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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19950801 RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 In attendance were, for the City: Sara Garton, Jasmine Tygre, Roger Hunt, Tim Mooney, Steve Buettow, and Robert Blaich. Excused was: Marta Chaikovska. In attendance were, for the County: Suzanne Caskey, David Guthrie, Shellie Harper, G. Steve Whipple, Jake Vickery, George Krawzoff, and Cathy Tripodi. Excused were: Jack Hatfield and Ben Dorman. Chairperson Sara Garton of the City was asked to chair the joint meeting, and she called the meeting to order stating, this meeting is called to order between the Aspen Planning & Zoning Commission and the Pitkin County Planning & Zoning Commission to discuss the Affordable Housing Zone District and Resident Occupied Text Amendment. Cindy Houben, Director of Long Range Planning, and Leslie Lamont, Deputy Director of Community Development represented staff during the meeting, and Dave Tolen, Director of Housing, attended. Houben stated, first of all, I wanted to say, even though I copied the June 20th memorandum for you in the packet, I forgot to copy the actual text amendment, so I will pass those around now, in case you want to refer to those. Houben stated, the City P&Z had asked us for a little update on the AH and RO, and we haven't been back to you in so long, that I know that you will have tons of questions, so there's no question that you shouldn't feel uncomfortable asking about AH and RO. I think when I left back in January, I thought we were at the point where we were moving through the process; we had gone through P&Z and I was going to the Board and the Council, and that's exactly what happened. They had joint meetings and they made some changes. So, the reason we are back before you again with AH and RO, is because there were changes that the City Council and the Board recommended. I think that the changes that they proposed were really good changes, and I think that they are not inconsistent with the philosophy that I saw before I left, as far as, where we would go with AH and RO. Just as a brief reminder, the City AH regulations have been revised, there were existing City AH regulations; the County is, through this process, adopting AH regulations for the metro area and for the area between Aspen Village Mobile Home Park and the metro area. Ail these revisions are the codes of the Aspen Area Community Plan and working together jointly to reach our goals JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 for affordable housing, in terms of 60 percent of the work force living up-valley from Aspen Village Hobile Home Park. That's just kind of a brief background, and if anybody else says, why are we here, let me know real quickly. Houben stated, one thing I would like to do before I get too deep into this, is, I asked Dave Hichaelson, our new planner, to come in and meet everyone. Dave comes to us from Garfield County, and he was their head planner for several years, he has a great backgound, and things we need here in transportation, and a lot of computer background. Dave introduced himself and stated he was happy to be here. Houben stated, I did have several discussions with people about AH and RO; I think the way I would like to approach this is to go over the amendments real quickly with you that were proposed by the City Council and the Board of County Commissioners, so we don't have to backtrack forever, and the City would be very bored if we backtrack forever, and while we are doing this, if the County has questions, let's talk about them. Then, we'll talk about the process a little bit and a couple of changes that Leslie and Dave and I want to make sure are clear. Houben continued stating, the major change that I thought was a great idea, was the sliding scale approach and incorporating the plan unit allotment concept in the FARs that we worked with in looking at a parcel. Originally, when the City adopted the AH Zone District, the way that it was adopted, it was that we would look at each subdivided parcel within the bigger parcel as an individual parcel with its own floor area ratio. The way that ended up working was that it always came in favor of the multi-family units in terms of FAR. Whereas, now, the approach is, we would like to create some single-family homes in the area for families and long- term residents. So, the approach here, is that we will take the entire parcel that comes in, and we look at that parcel in terms of its overall FAR based on a sliding scale, and when you look at an entire parcel, then you look at an overall maximum that that site can have, as far as FAR goes, and then you can smooth it out anyway you want, then, ask a review body. We then, have the ability to look at the size that is given to multi-family versus single- family, and how that is divided among the parcel. It is just another angle, looking at FAR, that might accomplish our goals a little better. 2 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Houben referred to a viewing board and stated, what I tried to do is write this out and show you what the existing land use code says as far as detached and multi-family under the FAR. And, those are the parcel sizes based on each individual lot. It favored the multi-family, but didn't fully address the total capacity of the parcel at one time, but it did provide each lot with a clear amount of FAR; each specific lot. Now, because each specific lot had to be negotiated as we go for this review process, we talked about how important it is that this left over floor area, that we know where that's going to go in the future in the covenants for the subdivision. The example is, at Hidland Park, there was a whole review done back in the 1970's, and there's an additional FAR floating around out there, but it is not "diveed-up" to each individual unit, and as a Homeowners Association, we have to deal with who gets what, when they ask for certain enclosures. So, what we would like to see is that that is dealt with right up front in subdivision covenants so we are not dealing with it in a half- hazard way down the road. Lamont stated, could I just interject, just for a moment. Do you all understand why we were concerned that the FARs favoring multi- family versus single-family detached? The emphasis is toward small, detached, and we were having a list of people who were considered for small, detached, and the FAR didn't help at all. Houben stated, again, with the FAR approach changing to the PUD concept, what the proposal is before you is that any developer could use 85% of the FAR by right, and that, if you want to use that additional 15% up to 100%, you have to come in for special review, to review the merits of the proposal. Garton asked, Cindy, is that special review the new special review board that has just been established? Houben answered, no, that's the Design Review Board, and it wouldn't be the same. I'm sorry, in the County we call it special review, here, we call it conditional use. It would be conditional use if we have additional square footage. Garton stated, I think I asked this at our last meeting; that Board though, will not be made up of members from both? 3 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Lamont answered, if you are in the City, you would go through the special review process of the City, which we already have established. Garton stated, but that is different from the new Design Review Board? Lamont stated, right. The Board members who had this idea of the 85% and the 100%, came from our Interim Overlay process. If you want to go above 85%, then, you would go through a different review. So, why don't we say, everybody gets 85%, but if they want to go up to 100%, then, it would be special review. We aren't sure what additional review it would be, because you are going through a whole PUD subdivision process, but what it tells developers is the 100% allowable floor area is not only given, you wouldn't have to have special circumstances by which you would want to go talk to personnel and worry about where that floor area is going to be shifted around. We'll look at that very closely, especially when you get into the County and you get into the bigger parcels where open space, and clustering are going to be more important than just stray parcels. Tripodi asked, what would be an example of one of the larger spaces? Houben answered, of a larger parcel? Pitkin Iron. Pitkin Iron is 38 acres. Harper asked, I noticed on this that it said that Kraut is 110% and Cohousing 104%. Does that mean that no longer would anybody be able to go over 100%, if this is inacccurate? Dave Tolen, Director of Housing, answered, anything up to 15,000 sq. ft. You could get 110% on this parcel, no bigger than 15,000 sq. ft., so, Kraut is 15,000 sq. ft. Harper stated, oh, I see. So, it is the size. Houben stated, the other thing the City regulation addresses right now, is a maximum single-family size of 5,700 sq. ft., whereas, the County doesn't have a maximum size for single-family, and we wanted to bring this up tonight. We felt it was important to add a cap and to the equation that single-family homes within the AH 4 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 subdivisions could get a lot to the same for 5,700, or whatever the County felt was appropriate. 5,700 was a number that we came to at City Council, the Board of County Commissioners heard from the City side, but they really haven't dealt with it either, and we are wondering if the County has any recommendation or any ideas about a cap, or even if you want to deal with a cap size in the AH zone districts? Harper stated, are those for free market or for the affordable housing? Houben stated, it would probably be for free market, but it would be single-family home size. Whipple stated, you want to bring it up now? Houben stated, yes. Lamont stated, the reason why we felt it was necessary to have a cap on the units when we created the City AH Zone District, is that we wanted to have some compatiability between the matching of the structures within the AH project. So, the idea is that you have deed-restricted housing combined with free market housing and you didn't want to have such a huge disparity, and what I am concerned about is, that if we don't have a cap in the County, then, all your floor areas are going to be put into the free market units and you are going to get very small deed-restricted units. Where, if you had a cap on the free market, it would encourage some of the floor area to go into the deed-restricted. Harper asked, isn't there a minimum on the deed-restricted? You don't like the Red Stone Concept, where you have a castle and little cottages around? Lamont stated, it is easier to talk about a cap in the City because we have much smaller parcels, and so, when we talk about a cap of 5,700, personally, I've always thought that was too big, but I agree with Steve, when you get into the County, they are bigger areas and you have the ability to have deed-restricted and free market a little bit more separate, it may not be as big of an issue in the County. 