Community Values represent the prioritized outcomes for how the city develops in the future. These summarize the ideal conditions for the community.

Address City Climate Goals – The most significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Bozeman is related to transportation. The community values the use of a diversity of transportation options (e.g. walk, bike, bus, remote work, rideshare) to reduce climate impacts. The Bozeman Climate Plan acknowledges the role of parking policy in encouraging other modes of transportation in Action 4.J.7 (page 109). Strategic Plan Goals 4.5 Housing and Transportation Choices, 6.2 Improve Air Quality, 6.3 Climate Action

Prevent Sprawl – Compact development and infill encourage efficient land utilization and functional multi-modal transportation systems that reduce road and parking infrastructure costs and reliance on cars. Our Community Plan, which guides growth in Bozeman, emphasizes the ability of compact development to improve access to parks, schools, and shops through a variety of transportation options (walk, bike, bus, car etc.). Strategic Plan Goals 4.1 Informed Conversation on Growth, 4.2 High Quality Urban Approach, 4.3 Strategic Infrastructure Choices

Build a Healthy Environment – New development and activation of existing underutilized space in and near Bozeman’s downtown core can encourage a walkable environment. The community values new development that utilizes existing parking lots and street right-of-way for parking instead of building more paved surfaces. Strategic Plan Goals 4.1 Informed Conversation on Growth, 4.2 High Quality Urban Approach, 4.4 Vibrant Downtown, Districts, and Centers, 4.5 Housing and Transportation Options

Strong Local Businesses – Businesses must be accessible to customers in order to thrive. The community values easy access for customers of retail and restaurant businesses. Strategic Plan Goals 2.1 Business Growth, 2.2 Infrastructure Investments

Accessible Neighborhoods – Residents should be able to park on their street and have guests easily visit. The community values the ability for residents to access their neighborhood. Strategic Plan Goals 4.1 Informed Conversation on Growth, 4.2 High Quality Urban Approach

Public Fiscal Responsibility – The community understands that programs that do not serve the entire city are funded through fees. The community values fiscal responsibility and covering the costs of programs. Strategic Plan Goals 1.1 Outreach, 7.3 Best Practices, Creativity, and Foresight, 7.5 Funding for Delivery of Services

Community Engagement – The city will employ transparent, upfront, clear communication to gather input from the public to help shape policy. Strategic Plan Goals 1.1 Outreach, 1.2 Community Engagement

Equity – After housing, transportation is the second most expensive household cost for low and middle-income households. [1] Investing in alternative transportation options reduces cost of living expenses for those most impacted. Public policy will be developed with the input of under-served and under-represented individuals to minimize or eliminate negative impacts on those least able to bear costs associated with transportation and parking.  Strategic Plan Goals 3.3 Friendly Community, 4.2 High Quality Urban Approach, 4.5 Housing and Transportation Options

The following are general guidelines that shape the parking plan actions and implementation.

City will ensure adequate parking for residents and guests in neighborhoods – A viable and healthy residential neighborhood should be accessible to residents and guests.  Non-residents have alternative options for transportation and the ability to park in other areas for long-term needs and should therefore do so.

City will ensure adequate parking for customers and visitors downtown – Small businesses require that quick and accessible parking is available for customers visiting downtown. Customers typically visit a downtown area for 1.7 hours, [1] therefore only need short-term parking that is close to the desired location to meet immediate needs. The city will preserve the most convenient on-street parking for priority users; the short-term trip (downtown).

Private sector (developers and employers) is primarily responsible for providing employee parking – As employees stay for a longer duration, and do not often require immediate access like customers, parking can be provided in off-street or remote locations or employees may be encouraged or incentivized to use alternative modes of transportation. Furthermore, to work towards sustainable development and climate goals, the city should not invest general tax revenue to provide employee and commuter automobile parking. As the city transitions away from providing parking for private sector employees, the city may participate in shared parking agreements with private sector businesses to provide employee parking when fiscally and operationally reasonable.

Data-driven Decisions – The management of the parking supply will be determined by clear understanding of the available parking supply and demand. Objective and publicly available data and performance measures will determine when new types of management or construction of additional supply is needed.

