Working file

The drafting record for the working primer. Every field on this page exists for the planners working the document: file metadata, scope, per-chapter drafting context, and the full changelog. None of this surfaces on the chapter pages — the reader sees the chapter; the planner reads this page.

Title 11 zoning regulations and Title 12 subdivision regulations, combined into a single Unified Development Ordinance. Zoning and subdivision are coordinated under one document.

The City of Helena Engineering and Design Standards remain external, administered under separate authority in City Code. The UDO coordinates with that document by cross-reference; it does not re-codify it. The UDO also does not codify the authority of the City Engineer or the fire authority — that authority is established elsewhere in City Code and in Montana law.

Each crosswalk row and each infographic block is independently editable. Do not renumber rows; the 'id' field is stable. Notes are third-person, plainspoken, spare — not every row needs one. Citation discipline: this is a drafting document, so statutory references are to specific sections of Title 76, chapter 25, MCA, not to the 'MLUPA' shorthand.

This document is the draft adoption mapping for the A-grid and B-grid layer of the Official Zoning Map. It identifies the streets the UDO designates as A-grid at adoption, the corridor-study streets the UDO holds on the B-grid pending future corridor planning, and the B-grid-by-default residue. The criteria the mapping applies are stated operatively in Section 11-4-11(B). GIS rendering and parcel-level review come downstream of the calls made here.

Section 11-4-11(B) of Chapter 4 states the criteria for A-grid membership. This document applies those criteria to Helena's adopted plans and identifies which streets meet them at adoption. The criteria, not this document, are the operative text in the UDO.

Every street not designated A-grid at adoption under the preceding section, and not flagged in the corridor-study category, is B-grid by default. Specifically: residential interior streets in established neighborhoods, service streets and alleys, suburban-style residential streets in the City's outer rings, and arterial and collector streets that meet none of the criteria in Section 11-4-11(B). The B-grid is the City's dominant regulatory geography; the A-grid is the targeted overlay where the form standards bite hardest.

