HomeMy WebLinkAboutagenda.council.worksession.20240513AGENDA
CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION
May 13, 2024
4:00 PM, City Council Chambers
427 Rio Grande Place, Aspen
I.Work Session
I.A Construction and Demolition Waste Diversion
I.B Community Development Fees - Policy direction
I.C City Council / APCHA Discussion (Led by Hauenstein and Doyle)
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May 13_C&D Work Session Memo_Final Draft.pdf
Exhibit A_Pitkin County Waste Characterization Report 2022.pdf
Exhibit B_Pitkin County C&D Diversion Ord.015.2020.pdf
Exhibit C_C&D Debris Recycling Feedback.pdf
Exhibit D_Final_AspenCD_Report_03192024.pdf
WorkSession Memo_ComDev Fees.pdf
May 2019 Aspen Pikin County Housing Authority Intergovernmental Agreement.pdf
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MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor Torre and City Council
FROM: Ainsley Brosnan-Smith, Waste Diversion and Recycling Program
Administrator
THROUGH: Ben Anderson, Community Development Director
MEMO DATE: May 6, 2024
MEETING DATE: May 13, 2024
RE: Work Session Discussion
Construction and Demolition Debris Diversion – Code Considerations
REQUEST OF COUNCIL:
Staff requests City Council provide policy direction regarding the implementation of a construction
and demolition debris diversion code for City of Aspen permitted projects.
The focus of this work session is the following:
Per previous Council direction, staff has been working to better understand the opportunities and
challenges involved with the regulation of construction and demolition (C&D) debris generated
from permitted projects within the city. Staff has evaluated Pitkin County’s program and locally
available opportunities for the diversion, recycling, or salvaging of building materials. Staff has
additionally requested and received significant feedback from contractors that engage in
demolition activity. Staff requests Council direction on general and specific elements of a potential
program. Specific questions for Council are identified below and will be the focus of staff’s
presentation at the work session.
BACKGROUND:
In January 2022, City Council adopted science-based targets for Green House Gas (GHG)
emissions reductions of 63% by 2030 and net zero by 2050, and waste reduction targets to
support these goals, including:
• Reduce organic material buried in the landfill by 25% by 2025 and 100% by 2050,
• Reduce all waste going to landfill by 70% by 2050.
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Landfill waste reductions support City Council’s GHG emissions goals, Aspen’s participation in
the ICLEI Race to Zero campaign, the City’s Sustainability Action Plan (ASAP), and the City’s
COMPASS Plan. In February 2023, City Council approved the Aspen Sustainability Action Plan
(ASAP), which outlines the key climate action policies the City needs to undertake to achieve its
GHG goals, including the development of a C&D diversion policy.
Aspen’s annual landfill waste generation accounts for 16% of the community’s greenhouse gas
emissions and C&D debris accounts for 53% of the total materials disposed of in the Pitkin County
landfill, annually. For the city to take meaningful action in reducing associated GHG emissions,
and meet waste reduction targets, Aspen needs to make greater advancements in the diversion
of C&D debris. A waste study completed in 2022 found over half of all C&D debris landfilled had
a locally available market for recycling or salvaging.
Recent discussion between City Council members indicated an interest in developing greater
C&D diversion standards for the City of Aspen permitted projects in to preserve the longevity of
the local landfill and promote a circularity economy for our resources.
Pitkin County Construction and Demolition Diversion Regulation:
In 2021, Pitkin County implemented a Construction and Demolition Diversion ordinance requiring
permitted projects in unincorporated Pitkin County to meet a 35% diversion of generated C&D
debris, as well as keep 100% of all “recoverable materials” out of the trash. “Recoverable
materials” is defined as: concrete and porcelain, organics, asphalt, corrugated cardboard, rock
and dirt, untreated lumber and pallets, metal appliances, and scrap metal. Prior to permit
issuance, projects are required to deposit $1,000 per ton of estimated C&D debris generated from
their project. This ordinance has demonstrated success in salvaging and recycling C&D debris,
that’s historically been landfilled, with projects often exceeding the 35% diversion standard. With
oversight from their program’s full-time employee, Pitkin County projects are monitored for
compliance by using an online software, Green Halo, that records the disposal and recycling of
generated C&D debris from each project. The Pitkin County Solid Waste Center (PCSWC)
reported the following statistics for completed projects in 2023:
• 28 diversion projects were finalized.
