The City and County began the process to update the City and County zoning regulations in August 2017. The scope of this process, called Project Re: Code, includes significant work by a locally established Steering Committee, multiple Working Groups made up of local experts in various zoning issues, like landscaping, signage, and urban development and design, and significant work and support by City-County Planning Division staff. The scope also calls for outside help from a professional consultant team versed in zoning regulation code updating and drafting. The consultant will provide a variety of services, including an audit of the current zoning regulations, development and implementation of a public outreach and engagement strategy, development of draft revisions to the code in coordination with the Steering Committee, Working Groups, officials and public, and drafting of code for review and adoption.

The Planning Division staff, in coordination with the Co-Chairs of the Steering Committee for the zoning code update, through the City's RFP competitive process has selected SAFEBuilt Studio of Loveland, Colorado as the consultant for the project. SAFEBuilt and its consultant team has extensive experience drafting zoning regulations in cities of comparable size to Billings, working on city and county codes, and addressing a wide array of code types and development standards. The SAFEBuilt project manager also has experience in land use law and the implementation aspects of zoning regulations, both critical to successful code drafting and real-world use. The City Council is being asked to approve the contract.
 

City Council may:

• Approve the contract with SAFEBuilt Studio to assist the community in updating its zoning regulations, or;
• Disapprove the contract with SAFEBuilt Studio to assist the community in updating its zoning regulations. Disapproval of the contract will significantly delay the zoning code update process and affect the significant work the Steering Committee and Working Groups have done to date on this project.

The original expectation and estimate for consultant services for the Project Re: Code effort when presented in Council in summer 2017 was that the process would cover the FY2018 and FY2019 budget years and cost an estimated $120,000 of consultant support to complete. Since last year, staff has found that a total consultant budget of $160,000 is necessary to carry out the requirements of a total code update and work with the Project Re: Code Steering Committee to complete the process. The contract before the Council is for $160,000 and is expected to cover FY2018, FY2019 and a portion of FY2020. Staff is asking for the budget authority to execute this contract over this time period to complete the project.

FY2019 Supplemental Budget Request (SBR)
The proposed FY2019 City Budget contains a request for $25,000 from the General Fund to provide additional funding for the Project Re: Code. The City Council will consider this request during its review of the FY2019 Budget in May.  During the FY2018 City Budget process, the Council agreed to contribute $12,500 in FY2018 and consider the same contribution of $12,500 in FY2019. The Planning Division intended to cover the remaining costs with unobligated reserves and a contribution similar to the City Council from Yellowstone County. Staff's initial estimated total cost of the consultant portion of this project was low and staff has since revised this estimate to $160,000 to complete the zoning code update.

Since the Council had authorized an initial allotment of $12,500 to the project in FY2018, but intended to make a final determination on the second contribution of $12,500 during the FY2019 budget process, City Administration and Finance suggested staff bring its revised request to City Administration and Finance, and the Council in the form of an SBR from the General Fund. Under this SBR proposal, the City would contribute to the project as follows, in combination with the other funding sources: Total City contribution: $37,500 (FY18: $12,500; FY19: $25,000) Total County contribution: $25,000 (FY18: $12,500; FY19: $12,500) Planning Division Reserve Obligation: $97,500 (estimating across FY18, FY19, and FY20).

Staff recommends the City Council approve of the contract with SAFEBuilt Studio of Loveland, Colorado, to update the zoning regulations.