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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.20120918 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes September 18, 2012 Comments 2 Conflicts of Interest 2 1450 Crystal Lake Rd — GMQS Review 2 South Aspen Street Lodge — PUD Review 4 1 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes September 18, 2012 LJ Erspamer opened the regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission in Sister Cities Meeting Room at 4:30. Commissioners present were Ryan Walterscheid, Bert Myrin, Keith Goode, Cliff Weiss, Jasmine Tygre, Stan Gibbs and LJ Erspamer. Jim DeFrancia did not attend. Staff in attendance were Debbie Quinn, Assistant City Attorney; Jessica Garrow and Chris Bendon, City Community Development; Reed Patterson, Municipal Clerk and Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk. Comments Bert asked if the AVH site visit has been decided for the 30th or the 6th. Jessica replied that she wasn't sure but Jennifer would be back on Monday. Bert asked how City Council is following up on the check list. Jessica said that was on the code amendments from City Council. Minutes MOTION.- Bert Myrin moved to approve the minutes from August 21 sr and September 4`h seconded by Stan Gibbs; all in favor, APPROVED. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest Ryan stated that in disclosure that he previously was an employee of Poss who is presenting both projects but he never worked on the second project. Ryan said on the first project he helped with the LEAD certification before it was changed. Ryan said if something comes up that he has knowledge of he can recuse himself. Debbie Quinn stated that she has reviewed the application and memo for tonight and spoke to Ryan about it. Keith said that he had been an employee of the club. Cliff said he was on the COWOP for the club. LJ said he did physical therapy at the Club. Public Hearing: 1450 Crvstal Lake Rd — GMOS Review LJ Erspamer opened the public hearing on 1450 Crystal Lake Rd. LJ asked for proof of legal notice. Debbie Quinn reviewed both affidavits and they are in order and received someone questioning the property lines which Jessica reviewed and found they were correct. Jessica Garrow introduced herself and this was a request by Sunny Vann and Associates for a 6 lot below growth management allotments to add 3 new bedrooms to the Aspen Club timeshare. Jessica stated in 2010 the Aspen Club received final approval for a PUD, SPA and Timeshare that included 20 timeshare units and a revamping of Club facilities, new parking and things like that. As the 2 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting—Minutes September 18, 2012 applicant has gone forward working towards construction level documents they have had some internal changes that they are interested in pursuing; part of which is adding 3 new bedrooms; each bedroom is considered to have 2 pillows. With the 3 new bedrooms they need 6 lodge pillow allotments. Jessica said that the request was to change 2 of the previously approved units in the Aspen Club to 3 bedroom units and to add 1 new studio unit that would not be actually used as a timeshare until a future point in time when it is no longer used as the timeshare sales office. There is no change in the internal or external space of the building. APCHA has reviewed the request and the applicant is going to use "credit" from affordable housing that was part of the original approval that the original approval over-mitigated for the employees that were generated; they created a credit of 8.4 FTEs that were in addition to what was required. Staff was in favor of the change. Bert asked about page 5 which is page 2 of the resolution. Jessica responded that is a new unit one bedroom but they will be using this for the timeshare lodge unit sales and then it will be converted to a 1 bedroom. Jessica said with this approval changes from 20 units to 21 units. U asked on page 13 of the packet and asked if it was part of APCHAs recommendation. Jessica replied that it was part of APCHAs recommendation and has not been included in the Resolution because the Ordinance really governs how the affordable housing units were dealt with in terms of rental and for sale; if they are not in compliance they transition into for sale units. U said there were some requirements from Engineering and APCHA. Jessica said many of those requirements have not been triggered yet because there is no issuance for a building permit though they are within their vesting period and meeting all the requirements to date and need to do those going forward. Sunny Vann stated that he didn't have much to add and the building was proceeding toward its permits position. Bert said your application has 107 pages why is that. Sunny replied that he included the original application and approval so that everything could be found in one simple place for everything that was done. U said on the application number 3 those amendments do not increase traffic and was it a daily study or more; he only found the study date of August 21St. Sunny answered that they have a condition of approval that we can't increase trip travel into the club. U asked if there was a method of monitoring that. Sunny replied that it was incorporated in the TDM and in the Council Conditions of Final 3 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting—Minutes September 18, 2012 Approval. U said the proposed amendment does not involve changes that are