• 25 projects met 35% diversion and received a 100% refund.
• 2 projects accomplished less than a 35% diversion and received a 50% refund.
• 1 project did not accomplish any diversion and received no refund.
• In total, projects diverted an average of 66% of C&D debris; meaning they diverted
beyond the 35% requirements.
Though Pitkin County has seen projects exceed the 35% recycling mandate, there are still
dumpsters of unsorted loads (a mixture of trash and recoverable C&D debris) brought to the
landfill and buried. These unsorted loads receive a $100 penalty on top of the tipping fee to
dispose of the materials in the landfill.
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Since the implementation of this policy, Pitkin County staff have been successful in training local
contractors on separating construction debris by type, on site, and utilizing Green Halo to track
debris diversion data.
Recent discussions between City Council members indicated an interest in developing similar
C&D diversion standards for the City of Aspen permitted projects to keep materials out of the
landfill for environmental and economic reasons. To learn more about community interest in the
topic, staff have been collecting feedback from industry stakeholders since February of this year.
DISCUSSION:
Over the past several months, Environmental Health and Sustainability staff have been
collaborating with the Building, Planning, and Engineering department on the development of a
C&D debris diversion regulation. This discussion section includes a summary of information and
findings in four different sub-sections:
1. External stakeholder engagement and key feedback received.
2. Ordinance penalty options
3. Ordinance enforcement options
4. Applicability
5. Diversion Regulations
1. Stakeholder Engagement:
To better understand community interest and concern for the landfilling of recoverable C&D
debris, EHS and Communications staff solicited feedback from construction industry stakeholders
through a variety of tactics, including a survey. Survey questions and results can be found in
Exhibit C. Approaches to receiving community feedback included:
• Flyers posted in City Hall advertising the survey.
• Feedback session with contractors who completed projects in Pitkin County in
compliance with diversion requirements.
• A presentation on C&D diversion at the 2024 City of Aspen Right-of-Way Kickoff
Meeting.
• Multiple articles in Aspen Times discussing city interest in C&D code development.
• Advertising in the Community Development newsletters.
• City press release.
• Advertisements in the Aspen Times, Sol del Valle, and Glennwood post independent, at
least once a week for six weeks.
• Announcements on Aspen Public Radio.
• Email communication with all active contractors in Aspen (over 750).
The distributed survey inquired about an individual’s familiarity with Pitkin County’s diversion
code, the importance of waste diversion, and perspectives on diversion capabilities. 68
respondents completed the survey and provided the following feedback for Council to consider
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when directing staff on policy direction. Bulleted below are summarized concerns and
considerations from stakeholders:
• Additional labor hours and costs to separate building materials by type.
• Training of labor force to separate building materials on site.
• Costs for hauling of additional dumpsters due to the increased number of containers
needed to separate materials on site.
• Delayed building times due to slower demolition practices.
• Space constraints, especially in the downtown core, for additional dumpsters, and
associated parking fees.
Additional cost to do business was the most common concern of stakeholders. Staff are
evaluating options to reduce costs and are considering a reduction in parking or ROW fees for
dumpsters being used to store recyclables. Incentive suggestions from survey respondents
include:
• Removal of demolition allotment program for single family residences but maintain a
requirement for C&D diversion.
• Trainings sponsored by the city for industry workers to learn how to effectively separate
building materials.
• Waived permit fees, encroachment fees, or parking fees.
• Compensation from the city to account for additional dumpster hauls.