5 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Garton stated, what about establishing a cap, then, and then, again, if you want to go above that cap issue with FAR, it's a special review. There may be very good circumstances to do that, but I agree, the probability of the project, the looks of it, it doesn't make sense to have a futile look of the big homes and the little cottages. Whipple asked, how about a ratio? Garton stated, I'm not very good at visualizing that. Whipple stated, in other words, the deed-retricted unit is a certain proportion of the floor area, and I'm trying to address Leslie's problem, a certain portion of your FAR has to be utilized on deed-restricted. Harper stated, I'd be more comfortable with a ratio than trying to pre-determine how it should look, by giving an arbitrary figure at this point. There was discussion at random between Tripodi and Lamont and Harper regarding a project behind the Aspen Club. Lamont stated that one of the parcels was an acre in size, and so, if there had not been a cap, it could have been a much larger unit. Tripodi stated, I just think sometimes you put all these restrictions on developers, and you limit their ability to be creative and come up with what would ultimately be the best product for the site, when you restrict them to certain caps. That's why I would probably tend to vote more toward what Shellie and Steve were saying, that there be a ratio to give them that guidance. Harper stated, I would also like to see something on Sara's special review. Hy observation, in the County has been, developers are afraid of our special review process, they don't want to mess with this, so, they have built these most obscene houses that are humongous with bedrooms the size of these three rooms, and put in five bedrooms. So, I would really like to see something that is a little more flexible, that will get what we want without them not wanting to go through special review, because they are afraid of us. JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Garton stated, so, you are saying you have a bedroom count, not a square footage count. Harper stated, so, you end up with 15,000 sq. ft. houses with five bedrooms, and they are a joke when you see them, I feel. Caskey stated, the County has been through the cap question before, and at that time the Board of County Commissioners indicated that it was strongly in support of that. The Planning & Zoning Commission worked really hard, and we ended up with a significant split that was, actually, due to the working relationship on the Commission at that time, because there was a very clear split. Then, what happened, we went on to some riotous meetings with public hearings with the Board of County Commissioners while they were continuing to say that it was supportive of house size limit, or a cap of some kind, and the end result was that the Planning Commission got put out on a limb to dry. Caskey continued stating, although I believed strongly, and I still do, in a cap, for all the reasons that I did then, I know how messy this issue gets and the commissioners have been making sounds again like they are ready to deal with that particular issue. Haybe, I'm ready to get hung out there again. Caskey stated, the last time we did it, Dwight Shellman was serving on the Planning Commission. He said at the time of the five bedroom rule was established in the 1970s, the thought was, on behalf of the three commissioners, including Dwight, that saying five bedrooms meant to them about 5,000 sq. ft., that was the largest they could imagine. If you looked at that time at what went on in the rest of the country, and what still does, I think some of this information that we've gotten from you that an average home size for the rest of this country is about 2,000 sq. ft. So, 5,000 sq. ft. is still going to be pushing it. Caskey continued stating, knowing that that is what the commissioners thought at the time, that the five bedroom rule would work, that was the kind of size of house that they were planning on in terms of the services that were going to be provided in the infra-structure. So, I supported that kind of limit, and, in fact, I supported something much less than that, thinking that it would be "fiddled" with in the process, and maybe the upper limit would be 5,000 sq. ft. I am still supportive of that, I told the JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 contractors who were very much against the proposal at the time of the cap, I told them exactly why; it had a lot to do with character and scale, even in the County, even in large parcels, and it is hard for me to look at saying, it's O.K. for us to say to local, permanent residents in the County for affordable housing, that there will be a cap on the size of those homes. Then, there's another category where it is O.K. to say, that you can build it to 15,000 sq. ft., or whatever. I agree with Leslie, that 5,700 sq. ft., even if we are talking about affordable housing, is a big house, that is really big. There has to be some equity, it seems, to me in this; that you can't say that it's O.K. for the working people who support the town, who have given their time over the years, who come in here to make this home and make this a balanced community, but for everybody else you can do tons more. I can't make all those pieces go together. So, I would still support a cap. Commissioner Hunt of the City entered the meeting during Caskey's comments. Krawzoff stated, I would like to throw in on that side a little bit, as well, particularly thinking about the reviews we've gone through in the past couple of years. Hany of the applicants have voluntarily accepted a cap and in other cases we were able to establish them. I think 6,000 sq. ft. has been sort of the "norm", as an upper level. In the cases where we didn't have any "norm" established, I wished we could have, so, I would vote to establish one now, in this context. Blaich asked, what has been our experience on AH with that 5,700 sq. ft.? Has anybody gone that big in affordable housing? Lamont asked, with the deed-restricted units or just in the AH zone district? Blaich stated, well, deed-restricted. Lamont answered, no. Blaich stated, to me, it doesn't add up, I mean, affordable housing at 5,700 sq. ft. doesn't match. Lamont stated, we do have a cap on RO which is being proposed as part of this legislation. We just have a minimum size on the deed-restricted units, Categories 1 through 4. They don't have a maximum size because if someone wanted to build a bigger Category 4 home. Houben asked, in the free market portion of the AH that we have in the City, has anyone ever had a problem being capped at 5,700? JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Lamont answered, no, in fact, when AH was first adopted, it was much lower, it was around 3,600 to 4,300, then, our first Ute Place, Ute Park, the one at the end of Ute Avenue, they came in and requested to amend the code to go up a little bit higher because they said finanically they needed to be competitive with the other free markets in the City. Rarely, have we had someone go up to the cap in the City, but when we started using, for example, the Pitkin Iron site and that acreage and that floor area all of a sudden, even at .3, which is greater than 6 acres, it is a hugh amount of floor area. Caskey stated, when we looked at average home sizes in the County before, am I right that, we came up with 3,600 sq. ft. that was average? Houben answered, what we tried to do was take, and we didn't do all of the County, what we did was free market subdivisions in the County all the way from the Basalt area, up in the Mountain Valley area, and we took a sampling, and it was around 3,600. Whipple stated, I've got to paint the picture of the other side of the coin, that's the reason why I'm here. One of the driving forces on affordable housing is this free market section, and the costs involved with the process, and I'm saying with the process on when we limit growth, you are seeing the unfortunate occurences of land prices rising to a point where they are disproportionate to anything that is real, in the real world; Kansas City, Milwaukee. And so, one of the things I am injecting, I agree with you in what is a good, viable size, that you don't want to have affordable housing "dwafted", that you don't want to set up a kind of futile community. I'm really on board with all that, but the market place has to realize some of the pluses and the minuses, and when we have people come before us. There is such a list of extractions and things that we want; by-pass here, this open space in this section, and we would like to have the different amenities that we work for. I not saying that it can't happen, and I'm not saying that there won't be people that come through it, but I'm not sure where the number is. Garton stated, don't forget what the developer is getting in affordable housing, they get a lot more density. JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Whipple stated, it all sounds good, and I'm not saying it doesn't, what I'm saying is, you have your initial cost, and those are in disproportionate increments. Garton stated, we are here for planning, not to guarantee a profit to a developer, and I also have trouble when RO has a cap, and there isn't a cap on this. It just doesn't make sense to me. Whipple stated, I'm just saying, that where you are going, in terms of percentages, to me it seems a more equitable way. It doesn't say, you have to live in this size unit, and you there, you have to live in that size unit. It is an automatic "drag" on your affordable housing, that's going to be increased if they want to make the free market a certain size, and without even knowing it, you are making better affordable housing units. Garton stated, it is a "drag" on the affordable housing? Whipple stated, it drags it out, it pulls it up. It drags the size of the affordable housing up larger. Take your formula, say you want to have 3,000 sq. ft. in the affordable housing, and you want 6,000 sq. ft. in the free market, in otherwords, it is half the size. It's 8,000 sq. ft., they've got to come up with almost, maybe, 4,000 which would be the largest affordable housing unit; they have that option. Tolen stated, a very possible result, which is not just that you would make your affordable housing bigger, because at some point, economically, that doesn't make sense, but you might do better than 70/30 mix if you could do larger free market units. Garton stated, is there anything more you want to add to this? Houben stated, well, I don't feel that I have concensus on which way to go, if caps is the way out, or if the ratio is totally it. I don't really feel that there is concensus on that on the County side. I think the City feels comfortable with the cap in the City limits of 5,700 on the free market side. But the metro and the further extension of the County area, I'm not sure what everybody's really saying. 