inconsistent with the condition or representation of the project's original approval. U asked if this was a change from the original approval for 20. Sunny replied yes; this is a threshold for an insubstantial amendment otherwise it gets kicked up to P&Z for approval so the staff has exercised latitude historically as to whether it is so far out of the approval that it has to come back to P&Z. No public comments. Cliff opposed this project and will not support it. U said now we are going back to add another unit and U felt it was too big to start with. Sunny responded that had we built it smaller we wouldn't be here asking for the change. MOTION: Bert Myrin moved to approve Resolution 16 approving the Growth Management Review for the Aspen Club project; seconded by Stan Gibbs. Roll call vote: Ryan Walterscheid, yes; Keith Goode, yes; Cliff Weiss, no; Bert Myrin, yes; Jasmine Tygre, yes; Stan Gibbs, yes; LJErspamer, no. APPROVED 5-2. Public Hearing: South Aspen Street Lodge — PUD Review U Erspamer opened the public hearing for South Aspen Street Lodge PUD Review. Chris Bendon presented the affidavit of notice. Debbie Quinn reviewed the affidavit of notice for posting and mailing and there was an information outreach meeting of a sketch plan with all of the requirements for that meeting was met. Chris said this property was known as lots 1, 2, and 3 of the South Aspen Street Subdivision, south of Dean and north of the Shadow Mountain Condominiums. It has been known as the Lodge at Aspen Mountain property in various reiterations over the last decade or so. Chris gave a brief history of the property with an approval granted in 2003 known as the Townhomes approval for 14 free market units and 17 affordable units and is a vested approval for the property; subsequent to that there was much discussion about zoning being unfortunate that was the basis for that approval and there was a neighborhood master plan initiated in 2008 that is also referred to as COWOP I. The neighborhood master plan involved this property and the property across the street, Lift One Lodge, properties to the east were Ski Company properties and properties owned by the City of Aspen all included into a master plan process; that plan was not approved. The various 4 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes September 18, 2012 different properties owners went their own way; the Lift One Lodge was approved roughly a year ago. Chris said on this property there was a second COWOP I1 just for the Lodge at Aspen Mountain in that review there are drawings in the packet and there will be more on the power point with significant reductions in the scope of the project. The project was subjected to some significant hardship and not presented to City Council. The property then changed hands and is now owned by ASV Aspen Street Owner, LLC and David Parker is the principal of that company but is not present in tonight's meeting. Chris said that in July of this year there was a sketch plan review with City Council and P&Z and the minutes of that meeting are in your packet. Tonight's application came in requesting all reviews which the applicant and staff have urged one another to pull back to focus on the fundamental parameters of this application. Chris said tonight we are going to focus on 3 items: the program, site plan and massing. The program essentially the uses on the site being residential, lodging and commercial; the site plan being how those uses lay on the land and massing which is a combination of heights, floor area and view plans. Stan asked if affordable housing would be part of the program. Chris replied yes. Bert asked about the lifts. Chris replied that there was no resolution here; if P&Z is comfortable to make a recommendation tonight we can deal with that in a motion. Chris suggested to continue tonight's meeting until next week September th and October 2nd 25 Bert said this goes on as a recommendation to City Council in these 3 areas and then comes back to us after City Council. Chris replied right. Bert asked if P&Z could tweak the 3 areas. Chris answered yes you would expect some fine tuning within those areas to make sure the project has merit at a fundamental level before getting to those details and a way to preserve your time and energy. Bert asked from a process standpoint why not do a conceptual. Chris responded it essentially is. Chris stated that they have been trying to develop a lodge since 2003 and the statements are a mix in the community and we don't see the townhomes as a really good decision for this property; it was based on zoning that has changed. Chris said that the townhomes do little for the community and are large and expected to be dormant most of the year which doesn't fulfill a need for the community. Chris said the lower portion has 73 keys with about 84,000 square feet and about a 50 foot height at the highest point. The other 2 parcels have a proposal for 35 5 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes September 18, 2012 whole ownership residential units, most of them have lock offs; there are 31 lock- offs with these units. The affordable housing has requested a reduction for a project of this magnitude from 89 FTEs to approximately 43 FTEs with 19 on site and 24 off site. Chris said they have a wish that the free market piece of the project to function more like fractional or lodging. Chris said the upper 2 parcels are similar to the Lift One Lodge with height points on the natural grade of