v0.7.5: First-pass plug continues. Chapter 4 (Form, Dimensional, and Site Design Standards) drafted at primer depth as chapter_4_draft.json v0.1 — thirteen sections covering chapter-wide framing, general dimensional standards (carrying forward current 11-4-2 Table 2 vocabulary), the six form-standard sections generalizing current 11-9-7 vocabulary citywide (site, building placement, height and massing, transparency, pedestrian access, parking placement), the A-grid and B-grid calibration provisions, the citywide transition standards that take over the work of the retired T district, and the modification and variance provisions. The chapter uses a two-layer architecture: the chapter text is stable, the per-district calibrated values live in Tables 4-A through 4-H and in the Chapter 4 Form & Dimensional Worksheet. The corner-lot-orientation administrative adjustment from current 11-9-7 is retired and replaced by a build-to-both-frontages requirement with variance available; this matches the working file's retired-administrative-adjustment-tier structural decision. The substantial-compliance posture in 11-4-13(D) follows the chapter-25 ministerial-permit framing already settled for the CUP. Chapter 6 (Subdivision Improvements and Dedications) drafted at primer depth as chapter_6_draft.json v0.1 — eleven sections covering chapter-wide framing, the required public improvements list (carrying forward current 12-2-15(A) as amended by Phase 1), installation alternatives (bond, security, subdivision improvements agreement), the health-and-safety priorities that must obtain interim acceptance before final plat, plan approval procedure, capital facility extension under 76-25-410, final acceptance and warranty, and the three-section dedication block (rights-of-way, easements, parkland). Chapter 6 operates by cross-reference to the external Engineering Standards rather than by restating their content. v0.7.4: Chapter 2 -> v0.2. Section 11-2-2 (district intent statements) rewritten in full. The v0.1 statements were organized around intensity ladder and use mix, which restated the use table in prose. The v0.2 statements follow a four-element discipline — form factor, prioritized circulation mode (referencing the A-grid and B-grid where applicable), activity character, and geolocating principle, in that order, for every district. All sixteen districts (RMX-1 through RMX-5, CMX-1 through CMX-5, IMX-1 through IMX-4, OSR, PLI, Airport) follow the same structure. Substantive consequence beyond the chapter itself: the intent statements now provide the substantive backstop for the Chapter 4 form-standard worksheet (a form value that contradicts the district's form-factor is a flag), for the A-grid and B-grid layer (the grid calibrates the districts whose intent prioritizes pedestrian or bicycle circulation), and for the use-table worksheet (a use call that contradicts the district's activity character is a flag). The earlier defensive register of "intent statements need to be confirmed deliberately" in v0.1's note is no longer needed — the statements are now written to a discipline that lets them carry their own weight. v0.7.3: First-pass continuation. Chapter 3 (Procedures and Review Types) drafted at primer depth as chapter_3_draft.json v0.1 — eighteen sections covering chapter-wide framing (purpose, common procedural mechanics, submittal requirements, consolidated appeal structure, vesting and revocation), the nine administrative review types from the Process Crosswalk (zoning compliance permit, commercial site review, site-specific development review, conditional use permit, variance, subdivision exemption, administrative minor subdivision, preliminary plat, final plat), the impact-determination procedure as its own section, and the three legislative actions (zoning map amendment, zoning text amendment, annexation). The chapter implements the dual subdivision appeal-track structure (Track 1 chapter-25 de novo for everything except minor; Track 2 76-3-609 City Commission review for minor), preserves the CUP as a ministerial review with the criteria-to-objective-standards conversion flagged for next pass, and treats the final-plat decision as Track 1 appellable notwithstanding governing-body decision-making (the ministerial-determination reasoning is stated in the section text). Working file now has Chapter 1 (v0.4), Chapter 2 (v0.1) + Chapter 2 Worksheet (v3), Chapter 3 (v0.1), Chapter 4 Worksheet (v1), Chapter 5 (v0.1), and the Process Crosswalk (v0.2). Each chapter's drafting is at primer depth and is intended to be the document the Title is written from, not the Title itself. v0.7.2: Continued first-pass drafting. The Chapter 2 Use Tables Worksheet was rebuilt to v3 with tabs across the four district families, TBD as a real value (in place of the misleading NP default for net-new cells), and the R-U correction propagated through (R-U was R-4-with-no-setbacks; it retires into the citywide townhouse supplemental standard, and its use calls inform RMX-3/4, not RMX-1; RMX-1 baseline derives from R-1/R-2 alone). The Chapter 4 Form & Dimensional Standards Worksheet was built on the same pattern — numeric inputs, color diff by direction-of-permissiveness (yellow = larger building envelope, blue = smaller), baselines ported from current Chapter 4 Table 2 (general dimensional) and current Chapter 9 (form standards for DT and TR successors); the form-standard rows for districts that have no current Ch 9 baseline start TBD, which honestly states that the question of whether and how to extend the Ch 9 vocabulary into the rest of the family structure is a policy choice not a port. Chapter 5 (Subdivision Design and Public Realm) drafted at primer depth as chapter_5_draft.json v0.1 — ten sections in ordinance form covering purpose/applicability, general subdivision design standards, block design, lot design, street design, public realm and open space, easements, hillside and environmental considerations, submittals, and variances. The chapter implements the Missoula-model subdivision-procedure split (procedural mechanics in Ch. 3, design content in Ch. 5) and the engineering-seam structural decision (Ch. 5 carries land-use design, the external Engineering Standards carry construction specs, the chapter coordinates by cross-reference without renumbering the Engineering Standards). v0.7.1: Minor correction. The R-U retirement story in IG-3 was rephrased to reflect what R-U actually was — an R-4-with-no-setbacks-for-townhomes district — rather than "R-U absorbed into RMX-1." R-U's setback relief becomes the citywide townhouse supplemental standard; its use calls inform RMX-3/4 where R-U-equivalent intensity sits, not RMX-1. RMX-1 baseline derives from R-1/R-2 alone, no R-U conflict resolution. This straightens the use-table baselines in the Chapter 2 worksheet and removes a class of manufactured "departures" that were artifacts of the wrong absorption direction. v0.7: Two changes folded into one edit. (1) Removed the 'policy_risks' section entirely. The register a 'risks to track' list carries is defensive — it reads as the memo cataloguing its own vulnerabilities, which sits badly against the house style's 'state items as planning positions, no hedging' discipline, and quarantining real drafting tasks under a 'risks' header flattens the difference between settled architecture and scheduled work. The eight items were redistributed, not deleted: the B-2 split mapping test, the T district parcel-condition preservation mechanism, the RMX-5 available-but-unmapped decision, and the parcel-level conversion table are now stated in the MX-family structural decision as the implementation work the district conversion entails; the CUP-criteria-as-objective-standards task and the CUP 'what it is not' provision are in the deferred-drafting list as drafting tasks; the engineering-seam consistency check folds into the Chapter 5 deferred-drafting item; and the grid is settled architecture (see below). 