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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.20140218 Regular Meeting Planning & Zoning Commission February 18,2014 U Erspamer, Chair, called the meeting to order at 4:30 PM with members Tygre, Gibbs, Walterscheid, McNellis, and Nieuwland-Zlotnicki present. Elliott arrived late. Also present from City staff, Debbie Quinn,Jessica Garrow and Chris Bendon. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Ms.Tygre welcomed the new members. Mr. Erspamer also welcomed the new members. Mr. Erspamer explained the meeting procedure to the new members and how the agenda is worked. STAFF COMMENTS: Jennifer Phelan said the new member orientation has not been scheduled but she will email all members once it is scheduled. She also welcomed the new members and thanked them for volunteering. Debbie Quinn welcomed the new members and said she is always available to help with the transition. PUBLIC COMMENTS: There are no public comments. MINUTES Ms.Tygre made a motion to approve the minutes from January 7th, seconded by Mr. Gibbs. All in favor, motion passed. Ms.Tygre made a motion to approve the minutes of January 211t, seconded by Mr. Gibbs. All in favor, motion passed. DECLARATION OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST There are no conflicts of interest. Work Session - Lodging Code Amendments Jessica Garrow, long range planner, stated Staff wanted some feedback from P&Z on the direction of some code amendments related to the lodge and condominium incentive program. Staff did meet with P&Z previously about PUD and Subdivision amendments. One of City Councils top ten goals for the past couple of years has been to work on some type of program that incentivizes new lodging product as well as looking at condominium units within the short term bed base. In general to have more nightly bed base available for guests and visitors. Currently, Staff has done a lot of background research and included a link in the memo to view the reports. There are six specific questions related to growth management. Any development that occurs in the City must go through growth management and get allotments in order to be built. There are allotments for lodging, free market residential and commercial space. There are also allotments for affordable housing but there is no limit to those in any one year and the same for essential public facilities. #1.) The first question for P&Z is how comfortable are you related to allotments on the lodging side. Currently the allotments are equal to 112 pillows. There are two pillows in one unit or 56 units that can be built in one year under the current growth management system. Ms. Garrow stated the growth management system was readopted in its existing form in 2007 and before that there was not limit to 1 Regular Meeting Planning& Zoning Commission February 18,2014 the allotments for lodge units. The 112 lodge pillows represent 1.5 percent annual growth rate. The community plan growth management code includes a suggested 2 percent growth rate in the different development sectors. When the existing growth management system was adopted it was decided that lodging should have a 1.5 percent annual growth limit and free market residential was at a .5 percent. One option on the lodge allotments would be to have no limit or go back to the old system. There could be a pool of allotments available on 5-10 years of estimated growth. Another option would be to keep it as it is. Staff is not sure the number of existing available allotments will meet the demand that is out there for some new lodge product and refurbished lodge product. Chris Bendon, Community Development Director, said it may seem counter intuitive since over the last 20 year period we have lost thousands of lodge pillows out of the inventory. This is mostly due to conversions and demolitions and lodges calling it quits. Mr. Walterscheid asked if refurbished units count towards the allotments. Ms. Garrow responded no that if a lodge wants to remodel and add units they would have to go through growth management for the new units. Mr. Gibbs asked about 2007 when the allotment limit was put in place and what the background for it was. Mr. Bendon stated he was not sure where the 1.5 percent came from. Ms. Garrow said that the current code is conflicting saying we want to encourage lodging and there is no limit but two sections later is the limit of 112 pillows. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki wanted to know if fractionals are included and Ms. Garrow responded they are included. Mr. Bendon said fractional is a type of ownership and type of ownership is not regulated. Ms.Tygre asked if there have been applicants who would like to apply for allotments but have been denied because there have been no allotments available. Ms. Garrow said in 2008 when the Aspen Club came forward they needed more allotments then were available, 124, so they went through the multi-year allotment section of the code. If another lodge had come forward at the same time Staff would have said no because there were none available. Ms.Tygre asked if Council can dip into previous years as well as future years allotments. Ms. Garrow said they can't dip into previous years unless those previous years have been rolled over. At the first