HomeMy WebLinkAboutagenda.council.regular.20231205AGENDA
CITY COUNCIL REGULAR
MEETING
December 5, 2023
5:00 PM, City Council Chambers
427 Rio Grande Place, Aspen
I.Call to Order
II.Roll Call
III.Scheduled Public Appearances
IV.Citizens Comments & Petitions
V.Special Orders of the Day
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(Time for any citizen to address Council on issues NOT scheduled for a public hearing.
Please limit your comments to 3 minutes)
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VI.Consent Calendar
VII.Notice of Call-Up
VIII.First Reading of Ordinances
VIIIA.Ordinance #23, Series of 2023 - Land Use Code Amendment Application Process –
GMQS Demolition Allotments
IX.Public Hearings
X.Action Items
XA.Burlingame Ranch Phase III Unit Sales Update
XI.Adjournment
XII.Executive Session
a) Councilmembers' and Mayor's Comments b) Agenda Amendments c) City Manager's
Comments d) Board Reports
(These matters may be adopted together by a single motion)
Staff Memo_Ordinance 23_2023.docx
Ordinance__23_Series_of_2023_Demo_Allotment_Lottery (Final).docx
Exhibit A_WorkSession Memo.docx
BG3 Update 11.30.2023.docx
Pursuant to C.R.S. Section 24-6-402 (4)(b) Conferences with an attorney for the
local public body for the purposes of receiving legal advice on specific legal
questions; (4)(e) Determining positions relative to matters that may be subject to
negotiations; developing strategy for negotiations; and instructing negotiators;
and, (4)(f) Personnel.
The specific item of discussion involves the following:
1) Ongoing Litigation:
The Centennial Owners’ Association, v. The City of Aspen, et al . Case No.:
2015CV030158 and Case No.: 2017CA2099; and
2) City Manager Review
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MEMORANDUM
TO:Mayor Torre and Aspen City Council
FROM:Ben Anderson, Interim Director, Community Development
MEMO DATE:November 28, 2023
MEETING DATE:December 5, 2023
RE:Ordinance #23, Series of 2023, First Reading
Land Use Code Amendment
Application Process – GMQS Demolition Allotments
REQUEST OF COUNCIL: Council is asked to Read and Introduce Ordinance #23, Series
of 2023, on First Reading. The Ordinance would implement a Land Use Code
Amendment related to the process in the application and allocation of annual Demolition
Allotments. Second Reading of the ordinance is proposed for December 12, 2023.
SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND: In August 2022, the first application period for the
newly created GMQS Demolition Allotments, staff received applications for 13 properties
requesting an allotment. Staff did not anticipate that a representative of seven of the
properties would submit more than 400 separate applications for these seven properties
in an effort to gain advantage within the “first come, first serve” process established in the
code and more specifically described in a Preapplication Summary. Six of the properties
submitted a single application, as anticipated.
The confusion for staff and applicants that this situation created made clear that
improvements were necessary to the application process. Since then, staff has been
evaluating the trajectory of applications (including Council decisions on appeals) and
Council comments and suggestions for improvements to the Demolition Allotment
program. In response to the availability of two, 2024 Demolition Allotments, staff is now
recommending that a code amendment to utilize a lottery be considered by Council.
STAFF DISCUSSION: As proposed, the Ordinance is limited to:
1) Establishing a lottery process for the allocation of available, annual Demolition
Allotments. At present, two, 2024 Demolition Allotments are available and would
be subject to this proposed process improvement. If this amendment is
implemented, a Pre-application summary aligned with the amended code would
establish a new application process that would open on the first business day in
January (this year, January 2nd) at which a 30-day application window would begin.
At the conclusion of the application period, all complete and compliant applications
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Page 2 of 2
Staff Memo, Ord. #23, Series of 2023
Demo Allotment Application Process
would be issued a number, and during an open to the public process, assigned
numbers would be drawn by hand and available allotments would then be issued
to the selected applications by the end of February (Notice of Approval and
Development Order).
2) At the policy resolution discussion on 11/28, Council added language to allow
consideration in the Ordinance of increasing the available 2024 GMQS Demolition
allotments by some number. Section 2 of the Ordinance creates a space for this
outcome but does not propose a specific number of additional allotments.
At this time, staff is not proposing any changes to the Demolition Allotment system beyond
these two ideas. While there have been suggestions from Council members for other
changes, staff is not prepared to include other provisions. An important reason for not
including anything beyond these relatively simple changes – is that there has not been
an opportunity (or direction) to hold any meaningful public outreach on this significant
topic from a policy or regulatory perspective. In staff’s view, it is important to implement
these limited changes to bring clarity to the 2024 application process and would
recommend that Council hold a work session in early 2024 to discuss other potential
changes to the Demolition Allotment program in more detail.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS: N/A
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS: N/A
ALTERNATIVES:
1) As part of Ordinance #23, Council could include other provisions in amending the
Demolition Allotment program. Staff does not recommend this, however, as there
has not been any public engagement on the policy or regulatory impacts within the
program, nor will staff have had the opportunity to evaluate other potential
provisions.