Additional suggestions and concerns from respondents can be found in Exhibit C. Below are
three examples of responses to survey questions.
Do you think the City of Aspen should adopt a waste diversion code similar to Pitkin County's?
How much of a construction site's recyclable C&D debris should the City require to be diverted
from the trash?
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What size project should be required to separate and recycle C&D debris?
2. Penalties:
To incentivize compliance, staff reflected on the penalty fee structure of Pitkin County’s diversion
code and suggests a similar framework be applied in Aspen. During the permitting stage, Pitkin
County requires projects estimate their waste generation and deposit $1,000 per ton of estimated
waste. Project compliance is monitored throughout the project using Green Halo and deposits are
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returned if diversion requirements are satisfied. Additionally, an unsorted C&D dumpster mixed
with trash and recoverable materials is fined $100 (per load).
Staff recommend adopting a similar penalty structure for a diversion regulation in Aspen but at a
cost that reflects the environmental costs of landfilling building materials. To understand the
environmental cost of throwing away usable building materials, staff contracted with Lotus
Engineering & Sustainability, an environmental consulting agency who generates Aspen’s GHG
inventory, to evaluate the cradle to grave emissions of building materials; emissions from the
production, refinement, transportation, instalment, and landfilling of materials. Lotus applied the
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) social cost of carbon to each building materials
emissions to develop financial metrics that represent environmental damages. The EPA defines
the social cost of carbon as, “a measure, in dollars, of the long-term damage done by a ton of
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in a given year”.
This table displays the percentage of C&D debris disposed of at the landfill, on average, multiplied by
the average embodied carbon of each material to calculate the associated environmental costs. A
dumpster with 1 ton of mixed C&D debris equals $495 of environmental damage from emissions.
Additional information on the study can be found in Exhibit D.
Staff recommends using Lotus’ model of the social cost of carbon for a deposit requirement
(money per ton of estimate waste) and penalty fees for noncompliant projects. The fees listed
below represent the environmental cost of throwing away a mixed load of C&D debris. These
numbers were calculated based off the average amount of C&D debris landfilled annually, as
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reported in the 2022 Waste Characterization Study (Exhibit A). Staff will use this methodology to
develop a compelling penalty structure for a diversion code.
Staff evaluated alternative approaches to monetary penalties for projects that may consider C&D
diversion as optional if they pay a fee. Often, penalty fees are interpreted as a fee in leu of
complying with regulations, which staff would like to avoid by building in delayed inspection times
for projects that do not comply with separating and recycling debris during demolition and
remodeling. A waste review condition could be added to the inspection approval phase of
Salesforce, where an administrator evaluates debris diversion compliance before the building
phase could initiate work. Though it would be too late to recover the debris from the landfill, adding
a delay time penalty could disincentivize similar behavior in the future. Staff believe monetary
penalties coupled with project delays could compel participation.
3. Enforcement:
In collaboration with the Engineering department, staff have discussed the logistics of in the field
enforcement for debris diversion standards. The Engineering Department’s Construction
Mitigation Officers (CMOs) oversee construction management plans (CMP), which are a
combination of diagrams, documents, drawings, and specifications that define the steps taken by
a project to meet code requirements and demonstrate how community impacts will be minimized.
Staff have discussed the classifying of a debris diversion code within Engineering’s CMP where
the CMOs could assist in the evaluation of onsite compliance for debris separation and recycling.
Additionally, administrative staff would use Green Halo (waste tracking software) to manage
records of landfill disposal and recycling tickets, in real time, allowing staff the ability to see if a
project is actively complying with the code. For projects failing to track diversion data in Green
Halo, on site evaluations in coordination with the CMOs will allow the city to evaluate projects for
compliance.
4. Applicability:
Staff is looking for direction from Council on which size demolition disturbance should be required
to divert C&D debris.
To better understand which projects should be required to divert salvageable C&D debris, staff
compared the size and type of permits administered by the city with locally available recycling
markets. Other considerations include:
• Number of permits distributed annually.