'next_steps' was rewritten — 'deferred_to_dedicated_sessions' is now 'deferred_drafting' with a note that these are tasks against a decided architecture, not open questions — and stale references (to 'policy risks,' to Chapter 1 'v0.2,' to the Process Crosswalk as not-yet-drafted) were corrected. (2) Settled the A-grid and B-grid as ordinary adopted architecture. The earlier framing treated the grid as an IOU needing a bespoke derivation rule to be defensible. It does not. The grid is a layer of the Official Zoning Map and is legitimate the way every layer of that map is legitimate — it is adopted with the UDO, on a planning basis, through the legislative process with the public participation Title 76, chapter 25 front-loads into the adoption of the implementing regulations. The initial grid is a meaningfully informed planning determination on the adopted record, informed by the City's adopted transportation and neighborhood plans (the 2015 Long Range Transportation Plan's functional classification, the 2023 Downtown Helena Multimodal and Infrastructure Plan's corridor classifications, and the adopted neighborhood plans), with the City exercising planning judgment across them; as ordinary planning practice, adopted plans inform that determination while documents that are not adopted policy (the draft Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, the 2021 Five-Point Intersections traffic study) do not bind it. Secondary is the conservative default where the adopted record and that judgment do not affirmatively place a street on the A-grid. The grid structural decision was rewritten accordingly; the grid-amendment structural decision was rewritten to state the two post-adoption paths — the derivative path (the grid tracks an updated underlying source) and the 76-25-214 neighborhood-plan refinement path — with the zoning map amendment as the step that records either change. A legal-and-implementation assumption was added on the 76-25-214 neighborhood-plan / regulatory-map-layer interaction, noting that the existing Downtown and Railroad District neighborhood plans were adopted under the predecessor growth-policy statute (76-1-601 and 76-1-603), not under chapter 25, and are the current-generation examples of the document type. The transportation and neighborhood-plan sources were read for this edit: the LRTP (adopted by Helena City Commission June 29, 2015), the Downtown Multimodal and Infrastructure Plan (September 2023, adopted), the Downtown Helena Master Plan / Downtown Neighborhood Plan (adopted October 17, 2016, Resolution 20313), the Railroad District Neighborhood Plan (final report November 2024, adopted as a growth-policy subarea plan), the draft Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (February 13, 2026, not adopted, carries a High-Injury Network), and the 2021 City of Helena Multimodal Traffic Study (Five-Point Intersections, a conditions and data study). Coordinates with Chapter 1 draft v0.4 (11-1-8 grid language) and Process Crosswalk v0.2 (PX-MAP note). v0.6: Reframed transition as a reorganization of an already-conformant code, not a conformance migration — Phase 1 (adopted April 2026) already brought Title 11 and Title 12 into conformance with Title 76, chapter 25. Stripped the 76-25-305 temporary-vs-effective bridge from the legal assumptions and from IG-6 (a non-issue on an August 2027 adoption — the UDO is simply drafted to the effective version). Reframed the CSR notes (assumption, crosswalk row T11-27, deferred item) so Phase 2 work reads as reorganization clarity — proper structural home, consistent procedural vocabulary — not as closing a conformance gap that is already closed. Coordinates with Chapter 1 draft v0.3, which rewrote 11-1-18 as a short transition pointer. v0.5: Reconciled the working file with Chapter 1 draft v0.2. (1) Replaced 'MLUPA' shorthand throughout with specific Title 76, chapter 25 section citations or the spelled-out reference, matching the drafting-document discipline adopted for Chapter 1. (2) Replaced 'district-primary street' with the 'A-grid and B-grid' concept throughout — the structural decisions, the crosswalk, the infographics, and the renamed RISK-DPS — framing it as a derived thoroughfare network rather than individually selected streets. (3) Struck the structural decision naming the City Engineer as a separate decision-maker; replaced it with the decision that the UDO does not codify the City Engineer at all and handles the engineering and fire-code seam as a drafting constraint on the subdivision design menus. (4) Rewrote RISK-ENG-SEAM accordingly — it is no longer a 'who decides' risk but a drafting-consistency risk. (5) Softened RISK-CUP — Helena's adopted April 2026 process already operates the CUP as a chapter-25-conformant ministerial process, so the residual risk is the narrower drafting task of expressing the criteria as objective standards. (6) Corrected the CUP legal-and-implementation assumption to match Helena's adopted practice rather than describing it as an untested divergence. (7) Added two legal-and-implementation assumptions: the 76-25-303 limitations on zoning authority (effective October 1, 2026 version — parking maximums, height, treatment of certain housing and care facilities), and the dual subdivision appeal track (76-25-503 for most decisions, the separate 76-3-609 path for administrative minor subdivisions). (8) Corrected stale framings: the structural-model and infographic notes no longer lean on 'MLUPA-era,' and the Engineering Standards administering authority is described without over-specifying. v0.4: Added adopted-record control rule to the single-Official-Zoning-Map structural decision. Added a structural decision that future district-primary street designations are adopted by zoning map amendment under Chapter 3. Made the UDO 7+ block topical chapter list explicit. Added a deferred-session item for the T district conversion / preservation adopting-ordinance schedule. Added a deferred-session item for the CUP 'what it is not' provision. Noted that reference_checks is an internal-only section not carried into a staff-facing render. v0.3: Shortened the status line. Renamed 'legal_implementation_assumptions' to 'legal_and_implementation_assumptions'. Moved the Bozeman reference-source question out of 'phase_1_cleanup_items' into a new 'reference_checks' section. Added two policy risks: RISK-CONVERSION and RISK-ENG-SEAM. v0.2: Standardized terminology to 'Unified Development Ordinance' / 'UDO' throughout. Removed reader-facing scope-change history. Resolved the Title 11 Chapter 5 numbering conflict. Board of Adjustment retirement stated as a settled structural decision. Softened the form/engineering seam language. Split the former 'locked_decisions' list into 'structural_decisions' and 'legal_and_implementation_assumptions'. Added a 'policy_risks' section. Added district-primary-street designation criteria.