10 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Jake Vickery asked, this Exhibit 1 is your latest text amendment ,,stuff,,9 Houben stated, that's City. Vickery stated, this chapter here, basically, is all these projects are now going to become PUDs, regardless of how big they are. A small project, 12,000 ft. lot, that project would still be reviewed PUD, so, similar over at Williams Ranch; City Council in that situation sort of dictated as part of the approval process, part of the re-zoning process, part of the PUD, I guess it is a PUD. Lamont stated, no, it was never a PUD. Vickery stated, all of these projects are going to have to go through a re-zone to become AH. At that time, a count can be set, or a balance can be set. Houben stated, if I were a developer though, I think that would give me a lot less guarantee of anything, and everytime I walked in a door you're going to set a different cap on me; I think that's a little scarier than knowing what the rules are up front. Vickery stated, well, as a practical matter, it happens everywhere, so, even if you had a maximum size of your unit of 6,000 and they decided 4,350, or something, was more compatiable, or better, then that is part of the negotiations, it is capped at 4,300. From a developer, they are going to attempt to do that. Houben stated, I'd say that that was conditional re-zoning that is entirely illegal. Vickery stated, well, from a practical matter, it happens. Lamont stated, Williams Ranch, it was part of their 8040 Greenline Review that the FARs would be at 85%, and if they wanted to go up to 100%, individual parcels had to come through a site specific 8040 Greenline Review process. So, that's how the free market FARs and Williams Ranch were established at 85%. Vickery stated, I would just like to make one other point, I find it interesting that all the projects now are going to be going through a PUD process. It seems like all the objective criteria and merit criteria regarding lot sizes, side yard setbacks, all that "stuff" has been deleted, and now it's just kind of according 11 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 to some section. It is blank in this Exhibit, it refers to some section, what does that say? Houben stated, this is the section that, basically, says when you have a PUD you have the flexibility of determining what your setbacks and a lot of the dimensional requirements are going to be. Lamont added stating, it is a PUD section out of the code. Vickery stated, now, in the County, is that same kind of proportion proposed in the County, and proposed for all AH projects, and that there be, basically, unlimited flexibility on the site development plan based on whatever the developer could work out with the Board? Houben stated, there is a lot more flexibility in the County, obviously, because there are such great parcels. I mean, you've got large parcels out there. It has actually been in the Permanent Moderate Housing Section of the County Code; before this last revision, we changed it to the Affordable Housing Section, and it has always been in there at pretty much the same density levels, which are really high. I don't perceive that there is any problem with flexibility. Lamont stated, the reason we wanted to go to PUD is that we have not seen an AH project yet, except, maybe, for Williams Ranch, that did not need to go to PUD. The Langley's, East Cooper Court, because of the Historic Landmark Designation, was able to vary side-yard setbacks in order to help out the site design in the project, so, that's why we decided to get rid of the rigid dimensional requirements, because AH can be located in any neighborhood in the City or in any area or neighborhood of the County. So, the idea was to allow the site planner to take advantage of the surrounding characteristics of the neighborhood and then, establish the setbacks, open space, things like that, the other review process, primarily based upon the compatiability with the surrounding neighborhood. I mean, an AH project in the west end will be very different than an AH project, like Juanstreet, where you have multi-family housing, or the Langley's at East Cooper Court. So, what we found ourselves doing is taking someone who was going through the re-zoning process who said, oh, I've got to go through PUD anyway, and they come into the PUD process. So, that's why we just changed it down to the PUD process. 12 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Hooney stated, maybe that's why the ratio and the cap, together, might work, because it then gives the PUD the most flexibility, and economically, to deal with the categories and to have the wild card become an RO, gives the developer the capability of balancing out what his economic needs are out of his affordable housing in order to make his actions work for the free market, the cost that he can get. So, maybe, the bigger the free market units, the bigger the category units can be, and then, with an RO, a kind of wild card, you can really charge more what the market price is, and put very few permanent restrictions on an RO, that that might be enough flexibility to get the developer interested in a certain amount of profit. Does that make sense? Tripodi stated, maybe I can help Sara and Suzanne out a little bit. I think, when you "guys" were talking about this affordable housing, Steve said "drawling" the free market, you are almost talking about it like it is a punishment sort of thing. I guess I have to quote the Aspen Area Community Plan and say, housing is not guaranteed for every single person that comes to live in this community; and no where on this table, maybe, one or two people, but my age group needs affordable housing more than, I have to say, most of the people sitting at this table. Host of you probably already have housing. I don't really want to say, if I got an affordable housing unit, I would feel less then, because some "guy" had come in and paid market value for a house in Aspen has a bigger unit. I don't really care, quite frankly. We need the units here, O.K., and just to get caught up with "he's got a bigger house", I think the PUD concept works because you are going to tie the whole thing in and make it all have some kind of harmony. I am not guaranteed housing here, and Aspen providing affordable housing was a great component, and it's great. I think if the numbers work that a developer has to build a 12,000 sq. ft. house to give two people a 2,000 sq. ft. house, that's what his prerogative is. That's the way that I feel. I understand he's getting some bonuses from using the overlay zone, and so forth, but I know people are trying to make these projects work, and the numbers don't work, and then, they walk away, and we lose a couple of affordable housing units. That is the first thing. Tripodi continued stating, the second thing is, to quote what I think is an average size of Pitkin County isn't really pertinent, 13 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 because, you know, a "guy" who is coming in and buying a house in Aspen, oftentimes he is not really looking at Basalt or Snowmass. Houben stated, I didn't include Aspen. Tripodi stated, that's what I am saying, I don't really think 3,200 sq. ft., or whatever we are throwing around here, is an average size in Aspen. I know what the average size home is. I don't think Aspen is really comparable with Snowmass and Basalt. I would never buy a house in Aspen, but people are shopping here; I would imagine it like about the 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 sq. ft. range, I'm just guessing. Lamont stated, no, no. Tripodi asked, what is it? Lamont answered, 4 to 5. We have one or two that are greater, that are around 7,000. Tripodi stated, I think of Aspen as a mailbox address. It could be in Pitkin County. If a "guy" was looking at Owl Creek or is looking at Starwood. Lamont stated, I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about something else. You are right. Garton stated, Cindy, one reason I wanted to move on, I think you can summarize a lot of this discussion to the Board and the County Commissioners, but I know how they are going to work on this, because it is how they have worked on it already. They are going to come down and do what they want to do, and if they want to hear our input, I don't think they care how the concensus feels. Houben asked, are you, as a group, comfortable saying that this discussion took place; there was a discussion of the ratio, there was discussion about a cap, and the Board and the City Council looking at it, I mean, are you comfortable making a specific recommendation? Krawzoff stated, I think that is inevitable, given to what I see happening on the Board; it is going to remain divided, and talking about it for another hour won't resolve that. 14 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Garton stated, and they know, exactly, politically, how far they can go on this. Houben stated, the next thing I would like to bring up is something that came about with discussions with Dave and Leslie, the other day, and in terms of the percentage of affordable RO and free market housing within the AH Zone District. The way we have it set up is 30/30/40. 