HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.20110825 Special City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes August 25, 2011
Comments 2
Conflicts of Interest 2
Miscellaneous Code Amendments
— Impact Fees and School Land Dedication 2
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Special City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes August 25, 2011
Stan Gibbs opened the special meeting of the Planning & Zoning Commission in
Council Chambers at 4:35. Commissioners present were: Cliff Weiss, LJ
Erspamer, Bert Myrin, and Stan Gibbs. Excused were Michael Wampler, Jim
DeFrancia and Jasmine Tygre. Staff in attendance was Jim True, Special Counsel;
Chris Bendon, Drew Alexander and Jessica Garrow, Community Development;
Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk.
Conflicts of Interest
None stated.
CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING:
Miscellaneous Code Amendments — Impact Fees and School Land Dedication
Stan Gibbs opened the continued public hearing on Code Amendment Impact Fees
and School Land Dedication. Drew Alexander said this code amendment
represents a goal and outcome measure for 2011 and targets 3 fees that zoning
collects on new development or redevelopment. Drew said that it was a Parks
Development Fee, Transportation Demand Management Air Quality Fee and the
Scholl Land Dedication Fee.
Drew said that currently all of these fees are calculated based upon the number of
bedrooms for residential. There is a definition of bedroom in the land use code on
page 1 of your packet and that definition is A portion of a dwelling unit intended to
be used for sleeping purposes, which may contain closets, and may have access to
a bathroom. Drew said that this definition is loose and lends itself to interpretation
and what community development calls the "bedroom game ", the contractor is
well aware that bedrooms are going to drive a certain cash payment that the owners
are going to have to pay so they camouflage rooms to be a yoga room, media
room, library but as long as it comes to anywhere near that definition that the
Zoning Officer will calculate it as a bedroom. This takes a lot of staff time and
sometimes the residence has to have a doorway or a closet or a bathroom removed.
Drew said to solve this problem staff has proposed using residential floor area
instead of a bedroom count; State statute identifies floor area and bedrooms as
metrics for calculating impact fees. If you compare the 2 systems that we have
created through this code amendment there are going to be slight differences based
upon the way homes are developed. A small home with a lot of bedrooms under
the old system would have paid more than a small home with a lot of bedrooms
under this new system; a large home with a small amount of bedrooms would pay
more under this new system since it is floor area driven than the old system. Drew
said this code amendment is not proposed to increase or decrease current intakes;
they are trying to keep this as close as possible to what is in the code now. Drew
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Special City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes August 25, 2011
explained that the proposed system was from existing building permit data from
2004 to 2011 thought the drafting process staff has been in contact with
Environmental Health, Transportation, Parks and the Aspen School District.
Drew utilized power point to show how the fees work; the examples in the power
point all use the same development scenario; a single family residence 3200 square
feet of floor area on a 6,000 square foot lot on a value of 21/2 million which
generates a per square foot lot value of $400.00. Table 610.1 was the Impact Fee
Schedule. The School Land Dedication is more complicated the generation rates
per bedroom are on an increasing scale so a 1 bedroom studio has less of an impact
on the current system than a 3 or 4 bedroom home; the proposed system has a tier
where the first 1200 feet of a dwelling unit would pay a lower generation rate per
square foot once over 1200 square feet it goes up for the remaining 2,000 square
feet (Figure 62.03 Cash Payment in Lieu Example). The School Land Dedication
Fees take up 72% of the total fees and Parks is smaller and the TDM is the
smallest. Drew said compared to the old program there is a $5,000.00 difference.
Drew said if there was a scrape and replace the new development would take
advantage of what was already mitigated and they would get a credit for the floor
area that they had prior to the redevelopment. This amendment is not intended to
increase or decrease fee amounts but to provide a more reliable metric of
calculating fees into simplifying building permit review processes. Drew said the
departments have all been contacted.
Cliff Weiss said if he bought enough TDRs to build 15,000 square feet I still pay
the same as if anyone else building 3400 square feet. Chris Bendon responded on
the Schools it would be. Drew Alexander said that relates to how the system
works today a 3400 square foot house would have maybe 4 bedrooms where we
cap it and that 12,000 square foot house may have 18 bedrooms but we are still
stopping the fee at that 4 generation rate. Chris said your question might be the
numbers go back to our impact fee analysis over the years on very small units and
1 bedroom there is a very low rate of student generation. Chris said from 2 to 4
bedrooms there is a fairly steep rate and then it plateaus again but becomes very
unpredictable so an 8 bedroom house doesn't generate twice the students as a 4
bedroom house; in some circumstances it generates fewer student than a 4
bedroom house and that may be because that larger house may be used as a second
residence and not used as much. Chris said by statistic validity they just cap the
house at 4 bedrooms. Cliff said by statistic validity you are saying that I am not
likely to increase the number of students that are going to school. Chris replied
you may be or may not and it is not predictable.
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Special City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes August 25, 2011
Cliff Weiss said what concerns him is not that you are going to use the square
footage versus bedrooms but the plateau starts very early and puts the onerous on
very small properties and doesn't put any onerous or additional responsibility on
properties that are becoming overbearing; whether they are generating students or
not are generating impact on the community. Chris said this is a very important
topic because when you get into impact fees. Cliff asked if you create specific
impacts. Chris said the fee has to be directly to the impact so you have to be able
to prove that this action produces this impact and it has to be proportional to the
impact that they are actually generating. So you have to prove that adding a
bedroom adds kids in the schools, adding square footage adds kids to the schools
and scientifically when we get over a certain point we can't say that anymore so
our argument falls apart; it is not to say that there are other impacts but if other
impacts to the community are mitigated through an impact fee to the school that is
why we have identified TDM impacts, Parks impacts and some other communities
include street impacts. Cliff asked if this money goes directly to the school
district. Chris answered it does. Cliff said the school district impact fee is
different; we are all paying taxes and a big piece of this goes to the school district.
Chris said impact fees mitigate the infrastructure so you can only allocate those
fees to buying a new park or piece of a park equipment or street equipment; we can
pay to build the ARC but not operate it.
Bert Myrin said that our decision alters the methods of calculation not the
schedule; we are deciding process. Bert asked how other communities did this and
if they did it in reverse, square footage to bedrooms. Drew replied that they know
that a handful of communities that have made the switch and some use bedrooms
and some use floor area. Drew said some communities have a very specific
definition of bedroom.
MOTION: LJErspamer moved to approve Resolution 14, series 2011
recommending approval of the amendments to the Impact Fees and School Land
Dedication, seconded by Cliff Weiss. All in favor, APPROVED.
Adjourned into City AACP.
(Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk
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