Unlock Existing Parking Supply and Promote Use of Alternative Modes of Transportation– Building more parking stalls should be last option to meet parking demand as characterized through data collection. Before building more parking, first encourage shared parking in areas where existing parking is underutilized. Additionally, create capacity through strategic management of existing supply (public and private), reasonable enforcement, integrating parking with alternative modes.

The following definitions are provided to guide community conversations.

Types of Parking

On-Street: Parking that is within the right-of-way, which is the generally regarded as public streets.

Off-Street: Parking that is not within the right-of-way and is in surface lots or parking garages either publicly or privately owned. The majority of parking in the Bozeman downtown is off-street in privately owned parking assets.

Surface Parking Off-street parking that is in a parking lot. Construction of a surface parking stall is generally $10,000 - $15,000/stall.

Structured Parking Off-street parking is that is in a garage. Construction of a structured parking stall is generally $40,000 - $65,000/stall.

Shared Parking New development and existing land uses utilize excess parking in existing off-street parking facilities (surface or structured) that is usually within a few blocks to meet parking needs. This maximizes current built supplies and lowers the amount and cost of parking necessary to meet demand growth.

Remote Parking New development and existing land uses utilize excess parking in an existing off-street parking facility (surface or structured) that is located at a distance but connected with bike lanes, Streamline bus and/or shuttle(s) to meet the parking needs. (Example is downtown development utilizing surface parking at the County Fairgrounds site.)

Parking Policy

Active Parking Management The dynamic management of parking facilities in a city to optimize performance and utilization of those facilities while influencing travel behavior at various stages along the trip making process: i.e., from origin to destination.

2016 Downtown Strategic Parking Management Plan (DSPMP): Bozeman’s comprehensive parking management plan that responds to the unique environment, goals, and objectives of Downtown Bozeman.

Unified Development Code (UDC) This is the City of Bozeman’s set of regulations that establish criteria for land use development.

Parking Minimum Within the UDC there is an established set of minimum parking requirements for specific land uses. The current requirements are high when compared to other cities, and have not been aligned with community goals to increase use of alternative transportation modes. The UDC parking minimums vary by location and use and reductions of parking minimums are allowable in some cases. See UDC Sec. 38.540.050. Number of parking spaces required for more info on parking requirements and relaxations for each type of land use (residential, retail, restaurant, office, and others).

UDC Leases –Some development projects in downtown utilize long-term lease agreements for use of spaces within the Bridger Parking Garage to meet the UDC parking minimum requirements. City staff currently interprets long-term as up to 25 years. These agreements are identified as a UDC leases. The Parking Commission is not currently offering any new UDC leases due to the management challenges created by having unused UDC leases associated with developments that could create a future demand for parking. The parking required by the UDC that is in excess of actual need makes it very difficult to manage these leases.

Cash fee-in-lieu: This program allows developers to buy out of a requirement to provide a minimum number of parking stalls for a project, reducing their costs. Cash-in-lieu fees are used to support development of future public parking facilities. The City of Bozeman offers a cash-in lieu option for new projects within the B-3 District at a rate of $25,000 per stall.

85% Occupancy Standard: The 85% Occupancy Standard (or, more commonly, the "85% Rule") is an industry standard operating principle for coordinating parking supply. When the parking supply is routinely occupied at 85% or greater during peak periods, more intensive and aggressive management strategies are called for to assist priority customers in finding available parking. The city, with input from residents and other stakeholders, can determine their own threshold of occupancy (e.g. 70% if desired). The intent is to establish an objective standard to trigger parking management decision making and implementation of solutions. If parking occupancy is below the established percentage, there is not a parking supply problem.

Special Improvement District (SID) 565 (Ghost Space): A SID is a method of assessing properties within a designated area to pay for utilities or improvements including parking. SID No. 565 was originally established in 1978 as a funding mechanism to create new surface parking lots downtown. Since the creation of those surface lots, the assessment for SID 565 nor payment of assessments has been made since 1999. The Strategic Parking Plan (Strategy 8) called for an investigation of the SID 565 parking spaces. That investigation has not been completed at this time.

