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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.20081118Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 LJ Erspamer opened the regular Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting in the Sister Cities Meeting at 4:30pm. Commissioners Bert Myrin, Michael Wampler, Cliff Weiss, Stan Gibbs, Jim DeFrancia and LJ Erspamer were present. Dina Bloom and Brian Speck were excused. Staff in attendance: Jim True, Special Counsel; Jennifer Phelan, Chris Bendon, Andrea Hingley, Jason Lasser, Jessica Garrow, Community Development; Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk. Comments LJ Erspamer asked about the development pipeline for December 2nd. Jennifer Phelan answered that the Bidwell was scheduled but they are not ready. Cliff Weiss said that on October 21St the 1022 Hyman Stream Margin Review was heard and he wanted to make a motion to re-hear that case. Chris Bendon said that if this was the first regular meeting since that case decision a member of the prevailing side can make a motion to reconsider and that can be seconded by anyone on the board. Bendon said if there is a motion to reconsider then there needs to be scheduling so that the applicant can be here to reactivate the decision. MOTION: Cliff Weiss moved to reconsider the John McCormick application on 1022 Hyman; seconded Jim DeFrancia seconded. Roll call: Myrin, no; Gibbs, yes; DeFrancia, yes; Wampler, no; Weiss, yes; Erspamer, no. MOTION FAILS. Discussion: Weiss said that during the meeting with John McCormick Weiss put the option of a reasonable compromise on the table of the non-conforming building and if he tore the 3`d floor deck down that he could not rebuild that deck. Weiss said that the applicant did not know that there was an opportunity to derail the commission of actually getting to a vote and that was why Weiss was making the motion to reconsider. Weiss said that if the applicant was willing to compromise he put that "olive branch" out there for them. Erspamer asked if there was any discussion with the applicant. Jim True replied that he talked to the applicant and basically offered to remove the 3rd floor deck and replace it with the 2"d floor deck in a size that would be less that the 3`d floor deck so the non-conforming deck would be less. True explained to John McCormick that the only way to do this was a motion to reconsider. True spoke to Cliff. True stated that the motion would have to be made to reconsider and that puts the original application back on the table and if this was not approved then John McCormick could not apply for this for a year. The commissioners agreed that special meetings would be held on the 4th Tuesday of the month in which the Sister Cities room would be reserved. Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 Jessica Garrow provided an update on the Aspen Area Community Plan and how the adoption process works. Garrow requested special P&Z meetings. The large community meeting was scheduled for January 27th at the St. Regis. The website was aspencommunityvision.com. Garrow said the ideas would feed back into the large group meeting to determine what would go into the plan. Garrow said the adoption process goal was fairly quick to be adopted by April 7th at the joint City/County (Council/BOCC) and hope that the City and County Planning Commissions also attend that meeting so that a114 boards would adopt the plan at the same time. Weiss will email Jessica and the commissioner's questions on the State of the Aspen Area Plan. Garrow said the economic white paper, which a report was done by ERA that is specific on the Aspen Economy. Chris Bendon stated that Jessica has done a phenomenal job and wanted to recognize her in front of the commission. Toni Kronberg, public, asked why Snowmass has not been included in the evaluation of the Aspen Area Community Plan because there was a huge impact on Aspen and the economy and housing and transportation. Minutes The commissioners discussed corrections to the minutes with redlining and sending to Jackie Lothian to amend prior to the meeting. MOTION: Cliff Weiss moved to approve the October 7`" with the correction to the motion on page 9 and Cliff's corrections; seconded by Mike Wampler. All in favor, APPROVED. MOTION: Jim DeFrancia moved to approve the minutes as amended from October 14`" seconded by Mike Wampler. All in favor, APPROVED. MOTION: Cliff moved to approve the minutes from October 21s` with corrections seconded by Stan Gibbs. All in favor APPROVED. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest Bert Myrin recused himself on the ZG Master Plan. Continued Public Hearing: ZG Master Plan LJ Erspamer opened the continued public hearing on the ZG Master Plan. Chris Bendon stated that they were going to ask the commission to continue the public hearing until December 2°d because they were not ready to proceed tonight. Bendon said the 5 member partnership was discussing whether to and how to 2 Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 proceed on a plan; those discussions have not been completed and they know that 1 party is withdrawing from the plan. Bendon said that the comments from the public and P&Z were reflective about the plan. LJ Erspamer requested the traffic analysis. Cliff Weiss said that he hoped the plan was not to separate the components. Bendon replied that 1 party was withdrawing at this point. Erspamer asked what criteria was used for judgment; does P&Z judge the whole project and not talk about separate components. Bendon said if individual components come forward they will have to submit a regular land use application and the criteria for what they are applying for. Weiss reiterated not separating the components but some of his concerns had to do with the actual process of master planning and that there were other things that really needed to be evaluated; an example was the Galena Street Shuttle and what will happen to it. Bendon said there were advantages and frustrations of the process. MOTION: Mike Wampler moved to continue the public hearing on the ZG Master Plan to December 2"d; seconded by Jim DeFrancia. All in favor, APPROVED. John Paul Schaffer, Aspen Art Museum, provided a letter from Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson. The letter serves as notice from the Aspen Art Museum to the intentions to withdraw from the Zupancis-Galena (ZG) Partnership. Public Hearing: 411 South Monarch (Dancine Bear Lodge) PUD Amendment LJ Erspamer opened the public hearing for 411 South Monarch. Andrea Hingley said the Dancing Bear was currently under construction and the building inspector red tagged the portion of the building because the enclosure was larger than what was on the original plans. Hingley said the elevator shafts were also higher and changes the massing of the building on 2 sides (South Aspen and the alley). Bert Myrin said that usually P&Z relies on