• Staff ability to enforce and monitor numerous projects.
• Amount of building debris produced per project size.
• Alignment with existing city codes.
Listed below are the total permits issued, per category of ground disturbance in 2023, categorized
by Engineering’s permit thresholds. This list does not include IFFR permits, repair permits, change
orders, or landscape grading permits, as their generation of locally recoverable building materials
is minimal in comparison to building permits.
1. Small Projects (less than 1,000 square feet of disturbance area)
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a. 54 permitted projects
2. Medium Projects (1000 - 2000 square feet of disturbance area)
a. 27 permitted projects
3. Major Projects (greater than 2,000 square feet of disturbance area)
a. 46 permitted projects
It is the recommendation of staff across EHS, Engineering, and Community Development, that
Major Projects with a ground disturbance greater than 2,000 sq ft are targeted for a C&D debris
diversion requirement. Projects greater than 2,000 sq ft have the largest impact on building debris
generation and include projects that may not be permitted for demolition but generate large
quantities of debris. For example, Mountain Chalet is applying for a building permit to undergo a
major remodel and interior improvements, however, the building disturbance area does not trigger
a demolition permit review. To capture projects with the greatest potential impacts and likelihood
to produce recoverable building materials, staff recommend Major Projects under the review of
Engineering, to be the trigger for a code requirement.
6. Diversion Regulations:
The diversion of construction and demolition debris should be considered against the locally
available markets to reuse, salvage, or recycle materials for their next best use. For this section,
staff focused on the building materials that can be recycled, or reprocessed, on site at the Pitkin
County Solid Waste Center. These materials will be referred to as “recoverable materials” and
include: concrete and porcelain, organics, asphalt, corrugated cardboard, rock and dirt, untreated
lumber and pallets, metal appliances, and scrap metal. Materials like fixtures, appliances, or
furniture, are valuable materials to salvage for reuse, however there are limited local marketplaces
for storing and selling these products. Staff would encourage applicable projects to rehome those
types of materials, but it is important to acknowledge smaller remodel projects may not produce
a large volume of “recoverable materials” and reaching a diversion standard would mean the
project needs to recycle interior materials that do not have a local marketplace, meaning they
would need to ship out materials to the next available market. This approach may have an adverse
effect on reducing GHG emissions due to trucking of materials over long distances.
Staff is asking Council to provide direction how much of the generated C&D debris from a project
should be required for diversion away from the landfill. For reference, Pitkin County’s code
requires a 35% diversion of all generated project debris, as well as to keep all “recoverable
materials” out of dumpsters transported to the landfill. In 2023, the diversion average from Pitkin
County projects was 66%, meaning projects, on average, were able to exceed performance
standards. A city diversion standard requirement could be approached a few different ways.
1. The city requires applicable projects to divert all “recoverable materials” generated from
a job site away from the landfill, meaning all possible salvageable materials are
separated on site and diverted for next available reuse. A 100% diversion of all possible
recoverable materials.
2. The city adopts a model similar to Pitkin County’s where applicable projects must meet a
percentage of debris diversion. To incentivize the capture of usable materials, like
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fixtures, appliances, or furniture, the weight of these materials can be considered within
the diversion percentages. Staff recommends the following diversion thresholds be
considered:
a. 35% diversion of debris by weight – Pitkin County’s Requirement
b. 51% diversion of debris by weight – This number reflects the amount of C&D
waste disposed of in 2022 that could have been locally salvaged for recycling or
reuse
c. 66% diversion of debris by weight – Pitkin County’s observed success rate
Each construction project site is unique when it comes to the kinds of materials generated as
waste so staff recommends projects submit site surveys prior to permit issuance that identify all
recoverable materials within the structure and how they will be salvaged for reuse or recycling.
Following this model, Council could either decide all possible recoverable materials are required
to be diverted (100%) or set a percentage threshold for projects to achieve based off the amount
of material that could be recovered (ex. 35% by weight of all potentially recoverable materials).