Data Collection Performance Measurements: Routine and objective data measurement and reporting ensures informed decision-making. Performance monitoring also provides a basis for evaluating program effectiveness. Key metrics include:

• Occupancy - The percentage of spaces in parking supply that are occupied at a given point in time. Usually, occupancy is quantified over hourly periods in a manner than can determine cars parked by hour and cars parked at an identified peak hour. Occupancy data can be collected as a representation of all parking in an area, by block face and/or by parking facility. Occupancy is a key metric when managing parking systems using the 85% Occupancy Standard as a decision-making benchmark or trigger.
• Turnover - The number of vehicle trips the typical parking stall can accommodate (in a 10 hour period) based on the parking system’s average length of stay. For example, if the average length of stay is 2 hours, the effective turnover rate for those stalls is 5.0 (10 hour period / 2 hour avg. length of stay).
• Average duration of stay – This is the average length of time a vehicle parks from point of arrival to point of exit. Nationally, visitor stays range from 1.5 to 2.0 hours. Employee stays are, of course, longer and range from 6.0 – 10.0 hours per stay. When thinking about different parking supplies, the industry would suggest it be best to manage an on-street system to accommodate shorter length durations, which would result in higher rates of turnover. Longer term stay needs would be best accommodated in off-street systems or other access modes (e.g., bus, bike, walk).
• Rate of violation - Violation rate is the percentage of unique vehicles (usually identified by license plate) within a system that park in violation of regulations at some point during their parking session. The parking industry would target a violation rate in the range of 5% - 7% as a measure of an efficient system that supports compliance but is not overly draconian in the issuance of parking citations. Thus, if 1,000 vehicles were parked in a day, one would assume that between 50 and 70 vehicles would violate the posted time stay.

The following industry definitions of parking districts are intended to provide clarity on purpose and intent of the district. Fiscal surplus is defined as the parking management revenues minus the parking management expenditures. Allocation and management of the fiscal surplus varies with the different types of districts.

Defining District Boundaries Establishing boundaries for parking management districts is based on zoning maps. Commercial zoning frames the district for a commercial parking management district. Residential zoning frames the district for a residential parking management district. Best practice recommends keeping them separate because the visitors/customers and the priority users are different and have distinct issues.

Residential Parking Management District

This district manages parking with permits assigned to residents within the district to prioritize the access for residents and their guests. The permit fee covers the cost of managing the district. If it is determined through data analysis that there is excess supply that can accommodate more demand, permits can be issued to non-residents. The cost of the permit for non-residents can be used to reduce permit fees for residents.

• Fiscal Surplus – Not anticipated as permit fees only covers management costs
• Management – City Staff

Commercial Parking Management District

This district will manage parking through various means such as signed time-limits with citation or metering. The priority users within a Commercial Parking Management District are customer/visitors (on-street) and employees (off-street). The structure of the district is intended to just cover cost of management.  Fiscal surplus goes back to general fund.

• Fiscal Surplus – City General and/or Parking Enterprise Fund
• Management – City Staff

Parking Benefit District This district incorporates parking management as described above.  The difference with this district is that fiscal surplus generated within the PBD is reinvested back into the defined PBD. It is the goal of PBD’s to reinvest all or a portion of any fiscal surplus into a benefit such as lowering parking permit fees for residents/business, street amenities, infrastructure (sidewalk repair, curb maintenance, etc.), new parking supply or public transportation enhancement. Investment of parking fiscal surplus is determined by a designated board of advisors representing users within the affected district (business owners, property owners, residents, and city staff).

• Fiscal Surplus – PBD
• Management – PBD Advisory Board

Bozeman Downtown Parking Management District: An area generally defined by the extension of the boundaries of the downtown B-3 zoning district by 1000 feet. This district was adopted on August 3, 2020 by the Bozeman City Commission as Ordinance #2033.

Parking Benefit Zone (PBZ): This is an overlay zone that allows parking revenue fiscal surplus generated within the PBZ to reinvest back into the defined PBZ. It is the goal of PBZ’s to reinvest a portion of any fiscal surplus into a zone-specific benefit such as lowering parking permit fees for residents/business, street amenities, infrastructure (sidewalk repair, curb maintenance, etc.), or public transportation enhancement. The PBZ has been incorporated into the municipal code as an optional overly but has not been adopted for implementation. The PBZ may apply to either the residential or commercial districts. Smaller residential or commercial areas within the PBZ self-petition for adoption of the PBZ.