30% RO, 30% free market, and 40% categories 1-4. In the past, the zone distict has read that the bedroom count would be a 60/40 split. We are proposing that the bedroom count now track with the unit count of 30/30/40, in terms of bedrooms on site. That is because, we feel that we should get more out of the AH Zone District than we would normally get. It has always been a bedroom count. Dave, is it easier for you to give the example, 60/40 bedroom count and an AH project? Tolen stated, if you had ten units in the AH project in our code right now, three of those units could be free market units, seven would have to be affordable housing units of some kind. And, under the code, right now, only four of the total bedrooms, would be free market bedrooms, six of the bedrooms would have to be AH bedrooms. Sunny Vann stated, so, you could have three free market units, and four free market bedrooms? Tolen stated, ten is not a good number. Your ratio would have to be 70/30, in terms of units, counting units; 60/40 for the free market, counting bedrooms. So, most of the affordable housing zone district projects that have been done have been right at that ratio, or, actually, a little better. Vann stated, would it not make more sense, if you are going to limit the size of the free market units, that, basically is the economic engine that drives the freight for the rest of the project. Would it not make more sense to establish a minimum bedroom requirement for the employee component, if that is what your concern is, and let the free market develop whatever product is necessary. Because, you've got a bedroom or location and you have the FAR, but you can't bring the product to market with that bedroom, to sell at the kind of price that you need to cover the 15 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 project, you know, you have shot yourself in the foot. You don't really care how many bedrooms are in the free market unit, up to some point, I assume, as long as there is a cap on the size, but you are concerned about establishing a minimum number of employee bedrooms as part of the project. There was discussion at random between Tolen and Vann regarding limiting the size of the free market unit. Caskey stated, you're saying that establish a minimum for the category and the R0, so that you know that you are going to get what you want back, otherwise, they will play the game of counting video rooms, bedrooms, libraries, diningrooms, whatever; you didn't say this, but maybe, that's where size manages that. Vann stated, well, let's play two bedrooms and a den. The problem is, it is an imperfect size. We are trying to tailor a program that provides an incentive to the developer to move it away from the Growth Hanagement program, which no longer provides an opportunity for development, and to use a substitute program, which is the AH Program, to achieve the same results. In exchange for getting this free market development potential, he now has to provide some component for affordable housing. The numbers have to work, there has to be a profit margin in order for them to do it, then, you want to control the type and size of the four units that come on line. For a variety of other reasons, you also want to limit the size of the free market, be it the issue of relationship of the free market to the employee or social concern about the size of the homes, or whatever. If you rash it down too tightly on the free market component of the project, we bring the whole program, and the viability of the program, into question. It just seems to me that if we are trying to encourage people into the AH Program, we ought to provide as much flexibility as we can, while at the same time making sure that our primary concerns are addressed, and to me that means, the number of employee units in relationship to the number of free market units, some kind of minimum standard for the employee units in terms of size, bedrooms, and restriction category, and apparently, some kind of a limitation on the size of the free market residences. What I am not sure of, is whether it is necessary to limit the number of bedrooms in the free market residences. Because, you know, one thing we have found out, is that every site is different and every project is different, and this is one type of regulation that is not universal. Everybody 16 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 says, it would work if I just treat this, or if I could just change that, and if you could provide that measure of additional flexibility without jeapordizing the project, I think that is a good addition. Guthrie stated, I have a question and, maybe, it is for Cindy and Leslie. You all have done a lot of studies on house size in relation to impacts. We hear it constantly, that over a certain size house, has a greater impact, over 3,500 or 5,000 sq. ft., that was kind of given to me, maybe, I'm wrong, but let's just say for the purpose of this conversation that house size and impact are related. I agree with Sunny, if we are going to stop the, I'm not agreeing with Sunny, but it is a good point, but if we are going to stop the size of the house, my question is, do we know that more bedrooms; and my question within a question, is do we have the five bedroom limit in the City that we do. Lamont stated, yes. Guthrie stated, do we know that having more bedrooms has more impact? I would think it would be better to have a cap on the house, with not unlimited bedrooms, I don't know what the number is, but to increase the bedroom number to give somebody, not just more economic viability, but better planning, because you are going to be able to have a smaller house and sell if for as much as you can sell it for a bigger house. If I am trying to sell a house, and there is seven bedrooms, and they are smaller than if I were to have five bedrooms, I think you could get the same amount of money, seeing what people are getting in town, I think that is true. So, doesn't that make it better for everybody, if they get the money for the smaller size house, and the money drives the affordable housing availability? Houben stated, I'm just not sure about those assumptions. I'm not sure about whether or not those assumptions are following through, and the whole reason I keep coming back to where Sunny's argument falls down in my mind, is that we based our numbers on, in the community plan, all have to go back to, as Sunny says, our accounting method. Our bedrooms are the accounting method for how many people there can be in a project, be that free market or affordable. That's been our accounting method and if we go astray from that, then I think, we just have to do some more work. Houben stated, number one, if somebody questions, will a free market unit within the affordable housing zone district necessarily be occupied by a part-time resident, we don't know. Or will it be 17 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 occupied by full-time residents that have full family and everything that goes along with that, we don't know. Houben stated, in the City, maybe, in the County, maybe not. In the County I think we're going to see it a little bit more equitable, in the situation betweeb the RO and the free market I think it is going to be a lot closer. So, I have a hard time abandoning the bedroom count as an issue. Garton stated, me too. Sunny, I don't care whether you are a banker or a member of ACRA, or a population person, you use bedroom counts when you talk about homes and populations in the community. They don't talk about square footage of homes. Vann stated, I not suggesting that it is not a good measure. Garton stated, it is a good question, I know what you are saying, and I think it is something we ought to talk to the City Council and the Commissioners about, whether they want the bedroom cap or they want a house count. Vann stated, it is simply, that we have taken away, basically, the only game in town for the development community to develop housing on the free market in the City and in the metro area, because of the repressive nature of the revised growth management regulations. Except for a few people, it's no longer a viable method for developing either the property that they own or the property they wish to purchase. There's a whole different set of discussions to whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, but the truth of the matter is that that mechanism's gone, and in its place we're substituting a new game, if you will, from which we have limited experience, although we have some, some projects that have gone through, and I guess only time will tell as to whether or not it would function, not only to allow a free market to develop, but also, provide affordable housing. If it doesn't work, it just sits there; there's an argument that says, well, there's no growth, but at the same time, we don't produce the housing that goes along with it. So, I guess, we re-visit the issue in a year or eighteen months, and see what happens. Garton stated, there's money to be made, there's probably not as much money to be made. 18 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Hooney stated, I think one of the things that I see about the bedroom count as being important, is that we deal with mass and scale because the City limits are so controlled. You "guys" have more area, so, one of the problems that I feel is that, what is the fine line between something that is a residence and something that is a commercial application of a house? Where, in the County, if you didn't have bedroom counts, you, I think, would be on the verge allowing corporate interests to develop many hotels because they can't get into the downtown core, they can't get the luxury accommodations that they want in the number of square footage houses that we allow in the west end anymore. This was our whole idea between these "monster houses" People would take something in the west end and it would be a party house, with all the living areas on the upper floors, bedroom suites on the downstair floors, they have cooks that would come in and they have a revolving clientele of their executives coming to party in Aspen. So, the bedroom count, I think, is important in the County because someone's going to take a 15,000 sq. ft. house and do ten bedrooms, 10 baths, and run a commercial operation. I think that's really where the resort starts dominating the community and where everybody loses track of what is growth, what is a normal community's ability to deal with the impacts of having this resort on its back. So, I don't know if I'm confusing the issue here, but I think it is really important in the County that the bedroom numbers be spelled out, and in the City, that the "monster home" numbers be spelled out because people are always going to want to come and run their own little commercial operation here and call it a house. Tolen stated, I was thinking of a different way of saying what Sunny said, which is, that it sounds to me like we need, at least one or the other. We need a bedroom limit or a size limit, without one or the other we are going to have a problem in the mis-match between what we get on the free market and what we get in terms of affordable housing. It sounds like the City is in a pretty good position in terms a house size limit, you might be able to let the bedroom limit float, and that may be worth discussing. It sounds as if the County was somewhat divided, the P&Z