QUESTIONS FOR COUNCIL:
1. Does Council support the general policy and regulatory direction described above?
2. Requiring permitted projects to separate materials, on site, by type, and transport the
dumpsters to a local recycling facility will introduce additional costs to do business and need
to be considered in the development of a code. Aspen’s geography and spatial constraints
create unique circumstances for the placement of additional large dumpsters. These space
constraints, paired with the nature of separating materials by type, may lengthen the amount
of time dumpsters are on the ground in a parking spot or right-of-way.
Question: Does Council support flexibility in terms of the use of the ROW and parking
spaces, and other potential program components to encourage and facilitate the
implementation of this program in Aspen’s context?
3. Due to the nature of private development, staff is considering alternative penalty fees like
delays in building inspections for projects that do not meet codified diversion standards, to
disincentivize projects that could pay their way out of compliance. In terms of monetary
penalization, staff worked with an environmental consultant, Lotus Engineering and
Sustainability, to develop fees reflective of the damage caused to the environment from
landfilling building materials (see Discussion section “2. Penalties” and Exhibit D). Monetary
penalties would be reflective of the material’s lifecycle emissions. With all these considerations
in mind, staff hopes to design a successful diversion program that meets the needs of internal,
and external, stakeholders involved in the process.
Question: Does Council support a program of incentives and disincentives in support
of the desired outcomes of a potential program?
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4. Applicability - It is the recommendation of staff across EHS, Engineering, and Community
Development, that Major Projects with a ground disturbance greater than 2,000 sq ft are
targeted for a C&D debris diversion requirement.
Question: Does Council support staff’s suggestion to target all Major Projects greater
than 2,000 square feet of disturbance area for a C&D diversion requirement?
5. Diversion Amount - Council could either decide all possible recoverable materials are required
to be diverted (100%) or set a percentage threshold for projects to achieve based off the
amount of material that could be recovered (ex. 35% diversion, by weight, of all potentially
recoverable materials within the structure).
Question: How much of the generated C&D debris from a project should be required
for diversion away from the landfill?
6. A C&D diversion code comes with unique administrative challenges that must be thoughtfully
developed to successfully monitor the diversion of a project’s construction waste.
Administratively, the city would need an additional Full-Time Employee (FTE) to review
permits for waste diversion plans, monitor the project’s diversion progress throughout, and
manage penalties for noncompliant projects, all of which are not within current staffing
capacity. Staff is very sensitive to concerns about adding additional FTEs, however, without
a dedication of new staffing capacity to a future program, staff does not believe the program
could be successfully administered.
Question: Would Council support a budget request for an additional FTE to manage
this program?
NEXT STEPS:
With direction from Council on the questions above, staff will continue to define and refine program
elements and will return to Council with a proposed ordinance in late summer or early fall of 2024.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS:
Staff have considered the financial implications of implementing a C&D diversion code, with the
biggest consideration being the need for a new full-time employee to administer the program.
Current staffing does not lend to the ability for the city to monitor numerous permitted projects for
diversion compliance. A request for additional staffing would be added to 2025’s funding request
for an FTE if council were to adopt a C&D diversion code in 2024. Responsibilities of the new
FTE would include evaluating permit applications for their waste disposal plans (plans outlined by
the applicant on how they’ll adequately separate and divert required debris) and calculating
deposit costs for estimate debris generation. This staff member would also monitor ongoing
projects through Green Halo to track waste diversion data, determining deposit releases for
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projects that achieve diversion standards. There are high administrative needs for this code to be
successful and it cannot be accomplished with current staffing.
As mentioned in previous sections, staff suggest implementing a deposit system based on
estimated C&D debris to hold projects accountable for diverting their debris. Though monetary
penalization is not always a realistic disincentive for business operations in Aspen, staff believes
deposits could compel participation. Deposits could be collected through Salesforce prior to
project permitting and released once the project's major demolition, deconstructing, or remodeling
has occurred. For projects that do not meet the required standards, monies would be retained by
the city and could be used to support programming related to educating laborers on C&D diversion
practices or other waste diversion related activities.