the land. Chris said they are looking for your initial take on the project on those 3 the program, site plan and massing. Cliff asked Chris the total FAR of this proposal. Chris replied above grade they were 85,000 and the upper 2 parcels 84,000. Mitch Haas replied that they were fully under the 2012 code with one exception to figure out how it applies to the Mines Dumps that were demolished like 10 years ago; it was a set requirement that we just carried forward. Cliff asked what the FTEs were in units. Chris answered that it depends on the unit layout; for a one bedroom unit mitigates for 1.75 FTEs. U asked where the data comes from for tracking the success of a lock-off unit. Chris replied they did a study of fractional as lodging units and had a slightly higher occupancy. Chris said the Grand Hyatt had quite a bit of utility to the lock- offs; people requesting just one room. U asked for tracking of fractional. Chris stated that we do not have good tracking of fractional; there was a study done about 6 months ago and he will make sure that P&Z gets a copy of that. Bert asked how the Ski Company underground parking worked. Chris replied there is long term lease (99 years) on parcel 2 for 30 spaces; it is an ownership right that the Ski Company has through that lease. Bert asked how to sustain something without tearing down and starting over again. Chris said projects need updating from time to time depending upon the quality of the resource and advancements in technology. Todd Emmerson is representing Bald Mountain Development and he introduced Mitch Haas and Andy Wisnoski. Todd said the parcels were at the base of Aspen Mountain and have spent the better part of a year trying to develop this site; last fall they presented an application to amend the existing PUD to the City Council seeking to enhance and update the entitled townhome scheme by improving the site plan, reducing overall density and by reacting to the then recently approved project. Todd said in response to our application City Council in no uncertain terms along with staff voiced strong preference for a lodging component on this site. In response to that plan the community had to accept trade-offs because the 6 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes September 18, 2012 development of the hotel alone was not economically feasible in today's market and they couldn't make it happen. Todd said we typically heard from Council that they would be flexible with regard to impact costs and fees to building height limits, parking, scale and affordable housing requirements if we could meet the object to get a lodging goal on this site. Todd said they are back here at Council's request to design a project that has at its heart the goal of achieving an economic viable hotel and hospitality project on this location. Several weeks ago this Commission, City Council and us, the applicant, met in a sketch plan session to find an acceptable starting point through our reconsideration of this hotel project on South Aspen Street as well as to share some of our known economic challenges facing the development on this-site. Todd explained they started the sketch plan session by reviewing the final results of the COWOP II design effort; that was never presented to the City Council it was approved by a public body made up of this Commission and of the current Council. Todd said that they agreed to table the townhouse project and move forward with the planning effort with full support of this commission. Todd said their presentation was in a rough form and it is important to get your input on design of the project to the benefit of the community sought by this hotel concept being met and that the design concepts will receive refinement as we receive input from this board, city council and the citizens that are going to provide input and our design consultants. Todd asked the Commission if they felt that the site plan worked in this neighborhood; did the mass and scale of the hotel component fit within the general parameters that were set up by COWOP II and does this programming fit the community's desire for a hotel. Todd said the overall height is close to 50 feet and only a portion of a single ridge line exceeds 55 feet; the buildings are setback into Shadow Mountain. Todd said on the lower site the northern most parcel the project includes a standalone hotel with 76 guest room keys, a restaurant, a lounge, spa, some meeting rooms and a parking garage. The upper piece has 2 condominium buildings which can be branded and served by the hotel. The vast majority of hotel keys were a hotel and the majority of the condominiums will have lock offs. Todd said the majority of these buildings stay below that 42 foot line and only portions of the building with elevator cores or some roof structure to give the architecture some interest and those masses are pushed back on the site to provide relief to the street and scale to the street. Break 7 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting—Minutes September 18, 2012 Jasmine asked about the reference to the 42 feet height limit. Todd replied the yellow line was 42 feet. Jasmine asked why did you choose 42 feet. Mitch replied it was the code was and now is 30 feet. Jasmine said the current code is 40 feet. Jasmine asked about the hotel operation that the construction and sale of the free market units will subsidize the construction of the hotel; when the hotel operator gets involved he doesn't buy the hotel they just