four more houses?
Zac Covington Four including the existing residence.
Alderperson Jones Okay.
Zac Covington and winery structures. Currently, I think there's residential in the winery building and so, I think yeah including those two buildings, there would be four total.
Alderperson Jones Okay, thanks. And one more.
Mayor Jordan Hess Sure.
Alderperson Jones And maybe Mr. Sponseller this is for you, I'm not sure or Zach? Currently, it is a venue with events that are held. Is that venue function somehow in the conservation easement or is that 50 years from now, will there be a venue? Or maybe, maybe not, depending on who is there? I'm just trying to figure out how it works because I do love the venue. It is beautiful and it's a wonderful thing, I'm just not quite sure how this works legally in terms of in perpetuity.
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Sponseller.
Andy Sponseller The way the conservation easements set up, is to protect the open space values and the agricultural values and the wildlife values. The thing that's interesting about this project is that, as the valley, and I'm going to expand here for a second. I'll get back to you the answer to your question. It's going to be more complex in the future. There's a lot of compete, competition for the available dirt that's in the valley and there's gonna be more and more properties that have some acreage that already have something going on and in our case, it's agriculture and the venue, and the venue helps to support the agriculture. I suspect, to answer your question, that, that the venue will continue to support the agriculture, that's not uncommon across the United States. There's actually some rather large agricultural installations across the nation including grain farms, livestock farms, you name it, that are actually doing Agro tourism to help support their operations. It's a tough way, it's a tough row to hoe, to excuse the pun, but yes, we plan on keeping the venue going. I suspect that people will keep the venue going in the future because it helps to support the operation. And one thing that I would mention is that we've had this discussion with the city over time and I've been on the business end of, of constructing ordinance, and I know how important it is for ordinances to regulate what goes on in the community, and the, the venue will abide by, say for instance, the noise ordinance. Last summer, we did a rather extensive study of our property with noise meters and what we found out was that in many places on the field, there was more ambient noise coming from the intersection at Rattlesnake Drive and, and Lincoln Road than there was from our music on the property. It's a pretty amazing, the ambient white noise that's generated in the city is rather high. So, we know what our responsibility is to respond to say for instance the noise ordinance and other ordinances, and we will be required to do that, and we will be happy to comply. So, thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Ms. Savage. I'm sorry Ms. Anderson and then Ms. Savage.
Alderperson Anderson I’m happy to be confused. Thanks so much. My question is in regards to you know there we don't see a lot of these types of easements coming through and being held and requested that the City held them. So, pardon, some of maybe potentially rudimentary questions, but going forward I you know I've we've heard a lot of comments about protecting this land from an agricultural standpoint and as the needs of our community change going forward, what's the decision-making structure if at some point in time, grapes no longer become you know we are in a situation where we need to grow a different type of food, who is you know the, what's the decision-making structure on kind of the Agricultural use of that land?
Andy Sponseller I’m going to actually ask Elizabeth Erickson, so she's the one that's helping to draft the actual document to kind of talk about the legal guidance there. Okay?
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. Erickson.
Elizabeth Erickson Good evening Council, it's a pleasure to be here. A couple of comments about the easement itself, generally. So, conservation easements are what are called negative easements and so they restrict activities that can take place on the property, they don't affirmatively mandate activities that must take place and so they restrict activities for the purposes of protecting the conservation values. This particular easement allows for commercial activities, this is in response to your prior question, moving forward, but those activities are at the discretion of the landowner, whether the landowner wants to require or carry those out. In terms of the agricultural production, as part of the easement, it doesn't mandate any particular type of production. So, it could be anything that would grow as long as it's protecting the additional conservation values that include open space, certain wildlife habitat qualities, some of the grassland habitat, things like that…
Alderperson Anderson Great. Thanks so much.
Elizabeth Erickson Yes.
Mayor Jordan Hess Thank you. Ms. Savage.
Alderperson Savage I'm curious about the, the adjacent parcels, the one to the north and the one to the south. It seems to me like when I'm looking at, I'm looking at your presentation right now and the sort of overview picture. I'm wondering, I know that they're owned by different people, but are they also considered this type of agricultural land and were they considered in this process at all?
Donna Gaukler We've spoken to both property owners, but I don't want to project what I, what they may or may not choose to do. I don't think that would be appropriate at this time. If they come to us or go to a land trust or choose to develop that, those questions are all up in the air and we can't necessarily make that promise, either way.
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. Savage.
Alderperson Savage But, it wasn't a part of this conversation?
Donna Gaulker We had very early conversations with all three landowners, and Andy and Connie decided to go forward.
Mayor Jordan Hess Ms. West and then Mr. Nugent.
Alderperson West I'm, I'm not sure if you can answer my question right now, but my question is about this property currently being un-zoned and the proposal for additional live-work units. And I know, under our standard zoning districts, it can be challenging to create live-work units So, I, I think my question is around what the work that can happen in those units is? Because usually in our zoning, base zoning, there is you know you can have certain types of home businesses, but others aren't allowed depending on where you are in town and so I, I was just wondering, how that is decided? Like what the work part of the work units can be in an un-zoned parcel?