meeting of the year City Council reviews the growth management applications that have happened. For 2013 none of the free market or lodging allotments were used. Council chose not to roll over the free market units but did roll over the lodge allotments. In 2014 there are two years worth of allotments available. Mr. McNellis asked if we were to get rid of all the allotments what happens to the application process. Ms. Garrow said there is no scoring of the applications but the application would have to meet their minimum mitigation requirements. Mr. McNellis asked about the 5-10 year period option if potentially all the allotments could be used up in 3 years what would happen for the next 7 years. Mr. Bendon said there would be another conversation at the end of 3 years. He said if there is a queasiness of getting rid of the allotments all together saying there is 10 years worth of allotments available in the first year puts a horizon on it and everyone understands once they are gone there has to be a conversation about reupping the number. Mr.Gibbs asked if City Council could decide the number at the beginning of the year for each year. He stated he is worried about putting zero as the number and is uncertain how to pick a real number for the future without having feedback. He thinks it could be decided by City Council based on what happened the previous year and what is coming forward. Mr. Bendon said it could be a policy decided each year. The only downside may be if you are planning on a project there may be some risk assumptions. Ms. Tygre said the discussion is on growth management rates and an annual review on how things are progressing would give Council a much better handle on how to act proactively and retroactively. Mr. Bendon said the idea would be to start with a bucket and have an annual check in as how much to add to the bucket. Mr. Gibbs stated he feels Council is the place to determine that number. 2 Regular Meeting Planning & Zoning Commission February 18,2014 Mr. Walterscheid asked what the average requested allotments over the past 5 years has been. Ms. Garrow stated the only lodge that has come through in the last 5 years has been the Aspen Club. Mr. Erspamer asked what is the cumulative number of current pillows are. Mr. Bendon stated it is around 8,000. Mr. Erspamer said every year there are 56 lodge units available and there haven't been any done in 5 years. He asked if the allotments are 56 times 5,or 280. Mr. Bendon replied that Council has zeroed it out every year. This past year is the only one where the allotments have been rolled over. Mr. Erspamer asked Mr. Gibbs what he thinks about keeping it cumulative. Mr. Gibbs replied the problem is you don't want to get into a situation where nothing happens and then someone wants to build a mega lodge. He said the thing to do is to have Council look at it every year. Mr. Erspamer said he is not opposed to that. He said that Council will know what applications are in the pipeline. Mr. Bendon said they probably would not know the applications until they are into the process. He said if there are no allotments available they can't apply until the next growth management year. Mr. Walterscheid asked if the allotment limit has never been hit why change it. Mr. Bendon said it hasn't been working because the current set of codes is not attractive to lodge development. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki said it takes years to move a complicated development forward and a developer would want certainty and there are other regulations in place from a mega lodge coming in and using up all the allotments. Mr. Bendon said the allotments does not necessarily prevent a lodge from developing if there are other issues. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki asked if there are other ways of putting on the breaks outside of the lodge pillow allotments if it were to go. Mr. Bendon said this is probably the easier one but there are other mitigation factors. Mr. Gibbs said this is not a great mechanism for limiting things because there should be other places in terms of mass and scale and brought up construction pacing. He said if there was no limit and 42 small lodges wanted to build in the same year and met all the land use requirements there would be a huge amount of construction. He said there should be some limit on how much activity there is in any one year. He said there has been an issue of construction management within the community as to how much we can endure. Ms.Tygre said that procedurally we don't know if Council will approve any changes or the developers will think they are a good thing. She said that to start by changing the number of allotments is like putting the cart before the horse. She said she would rather stick with Mr. Gibbs suggestion of having a yearly review by Council and wait until we see the effects of some of the other changes. Mr. Erspamer asked how do we know they are going to stay rentals. Mr. Bendon said there is a process to do that. Mr.Walterscheid asked if Council can arbitrarily shift the number backwards. Ms. Quinn, Assistant City Attorney, said it depends on how it is worded. She said if there is an annual setting for the allotments if it won't work for someone in the development community they will be in front of Council to talk about