v0.8.0 (2026-05-15) — Form-based architectural restructure.
  Spine reduced from eight chapters to seven: the topical chapter block (Ch. 7+) is abolished.
  Site design standards (parking, landscaping and screening, signs, outdoor lighting) relocate to Chapter 4 as integrated sections of the form/dimensional/site design framework.
  Use-specific operational standards (mobile home and RV parks, home occupations, daycare facilities, licensed premises, marijuana operations) relocate to Chapter 2's supplemental use standards section (11-2-9), adjacent to the use tables that route to them.
  Overlay districts get their own chapter (new Chapter 7), consolidating the Airport Noise Influence overlay (current Ch. 36) and the Wildland-Urban Interface overlay (current Ch. 41) with framework for future overlays.
  Planned Unit Developments retired (current Ch. 25); flexibility delivered through district intensity ladders and the A-grid and B-grid.
  Nonconformities (current Ch. 6) relocates to Chapter 1 as a general-applicability subject.
  T Transitional District retired as a standalone district; transition handled through district intensity selection and the A-grid and B-grid.
  Three new structural decisions added (form-based architecture; PUD retirement; nonconformities placement).
  All affected crosswalk rows rewritten with new destinations, dispositions, and notes.
  Deferred-drafting list added under next_steps: Chapter 2 § 11-2-9 use-specific subsections (six items), Chapter 4 site design sections (five items), Chapter 1 nonconformities section, Chapter 7 overlay sections (two items).