was somewhat divided on the issue, whether it should be a cap or a ratio. What I would suggest is that in that discussion you might look at the cap period, or a ratio with a bedroom unit, and see how those two play out. 19 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Garton stated, and see what kind of a hot potato it is for the Commissioners, and then, I don't know what we do with the metro area if it becomes a different animal once you cross the City limits. Lamont stated, if it becomes a different animal because we are trying to better reflect the surrounding neighborhood and the existing regulations within the County, on top of everything else, then, I think that's O.K. Houben stated, I just want to bring everybody back to their goal. If it's the bedrooms that get us there, or it's the house size that gets us there, then, I don't think any of us really care just so long as it all fits into the community, and I think it is a good distinction between the City and the County because the County has not taken a step to funds regulations to the same extent that the City has; I think Tim has a good point, that, maybe, bedrooms are still better in County, but house size might be Lamont stated, I'm not interested in creating a zone district that is so difficult to figure out and wade through that individual property owners feel stymied, and that the only person who could come through is someone who plays the development game all the time, and I think we need to be cognizant of what, plus what, plus what, kills our AH zone. We don't want to stifle beyond any ability for anybody to participate in the AH process. We need to analyze, you know, we are talking bedroom count, floor area cap, or what. So far, our cap on the free market units, being as high as it is in the City, plus a 60/40 bedroom count split, plus the 70/30 unit mix, we have had several AH projects that have been able to achieve that. We've never had an AH project that came in and also achieved the ultimate in the density that resembled to AH. Houben stated, but didn't they also say that we've had projects do a little bit better than the 60/40 in terms the bedroom count to get to that? Vann stated, flexibility is a great thing, but too much flexibility you can't get your client to go anywhere when what they want to do is unrealistic. It has always been my experience that the regulations that work best are those which provide some, if you 20 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 will, standard, be it a minimum standard or a maximum standard. At least you could sit down and say, here's the basics, and then, provide flexibility whether it is via special review or PUD process, or whatever, to fine-tune the project to keep with the site in question. But, to simply say, everything is set by PUD or by special review, all the setbacks and everything, makes it extremely difficult to work with a client and, invariably, what you get, is the implication of pushing the envelope on every side. You are looking at it because in your heart you want to approve it because it is producing what you want, but on the other hand, you know it is pushing the envelope in terms of FAR and setbacks, and so forth. So, to the extent that the standards can contain some in your memorandum a maximum, as a point of departure, it still can provide the flexibility to tune the project. I think it gets you closer to where you want to go with the least amount of brain damage. Vickery stated, on Sunny's comments, I think that just in general the structure of this Exhibit here, where you take out all the side yard, 5 ft. side yard, all that "stuff", I find all that is very useful, something to hang onto. The reason, for example, on Langley's, that it didn't go through the PUD process, is because it says PUD has to have a minimum of 27,000 ft. to go through the PUD process, and I think opening up the AH in smaller sites with a PUD option is good, but I think having some of these kind of very clear, sort of perimeters and standards are also advantageous as a starting point, so it is not a total free-for-all. Lamont stated, but why can't you, for example, if you're going to re-zone a parcel in the R6 Zone District where there is a minimum side yard setback with a total side-yard setback, why can't that, then, be your point of departure. Vann stated, that's a good idea. The minimum standards or the maximum standards shall be those of the underlying zone district. Lamont stated, yeh, that's what we are saying, including, but not limited to, neighborhood compatiability and adjacent zone district regulations. There was some discussion at random regarding Lamont's statements and the comments were affirmative. 21 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Hooney stated, I think, philosophically, we are getting back to an idea of someone coming in and saying, this is what my needs are, how can I achieve this on this piece of property, and we have this, plus this, equals this. We're not really saying to people, come in and get a piece of property that you can maximize, and then, see what you can do with it to get the most out of it in some kind of speculative development. I think, philosophically, we're opening up a formula that does have avenues for people to achieve everything they really need, if they have those needs, because they can identify them, we can balance it out, and we can, basically, make it work. Economically, in the AH Zone, we can see how it can work, there's enough flexibility to do it. But for someone to say, you know, where's the piece of property that I can get the most out of by building the most, or by building the least on it, this is confusing. Houben stated, well, here's a twist. How about, you know how we ususally go; there's a maximum, if we will give you a certain amount of whatever, and by special review you can increase that. How about if we say, we give you a maximum, and by special review, you can reduce that. So, by special review, if you really want to go below the tracking with a 30/30/40 and you want to go back to the old standards that we have in place now, the bedroom count, it would have to be by special review, and somehow prove that, in fact, these homes that are being built, are not going to be used to the maximum as far as their bedroom count is concerned. It's just an idea. Garton stated, Cindy, I think what we have done now is covered a. and b., right, and we better jump now to d. Resident Occupied Units. I'm leaving it up the Commissioners and City Council, when they are ready. Lamont stated, I think what you all have said is that we want to have some level of limitations on the free market homes. We may want to consider a different limitation in the City versus the County, and that we, staff, need to analyze this and make sure that whatever formula we are putting out there, works, to a certain degree, and isn't so onerous that one is not able to create a project. Garton stated, that's pretty compatiable for both, the way they have been working, anyway, right? 22 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Caskey stated, the thing that still hangs out there is the fact that what Cindy said, is true, that we have based the AACP and a lot of other things on the bedroom counts over the years. At one time they were based on it for one assumption in the 1970s, later, say in the AACP, we've been using it in another way because it tells us in the population count, what are the needs of the community to provide for that population. But, what Sunny is pointing out again, is also true, and that is, it doesn't work, because it doesn't tell us, it doesn't give us a true count, it doesn't give us the worst case. Garton stated, but, it is the best that we can go on. It is what we use, it is what the census uses, it is what ACRA uses. Caskey stated, I don't think it's the best we can go on, I just don't know what the best is. Garton stated, it might be square footage within the City, then, and we'll stay with the bedroom limitation in the County. I mean, we can sit here and wonder how many people live in a house forever and ever. The U. S. Census uses bedrooms. Krawzoff stated, we can limit its sewage pipe. Garton stated, right. That's what the U. S. Census does, and you know how bad the census is, we all know that. Caskey stated, that's what I mean, and we're using the same method. I know it will come up again, and we've talked for years about trying to come up with a better way. I think you all have come up with a better way in the City; I don't think we have in the County. We use that bedroom count and our special review, and a lot of years of experience on the Planning & Zoning Commission, to allow a house that had, what was it, 26 bathrooms, and 15 bedrooms, is that what it came up to? I mean, that's the kind of thing our special review has given us in the past. That's really scary, and that told us the worst case, probably, of the numbers of people in the house. I just want it raised again, as an issue, and I know the Commissioners will raise it again. Houben stated, we're not going to deal with the resolution of that here today. We'll have all the comments and we can definitely give those before the Board and the Council. There will have to be another debate, at another time, just so that they know that you 23 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 have passed it on to their table. That's all that I'm concerned about, right now. Vickery stated, can I ask one question? Do you have any indication that the current ratio of bedrooms isn't working, for some reason? Houben stated, no, that's not the point. (At this point, the tape had to be changed and the comments, therefore, were not recorded. The clerk apologizes.) Hooney stated, let me make one last comment, I think it is an interesting point about the sewage size. Where is there a method that is going to allow us to know that we, basically, have a balance. Krawzoff stated, the reason I raised that is because, this goes back to Snowmass. If you want to know how many people are in Snowmass, you don't go to SPA, because their numbers are "screwed up", you don't go to the Ski Company, for the same reason, but you can find out how much sewage is processing and it is pretty reliable. Houben stated, I want to point out that the reason RO works the way it does right now in terms of the criteria. The Board of County Commissioners and the City Council went through all the criteria and really did fight really hard to come up with a program for RO, and I hesitate to make any major changes in this just because they gave it to us, we played with it for a long time, and we sent it back to their table. If there is anything "glaring" here that you may want to change, let's talk about it. Tolen stated, we did find out one thing here, there's under Category Housing, a regulation that says if you live on the unit, you cannot own an approved unit elsewhere in the valley. That, we thought, was supposed to be in here as well, but it is actually not. Garton stated, Item 7, page 8, second homes owned within the Roaring Ford Valley may be under contract. What is that all about? Tolen answered, that's a gesture towards that regulation, which is, that if you own a second home, other than the RO unit, you've got to sell it, but there's no place in here where it really says that. 24 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Houben stated, so, revise ~7 to really say what we are doing. Garton stated, in Item 5, on page 7, why did you feel the need to put in there about the basement being developed by the developer or by the homeowner, there is a difference there, and why is that in there? Tolen stated, a lot of that happened in discussion between the City Council and the County Commissioners, who were talking about how to construct this size. I don't know, I don't know how that got in here. Lamont stated, I think the idea was that if someone bought a parcel as an RO, they were building a home, then, if they made the choice to finish their basement, that was their choice to finish the basement. But, we didn't want the developer finishing the basement and "jacking" up the cost of the RO. So, the feeling was is that some people needed a basement, some people did not need a basement, and then, it was their choice, and they could easily finish the basement themselves. Guthrie stated, and kept the square footage the same. It would seem like to me, if you're going to sell it unfinished, we give somebody credit, or exempt for more, if it's unfinished and they are going to finish it themselves. Haybe, I just don't understand where they are going with it. Lamont stated, this number 5 was a heavy discussion. Vickery asked, why did they restrict the size of the basement? Tolen answered, the overall idea was to restrict the size of the room in order to restrict its market value, and one of the believes of the City Council and the BOCC was that that had to include some restriction on it, the space in the basement, which is otherwise often not counted. So, it is a number that they came up with. Harper stated, this is a crazy one, but on number #6. Will there be any special review, or something? For instance, say, my husband died tomorrow, I haven't worked in Pitkin County in thirteen years, does that mean I couldn't buy an RO residence? 25 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Tolen answered, that's really between a staff decision and a special review. We look at the qualification of the household, if you have been part of a working household. Caskey stated, I bet you, with the rest of the women in Aspen right behind you, you would. Krawzoff stated, Suzanne, it may not be strictly a feminist issue. Garton stated, this is why there is a Housing Board for special circumstances. We don't have to put that kind of thing into the language. Harper stated, I just wanted to make sure that there is something within the perimeters of the Housing Board. Tolen stated, let me clear this, right now, it is not subject to special review, you asked that it be subject to special review, it is not. So, right now, the only thing we could do is make a staff judgement call on that, you meet this guideline, or you don't meet the guideline. Then, that would be subject to other people saying, well, I need it too, even though they may not. So, I would prefer to have it subject to special review, I prefer to have the Housing Board or a committee look at it and say, in this case, it's O.K. Right now, we don't have it. Houben stated, so, you're saying, that what you would like to do is to have the recommendation from P&Z go to the Board and Council, saying ~6 is subject to discussion. Krawzoff stated, I would go luther than that and suggest that #8 be classified that way, as well. If you take, for example, some of the local professionals, this means, if they lived in the valley, they may have lived here for twenty years, but if they took a contract in the last three years that generated significant income for them; in Eagle County, there's an example. Guthrie stated, you pay your taxes here, that qualifies you. Krawzoff stated, I think you are more interested in where they spent the money, than where they earned it, frankly, but I think 26 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 this is going to cover 95% of your cases, but the special review, in those cases, would allow for those people who have unique circumstances. If they are an artist and they sold their work out of state, it all went to New York, but they have been living here. I don't think you want to say that that person is not eligible. Guthrie stated, I'm reading it a whole lot differently, if I sell my services in California, but I'm paying Colorado State Income Tax, I qualify. Krawzoff stated, it earns and sold are different. The trouble I have with special review is exactly what we are going through, right now. I have a different interpretation of "earned", primarily, in Pitkin County. You can't tell me it's been black and white in the last few years, it's been anything but. So, the trouble with special review is it's up to him one day, and up to her the next. And, that's where we are going to get into trouble. Houben stated, the idea behind a guideline on affordable housing not only as it necessarily relates to Pitkin County, but if you look at major cities, how they design it, it's because what happened, if people like policemen, firemen, were working for the city government, and so forth, could not get housing in the area that they worked in. What you are talking about here, is the same thing; you want to be giving housing to people that are working in the area, not necessarily people who want to live in the area, can't afford it, and they are going out and selling their wares somewhere else. Krawzoff stated, not exactly, we are also trying to preserve the cultural diversity that we have here. Caskey stated, but you know, there are cases where, it seems to me at one point there was someone on the City Board who was talking about the fact that he was involved significantly. (Referring to Roger Hunt.) In another state, and it is very clear, that Roger has been extremely committed to this community, in fact, because of that discussion that they started to add something about community volunteer hours, or that sort of thing, as a qualification. There's another case of a woman, a good friend of mine, who has lived here for sixteen years, who has worked as a ski instructor, who has owned a flower business, who has been a caretaker in one of the really big homes here, who now is a free lance photographer, 27 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 and who earns a major part of her income working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency or Administration, or whatever it is called. She has been here for the major part of the sixteen years, but she works with disaster work all over the country. So, while her paycheck is mailed from the Denver office, she can't say that she earned it in Pitkin County, but this is home to her, and she is one of the kinds of characters that all of us would want to have here. Tripodi stated, I don't understand how that is any different than a second home owner who considers Aspen his home, and is only here four months a year. It is just because this person is wealthy and this person isn't. Caskey stated, no, it's not, because she has lived here for sixteen years. There was discussion at random and Tripodi added, I doesn't matter to me, anyway, but I know that there are at least three or four "guys" that are in my age group, definitely not in my income bracket, but they are here, maybe, a total of two or three months; they consider Aspen their primary home, and they travel all over the country; they get on planes, I'd say, 300 days a year, and they consider Aspen their home. Now, are those "guys" considered in the RO? Well, according to this, well, if we change it, yes, they are, and they are never here and they are no different from your friend. There's your friend and then, there's people that I know that, this is their home, and this is where they pay their bills, but they are not here. Tygre stated, I think one of the purposes of having this special review is to have people other than P&Z, make these decisions. I am not just joking about that; the people who are on the Housing Board will find that they are going to have to establish a certain set of guidelines, whether it takes the form of the menu, or optional choices, or whatever. I think they will have to do that just because they will be challenged by people, and they are going to have to come up some kind of sets on ways to interpret this. I think that we can recommend that 6 & 7, or 7 & 8, rather, whichever, maybe all three of them, can be subject to special review by the Housing Authority and we can leave it up to the Housing Authority to establish criteria that will enable them to make this decision and the criteria should be published way up 28 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 front, so you don't have this, sort of after the fact, challenge, and let them do their job. Garton stated, I feel, David, something that was recommended in here by staff, is what used to happen, was that people had to pre- qualify before there's ever a lottery, because I think what is happening to all of you is there's lottery, and then, their qualifications are checked. Guthrie stated, a comment and a question. The way I understood one can establish a primary residence in this stated, you have to live, phsically, in the spot for 7 months. I disagree. Ail lots/units must be owned by an individual, so I can't live in sin and own one of these lots, is that what I am interpreting? Tolen answered, no. You can't own a corporation or a partnership. Guthrie stated, that's not what it is reading to me. Ail lots/units must be owned by an individual, that doesn't say, all lots/units can't be owned by a corporation. I understood the concept, but I wanted to clarify. Hooney stated, if these are adopted, does that retro-fit all the existing ROs that are in the County? Tolen answered, no. For instance, the Airport Business Center has regulations that would be different than this, and is, actually, more general and less restrictive. The same as Smuggler Hobile Home Park, those regulations would be less restrictive. The most recently approved RO