2) Council could decide not to pursue a code amendment at this time. The effect
would be that the two available allotments in 2024 would be subject to the “first
come, first served” process in the current code.
RECOMMENDATIONS:Staff recommends approval of Ordinance #23, Series of 2023,
on First Reading.
CITY MANAGER COMMENTS:
EXHIBIT A: Work Session Memo, June 2023
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Ordinance #23, Series of 2023
Page 1 of 4
ORDINANCE #23
SERIES OF 2023
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF ASPEN, COLORADO,
AMENDING THE LAND USE CODE SECTION 26.470.090.C – SINGLE-FAMILY AND
DUPLEX RESIDENTIAL DEMOLITION AND REDEVELOPMENT AND OTHER
RELATED CODE SECTIONS AS NECESSARY WITHIN THE LAND USE CODE
WHEREAS, the City of Aspen (the “City”) is a legally and regularly created, established,
organized and existing municipal corporation under the provisions of Article XX of the Constitution
of the State of Colorado and the home rule charter of the City (the “Charter”); and,
WHEREAS, the zoning and land use powers conferred upon the City by the State of
Colorado as a Home Rule Municipality empower the City to manage land use to ensure the public
health, safety, and welfare; and,
WHEREAS,the City of Aspen currently regulates land uses within the City limits in
accordance with the Aspen Land Use Code (hereinafter "Land Use Code"), Title 26 of the Aspen
Municipal Code, adopted pursuant to its Home Rule Constitutional authority and the Local
Government Land Use Control Enabling Act of 1974,asamended, §§29-20-101,etseq.C.R.S; and,
WHEREAS,the Land Use Code requires periodic amendments to ensure it supports adopted
City policy, is aligned with the community vision, and responds to changes in community,
development, technological and environmental conditions; and,
WHEREAS,in Ordinance #13, Series of 2022, City Council established a new category of
development allotments pursuant to the provisions of the Growth Management Quota System
(26.470) that regulated and limited the demolition of single-family and duplex homes; and,
WHEREAS,Ordinance #13, Series of 2022 in regulating demolition allotments,
established a process for the application for and allocation of the six annual allotments granted by
the code, awarding the annual allotments on a “first come, first served basis”; and,
WHEREAS,Community Development staff and applicant experiences with the
application and allocation of the demolition allotments provided evidence that improvements are
necessary to the code established processes; and,
WHEREAS,Community Development staff have proposed a process to include a lottery
selection process for the allocation of annual allotments for applications that are complete and
compliant; and,
WHEREAS,pursuant to Section 26.310.020(A), during a regular City Council meeting
on November 28, 2023, City Council approved a Policy Resolution #171, Series of 2023, granting
authorization to amend Section 26.470.090.C and authorization to consider increasing the
available allotments for 2024; and,
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Ordinance #23, Series of 2023
Page 2 of 4
WHEREAS,following the passage of the Policy Resolution, Community Development
staff informed the development community and the public of the proposed application process
change; and,
WHEREAS,at a regular meeting on December 5, 2023, City Council introduced and read
Ordinance #23, Series of 2023 on First Reading; and,
WHEREAS,at a regular meeting on December 12, 2023, City Council, in a properly
noticed public hearing, adopted Ordinance #23, Series of 2023 on Second Reading; and,
WHEREAS,the Aspen City Council finds that this Ordinance furthers and is necessary for
the promotion of public health, safety, and welfare; and,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
ASPEN,COLORADO, THAT:
Section 1:
The Land Use Code Section 26.470.090.C.2.c. shall be deleted in its entirety and readopted as
follows:
Timing.In preparation for submission of an application for a Demolition Allotment,
Applicants shall request a Pre-Application Summary from Community Development
staff.
Applications for a given year’s available Demolition Allotments will be accepted starting
on the first business day of January and extending for a 30-day period. (the “Initial
Application Period”). An application shall not be considered until determined “Complete”
per Chapter 26.304. All applications submitted during the Initial Application Period and
deemed Complete and Compliant with the requirements of 26.470 will be entered into a
lottery with all other Complete and Compliant applications, if the number of applications
exceeds the number of available permits.
Lottery process . Each qualifying application submitted during the Initial Application
Period will be assigned a number. Administered by the Community Development
Department and witnessed by the City Clerk and the City Attorney, assigned numbers
from the Complete and Compliant applications will be placed into a receptacle and drawn
by hand. Available allotments will be granted to the numbers drawn by this process.
Applicants and their representatives will be notified by email of the time and place of the
lottery and are welcome to be present during the lottery selection.