[unannounced speaker] Yeah good question and I just need to preface this by saying that I'm not qualified to answer that, but, but I think generally, we've definitely discussed that whatever landowners are there, including current landowners would just have to comply with local zoning and ordinances, however they're written. So, any proposals there for additional structures would be following city code and ordinances. I know that's kind of a general cop-out answer, but, but that's the best I can probably do with that. Is that okay? Is that a good answer?
Alderperson West Yeah and I think I would like, I mean we have time, so maybe in the interim, since there, there is no zoning so that applies this, I would like some clarity around how that decision is made of what the work unit can be?
[unannounced speaker] [unannounced speaker] Yeah….
Alderperson West Process….in the future.
[unannounced speaker] Great question. And I think we, that is a good point and we have been talking with Community Planning Development and Innovation and we'll continue to do that and I, and we'll, we'll have a conversation with them I think as this easement is being drafted. I think that's a, a great idea to have some further conversations with them. So, good point. Thank you.
Mayor Jordan Hess Mr. Nugent.
Alderperson Mike Nugent Thank you Mr. Mayor. I am I'm going to stick to not commenting even though I will point out that some of my colleagues were great at comments and other questions. So with that, I just have a couple questions and I'm honestly not sure who's going to answer them, and it might be Ms. Sherrill actually…But during the last open space bond campaign, am I correct, I seem to remember when, when people were out kind of pitching local businesses/ organizations to support it that there was an increased emphasis on protecting AG land? Is that an accurate recollection of the process, Ms. Sherrill.
Alderperson Sherrill I’m waiting to be called on here…I will answer that since I ran the 2018 open space bond, and I was that was part of my pontificating that I was trying not to do. So, thank you for allowing me to pontificate a little more. I will save the rest of it for the 27th, but absolutely, the importance of protecting agricultural lands and the important AG soils was a big part of that. So, you know, generally the county has done more of that work just because they have the ability to do more of that work because they don't have houses and concrete everywhere like we do in the city, but absolutely that that was a big part of, of the bond. It's written in the bond language. It polled very well when we, we polled it for the bond and I believe it, it was in the pro survey as well, but that's something Donna could speak to more, but yes, is the answer.
Alderperson Mike Nugent So, it fits the intent?
[inaudible speaking]
Alderperson Sherrill Yes, it fits the intent.
Alderperson Mike Nugent I have one other question Mr. Mayor. And this might be a question for Donna, but you might have to find me an answer. We've heard a little bit of conversation about, conservation versus housing and I think that you know that's a, that's a serious part of the conversation every time we, we have something that comes before us, but I also know that sometimes it gets lost in this conversation how tremendously successful this community has been over the last few decades on protecting open space. So, I was wondering if you could just, for the record, or share with us before the end of this hearing, give a ballpark on how many acres have been conserved in Missoula County thanks to the open space bonds?
Donna Gaukler For that, Zac has provided a map. The first bond was in 1980 and then 1995 and then 2006 and in 2018, and we have an extraordinary community that chooses to tax itself to protect open spaces, agricultural lands, riparian resources, mountain/hill sides and every day that we do work in Parks, we have to recognize that by creating a great community we do cause values to go up. There was a day in my job here where I would tell you about a new park project increasing the value of the homes nearby. Today, I can tell you that every time we come forward with a park project, the first thing we're asking ourselves are we causing gentrification? Are we continuing a lifestyle that Missoulians value? And I think that's, that's what we weigh here, and I think one of the things that Andy mentioned is, it's important to remember not only what our needs are today because they're critically important but to remember what it what we might need 50 years from now. And I guess when Parks is looking whether it's hillsides, riparian areas, agricultural lands, we're trying to help the community find that balance and, and many of you have heard me say I believe that we can provide great places that are highly dense with great access and great food sources and clean air and clean water, and if anybody can do that Missoulians can do that. So, we’ll get you those acres, but we weigh these decisions very, very carefully. We go, we look through a lens of equity, what is fair, what is equitable. How does that apply? We look through a lens of housing and we look through a lens of climate and in this case, climate does come in very, very important.
Alderperson Mike Nugent Okay, I just, I just wanted somebody to have a chance to brag about our successes.
Mayor Jordan Hess You know, an interesting statistic of those acreages are being compiled would be how many of those are agricultural because I imagine it's a pretty small slice of them. Ms. West.
Alderperson West So, just so all my colleagues know the Missoula Food Policy Advisory Board emailed their letter of support on Thursday the 9th and it went to all Council and it's probably my fault if I didn't get it to all the right people so, but it is there and we'll get it attached to the public record so it's available.
Mayor Jordan Hess Okay. Any additional questions tonight? Seeing none, we will continue this public hearing. Again, this will be a little anticlimactic tonight with no action tonight. I want to thank all the public for coming out to speak tonight and I want to thank Ms. Poten and Mr. Sponseller for the generous donation that's in the works here and for allowing us to have the opportunity to consider this. We'll look forward to taking it back up in two weeks and we'll continue to take comments over the next two weeks. So, thank you for being here tonight and we will move on to our next item.