neighbors to point out the problems and there were no neighbors in the audience. Myrin asked how the neighbors were noticed. Jennifer Phelan responded that the neighbors next door may not know that there was any change in the structure and the only legal requirement is notice to the current owner. Jim DeFrancia asked where the rooftop mechanical equipment was placed in this area. Andrea Hingley responded that there were 2 separate air conditioning units that were adjacent to this and this enclosure was for the spa mechanical equipment, 3 Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 the pumps. DeFrancia asked if the approved plans always suggested that there would be such rooftop mechanical equipment. Hingley replied roughly in the same location. Bert Myrin asked if the sound, noise levels were reduced with this application and if existing noise levels were without any of these changes do they meet the code. Hingley replied that she did not have information on the equipment. Myrin said that would be a requirement regardless. Stan Gibbs asked if the orientation was to the west of the building on the photo on page 2 from the South Aspen alley. Hingley replied that it was west. Myrin asked if the view planes mentioned of other buildings further up on the hill would be eventually torn down or were those new structures. Hingley replied that as the view plane goes up the buildings go up. Eban Clark said that he was present representing Dancing Bear Lodge, and presented pictures of elevations on power point. Clark said the applicant constructed what they are calling a dog house on the roof; it is an amendment to the PUD. Clark said there was spa equipment around various parts of the structure and more hot tubs. Clark said they have reduced the volume of the mechanical to one area in the northwest corner; furthest from the park, closest to the alley and furthest to the traffic areas. Weiss asked when the plan was changed. Clark replied that this area has always been designed spa equipment enclosure area. Weiss asked what precipitated this change in the plan. Clark replied when it was red tagged. Weiss said this plan was changed before it was red tagged. Clark said they were concentrating the equipment into one area. Clark noted the City required an enclosed stairwell which was higher than the spa equipment enclosure. Jim DeFrancia asked the exterior finish of that. Clark replied that would be black slate and showed the commission what it looked like. Weiss asked what exactly is in the enclose spa equipment area. Clark replied that it was the circulation pumps, the heaters and chemical mixing. Weiss asked why the height now for this enclosure. Clark replied that he did not know why it has to be enclosed. Jennifer Phelan said that Eban came in to tell Com Dev about this situation and that was why it got red tagged. Jim DeFrancia asked what the alternative was if they did not do this. Clark replied at this point the equipment that was in there has been selected to be internal so they would have to buy equipment that could sit outside. 4 Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 No public comments. DeFrancia said that he would be supportive of the applicant's request because there were no public objections; he found this structure to be unobtrusive and it serves to enclose what would otherwise be an unattractive equipment complex. DeFrancia said that the enclosure was smaller than the city mandated covered stairwell and is pushed back in the northwest corner. Cliff Weiss applauded the applicant for bringing this into the city staff's attention and because the spa equipment isn't really tall it could have been approached by lifting lids off it and kept it nice and low. Weiss said that he was not fond of returning to P&Z to make major changes, which he considered the restaurant to be. Stan Gibbs said that he could not support this because the architects couldn't come up with a better solution in the small amount of time they decided to spend on this. Gibbs said the size of the building was already commented on and council does not get to see this again. Gibbs said from a commercial design review this addition to the building does not improve this project and was not justified to approve given the concerns of the city council as to the mass of this building already. LJ Erspamer commended the applicant on how this was handled however he leaned towards Stan idea because this building was designed for chairs and umbrellas as well as pool equipment. Erspamer said this was too big at 9 feet. Weiss said the structure of the covered stairwell has already changed the whole nature of mass and scale that this is almost irrelevant. DeFrancia echoed what Cliff said about the stairwell already making a change and the structure would mitigate noise. Gibbs reminded the commissioners that the stairwell was enclosed for health and safety reasons and it is not the same as this enclosure for the spa equipment. Bert Myrin agreed with Stan that if there was a way to look at this and find another solution that will be less visible then he would be interested in what that solution might be. Eban Clark said that the current builder was not the owner when these plans were drawn so there were items that were discovered that have gone through that may not have been thought out as they might have been. Clark said that he was getting the sense that the vote was at least a tie and requested a continuance to submit a revised application. Myrin asked if it was a possibility of using a room below this space. Clark replied that was one of the suites that was sold. Gibbs said that he would be willing to take a second look at this; if there was a significant reduction 5 Aspen Planning & Zoning Meeting Minutes -November 18, 2008 beyond just that cut back part. Clark responded that he was not aware that can be done and he has been told this was the minimum that it could be but he was happy to go back. Weiss said that he was going to tip the scale and for every reason that he stated that he might have supported it but it was not the best solution. Erspamer asked if it would help if they went to see it. Weiss said only if the equipment were there and it's not there. DeFrancia said that he was siding with Cliff and if the architects really put their thinking caps on and either see if this could be improved by lowering the height or if not come back and give the commission sound assurance as to why that is not the case so the commission can appreciate that you really are constrained. Jim True said that if the motion to approve was tied at 3 to 3 that motion would fail; it does not mean their application was dead and means something else has to happen. MOTION: Jim DeFrancia moved to continue the public hearing for the Dancing Bear PUD Amendment to December 2"d; seconded by Bert Myrin. All in favor, APPROVED. Adjourned at 6:40 pm. ackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk 6