Federal Highway Administration and Montana Department of Transportation staff notified local planning staff of the need for correction in the Billings Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) Urban Boundary. The correction amounts to the US Census Bureau's designated Urban Boundary being outside and not matching up with the MPO's Planning Boundary in the northeastern section of our urbanized area. The MPO Planning Boundary must match the Census Bureau designated Urban Boundary and the Census boundary may not be outside of the MPO Planning Boundary. The MPO Boundary has been adjusted to match the Census boundary with this correction. The attached maps show the original and corrected maps. The correction should be approved locally through the Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) and the City Council is a voting member of PCC.

↵This boundary correction is necessary to align the Billings MPO Planning Boundary with the US Census Urban Boundary per federal regulations. City Council's only real alternative in this situation is to approve this boundary line correction and instruct City Council PCC Designee Brewster to provide a positive recommendation to PCC.

There is no financial impact for the City in updating this boundary.

Staff recommends that the City Council approve this boundary correction and instruct Council Member Brewster to carry the recommendation to the PCC meeting on September 13, 2016.