v0.8.1 (2026-05-15) — Nonconformities split.
  The v0.8.0 placement of nonconformities in Chapter 1 is replaced with a three-way split.
  Nonconforming uses live in Chapter 2 § 11-2-9 (use-specific operational standards), adjacent to the use tables that define the current permissions.
  Nonconforming form, dimensional, lot, and sign features live in Chapter 4 alongside the standards they are exceptions to.
  Chapter 5 carries one operating rule: a subdivision may not create a new nonconformity, with variance under Chapter 3 the only relief.
  Structural decision rewritten. Crosswalk row T11-06 (current Chapter 6 Nonconformities) updated with the new split destinations and a refined note.
  Deferred-drafting list updated: the single Ch. 1 nonconformities item is replaced with three items (Ch. 2 § 11-2-9 use-nonconformities subsection, Ch. 4 nonconforming-form section including sign amortization as a deferred policy question, Ch. 5 no-new-nonconformities rule).

v0.8.2 (2026-05-15) — Stale structural-decision cleanup.
  SD-02 updated from 'Eight-chapter spine' to 'Seven-chapter spine ... plus one reserved-chapter slot.'
  SD-14 (Board of Adjustment retired) updated to point variance placement at Chapter 3 rather than 'the 7+ block,' which no longer exists.
  No substantive architectural change; v0.8.0 and v0.8.1 already moved the architecture, but the two affected structural-decision entries were not updated to match.

v0.8.3 (2026-05-15) — Open question added on utilities classification. Data centers proposed as 'Utilities, major' rather than current Helena practice of treating them as minor utilities. Logged in next_steps.open_questions_for_user for the next Chapter 1 definitions drafting pass.

v0.8.4 (2026-05-15) — Data-centers-as-major-utilities open item refined against current Title 11 source text. The previous phrasing did not state the use-permission consequence; the refined item names the proposed reclassification and the drafting choice (amend the major-utility definition or add a standalone data-center term).

v0.8.5 (2026-05-15) — Substantial-compliance-as-ministerial logged as resolved legal posture in framing.legal_and_implementation_assumptions.items. Grounded in adopted Phase 1 process materials (CUP Process, Site Specific Development Process, Variance Process, Commercial Site Review). Phase 1 process documents staged in source/phase1_process_docs/ as reference for verification work. The corresponding open item in Chapter 4 was removed in the v0.2 open-items pass.

v0.8.6 (2026-05-15) — A-grid and B-grid analytical candidate set added. New working analytical document at source/primary_grid_candidate_set.json identifies A-grid candidate segments from adopted plans (LRTP, Downtown Multimodal and Infrastructure Plan, Downtown Neighborhood Plan, CSAP) against six stated criteria. Twenty candidate segments grouped by area (downtown core, midtown and commercial corridors, civic anchors), three envelope areas (BID, Last Chance Gulch corridor, Great Northern Town Center), five edge cases and open questions. Document is the analytical input to the grid map adoption, not the map itself. Surfaced on the working-file page.

v0.8.6 (2026-05-15) — A-grid / B-grid terminology adopted throughout in place of primary/secondary grid; A-frontage / B-frontage in place of primary/secondary lot line. Substitution swept all chapter drafts, the working file, the process crosswalk, the style guide, and the Chapter 4 worksheet (174 substitutions across nine source files). Chapter 1 § 11-1-12: A-frontage, B-frontage, A-grid, and B-grid added as standalone definitions; the Lot line definition cleaned of obsolete primary/secondary subtypes. Chapter 4 § 11-4-11 rewritten to state the six A-grid membership criteria operatively (pedestrian priority, building-frontage continuity, transit service, mixed-use/commercial frontage, adopted corridor policy, public-realm investments). Streets meeting none default to the B-grid; grid amendments after adoption are evaluated against the same criteria. The analytical document at source/primary_grid_candidate_set.json is renamed to source/a_grid_adoption_mapping.json and restructured as the adoption mapping: ten A-grid segments designated at adoption (downtown core envelope plus civic anchors) and five corridors (Lyndale, Custer, Cedar, Montana, Prospect/11th couplet) held on the B-grid at adoption pending dedicated corridor studies that will move them to the A-grid through the regular zoning map amendment procedure under § 11-4-11(H). Ordinance text does not cite the form-based-code lineage of the device; the criteria stand as Helena's own.