Notices of Approval and Development Orders associated with the applications selected
by the lottery will be issued by the last business day in February.
Excess allotments. Should a lottery process not be required or should annual Demolition
Allotments remain available following the lottery process, applications may be submitted
throughout the year, and following completeness and compliance review, will be approved
in the order received, subject to the availability of an allotment.
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Ordinance #23, Series of 2023
Page 3 of 4
Section 2:
Section 26.470.040 Allotment Procedures, is hereby amended to increase the total number of
Single-Family and Duplex Demolition and Redevelopment Allotments for 2024 to X.
As four of the 2024 Single-Family and Duplex Demolition and Redevelopment Allotments have
been previously granted, the number of available 2024 Allotments subject to the new process
described above in Section 1 is Y. This approval does not amend the number of allotments in future
years, beyond 2024.
Section 3:
Any scrivener’s errors contained in the code amendments herein, including but not limited to
mislabeled subsections or titles, may be corrected administratively following adoption of the
Ordinance.
Section 4:
This ordinance shall not affect any existing litigation and shall not operate as an abatement of any
action or proceeding now pending under or by virtue of the resolutions or ordinances repealed or
amended as herein provided, and the same shall be conducted and concluded under such prior
resolutions or ordinances.
Section 5:
If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, phrase, or portion of this resolution is for any reason held
invalid or unconstitutional in a court of competent jurisdiction, such portion shall be deemed a
separate, distinct and independent provision and shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions
thereof.
Section 6:
A public hearing on this ordinance was held on the 12th day of December 2023, at a meeting of the
Aspen City Council at 5:00 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, Aspen City Hall, Aspen, Colorado, a
minimum of fifteen days prior to which hearing a public notice of the same shall was published inthe
Aspen Daily News, a newspaper of general circulation within the City of Aspen.
INTRODUCED AND READ, as provided by law, by the City Council of the City of Aspen on the
5th day of December 2023.
ATTEST:
____________________________ ____________________________
Nicole Henning, City Clerk Torre, Mayor
FINALLY,adopted, passed, and approved this 12th day of December, 2023.
______________________________
Torre, Mayor
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Ordinance #23, Series of 2023
Page 4 of 4
ATTEST:APPROVED AS TO FORM:
____________________________________________________________
Nicole Henning, City Clerk James R. True, City Attorney
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MEMORANDUM
TO:Mayor Torre and Aspen City Council
FROM:Ben Anderson, Deputy Director, Community Development
THROUGH: Phillip Supino, Community Development Director
MEMO DATE:June 7, 2023
MEETING DATE:June 12, 2023
RE:Work Session Discussion:
Demolition Allotment Application Process
REQUEST OF COUNCIL: This work session’s purpose is to follow-up on the previous
Council’s interest to hold further conversation on the application process for the GMQS
Demolition Allotments. As part of this work session discussion, Council is asked to
provide direction on any changes they desire related to the application process. With this
direction, staff would return later in Q3 of 2023 with potential Land Use Code changes to
implement any desired changes to the application process.
SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND:
As one of the outcomes of Ordinance #13, Series of 2022 (Moratorium response), Council
implemented a package of new code language and regulations related to single-family
and duplex demolition. Central to these changes was the use of the GMQS Allotment
system to limit single-family and duplex demolition to six per year.
The rationale for the demolition-related code changes emanated from comments from
Council and the community related to the felt and observed impacts of development –
particularly in single-family and duplex redevelopment scenarios that involved demolition.
The following impacts of this type of development were identified:
More modestly sized and constructed, older homes being replaced with much
larger and more complex new homes.
Demolition and construction waste impacts at the landfill.
Neighbor noise and other impacts from intense residential construction activity.
Significant employee generation impacts from initial construction and long-term
maintenance and operations.
The carbon impacts related to demolition, construction and long-term operations
and maintenance of redeveloped single-family and duplex homes.
In response to these identified impacts, staff and the consultant teams analyzed these
comments against the reality of development context and potential regulatory responses
within the Land Use Code. Recommendations were made for potential amendments.
Exhibit A
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Page 2 of 4
Development Allotment Application Process
While certainly a topic that was debated during the adoption of Ordinance #13, it seemed
clear the outcomes generated by this type of development were consistent with the
purpose and origins of the GMQS allotment system. Council agreed to the policy and
regulatory direction feeling that it was aligned with community expectations and the Aspen
Area Community Plan (AACP) in responding to and mitigating the impacts of growth and
development.
During the discussion on Ordinance 13 prior to its passage, discussions were held with
Council regarding the process these allotments would be issued. There were suggestions
that it should be a lottery-based process. Other ideas discussed included a competition
system between applications. Following this discussion, for the purposes of
administrative simplicity and clarity, staff recommended and Council agreed that the
application process should be based on a “first come, first serve” basis.