units at Williams Ranch, are more restrictive than this. Guthrie asked, can you clarify for me about, I'm hearing people say things about leaves of absence, these RO unit and AH units, I don't know the right answer. Can people travel, can they take time off, can they rent it, etc? Tolen answered, these would fall under the normal housing guidelines and the deed restrictions which say, you can leave your unit for a specified period of time, that's basically in there, if you demonstrate legitimate reasons for leaving and a clear intention to return. So, what we would say, if you go on sabbatical for a year, and you are a teacher or you are traveling 29 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 for a year, under a specific contract, you are contracted to come back, and intend to come back, the Housing Board will grant a leave of absence. If you want to leave to go to New York, to see how much you like living in New York, and want to live in New York for a year, but you want to be able to come back, we won't grant that leave of absence. Guthrie stated, so, the general Housing Authority guidelines supercede. Tolen stated, they will cover that. Vickery stated, I just have a question for Dave. It talks a little bit about Category 5. What would differentiate Category 5 from an RO? Tolen answered, during the discussion, it came down to some people being comfortable with what is presented here as an RO unit, and some people wanting a more restrictive RO unit, which had an initial price cap, and that was being called Category 5. Since that discussion had happened, we were asked, do we actually need a Category 5, as well as the RO? In going back and looking at it, it is such a very small slice of the economic distribution here, that the only thing that would make sense is to slightly increase the one that's on Category 4 and not create a whole new category to cover 1 or 2% of the population. Vickery asked, has there been any talk about just having a resident free market category? Tolen answered, it did happen. Garton stated, now then, let's move to Should Required Category Units in the AH Zone be "Developer's Choice", or sold through the Housing Office Lottery and Priority System, that's page 10. Tolen stated, I want to present the case for this, for Developer's Choice, and this is from the Housing Board. The most compelling reason to permit this, is to encourage local people to become involved in assisting and solving our housing problems, which in the past couple of years, and in the future, we think it is going to be a bigger part of the AH Zone District. Whether that's John HcBride, who owns a piece of land and who has the ability to do 30 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 a development project, but really has some other objectives in mind, serving long-time locals that he's familiar with, or the group of people who get together. When we discussed it seemed that Council was somewhat more comfortable with Developer's Choice, but AACP wanted at least some limit on it, it knew that the reason for it was going to be that that was actually going to happen, that there was a group of people who were basically self-selected or coming into it for more than simply profit, and that led us to the discussion that Developer's Choice could be approved by special review by the Board of County Commissioners or it was showns that it was the intention of the developers of the project, as long-term community members, become in solving the problems. Houben stated, my sense of that is, that staff didn't have a problem with Developer's Choice if Developer's Choice moved to have the same requirements for anyone else coming into it. If Developer's included an occupancy requirement, as well as included the requirement that someone lived here the standard amount of years before being able to get in, I think that everybody would be happy with Developer's Choice, if the same requirements were chosen across the board. The only problem is that the way Developer's Choice has been presented to us, was that, number one, occupancy requirements are waived for Developer's Choice and length of stay in the community was waived, and I think that defeats the purpose of supplying affordable housing in the beginning. The developers have the choice, you know, that's fine as far as I'm concerned, if they meet the standards. Tolen stated, one thought that comes to me in terms of that is, having dealt during the last four years with the tuitions of priority, we had to defend giving priority for maximum occupancy and dependent priorities, and that was really controversial during the last year. We have also had to defend the priority for the people who have been here four years or longer. At one level, those are in conflict with the more you serve long-term locals, the less you are going to be able to serve maximum occupancy, because native long-term locals are not being served because of the occupancy requirements. Haybe, what I would suggest is that the developers have to meet one or the other of those, either they serve long-term locals; like Williams Ranch did, they came in and said we want to build three-bedroom houses for people who have lived here for twenty years, but might not have kids. 31 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Lamont stated, the only other alternative that we also discussed was that having a percentage of the units be Developer's Choice with no limits on that. Therefore, if someone pulled an architect onto the team, and the architect knew that they were going to give a unit out of that, that was a way to further the project. I think cohousing is a pretty unique project, in that, it was there from the very beginning that there is a select group of people working on the project, and therefore, they get priority. It was pretty obvious who was working on that project. Tyge stated, I think Cindy's point is really well taken. The purpose of what we are doing is to provide housing for residents, and I agree that we do have to try to make this as attractive as possible to developers, but if we are going to wind up with people who don't fulfill the requirements, who are we building this housing for? I think we have to keep the priority as the number one thing. I don't think it would be all that objectionable to a long-term local to have people who qualified. I would think certainly, a person like John HcBride, would be just as happy to have people that he didn't necessarily know personally, but who had been in the community for a long time and had worked here. I don't think necessarily that should necessarily dissuade a long-term local from getting into this kind of a project. Tolen stated, if we put both priorities in place, for John HcBride's project; he's proposing a loss. Our priority would be to people who have lived here four years or longer, who have at least one dependent in their household, and he would be required to follow that priority. Now, his intention probably is, and is, as he has expressed it, to serve long-term locals, yes, but to provide lots to a mix of people, including families, couples, and single people, who might build very small houses, very economically. So, I want to be sure that we are comfortable with what he's talking about given the set of regulations that we are talking about. Tripodi stated, I don't know about David, but I don't have any dependents, and so, there's been a huge lot of houses that have been put on the market that I can't qualify for. Tolen stated, one of the chief things that we said in proposing that requirement to the community; we had a number of community meetings where we said, we really think we need a dependent priority for units that are publicly subsidized that are part of 32 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 mitigation. We said, but your relief, you singles, and couples and long-term locals who don't have children, but would like to get a single-family home, your relief from that is getting involved in private sector developments. So, we are concerned about taking that relief away from them and still being able to defend that dependent priority. Garton stated, and I also know that John would like to be able to see people, a single person, buy a starter home. The idea he is going to get married and have a family, or she. Tolen stated, with our current priorities, if you require developers to follow them, he wouldn't be able to do that. Caskey stated, I just got confused there, are you saying that we are going to come up with a priority that says that unless you have a dependent or you promise to in the future, that you can't get housing? Tolen stated, right now, if we are marketing a three-bedroom unit, and a family with a child bids on that unit, they get priority over the couple or a single person. That doesn't mean you can't get it, I mean, Hichael Kensley got a house in a subdivision because nobody else would bid on it, but as in the case of Juanstreet, for 5 units, we had 52 bids from families with children, they get the first shot at it. Right now, that applies to publicly subsidized units, but it doesn't, right now, apply to these private AH projects. Caskey stated, but if we are trying to come up with balanced community, you ought to be able to be a man who is widowed, and has had a vasectomy, a woman who is menopausal, you ought to be able to be 75 years old, a man who has chosen to be single. Garton stated, but Suzanne, within the public sector, the list is so long, they have to have the bedrooms filled up. I mean, I would love to have a two-bedroom, but I can't. Caskey stated, so, don't go build a house that has three-bedrooms. Garton stated, but I might be able through a developer, if we are going to allow this option, that's what David is saying, maybe, we should ease up a little, and with the private development of 33 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 affordable housing, allow me to move out of the black hole of public housing, and go for a lot, and I think you owe that to the taxpayer for publicly subsidized, that you've got to have the most people in there. Tygre stated, but I think that somebody's been talking about the fact that a lot of these may be challenged because, theoretically, you want maximum occupancy because you want maximum occupancy given to workers in the community, which is not true of children, and so you are leaving yourself open to challenges on those priorities. I have come to agree with you, that perhaps, one or the other, will work better for a private developer, because I think, as more and more people are competing for fewer and fewer units, you are going to start seeing challenges to some of the priorities until, or