Staff are aware that the adoption of a C&D diversion code will add to the operating costs of the
construction industry. Staff will continue to evaluate mechanisms to reduce or eliminate additional
costs of storage of materials on site, labor, and hauling of multiple dumpsters.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS:
Building sustainably, reusing materials, and deconstructing, rather than demolition, have proven
to extend the life of a landfill, conserve resources, reduce GHG emissions, and improve local air
quality. The production of building materials, like concrete, has one of the largest GHG footprints
in the world, and is the most common C&D material buried in the Pitkin County landfill. A circular
approach to resource use would avoid end of life disposal for usable C&D debris and reduce
emissions associated with the production, processing, and landfilling of these materials. As the
largest contributor of landfill disposal, recycling and reuse of C&D materials would also lead to
major reductions in annual waste disposal at the landfill.
ATTACHMENTS:
Exhibit A – Pitkin County 2022 Waste Characterization Study
Exhibit B – Pitkin County C&D Diversion Ord.015.2020
Exhibit C – City of Aspen C&D Survey
Exhibit D – Lotus Report: Determining Fees for Unsorted Construction and Demolition Waste
Loads
CITY MANAGER COMMENTS:
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MEMORANDUM
TO: Aspen City Council
FROM: Ben Anderson, Community Development Director
Pete Strecker, Finance Director
THRU: Sara Ott, City Manager
MEMO DATE: May 6, 2024
WORK SESSION DATE: May 13, 2024
RE: Work Session Discussion and Direction
Community Development Department Fees
REQUEST OF COUNCIL:
Council is asked to review the memo and be prepared for discussion resulting in direction
on a series of questions related to Community Development (ComDev) fees at the Work
Session on May 13, 2024.
ComDev fees were part of a larger study of fees across the organization conducted in
2023. The study contemplated and evaluated changes to long-standing policies and
frameworks for determining fees for Planning and Building activities. Due to the policy
questions raised in this analysis and possible outcomes that could significantly alter fees
across ComDev’s services, updates to ComDev’s fee schedule were not included in the
larger 2023 fee update Ordinance. It is staff’s intention to propose a new fee schedule
(via Ordinance) for ComDev’s fees that would become effective in January 2025.
SUMMARY AND STAFF DISCUSSION:
ComDev’s fees, like other City fees, are regularly updated. While minor changes have
been made on an annual basis, the foundation of ComDev’s fees were last significantly
amended in 2014/2015. Those changes were updates to assumptions and frameworks
that have been in place for several decades.
The status quo.
The following are some basic principles that define ComDev’s current fees:
• Development pays its way.
A long-standing principle has been the idea that the cost of development to the
Aspen community and within the City of Aspen’s budget is passed along directly
in response to the measured impacts of the given development. This is assessed
with impact fees and in this case, development review fees.
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• Building and Planning functions are intertwined and interdependent.
For at least a couple of decades, Planning’s costs have been subsidized by
revenues for Building permits, with roughly 1/3 of Planning’s annual costs covered
by Building permit fees. This may seem curious, but the idea has been that the
planning function sets the basis for many of the factors that eventually translate
into a building permit. Some of this is broad work across development, like setting
policy and implementing regulatory changes in the Land Use Code; other work is
property specific in making sure that individual permits are consistent with the
Land Use Code.
• Building Permit Fees are primarily established by project valuation.
Most communities, like Aspen, use project valuation to establish permit fees. This
allows fees to be assessed roughly proportional to the scale and complexity of the
project. As project valuations increase over time in response to inflationary
pressures and changing development preferences – so too have the receipts from
Aspen’s permit fees.
• Planning (including Historic Preservation) fees associated with Land Use Review
are primarily based on a deposit system that requires hourly billing on a specific
case.