On August 8th of 2022, staff, per Council direction made the six, 2022 allotments available.
Per the process established by Ordinance 13 and then described in a PreApplication
summary, staff anticipated receiving applications starting at the specified time on August
8th. Staff received applications from 13 properties, a number that was within the range of
staff expectations. However, what was not anticipated was the tactic utilized by a
representative of seven of the properties to submit multiple applications per property in
the days and hours leading up to the opening of the application window. In total more
than 400 separate applications were submitted for these seven properties.
This situation obviously caused uncertainty for staff in how to fairly order the applications
received for each the 13 properties. Staff determined all of the applications complete, but
then took on the difficult task of evaluating data from the City of Aspen’s e-mail servers
to evaluate each of the more than 400 applications received – through the lens of the
requirements described in the PreApplication summary and Chapter 26.304 of the LUC,
Common Development Procedures.
Ultimately based on this detailed evaluation, staff determined the six properties that would
receive development allotments based on the ordering of the applications – and also the
six properties that would be denied (one property was pulled from the evaluated
applications for other reasons). The six properties that were denied allotments appealed
this decision. As part of the appeal process, Council made a decision to settle the appeal
by awarding the denied properties six, multi-year allotments from the 2023 demolition
allotments.
As the 2023 Allotments were awarded as part of the settlement, this situation was not
repeated in 2023. Staff has received five applications to date in 2023. Those applications
were denied due to the unavailability of allotments. Four of those applications have
appealed and the appeal will be heard at the June 20th City Council Regular Meeting.
STAFF DISCUSSION:
The purpose of this work session is to discussion ideas for better optimizingthe demolition
allotment application process implemented by Ordinance #13. It is clear to staff that steps
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Page 3 of 4
Development Allotment Application Process
need to be taken to ensure that the situation that occurred with the 2022 Allotment
applications is not repeated. However, had the tactic to submit multiple applications per
property not been employed, staff believes that the 2022 process would have been much
more straightforward and aligned with the outcomes imagined in the “first come, first
served” application method. In considering a necessary response to this situation, in
staff’s view, Council has a few alternatives available:
1) Take no action in changing the Land Use Code. This would have the effect
of maintaining the method of “first come, first served” as the mechanism to
accept applications for demolition allotments. This could be combined with
direction to provide additional direction, rules, or requirements within the
Pre Application Summary given to applicants – that would further define the
parameters of the process and bring additional certainty and clarity.
2) Create a lottery system for received applications. This would require a land
use code change but would likely be relatively simple to achieve. The idea
would be to create a reasonable application period (example: one month).
All complete applications received in this window would then be eligible
within a lottery system. The lottery results would assign the awarding of the
available allotments. This would require some analysis as to how to best
structure a lottery process, but again would likely be a relatively
straightforward and simple code amendment. Staff sees advantages to
implementing a system of this type:
Taking the time pressure off the application submission process.
Creating pure chance as the arbiter of the properties that receive an
allotment – when more than six applications are received.
In staff’s view, a lottery-type response could be reasonably implemented
within the LUC prior to Pre Applications going out for 2024 allotments.
3) During the Ordinance 13 discussion and the appeal process for the 2022
demolition allotments, comments were made by Council members raising
ideas about a competitive system that would award allotments based on a
subjective and competitive evaluation of specific review criteria and in
relation to other applications received.
In the history of GMQS allotments, competitive awarding used to be the
norm. This system was removed more than a decade ago for several
reasons. While staff could support working with Council to design a
competitive program with the intent of creating competition and enhanced
community outcomes, it is staff’s perspective that this would likely be a
complex response that would require significant time and analysis. Crafting
a fair and successful response would be a process that could possibly
continue into 2024.
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Page 4 of 4
Development Allotment Application Process
In the implementation of any of these alternatives, any response would be prepared by
staff and as necessary, brought forward in the typical LUC Amendment process as
defined by 26.310, Amendments to the Land Use Code and Official Zone District Map.
In addition to these suggestions or alternatives, staff will be prepared to discuss any other
ideas that Council may have for how to best improve the application process.
QUESTIONS FOR COUNCIL:
1) Is there a majority of Council members that supports one of the provided
alternatives?
2) Are there other ideas, either large or small, that respond to previous Council’s
desire to change the system away from “first come, first served”?
CITY MANAGER COMMENTS:
EXHIBITS:
A. Pre-Application Summary provided for the 2022 Allotment Applications
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MEMORANDUM
To: City Council
From:Sara Ott, City Manager
Memo Date:November 30, 2023
Meeting Date: December 5, 2023
RE:Burlingame Ranch Phase III Unit Sales Update
An up about Burlingame Ranch Phase III unit sales will be provided at the December 5, 2023
regular meeting. This agenda item is being listed as an action item, incase the Council wishes to
provide any direction. It is anticipated a written update will be issued early on December 5.
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