rent it. Todd replied 90% of the time and that is the case. Cliff said that you made a decrease from COWOP II to this proposal; he recalled COWOP II coming in at about 130,000 and change. Todd answered about 197,000 feet is whole. Cliff said so this decrease was incorrect. Cliff asked Andy if you were using Juan Street for your entrance and he remembered standing in front of Mary Barbee's property and the turn was narrow and a truck almost ran them over; what do you have in mind for this Juan Street entrance. Todd stated that the road was being re-engineered it was not as it was prior. Mitch said the main approach to the hotel is on Aspen and South Juan. Todd said there is a single entry on Juan. Mitch said they have tried to leave Dean Street completely alone so the private parking area isn't infringed upon and say the service should be only valet for their parking off of Juan Street. Cliff asked where the free market parking was on this plan. Andy said the lower building of the upper 2 and the entrance comes in the middle and there are 15 parking spaces for the lower building and 16 for the upper building. Cliff asked how are you going to limit support vehicles and other vehicles that come up to the hotel and where are they coming up Juan Street. Mitch said the Ski Co parking is below that parcel 1 hotel. LJ said the traffic circulation needs to be re-visited and sees some problems; nobody has talked about the Juan Street Apartments. LJ said this is an important part of the site plan. Stan said he also was concerned about the traffic there and at least the COWOP II design has a traffic circle. Stan said there should be someway reasonable way to control traffic either with a gate and card entrance so you can at least limit who is going to be informed to go via Garmisch. Stan asked about the bridge between the hotel and the middle building; was it just for the hotel. Todd replied that it was actually for the hotel guests, the pool amenities can be used for the upper 2 buildings and that bridge gives guests from either the condos or hotel. Stan said the bridges don't look attractive to him and thought transparent glass would have looked better and would like more detail. Bert asked about the financials to do with the property. 8 Reiular City Planning &Zoning Meeting = Minutes September 18, 2012 Keith asked when the maximum height was 60 feet. Todd answered that was a historical context. Mitch said that was approved by the COWOP group but not by City Council. Todd said they have nothing above 60 feet. Ryan asked if there was a diagram showing that with all the roof points. Andy replied no they do not have those details at this point. Todd said there 4 one bedroom units in the center and the hotel has 6 dormitory style units for hotel operations. Cliff said in both COWOP I and II there was an issue with Juan Street Affordable Housing encroaching on your property and it was stated that the Juan Street Housing would have some sort of a yard and this looks much different. Todd said there were some retaining walls for daylight to the hotel rooms so they wanted to preserve the open space. Todd said that you were actually cutting into the grade and actually under the lid of the entrance to the garage. Mitch said the entrance to the garage is set off 10 feet from the property line. LJ said there was more massing above grade than below grade as opposed to your last application, why was that. Todd replied there was more massing above grade on the hotel parcel to accommodate the amenity needs and the guest room needs; all of the guest rooms need to have daylight, the hotel operated insisted the spa and restaurant have daylight and the lobby. LJ asked if there was a program for the check in for the condos. Todd said it wasn't a detailed program yet but it was the intent that the condominium be managed by the hotel. Bert asked how many square feet was the total building of the hotel, underground above ground not FAR. Todd replied 100,004 square feet in the hotel and a 40,000 foot parking garage below that includes those 30 parking spaces leased to the Ski Co. Public Comments: 1. Mack Bowlens said that he managed the Lift One Condominium and said it was interesting that you brought up the guest rooms needed daylight; the Lift One owners want day light too so keep at least the hotel at a height limit of 40 feet. 2. Denis Murray stated that he lived at Trainors Landing and that a 40,000 square foot parking garage into that corner would be better served if you saw basically that is a residential neighborhood. Denis said he was on COWOP I and II, all of those things, when you drop that traffic into that garage with buses and the Timberidge parking was in the 20 foot right of way. And snow gets stacked high over there as the stop sign and beyond. Denis said Koch Park has a lot of activity all summer and parking is critical in that 9 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes September 18, 2012 neighborhood just for the events that have been taking place forever plus you eliminate access to this structure from Aspen Street because it has a stoplight at the highway and it is a main thoroughfare. 