v0.8.7 (2026-05-15) — Chapter 4 § 11-4-6(D) rewritten to put the A-grid and B-grid layer of the Official Zoning Map in charge of A-frontage and B-frontage designation by default. Multi-frontage lots resolved by the grid (one A-grid frontage, one or more B-grid frontages) are designated automatically. Multi-frontage lots not resolved by the grid (two or more A-grid frontages, or two or more B-grid frontages without an A-grid frontage) are designated through the zoning compliance permit application materials. A departure from the grid-based default — treating a B-grid frontage as the A-frontage where an A-grid frontage also exists on the lot — requires a variance under Section 11-4-13, consistent with the single-relief-mechanism architecture in SD-14. Subsection E and the surface-parking-setback list item updated to drop residual primary/secondary phrasing left over from the v0.8.6 terminology substitution. Chapter 4 -> v0.4. The corresponding chapter-4 open item (formerly item 11 in the v0.1 list, formerly item 5 in the v0.2 trimmed list) is removed: the section is rewritten. The 11-4-12 transition-standards open item is also retrimmed to drop the residual T-district reference: T retirement was settled years ago and does not need to be mentioned in the open question.

v0.8.8 (2026-05-15) — Four-part content pass: (1) Chapter 4 § 11-4-12 rewritten as the citywide transition standards section: common lot-line setback at less-intense district abuttance, upper-story step-down, buffer yard, screening of parking/loading/storage, screening of mechanical equipment and dumpsters, lighting spillover, and vehicular access. All transition logic between districts of different intensity in one section. (2) Stale-content cleanup in Chapter 4: references to a topical-chapter architecture (Parking, Signs, Landscaping as separate chapters) removed; references to Tables 4-A through 4-G replaced with inline calibration language; Part A through Part F language replaced with section numbers; residual primary/secondary street-frontage phrasing in §§ 11-4-7, 11-4-8, 11-4-9, 11-4-10 updated to A-frontage and B-frontage; chapter-meta narrative fields (relationship_to_other_chapters, structure_note, calibration_mechanism) rewritten. Chapter 4 -> v0.6. (3) Open-items pass on Chapter 2 (14 -> 10), Chapter 5 (13 -> 8), Chapter 6 (10 -> 7). Same audit Chapter 4 v0.2 received: draft-state items, journal items, working-file-coordination items, and items that described architecture rather than asking questions are removed; remaining items each name a decision needed in one sentence. Chapter 2 -> v0.3; Chapter 5 -> v0.2; Chapter 6 -> v0.2. (4) Tooltip audit on Chapter 4: 7 of 13 section notes killed for restating section content or narrating drafting decisions; 6 kept and trimmed. Kept notes each carry information a planner reading the section would actively want and the section itself does not state. Chapter 4 -> v0.7.

v0.8.9 (2026-05-15) — Sign amortization disposition settled. The deferred-drafting item on the Chapter 4 nonconforming-form subsection previously logged sign amortization as an open policy question; it is now logged as a settled disposition: amortization is not used; nonconforming signs are governed by the standard nonconforming-form rules of continued maintenance, with alterations beyond maintenance and failures to maintain reached through a fine on the maintainer of the sign structure (or on the property owner where no maintainer is identified in the sign permit record) under Section 11-1-17 Enforcement and violations. The Chapter 4 signs section, which is itself in the deferred-drafting list, will carry this disposition when it is drafted.

v0.9.0 (2026-05-15) — Tooltip audit completed across Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. Sixty-eight section notes evaluated against the style guide test (would a SME reading the section actively wonder this thing, that the section itself does not state?). Twenty-eight notes killed; forty kept and trimmed. Kept notes each carry information a planner reading the section would actively want and the section itself does not state — a statutory citation that anchors the section, an architectural relationship between sections, or a substantive rule that prevents disputes. Chapter 1 -> v0.6; Chapter 2 -> v0.4; Chapter 3 -> v0.2; Chapter 5 -> v0.3; Chapter 6 -> v0.3; Chapter 7 -> v0.2. Combined with the Chapter 4 audit committed in v0.8.8, all section notes across all chapters have now been audited against the style guide. Total reduction: 81 notes -> 46 notes across the seven chapters (35 notes removed; 11 of the remaining 46 are sentence-length single-citation notes). The voice across the chapter pages is now consistent: a planner reading any chapter sees notes only where the section invites a question the section itself does not answer.