Residential Parking Permit District (RPPD): Two RPPDs in the City of Bozeman were created by ordinance in 1994 to manage congestion and prioritize residential parking in neighborhoods near MSU and Bozeman High School (BHS). 

View Bozeman Parking Districts

The City’s role in parking is to:

a) Accommodate customers and visitors downtown and residents and guests in neighborhoods.

b) Centralize management of public parking to ensure optimal use of its supply.

Bozeman Parking Commission: The Parking Commission is responsible for managing and regulating public parking in the City's Parking Districts to best serve the needs of visitors, residents, customers, and businesses. The Parking Commission is a Citizen Advisory Board that has authority to make parking policy decisions and recommendations to the City Commission on issues related to parking. Decisions on things like permit pricing in the Bridger Parking Garage and Residential Parking Permit Districts are brought before the Parking Commission by City staff. In their decision-making, the Parking Commission considers financial sustainability of parking management solutions, technical feasibility of parking management and enforcement tools, environmental compatibility with our Climate Plan, alignment with our land use principles outlined in the Community Plan, and the public acceptability and social impacts of parking management solutions. This seven member administrative commission is appointed by the Mayor, with the approval of the City Commission to staggered four-year terms.

Parking Manager Within the Economic Development Department. Responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Bozeman Parking Program. The Parking Manager supervises and hires the four (4) parking enforcement officers that are on duty. The Parking Manager executes the parking policy direction set forth by the Bozeman Parking Commission and the Bozeman City Commission. Additionally, the Parking Manager is in charge of budget development and management as well as software and data management. The Parking Manager reports to the Director of Economic Development and the City Manager.

Parking Services Division: The Parking Services Division is made up of the Parking Manager and four Parking Enforcement Officers. Together these personnel are responsible for daily management of facilities, customer service, financial accounting and reporting, marketing and communications, as well as working with third party vendors to manage and administer enforcement software and data management tools. Parking Services Division staff are also integrally involved in long-term strategic and capital planning for parking in downtown Bozeman. 

c) Ensure that a representative body of affected private and public constituents routinely informs decision-making. Active participation by those affected guarantees an understanding of and consensus on parking management. This is accomplished through the BPC, which reviews performance, serves as a sounding board for issues, and acts as a liaison to the broader stakeholder community.

d) Coordinate parking in a manner that supports the unique character of emerging downtown districts and neighborhoods. Manage parking to best support the Unified Development Code (UDC) zoning designation. Parking in commercial zones should be prioritized for visitors and employees. Parking in residential zones should be prioritized for residents and their guests.

Active parking management is implemented to address impacts pertaining to automobile use. The following issues are facing residents, and business owners and developers in the downtown core. Implementation of parking management policies will address the identified needs/problems.

Overall Community Health

The city will fall short of climate goals and reduce the ability for people to choose active, healthy lifestyles if alternative modes of transportation (walking, biking, bus, rideshare) are not encouraged and invested in over the automobile.

Residents

Non-residents are parking on-street in residential neighborhoods during the day. This may preclude the opportunity for residents and their guests to park in front of their homes.

Downtown Business Owners

On-street parking in downtown should be available for customers visiting businesses in the downtown core during business hours. Lack of parking turn-over precludes ability for customers to easily access businesses. Downtown employees that park in on-street parking spaces are taking away stalls intended for customers.

Employee Parking

Employees downtown are taking priority parking stalls for customers and visitors by simply moving cars every two hours to comply with signed regulations and avoid citations. Ideally employees are parking in the garage or off-street lots away from the priority parking as they have longer stays and do not require proximate parking. Additionally, employee remote parking should not occur in surrounding neighborhoods unless managed.

Downtown Developers

Current UDC minimum parking code requirements are inhibiting the development of new office and mixed-use projects. The cost to developers of providing parking, especially structured parking, can adversely impact the financial feasibility of new development. Required parking must be either provided on site or a cash fee in-lieu is paid. Off-site parking agreements are challenging to utilize due to long-term (25 year) lease requirements and proximity limits. Minimum parking ratios for office and mixed-use are challenging as well.