it. Ms. Garrow said it might make sense to have a baseline that Council can adjust from to help out with predictability. P&Z agreed they are comfortable with that scenario. #2.) Is related to lodging but is a general growth management question. Currently there are three levels of reviews; administrative, review with P&Z and review with City Council which requires a two-step review with P&Z. In the past few years when growth management reviews have been brought to P&Z, Ms. Garrow said one of the comments they keep hearing is there is no way P&Z can deny the application if the allotments are available. She stated that this question is if P&Z is interested in continuing to see these applications or to stream line some of them into an administrative review but still keep seeing the more subjective reviews. Mr. Bendon said it is also a criticisms from the development community. They go through the initial reviews then come back through for basically an administrative review for P&Z to count the numbers. The developers have to wait for the review just to say"what was that for". Mr. Gibbs said the memo stated this would eliminate the opportunity for some projects to be discussed. He said if it was simply a growth management number counting exercise P&Z wouldn't need to see it. He said he is concerned about not seeing the projects that are more than just numbers. Ms. Garrow said 3 Regular Meeting Planning & Zoning Commission February 18,2014 she would recommend essential public facilities and multi-year allotments still go through a public hearing process. #3.) Ms. Garrow said this is related to condominium units,free market residential and the multi-family replacement program. The multi-family replacement program has been in place since the late 1980's. If you have a multi-family condo building and want to combine units or tear the building down and rebuild, if any of those units in their history have ever been rented by a local working resident you have to provide mitigation in the form of a newly built affordable housing unit located on the site of the project. The question for P&Z is are you interested in loosening some of these requirements for only those units that would participate in some sort of incentive program. In exchange for agreeing with participating in the short term rental pool for a portion of the year they would be exempt or have a lower mitigation requirement. Mr. Gibbs asked what incentive programs were included. Ms.Garrow said they are looking at a short term rental incentive program including lodges and condominiums. They are trying to move some of the condos from being just a second home to functioning more like a lodge. Mr. Bendon said that condos are 40 percent of the bed base and there is a big spectrum of quality. Mr. Gibbs asked if there is an estimate of the number of employees still in town because of this program. Mr. Bendon said there may be a horizon on it if the unit has not housed a worker in a number of years since there would be no sense of loss. This only applies to 3 or more unit condos. Mr. Elliott asked how they would monitor to make sure the units are actually being rented. Ms. Garrow said that will be one of the challenges. Mr. Elliott suggested using a third party to handle the renting. Ms. Garrow said that is one of the options they are exploring. Mr. Bendon said they think there is room between a unit being a residence and a rental, a hybrid unit. Mr.Walterscheid asked if the entire HOA would have to agree or if individual units can do it. Ms. Garrow said they are contemplating different tiers within the incentive program for the entire HOA or individual units. Ms. Tygre said the incentive program is very worthy but fraught with headaches. She said the motives of those who rent versus those who own is completely different. She said the incentive of you must be in the rental program is just not going to work. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki said we may see a net loss in beds when units are remodeled/expanded due to less bedrooms. Mr. Bendon said it may be an issue with quality. They went to look at the units at the Viceroy and the units in Aspen. He said his reaction to the units at the Viceroy was an "I get this" and the ones in town were a "good grief'. Mr. Gibbs said we shouldn't lose site of the cost, continuing to have local working people not being able to live here. Eliminating the requirement may be too extreme. Mr. Bendon asked if he feels differently if it hasn't housed any workers in the last 5 years. Mr. Gibbs said he can see that. If that unit goes away it will not have a huge impact since it has not been performing in that capacity. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki asked if it disincentivises landlords from renting to locals in the future. Mr. Gibbs said he is sure there are people who won't rent because of that. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki said he has some discomfort with the outright exemption. Mr. Walterscheid said that over a period of time if they are not living there now they have essentially been priced out of it. Instead of doing away with the mitigation maybe they have to do cash in lieu or build something in town instead of on the actual site. Ms.Tygre said that when people combine units they don't do it because they want to put them in the rental pool. She said that people don't put the money into the renovations and upgrades if they are not planning on living there. #4.) Amending the location requirements. Allowing a cash in lieu or housing certificate or offsite housing as opposed to requiring the onsite housing. Ms. Garrow said it sounded like P&Z was comfortable with instead of getting rid of the multi-family replacement program to loosen it and allow a cash in lieu payment. Ms.Tygre brought up when P&Z was reviewing the housing credits at the ABC, Justin talked about giving less mitigation credit to a project as they get further from the city. She said 4 Regular Meeting Planning & Zoning Commission February 18,2014 this would be a really good place to establish that as part of this review. Mr. Elliott said he is concerned that cash in lieu is taking workers from inside the city and pushing them outside to the urban growth boundary. Mr. Gibbs said this is a place where you can establish the difference between private and lodging. The lodging could have a better deal and the mitigation requirements are a little lower. He suggested a scale of policy benefits. #5.) Free market residential. Currently there are 18 allotments available in any one year, .5 percent growth rate. Is P&Z interested in an increase of this number or eliminating it. Mr. Bendon said that there could potentially be a different rate for units associated with lodge development or hybrid units. He said if you don't hit the lodging limit you might hit this free market residential limit. Ms. Garrow said this is across the board and only multi-family, 3 units or more. Mr. Erspamer asked if the need has ever increased per year. Mr. Bendon said it has been decreased and 18 units is a lot per year. Mr. Erspamer asked how we would know they stayed in the rental pool. Ms. Garrow said they would build in some kind of safeguards. Mr. Erspamer asked if 18 has been a problem in the past. Ms. Garrow said the last time the number was hit was in 2007. Mr. Erspamer said he sees no reason to change it until he hears something different. Mr. Bendon said it may be needed with the hybrid unit hoping it will be an attractive proposal. He said they asked Chuck Frias if he could put another unit in his rental pool what would it be. He said 2 bedroom 2 bathroom 1,000 square foot. Mr. Bendon said the hybrid unit would guarantee that it is part of the rental pool. To incentivize these units and see them not rented out would be disappointing. Mr. Walterscheid brought up the Hotel Aspen where they wanted to build free market units but it seemed distasteful to P&Z and Council. He asked how it balances out. Mr. Bendon said it is tricky but the hybrid units may help in financing the project. Mr. Walterscheid said he would like to see something written into it about sizes and dimensions focused around 1,000 square feet. Mr. Erspamer said he would support that. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki said the potential for enforceability of the rental pool is a big concern. Mr. Gibbs said the concept of blunt limits is a distraction because they are hard to come up with and tend to reduce the certainty of the project being built. He said we should focus on the other controls we have to manage growth, height and mass limits. #6.) Ms. Garrow said that currently there are growth ceilings within the growth management code technically limiting the population to 30,000. This number has been exceeded for many number of years and the enforceability of it is an issue. The options are to keep the ceiling or get rid of it. Staff recommends getting rid of the growth ceilings due to the enforceability issues. Mr. Bendon said that during food and wine the number increases to around 35,000. These numbers are based on flush flow. Mr. Gibbs asked if there is a specific number in the code for growth ceiling. Ms. Garrow said the ceiling is by unit and square footage. The commercial square footage ceiling is around 1.8 million square feet of commercial space. She stated we are not near the growth ceilings but they have no basis in reality. Mr. Erspamer mentioned the ecological bill of rights and the carrying capacity and if this number would prevent the building of 5 or 6 story buildings. Mr. Bendon said zoning review would prevent that. Mr. Gibbs asked what effect this number has on growth. Ms. Garrow stated it doesn't. The 30,000 number is arbitrary and we are thousands of units below the residential and lodge number and tens of thousands below on commercial. Mr. Erspamer asked Staff how they would advise Council. Mr. Bendon said he would take it out. Mr. Elliott said that eliminating something that doesn't matter at least hits the goal of streamlining and being more efficient. Mr.Gibbs proposed an analysis of what the ceiling is, based on our infrastructure and current technology,to determine how close we really are. Mr. Bendon suggested weaving that into a purpose statement with the need to re-evaluate the capacity of the community as well as what future build out would be. Mr. Erspamer said it is not just the number of flushes but traffic and parking as well. 5 Regular Meeting Planning & Zoning Commission February 18, 2014 #1.) Free Market Residential Unit Size: Ms. Garrow said there are currently unit size limitations for all residential