v0.9.1 (2026-05-15) — Cleanup pass: (1) Bug fix — Chapters index broken link for the Reserved chapter (href was 'chapter-Reserved.html' but the file is 'chapter-8.html'). build_chapters_index() now maps the 'Reserved' spine key to chapter-8.html for the href, matching the page registry. (2) Reserved chapter stub page reads as Reserved rather than 'Draft pending' — kicker, banner label, and body all updated; the Ch. 7+ legacy stub mapping (vestigial from when Ch. 7 was a stub) removed. (3) README updated — page count corrected to 19 (was 17); the line claiming Chapters 7 and 8 are stubs corrected to reflect Ch. 7 drafted and Ch. 8 reserved. (4) Cover and footer framing updated to match the style-guide stance — 'one staff planner's proposed architecture' replaced with 'planning staff proposal'; 'not project direction from the Community Development Director' dropped (Director Brink's full-rewrite engagement is named in the second paragraph); 'available to inform the consultant's work' replaces 'memo / not project direction' framing. The working file's author_voice field updated to match.

v0.9.2 (2026-05-15) — Chapter 4 Form & Dimensional Worksheet TBDs replaced with best-guess values. All 330 cells across the four district families (RMX, CMX, IMX, SP) now carry numeric values. Strongest provenance: cells where a current district translates directly (R-1, R-2, R-3, R-4, R-O → RMX-1, RMX-2, RMX-3, RMX-4; B-1 → CMX-1; DT → CMX-5; CLM → IMX-2; M-I → IMX-3; OSR, PLI, Airport columns translated column-for-column). Form-standard values for currently form-coded districts (RMX-3, RMX-4 inheriting TR; CMX-5 inheriting DT) carried forward unchanged. Net-new districts (RMX-5, CMX-2, CMX-3, CMX-4, IMX-1, IMX-4) and form standards for districts without a form-coded baseline derived by intensity-ladder reasoning between flanking districts: RMX-5 sits between RMX-4 and CMX-2 (urban-edge residential); CMX-2/3/4 progresses toward CMX-5 character (intensity ladder visible in lot coverage 70→80→85 and height 42→55→75); IMX-1 (live/work/maker) is smaller-scale and modestly pedestrian-oriented, IMX-4 (heavy industrial) is larger with stronger abuttance protection. Worksheet draft_version -> 0.2. The visualizer can now draw any district's envelope from the worksheet values.

v0.9.3 (2026-05-16) — IMX-4 collapsed into IMX-3. On review, IMX-4 was a net-new heavy-industrial district introduced during earlier drafting, not a decided part of the proposed taxonomy. The industrial family is IMX-1, IMX-2, IMX-3 — three districts. The heavy uses (heavy manufacturing and processing, fuel and storage, junkyards, motor vehicle wrecking, large-impact industrial) are carried in IMX-3, the M-I analog, where they reside in the current code; IMX-3's intent statement (11-2-2) rewritten to absorb the general-and-heavy range and the substantial buffering/screening/setback discipline. IMX-4 paragraph deleted from 11-2-2; IMX-1-through-IMX-4 enumerations corrected to IMX-1-through-IMX-3 in 11-2-1, 11-2-6, the 11-4-4(B) net-new list, and the live structural-decision references (PUD-retirement and MX-family decisions). IMX-4 column dropped from both worksheets and its derived values discarded (no loss — they were interpolated, never adopted). Taxonomy is now 16 zones: RMX-1..5, CMX-1..5, IMX-1..3, OSR, PLI, Airport. Prior changelog entries that mention IMX-4 are left intact as history; this entry is the correction of record. Chapter 2 -> v0.5; Chapter 4 -> v0.9. Note: prior changelog entries (v0.7.4, v0.9.2) reference 'sixteen districts' counting IMX-1..4 plus a miscount, and reference IMX-4 in derivation prose; those entries are historical and not edited.

v0.9.4 (2026-05-16) — PLI narrowing applied. PLI intent statement in Chapter 2 §11-2-2 rewritten: district narrowed from 'public or quasi-public institutional' to government and school-district ownership/operation. Helena School District No. 1 confirmed as sharing PLI (no separate district); taxonomy remains 16 zones. Migrated out of PLI: religious assembly (→ RMX/CMX on comparable-secular-assembly terms, RLUIPA note flagged for consultant); private medical (→ CMX); private institutional/nonprofit (→ CMX/RMX-5); publicly-owned operational/industrial land (→ IMX-2/IMX-3 by intensity). proposed_zone_dimensions.json PLI entry updated with _status block — pilot of status metadata pattern (resolved_proposal for intent and use permissions; open_policy_question for RLUIPA; map_dependency for parcel resort). Dimensional values carried from current code unchanged. Chapter 2 -> v0.6.