While a few activities have a flat fee associated with them, most land use cases
require a deposit at submission based on a fixed estimate of how many hours a
typical case will take. As case review proceeds, staff planners bill their hours
toward the deposit – and then refund or assess additional hours that are then
billed to the applicant. The current hourly rate is $325 (set in 2015). This includes
direct planning costs plus administrative and fixed costs across the organization.
• Across ComDev, but particularly within the Planning function, many services are
currently provided at no cost to our customers.
Examples include:
Pre-Application Summaries – these documents serve as the basis
for an eventual land use application. Some of these are boilerplate
and take less than an hour – others require significant research and
can take 10 hours or more. Staff complete roughly 150 of these per
year. A precise measure of staff time on this is difficult, but 600-700
hours a year spent on this function is likely a conservative estimate.
Planner and Builder- of- the-Day services – this is the most common
customer service mechanism within the department allowing
customers to ask questions and receive responses – in person or via
phone or email. Planning responded to nearly 400 Planner of the Day
inquiries in 2023. Much like the PreApplication process, some
inquiries take minutes to provide a response, other inquiries turn into
significant research projects as customers are looking to better
understand some aspect of their property or available development
rights. Intensity of demands on staff member time varies significantly,
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but there are days when a planner’s entire capacity is consumed by
planner of the day requests.
Pre-Submittal Meetings and Code Consultancy – Pre-Submittal
meetings take place prior to building permit submittal – usually for
larger projects and often include a cross agency team to provide
guidance. We have found these to significantly improve the quality
of an eventual permit submission. ComDev completed 72 Pre-
Submittal meetings in 2023. These typically involve 2-3 hours of staff
time each. Code consultancy work is even more technical and
involves our most complex projects – where an architect team works
with our staff while they are designing projects. On one project that
is currently in for building permit, staff estimates that they spent
roughly 50 hours over several months getting the project ready for
submittal.
Residential Design Review – this is a review by planning staff that is
required prior to submission of any building permit involving new
construction or work to the exterior of an existing residence. Many of
these are simple – others can require a few hours of staff time in
evaluation.
Addressing – this is a function that planning staff completes in
coordination with Pitkin County and COA GIS, and at times with the
US Postal Service. This is necessary when development activity
changes the relationship of a property to other neighboring
properties, to correct errors in addressing in support of emergency
service response, and to assist residents in interacting with the postal
service in establishing accurate mail delivery. This can be extremely
time-consumptive.
Policy Questions for Council – staff requests direction on the following:
1) Should Building Permit Fees continue to cover a portion of Planning’s
costs?
Discussion – If this were to change so that there was more direct alignment of the
revenues and costs of each function, Building Permit fees would be reduced and
planning fees for Land Use cases would increase. On initial analysis from our
consultant, if Planning fees were realigned to cover full costs, many Land Use fees
would need to roughly triple in response. On the other side of the equation, building
permit fees would be reduced, but the effect of the reduction on an individual permit
would be modest compared to the increase in planning fees on a single land use
application.
The primary advantage to this is to more accurately assign the costs and revenues
specific to ComDev’s distinct functions.
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2) Should Building Permit Fees be assessed based on project valuation, or
should permit fees be based on a standard, per square foot calculation?
Discussion – At times, project valuations submitted by applicants can vary widely,
even across similar projects. This can occur due to variation in the calculation
methodology used by the contractor or the timing of the calculation. Or it can occur
due to the cost escalation on construction over time that does not fully track with
increases in City review services. It can also result from intentional undervaluation
so as to reduce permit fees. While staff applies a “reasonable” test when evaluating
project valuations, it is acknowledged that variability and inconsistency will always
be part of this issue.
In response to this dynamic, some communities have begun working toward a fixed
permit cost per square foot of construction activity. While this does help to alleviate
the discrepancies discussed above, it does require that communities conduct
regular studies in setting the permit cost per square foot. This work would be similar
in nature to the Affordable Housing Fee-in-Lieu analysis in regularly establishing a
defensible permit fee calculation, based on square footage of the project.
