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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.hpc.20140723 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 Chairperson, Jay Maytin called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. Commissioners in attendance were Sallie Golden, John Whipple, Patrick Sagal and Jim DeFrancia. Absent were Nora Berko and Willis Pember. Staff present: Debbie Quinn, Assistant City Attorney Amy Simon, Historic Preservation Officer Justin Barker, Planner Linda Manning, City Clerk Patrick said he would like City Council to look into changing the rules so that they can have the opportunity for review after final approval. Things are being changed between conceptual and final and an elected body should be able to look at them if they wanted to. Historical vegetation should be looked at. Flat roofs should also be looked at. In the past 3 years HPC and put flat roofs on Main Street which does not go toward the intent of the Main Street plan. Amy said call-up used to be at final but it was changed because council and others felt it was too late to express an opinion about the project so it was moved to conceptual and that seems to be working well. Jay suggested an early November retreat for HPC to discuss issues. Disclosure: John will recuse himself on 601 W. Hallam Amy said the City of Aspen received the HPC commission award. Sara was present to receive the award. Jay congratulated the Community Development department and the HPC for receiving the award. 601 W. HALLAM— Conceptual Major Development and Residential Design Standard Variances, Public Hearing Debbie confirmed that the public notice is appropriate and the applicant can proceed. Justin said the property is on the corner of 5th Street and Hallam Street. In 1991 this property was delisted. During the hearing the applicant voluntarily 1 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 agreed to grant HPC mandatory review of any future redevelopment on the subject parcel in terms of mass and scale. Basically this means HPC has conceptual review on this property but no final review. The applicant is proposing to demolish the house that is currently on the property and to build a new two story single family home. As part of that they are requesting Residential Design Standard variances. In terms of mass and scale staff finds that this is a very successful project. They have done a good job breaking down the masses of the building through pitched roofs and connecting element. The pitched roofs do match those in the neighborhood. The scale of the doors and windows match the historic properties around the area. Staff finds this proposal completely compliant with mass and scale. Residential Design Standards Justin said the first one deals with the street facing fagade with the living area. The guideline says the width of the living area on the first floor shall be at least five feet greater than the width of the garage or carport. This is on the side that faces Hallam Street. The proposal has the garage at 23 feet in width and the living area 14 feet and it is 9 feet narrower than the garage. Another one is the front fagade of the garage. The guideline says the front fagade of the garage or the front most supporting column of the carport shall be setback at least ten feet further from the street than the front most wall of the house. This again is on the Hallam Street side. The garage is about 2 %2 feet in front of the living area instead of being behind it. Staff feels there the opportunity to meet these standards given the scrape and replace of the property. The lot is 60 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Staff has provided a few suggestions as to how this standard can be more closely met. Justin said the last variance needed is for a street oriented entrance and principle window. Looking at the neighborhood there is no real pattern as to which side the front door faces and in fact the door on the property right now faces 5' Street. Staff can accept either side for the door. Overall staff is recommending continuation of the application in order to restudy the garage. Jay said Hallam Street is a longer block line and the address is Hallam Street. Alan Richman represented the applicant Steve Whipple owner of the property. We are here for a mass and scale review and the other is residential design standard variances. The covenant gave clear definition to what we are supposed to be compatible with in terms of mass and scale. 2 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 Mass means the residence needs to use appropriate roof pitches and not be designed as an interrupted box. The scale addresses window and door dimensions and consistency with the other buildings on the block. The roofs are compatible with the surrounding buildings. We used one and two story elements to break down the mass. Two of the residential design standards relate to the garage and the third deals with the entry to the house. We do have unusual factors on this property and site specific constraints. We believe the design is appropriate for the site. Alan stated the factors they are dealing with and one is that there is no alley in place behind this property. The alley is behind the Wheeler Stallard House which is not open and contributes to the park like features around the Wheeler Stallard museum. If we were to try and have parking back there the impacts would be quite significant. Since we have no alley we only have two locations where we can put the garage, 5th Street