3. Paul Taddune said that he was here on behave of the Lift One Homeowners Association and the owners can't be here tonight and are impacted by this project. Paul said the applicants have been cooperative but on the third component that you are supposed to look at which is mass and scale. Paul asked for slide #9 and think about whether it was discussed before and they are not trying to overwhelm and the height is about the same as COWOP II. Paul said there will be a hotel 4th floor right in the face of Lift One and you want to be closer to Lift One. Todd said what you are seeing doesn't front Lift One it fronts against Timberidge. LJ closed the public section of the hearing. Todd responded that if the community wants a hotel on this site that there are going to be trade-offs. Todd said that they are trying to work with the regulatory groups and a hotel project is much more exciting to build as a developer than some townhouses. Cliff said the trade-offs is what this is going to be about and he was very much for a hotel. Cliff said you are requesting twice as much FAR; the townhomes were 95,000 square feet and they are going to have 86,000 of free market space plus the hotel brought this to 170,000. There is half of the affordable housing at your request most will be moved off site, cuts to the fees that the city could normally charge, exceeding code heights and an increase in free market. Cliff said there were 2 out of 3 building that are that private enclave that he is so much against so the hotel is jammed down to Durant and he is beginning to feel that we were better off with the townhomes even though he hated them. Cliff wanted the hotel and now there is more free market than hotel. Cliff said the Juan Street entrance was not a great layout and the entrance was on Aspen Street. Jasmine said that Cliff covered at lot of her concerns and one of the reasons she was asking about the sustainability of the Hotel down the road has to do with the size of the building and you are giving up a lot of the building. Jasmine said the basis of this project was if you wanted a hotel you are going to have to give up a lot of other things and Cliff pointed out very accurately that the things that you are will to give up are they worth having the hotel here. Jasmine said you can hide the massing but you can't hide the height; it is not appropriate to have the demand for 10 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes September 18, 2012 services and reduce the employee housing by half and she thinks that is a disservice to the community. Stan said Jasmine just stated what I echoed and had a hard time with the employee generation is a very difficult thing to offset; a lot of employees will have to be driving in and out of town and that is what we don't want. Stan asked if it was possible to put the garage entrance on Aspen Street. Todd replied that he believed it is, yes it could be put on Aspen Street. Stan said the employee housing and traffic were the big issues. Keith echoed the employee housing and he asked about where the delivery trucks would go. Todd replied that it was all below grade; in the iteration of the design there is a receiving dock in the parking garage off that Garmisch entrance this design put the trash truck underground. Ryan echoed what everyone else said and he said this was new to him but it almost seems that you could get 2 hotels in there. Ryan asked if there was an opportunity to add a second level and mid-level for the parking garage. Todd said he is clearly seeing that he will look at other options to the parking garage entrance. Ryan asked to see the proposed mass and scale especially in terms of height. Cliff wanted to discuss a subject for Bert because he brought up the developer; he said they are going to sell this project to an operator and all hotels renovate every couple of years because that is what guests want changes. Cliff said the hotel room size is important and the average Aspen guest size room is small. MOTION: Stan Gibbs moved to extend to 7:15seconded by Cliff. All in favor. Bert said he was not on the size, mass and scale; he wanted to support staff and the free market owned and operated more like a lodge operation; he would like to know what works like the Aspen Square. Bert would like to know the average square footage of a room at the Silvertree Hotel; why haven't some of these worked and why some had not worked. Bert wants to see a hotel that succeeds for duration. Bert talked about the costs with Cliff. Bert wanted to know how the Silvertree, Jerome and Limelight work. LJ asked for a conclusion here: agree on Aspen Street access, the tunnel below grade, the pool to be moved to the other side, housing mitigation, too tall. Stan said if the building was lower and get creative and close Juan Street and get lower. 11 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting—Minutes September 18, 2012 Todd said the pool could not be moved because of a deed restriction on the property. LJ said if there were a back up to Juan Street and put it lower. MOTION: Stan Gibbs moved to continue the meeting to 7:30 seconded by Cliff Weiss. The following did not vote in favor of extending the meeting: Jasmine Tygre, Keith Goode and Bert Myrin. Todd thanked the commission for listening and nothing said surprised him; it never occurred to him about vacating Juan Street might be something practical and they will give it thought. There was no fractional designed into this; they have designed a residential portion. Todd said that they would take your input and be back. Chris suggested September 25th for the continuation. MOTION: Jasmine Tygre moved to continue this hearing on South Aspen Street to September 25`h, Bert Myrin Seconded. All in favor. Adjourned at 7:35 pm. #Ckie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk 12