3) Should the Planning function move most Land Use Reviews to a Flat Fee?
Discussion – For many years, as described above, Planning has collected a
deposit for a land use review – and then billed additional hours as necessary.
These additional hours (or refunds) are then invoiced to the applicant. While this
methodology has been able to acknowledge the variable time spent by planners
from one case to the next, the administrative function – both for our planning and
administrative teams – is significant. For this reason, it is the staff’s desire to move
to a flat rate fee for most planning activities. Staff would propose to retain the ability
to bill additional hours for our most complex cases (example: the Lift One corridor
projects) but would in general collect a flat fee at submission and for most cases
would be the extent of fee accounting as the case moved through review.
The consultant helped staff to evaluate appropriate flat fees for most Land Use
reviews, should Council provide support for this idea. The eventual flat fees would
be dependent on Council’s response to Question 1, above.
The big advantages in doing this would be more predictability for applicants as to
the total planning fees associated with a Land Use review and the reduced
administrative time currently associated with accurately managing the deposit and
billing system.
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4) Should ComDev, particularly Planning, continue to offer a set of services
at “no cost”?
Discussion – Due to the complexity of Aspen’s regulatory framework, it has been
understood that both the general public and development professionals often need
guidance from staff in understanding our codes and in making applications. Staff
views this support as a fundamental part of our work but also as a set of tasks that
takes considerable time. The tasks (see examples above) are not assessed a fee;
there is no billing – and often the outcomes of these tasks translate into an eventual
Land Use case or Building Permit. If there was shift away from the status quo on
this topic, there would be administrative costs associated with this policy in
assessing and accounting for any new fees.
5) Should ComDev reduce or waive Land Use and Building Permit fees for
renovations or updates to existing, deed restricted, affordable housing
units?
Discussion – For several years, ComDev has waived Land Use and Permit fees
for new, affordable housing projects. Examples of these projects have included the
recent Lumberyard entitlements review, the three Burlingame phases, the Aspen
Housing Partnership projects and private sector projects that have pursued
Certificates of Affordable Housing Credits. However, for existing units, proposals
to update, renovate, or create an addition are currently subject to full Land Use
and Permit fees.
In support of APCHA’s efforts to encourage the completion of necessary
maintenance and beneficial updates to the existing inventory, staff proposes a
program that would reduce or fully waive Land Use or Permit fees for projects of
this type. Should Council agree with this concept, staff would study the topic further
and propose policies that would be considered with any other changes to
ComDev’s fee schedule.
NEXT STEPS:
Based on Council direction to the questions above, staff will return to the outcomes of the
2023 consultant analysis. Using this foundation, staff will create and propose a new fee
schedule that would be shared with ComDev’s customers for feedback. Following this
work, staff would return to Council with a proposed Ordinance in the late summer of 2024.
It would be staff’s intention to adopt any changes by early fall so that the results are
efficiently and effectively updated within our permitting and accounting systems, most
importantly, Salesforce, with an effective date of January 1, 2025.
CONCLUSION:
The underlying basis for ComDev’s fees has been in place for many years. While there
are good reasons informing this basis, the outcomes are not fully consistent with desires
to bring alignment between revenues and costs within specific functions across the City’s
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organization. The answers to the questions posed to Council above are necessary if we
are to adjust the basis for ComDev’s fees. It is staff’s desire in this analysis to arrive at a
fee schedule that is fair to ComDev’s customers while improving budgetary accuracy in
the evaluation of revenues and cost.
FINANCIAL IMPACTS:
The intention of this analysis is to arrive at a fee schedule that more accurately reflects
the activities and associated costs within the department’s individual functions. Due to the
variability in development activity from one year to the next and the intersection of work
within ComDev, staff are aware that adjusting this framework could have consequences
for ComDev’s budget and for the fees assessed to customers.
City Manager Comments:
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