units depending on zone district. Multi-family and lodge have a limit of 1500 square feet but can be increased to 2000 with the landing of a TDR. The limit for C-1 is 2000 square feet but can be increased to 2500 with a TDR. During Staffs public outreach there was discussion on increasing unit sizes with an incentive program. Staff has some concerns with drastically increasing the number if they want the units to be available to the short term market. Mr. Erspamer asked if the FAR was dropped down previously. Mr. Bendon said these were installed in 2006 and there was no history of unit size limitations before. Staff sees it as a way for TDR's to be used and there are between 30-40 outstanding. Ms.Tygre said larger units reduces density where we want to increase density. The hybrid units may be a good solution but she is reluctant to encourage larger units. Mr. Walterscheid said from what they hear from the community they would not want units larger than 2500 square feet. Mr. Nieuwland- Zlotnicki asked if there is demand in the marker for rentals that large. Mr. Bendon said there is high demand for 3-4 bedroom units but there is not a lot of them specifically in the timeshare pool. Mr. Walterscheid asked if Staff has considered as an incentive to build larger to require building an affordable housing unit in town. Mr. Bendon said they could but it is a question of what you want to leverage. Ms. Garrow asked if a TDR should be increased to 1000 square feet or the possibility of landing 2 TDR's. Mr. Gibbs said the incentive should be focused on lodging. Mr. Erspamer said he is concerned with changing the code to create something not sustainable. Mr. Gibbs said it might make sense to limit the increase to only the lodge zone. He said the TDR is the way to do it. Mr. Bendon said they are concerned with the demand side for TDR's. #3.) Ms. Garrow said height is based on uses and zone district. They just changed the commercial core and C-1 district limiting heights on the south side to two stories or 28 feet,the north side 36-40 feet downtown, and 36-38 in C-1. In lodge district it depends on density, low density gets a lower height and high density projects get a higher height. Staff is asking P&Z how comfortable they are seeing four story buildings in this areas, particularly the lodge district. Mr. Erspamer asked what lodge room heights typically are. Mr. Bendon said at the Viceroy the ceiling heights are about 9 feet and felt comfortable. Lower than that he said it would feel like a compromised product. Mr. Erspamer asked how height is measured on a hill like south of Durant. Ms. Garrow said the height is measures 30 feet back into the middle of the building. Mr. Bendon said a few options might be; the height on the south side is not counted-walk out, or might be ok with a 4th floor but have it go through a stricter review process. Mr. Erspamer said he is not for the 4th story but is up for more discussion. Mr. Gibbs said the defining difference between too tall and just fine is the Hyatt and the Residences. The Hyatt fits in and feels good and the Residences is massive and sticks out. Four stories on a facade is going to be massive and is not sure if digging out will work because of the need for massive retaining walls. He said he may go for it in the lodge district as an incentive but 3 stories is a limit that makes sense. Mr. McNellis said he would be for a 4th floor if it went through review. There may be instances where it is appropriate. Mr. Walterscheid said he would agree with a review for a 4th floor. Mr. Elliott also agreed with review for 4th floor but he doesn't want to see buildings heading up the mountain. Mr. Erspamer stated for pockets not the entire development. Mr. Walterscheid made a motion to extend the meeting to 7:15, seconded by Mr. Elliott. All in favor except Mr. McNellis and Ms.Tygre. #3.) Floor Area. Ms. Garrow said it is not really related to overall floor area but specific to lodges. Floor area is tied into unit size and the more dense the more floor area. She asked if P&Z would allow more floor area in commercial zones regardless of unit size or get rid of the density tie in. Mr. Gibbs asked why developers feel the tie in to density is not working. Ms. Garrow said based on the size of the property they want to build amenity space but in doing that they can't meet the density requirement 6 Regular Meeting Planning& Zoning Commission February 18, 2014 and have to remove some of the amenity space. Mr. Bendon said the one lodge unit per 500 square feet of lot area can be a challenge to meet due to hallways and amenity space. Mr. Erspamer asked if it could be differentiated based on the positioning to Durant St. Staff replied it could. Ms. Tygre said she has the same problem with increasing dimensions that tend to reduce density. There may be a way to refine this to take into account the need for non- room and amenity space than just granting an increase for floor area. Mr.Gibbs suggested an incentive for lodges whose amenities are open to the public. Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki asked if existing businesses would go for that. He said we may need to re-calibrate how density is computed. Ms.Tygre made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Mr. Nieuwland-Zlotnicki. All in favor, motion passed. 7