unless, you can provide some kind of indication, the community voted, and everybody said, this should be the priority. I think we need to be able to be more flexible, so I would go along with your proposal. Houben stated, you know what, I have been thinking about the case, with one or the other, I know a "guy" in town who bought a business and brought all his friends out here to work in the business, so, he built five one-bedroom units, so he could then meet the applicancy requirements, but bring in people that never lived here, it's one of those things, so, I'm almost in favor more of just saying, it's the amount of time spent in the community. Harper stated, I think the time or residency has to remain a requirement, regardless. Guthrie stated, I argued for months because I think four years, you can be blind drunk for four years in this town, and I have asked the Housing Authority time and time again to make it ten years. Tolen stated, it went to the Council and to BOCC and they said it's been somewhere between four and six years, pretty much, forever, and we could make it longer, but at the point where we start making it longer, we are really starting to make judgement calls about whether four years was long enough or not, and whether ten years was long enough. Guthrie stated, my point is though, that four years is not even an onerous requirement, that's just given, because somebody can 34 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COHHISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 portray their commitment to this town in one second, but that's the reality, there just too many people that move here. Four years is what you "guys" have decided, that's got to stay, but I really think in order to serve people, to give somebody an incentive to build anything, I'm not going to just provide housing, I want to provide housing for people that I want to provide housing for, and so, I'll give a little on that, and then, I want to build or sell a single person a three-bedroom, if I so choose. Krawzoff stated, wait a minute, isn't the incentive the free market unit that you are building, as well. Guthrie stated, well, in that particular case, there are no free market units, I don't know about that. Tolen stated, there are two kinds of AH projects; one is purely a speculative project, and those "guys" don't enter into this discussion, and the second type of AH project are those that are undertaken by long-term members of the community who want to get involved in solving housing issues, and they are not motivated by profit, developers are purely motivated by profit, they are motivated by desire to do something in the community that solves their problem and the problem that their friends have. That's the kind of AH project that we are talking about here. Houben stated, in that scenerio the "guy" that wants to help the community, or sees his friend living downvalley, or sees the relation of the community, that person probably has at least a four year commitment in this community. Mooney stated, I generally think the resident requirement, even if you give them a choice, whether or not they want to do it, is important, but I think it brings up another point. We, just a little while ago, heard a preliminary idea about the City can do a subsidized AH project, and one of the examples that they gave was that they needed a certain person, who is skilled personnel, who could work on high tension wires, and they didn't have anyone in the City who could qualify for that. They had to go to Boulder and hire somebody because of their career qualifications and bring them here. I can see how that would work, so, maybe, there's a way to have a certain ability to have a rental unit for a certain amount of time for someone who doesn't qualify for the residence time frame, but does have some way to show a career orientation to the 35 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 community. They can rent some place for a short amount of time to see if they are going to live here and then, they have to buy. Instead of selling some unit to somebody whom the City was recruiting to come here to do a special job. Krawzoff stated, I'm very concerned about just importing specialists, because I hear that in terms of, well, now we don't have enough teachers, so now we're going to do it straight, you've got to be a teacher, and now you've got to be a fireman. Lamont stated, I think the point that David is making, is if an employer comes to us and says, I want to build a 100% deed restricted project for my employees, we would probably want to be in a position to allow them to do that, even though their employees don't meet our residency priorities. Krawzoff stated, I still don't understand why, because it is hard for me to fathom almost any job qualification, that you could not either find someone that was local or train them, rather than importing people. Lamont stated, someone who is very single came in to us and said, I want to build housing for my employees, and it is not going to cost the City a dime, and he built three units that were fully deed retricted units, they weren't even RO units, they were fully deed restricted units, and we gave him the ability to put his employees in there. If he didn't have enough employees to fill the units, then, he would have had to go to the pool. Caskey asked, what happens if he doesn't like one of those "guys" next week, and he fires him, what happens to that person's housing? Tolen stated, well, in Barry's case, he has the first rate of refusal on the unit, and when they sell the unit, he gets to buy it back. Caskey asked, they get to stay in the unit, as long as they can take it? Lamont stated, it is the same thing through growth management when you require someone to build an employee unit through growth management; they have the ability to put their employees in that 36 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 unit first. If they don't have employees who want the unit, or all their employees have units, then, they just can't let the unit sit vacant, they can't rent it as a free market unit, they have to go through the Housing. Houben stated, but don't you think it is true that the employees, people who are employees in the community, to be housed, we always subsidize in a lot of ways, we are giving them additional density in the community and we are giving them, in some cases, water tap fees. Tolen stated, the City is going to hire somebody to work on high tension lines, one way or another, and that person is going to have an impact on the Housing. I think we would prefer for the City to say, we will take care of it, in fact, by an affordable unit for him. Guthrie stated, David, I think the point that George is making, and which I agree with, is that we don't want to create a demand or availability for somebody to move up here from Arvada, and then, just kind of compound, and in George's words, exasperate, the problem that we have. We don't have enough space here, so, we can't create easy, free housing. I think the City ought to train one of their linemen to do high tension line work. Garton stated, I'm not going to take anymore comments, because it is 6:00 p.m., but we haven't finished this, I know. We didn't talk about AH Standards on two or more non-contiguous lots. Houben stated, about the only thing that is outstanding for us, to be able to pass AH and RO onto the Board, we can deal with Transfer of Rural/Remote Zone District at another time. But as far as having Non-Contiguous Parcels for the AH program, I think we really ought to try to extend for five minutes. Garton stated, I think, Cindy, what we can move on is to, we can move the text, can't we move that along, the City's AH code amendments. Houben stated, the AH code amendments, the question is, whether or not they should be allowed to have this non-contiguous built into it. The question is whether or not a developer who wants to come along, and this is an example; there is a piece of property in the 37 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 east end, and there's a piece of property in the west end, they want to do the same amount of housing that we are asking for, but maybe the affordable on the east end and the free market in the west end. Do we agree with allowing that to occur? There are pluses and minuses. Garton stated, I don't think it is a five minute discussion. Have you all read that, and are you familiar with the issue? Tolen stated, first of all, I think it is limited to the City, I can't think of a situation in the County or metro where this is an issue. It is an issue on lots of around 15,000 sq. ft. or smaller, where there's not really incentive to do an AH project, because what you can already get, which is one or two free market units, is about what you can get with an AH project. For example, the Bass property in East Hopkins, 15,000 sq. ft., went through a lot split and they are doing a single-family home and a duplex. A comparable AH project would then have to have at least, to be more economical to them, four free market units and have the 70% affordable units. Well, there's no way that they are going to put down on a site like that, but they might take two similar sites, and develop an AH mix. So, the only thing we are talking about is, you know, finding a way to encourage them on those particular lots. Houben stated, if we could narrow it down to that in the regulation, maybe, people could live with that, if we narrowed it down to you can agree that non-contiguous parcels development is O.K. in the case of lot center, 15,000 sq. ft., and smaller. Garton stated, concensus, especially the City? How does this sound? Tygre stated, if everybody else feels differently, then, it doesn't matter what I think. You just want to get an idea of whether you can pass this along or not. Hooney stated, initially, I think it is O.K., but I really think it has to be more specific than that. Hunt stated, more discussion, but I agree with Tim. Krawzoff stated, Sara, I ask to reinforce what you were saying, it is already 6:10 p.m., and it will take us another ten minutes to reconvene. 38 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 Lamont stated, next Tuesday, there's not a lot on your agenda, we'll discuss this again. MINUTES MOTION Buettow moved to approve the minutes of the City Planning & Zoning Commission for July 11, and July 18, 1995 as written. Hunt seconded. Vote was unanimous in favor, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 6:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Sharon M. Carrillo, Deputy City Clerk 39 JOINT CITY & COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COP~ISSIONS AUGUST 1, 1995 40