or Hallam Street. The Engineering Department did not want the driveway on 5' Street. They also preferred that we not cross the irrigation ditch with a driveway so we placed the driveway on Hallam Street and that is where the garage is located. There are other pre-existing driveways on Hallam. The second factor is where do you enter the house. The code states that Hallam is the longer block line and that would be the front of the house. We believe that 5th Street is the right place for the entry and there are three reasons why we believe that. The primary purpose is to promote pedestrian friendly environments and contribute to the neighborhood streetscape. We totally agree with that principle. One way to achieve that is that you don't put your garage and your entry porch on the same side of the house. That would be the classic suburban design. If the garage is on Hallam then the porch belongs on 5th. 5th Street is the heavily traveled street. The porch on 5th street would interact with pedestrians. For those reason we would ask you to vary the standard and have the porch on 5" Street. Alan said in the design the Parks Dept. wanted us to step back from the drip line of the large cottonwood trees. There is no alley on this property and it is a corner lot and there are large trees on the site. Steve Whipple passed around a model of the house. The garage door doesn't have to be a garage door. We have fabricated a door on the garage door to make it look like a living space which will require a lift system. We feel our design is better than having two doors next to each other. I have done two houses on 5" Street and both have the front doors on 5` Street. The linking element reduces the scale of the building and breaks the fagade 3 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 up. The garage is a little forward and if it is moved back the mass starts to compress and loose the separation element. Chairperson, Jay Maytin opened the public hearing. Kelly Murphy, Executive Director of the Aspen Historical Society Mr. Whipple has been working with us as a good neighbor to get our input to what we thought and what our needs are. We have seen the drawings and model and we are pleased. The driveway entrance off of Hallam is where our driveway entrance is and our parking lot. That is the industrial side of the property. We have a lot of weddings and very particular brides. From our standpoint it would be better to have vehicles and garages on the back side where we have our own coming and going activity as well. Chairperson, Jay Maytin closed the public comments. Jay identified the three issues: Width of Hallam Street fagade compared to the 5t' Street fagade being nine feet shorter. The width of the garage to the width of the house. The garage setback being in front of the smaller fagade. The entrance on Hallam as compared to 5th Street. Jim said he has no problem having the entrance on 5th Street. The garage may have the appearance of disproportion to the house itself. Maybe it should be pulled back instead of pushed forward. Sallie also agreed that the front entry should be on 5' Street especially after we have heard from the museum representative. I think I like the garage being a garage. The fake garage is strange looking. I have no problems with the entire project but feel P&Z should be looking at the design standards no US. Patrick agreed that the entry should be on 5th Street. The design is pulling the house as far back toward the corner to leave more green space to the east and north because of the trees. The design that was suggested by staff is a good design because it is a dual purpose if the door is functional then people parking in the driveway wouldn't have to walk around to the front door but rather walk right into the garage and connector. There might be potential moving it five feet to the west since there is a five foot setback and there is 4 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION - - - MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 ten feet of space between the lot line and garage but I don't favor that because it makes the house wider and more massive. Jay said staff received a letter from Richard Greenberg. He doesn't understand why the Engineering Department would recommend against one more driveway crossing the ditch. The vacated alley could easily be reopened. The majority of homes are constructed on an north/south axis. The elimination of parking spaces on West Hallam due to the siting of the two car garage will further exacerbate parking issues. Jay said he agrees with Sallie that the garage should be a garage and not confuse another entrance. A lot of corner homes have their address east/west street but yet the front door is on the numbered street. The argument stands strong why the entrance should be on 5th Street. I agree that the garage can sit in front of the house to protect the trees. The garage in front of the fagade makes for the view to the Stallard house behind it. The shed roof eave of the garage makes the garage doors look smaller. MOTION; Jay moved to approve 601 W. Hallam as presented in the packet and to grant the 3 variances requested. Motion second by Jim. Roll call vote: Jay, yes; Sallie, yes Jim, yes; Patrick, yes. Motion carried 4-0. Amy pointed out that when they submit for a building permit they could submit for different materials such as glass garage doors etc. because HPC was limited to the shape of this project and the footprint and location of the garage and entry door. 417 & 421 W. Hallam Street— Correction to Historic Designation, conceptual Major Development, Demolition and Variances, Continued Public Hearing Sara said the subject project is a duplex property where half the duplex is designated historic. There is a proposal to designate the entire property. In staff's opinion the applicant has addressed all of HPC's concerns. We really appreciate the applicant working with staff and the HPC. We feel this is a great project and staff is recommending approval. The applicant did ad a front door and front porch to the historic resource. They actually reworked the entire floor plan to make the front entrance through the historic resource. The connector has been lengthened from 8 feet to ten feet and now meets our design guidelines and also pushes the two story mass further back on the 5 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 201 property. The overall height of the addition has been reduced. The applicant proposes two options for the mass of the construction. One would be one single gable which is simple and elegant. The guidelines ask for breaking up two story masses into modules which would be option two. Staff is supportive of both designs. HPC can decide which works best with the guidelines. The applicant is meeting the parking requirement and they have an on-site parking space and a garage parking space. They are also requesting demolition of the non-historic additions. They are also requesting relocation of the historic home. They will pick up the home and dig a basement. They are also requesting the 500 square foot FAR bonus. In addition to adding the front porch and restoring the front door they will be doing some window restoration and possibly some roof restoration that will have to be verified in the field. There might be some siding replacement also. Setback variance are also being requested. There is a new variance needed for the front porch. All the variances are appropriate and meet the review criteria. The applicant measured off using the 1904 Sanborn dimensions. With the amended designation and restoration it will increase the integrity score. Patrick asked if all the FAR would be used. Sara said the 500 square feet is going to be used. Patrick said the guidelines say the windows should be similar to the rest of the historic neighborhood. With no windows how does that fit in with the character. Sara said the intent of the guidelines is meant to be the simplicity of the design and having no windows helps the addition to recede and it is an exciting design for the property. HPC needs to apply the guidelines and see what they are comfortable with. Sallie said a simple design might override windows and pitched roof. Sara said it is all about finding the balance and focusing on the purpose and intent which is to highlight the historic resource. Derek Skalko of 1 Friday Design Collaborative and Jake Bittner of Thomas Pheasant presented for the owners, David and Marcia Kaplan. 6 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 Jake said they are going to talk about four issues. They have reintroduced the historic porch and placed a door facing Hallam Street under the porch. Secondly they have revised the interior program. They have also increased the link element to the full ten feet which establishes the mining cabin as the prominent structure on the property and in doing so we reduced the mass of the addition and lowered the pitch of the roof. We scaled off the Sanborn map and the door is perfectly centered. The new volume is very distinctly separated. Jake presented a power point identifying all the changes. Jay pointed out that the historic house will be lifted and re-sited. Chairperson, Jay Maytin opened the public hearing. There were no public comments. The public hearing was closed. Jay identified the issues: 500 square foot bonus Rear yard setback Combined yard setback Front setback Patrick said he prefers the broken roof line which better meets with the guidelines option B. It helps create less mass and scale. John said he is in favor of the variances and likes option A. The continuous roof line is a backdrop to what you are showcasing in the front. John thanked the applicant for presenting an outstanding project. Sallie said she can approve all the variances and setbacks. Sallie commended the applicant for sticking with the HPC and she can't think of a better design for this property. The little house in front is very small and if they tried to do something more than what is there now it would look too gimmick. There is no way to put windows or a roof without competing. Sallie said she prefers option A. Jim said he supports the bonus and all the variances and setbacks recommended by staff and he likes option A. 7 ASPEN HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION MINUTES OF July 23, 2014 Jay said this design really tells the story. Jay thanked the owners and architects for sticking with historic preservation. It is amazing how you can make your program work with a one story addition on the front. Jay said he supports the bonus and setbacks and variances. Jay also said he supports option A. MOTION: Jay moved to approve 427/421 W. Hallam resolution as written; second by John. Sallie said the one story is totally in align with the guidelines. It is very well balanced. Roll call vote: Jim, yes; John, yes; Sallie, yes; Patrick, no; Jay, yes; Motion carried 4-1. MOTION: Jay moved to adjourn; second by Patrick. All in favor, motion carried. Meet'ng adjourned at 6:35 p.m / Kathleen J. Strickland, Chief Deputy Clerk 8