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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19960606GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Chairperson David Guthrie called the meeting to order at 4:35 p.m. with members Sara Garton, Jasmine Tygre, Roger Hunt, Timothy Mooney, Steve Buettow, Dave Johnston, Suzanne Caskey, Jake Vickery, Kathy Tripodi and Alice Hubbard were present. Members George Krawzoff, Shellie Harper, Steve Whipple, Robert Blaich and Marta Chaikovska were not present. There were no public comments' on items not on the agenda. Continued discussion of the North Forty project Caskey disclosed that there seemed to be some confusion for both the Commission and the applicant so she spoke with Cindy Houben because there were things she wanted firmed up before this meeting, which meant contacting the applicant and telling them the questions she was hearing from the Gm Commission and the questions she had, she felt we could be more efficient if the applicant came back in with a clearer picture of where we are headed, she and Cindy contacted the applicant, John McBride and met with him, in Cindy's office to tell him the technical things she thought were ragged around the edges and needed to be cleared up before he came back today, she had a short discussion that had only to do with her concerns and what she thinks the Commissions concerns would have been, she does not know anything the Commission does not know. Cindy Houben, Staff stated that this is not technically required to be a public hearing. Tom Baker, representing the applicant stated that the apartment conversion is now out of the application, the site plan will stay the same but instead of being a mix of free market and RO it will be 100% RO, 71 Resident Occupied Lots, the 2.5 acres for CMC is a separate parcel, under separate ownership it will come in as a separate proposal, the health facility, accessory commercial, and other commercial is approximately 3.5 acres, this is a separate parcel but the zoning of this parcel will be affordable housing because the underlying zone would create a non-conformity. Baker said there is a trail system throughout and provisions for a bus stop, this is a program to GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING sell lots and he thinks that makes a difference in the flexibility and the opportunities that are provided. Houben stated that the application has so many parts to it that we will not be able to deal with everything tonight, there are two threshold issues to make this application whole so we can move on and look at the details. Houben proposes that the Commission first deal with; 1) the mechanism of including the commercial in this proposal; 2) deal with the new information of 100% RO on the project and the implications of that, to our system and our community, what we are looking for, the AACP and all the things that go along with that. Houben stated that the business aspect, the request for a portion of this property to be rezoned commercial B2, do not have to be associated with a specific neighborhood, it is an open type of commercial and because it is commercial zoning the county has three categories of growth management; 1)residential; 2)tourism/lodge and; 3) commercial; so anytime someone wants their property rezoned to a business zone district, the county policy is that we want to see what that development proposal is so we know how much commercial we are getting and what we are doing. Guthrie stated that the applicant has the option to request rezoning in association with the GMQS competition, at what time, now or at any time. Houben responded that they would have to come in once a year for growth management, it seems to her that they would want to come in at the next available opportunity, next fall because at that point they would be dealing with the infrastructure. Guthrie asked if the Commission could rezone to B2 and have it be blank, then review the uses under Special Review. Houben responded that B2 would allow the uses by right. Garton asked if the Commission could, at this time acknowledge that there are adjoining parcels that are not part of this application or scoring, and place strict uses on them to acknowledge to future commissions that they are there and what we intended to be there. Houben stated that the Commission could do that, she does not think the applicants are suggesting that the whole thing go strictly B2, there will always be some residential, accessory commercial associated. 2 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Baker asked that Houben clarify how the accessory commercial, going through special review and GMQS will work. Garton stated that Tim Malloy, Staff is asking for the AH overlay, will that fit this. Houben stated that if the AH overlay passes it will allow a certain amount of accessory commercial to be exempt from growth management, it will still have to go through special review to determine the appropriateness. Guthrie said if we will be doing a special review anyway, why not rezone to B2 with AH overlay that will give them accessory commercial that is directly related to that AH. Houben said that the Commission would be creating a B2 zone district that has not had growth management associated review for B2, the applicant will not want to be restricted by the AH overlay for the entire parcel, they may want to be exempt for the AH associated commercial, but they do not want the restriction on the B2 part. Caskey clarified that the Commission is not looking at a blank parcel, we are looking at a parcel that is going to be rezoned AH with an area designated for accessory commercial, which makes sense because there are some places we should not put homes. Houben said that if this gets commercial zoning it will come through this body. Mooney asked what the current zone is. Houben responded AFR1, one unit per 10 acres. Tripodi asked if the applicant gets what he is asking, what type of build out will this be. Houben responded that will be determined at Special Review. Rick Magill, Staff said the applicant has proposed approximately 27,000 sq.ft, of commercial in the comer and the accessory commercial, closer to the soccer field is roughly 10,000. John McBride, applicant stated that there is a strong demand for B2 in the business center area, we built the last building about 4 years ago and when the application was submitted to the Planning Department there were 28 businesses looking to move into the area. McBride said the reason it was created in that location has nothing to do with the demand or business interest, it was a land use consideration, the accessory commercial will be small and will relate to both the lots and the college. Houben stated that in this condition we should acknowledge that the County is in the process of reviewing a code amendment to adopt an AH overlay zone 3 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING district that would allow an exemption from growth management for accessory commercial. Hunt said the Special Review uses for AH in the county conflict with the prohibited uses, for example; "C) Special Review uses: #19. Uses, Activities and Facilities permitted by Special Use Permit Issued by Federal Agencies" is in opposition to "D) Prohibited Uses: #11. Essential government and Public Utility uses, Facilities and Services" and you have "Health centers" but you are denying "Medical and Dental clinics". Hunt stated that in fairness to the applicant some of these should be recognized and the list of prohibited uses may be made an exception in this application. Houben responded that some potential interpretation and conflicts have been pointed out, she feels the way to go is to have the Commission direct Staff to clean that up rather than making exceptions. Gutherie asked that Staff clean up that area of the proposed ordinance. Hunt asked if the prohibited use of places for retailing of goods where structures and business are greater than 12,000 sq.ft, of gross floor area is the total of all structures or 12,000 sq.ft, per structure. Houben responded it is per structure. Garton stated that she would like to see strong caveats placed on what we hope to see on the portion we recognize may be accessory commercial. Mooney asked what will be accessory commercial to the proposed residential that it not there now, currently there are convenient stores, liquor stores and daycare. Mooney said there are openings here for ski shops, for retail places that will be a traffic generator, people who do not live at the AABC will stop to do retail business, are we creating commercial space to compete with other areas of commercial in the community. Tripodi stated that even if there is retail that will compete, she does not think it will compete with available space in Aspen, it will compete with Glenwood, Basalt, Carbondale and she can think of a lot of things that are not at the AABC, for example a coffee shop, a bike store, secretarial services, printing shop, post office, ect... Tripodi said it may bring in people but this is in demand and she does not have a problem saying that 30,000 sq.ft, of B2 4 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING space is not over needed in this community, we lose retailers everyday downvalley. Gutherie asked Mooney if his primary concern was drawing in business vs. internally generating business. Mooney responded that is one aspect, another is that the City is looking at zoning commercial developments ~neighborhood commercial" to facilitate the people within their neighborhoods so they will not use their cars. Caskey said that we should avoid looking at what exists in the AABC now as if it will always be there because anyone could go out of business tomorrow, she feels the question this Commission will need the applicant to answer is, prove to me this is truly an accessory use, the burden rests on the applicant to prove it to the Commission. Caskey said the question is what is accessory to this project, how much is needed and what kind of uses would be there however, she does not think that we need to answer that question at this point. Baker stated that with the first iteration of %uperblock" we tried to create a zone district to keep the rent low enough to have a grocery store, over time we could lose the accessory uses to a neighborhood because the B2 businesses can out bid those, if Clark's and City Market had not been zoned ~neighborhood commercial" we probably would not have them either. Baker said they are looking at recovering the potential losses that will happen to the community side of this town by creating the accessory commercial component. Houben stated that the Commission may make that determination when that comes in, you may say it is only appropriate to zone 1.5 acres strict B2 because we need the remainder for those losses. Houben said there is nothing, currently that deed restricts those uses but when this parcel comes in for Special Review that analysis has to take place. McBride said that the B2 zone has its own rigid constraint on the amount of retail, you can have 80 sq.fl, per unit and those uses are articulated such as, restaurant, grocery store, liquor store there are not many of them, it can not get out of hand, under B2 you can not have a host of businesses and the conversion of service commercial into retail. 5 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Houben stated the intent of the Business 2 Zone District is to provide for the establishment of commercial and low intensity, non-polluting industrial uses which do not require or generate high customer traffic volumes and customary accessory uses, including high density, long term residential elements. Houben said the mixed use combination is so the people there are served, not to draw people out. Vickery said that when this was reviewed by the County P&Z there were concerns that there is a limited amount of opportunity in the County for additional B2, this is a great place for additional B2 and it may be inappropriate to have housing here because of that. Vickery stated that whether this is RO or not is irrelevant to the big picture, is it appropriate to have a little community given the adjacent commercial, the bus barn, the sewer plant and the airport, in terms of land planning, in the big picture of the county there are very few opportunities for B2 use we have seen an exodus of the small entrepreneurial businesses from our community, they along with the work force have exited down to Basalt, E1 Jebel and Carbondale. Gutherie commented that it is impossible to have entrepreneurial spirit without a place to live, personally he would rather have a place to live then figure out where to work out of rather than having a place to work out of and no place to live, Gutherie said that is slipping even faster. Garton said McBride's original discussion of the post war thinking of"big spot zoning", is right, it does not make a community, she thinks changing all of this to light industrial and B2 would be sad because then we are back into that post war thinking. Mooney said maybe there is a way to give priority to someone who is interested in renting the AH space and is interested in having a home in the AH zone. Houben stated that could tier into something else where we would have AH accessory commercial that supports the residential then the true business zone district that is wide open and then we would have the neighborhood local businesses (cottage industries). Garton said what happens if the person dissolves their business, will they have to sell their house. Houben stated that it is something to explore. Tripodi stated that she thinks it is a great idea but would require tremendous policing. 6 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Gutherie stated that there are certain B2 uses that almost need to go to AH accessory uses, there is such an overlap but what is wrong with B2 uses going to the AH accessory zone and creating more true B2. Mooney stated that it has not been defined precisely enough as to how this AH is going to be neighborhood commercial. Gutherie said that the Commission essentially qualifies whether they would be accessory through Special Review. Caskey stated that she disagreed with Vickery because he is talking about the rezoning portion of this property. Vickery responded that is why he asked when it is appropriate to discuss. Caskey said we have to know what they are asking for, that has to be settled and out of the way so we're happy with the way the condition has been written, then we go on to the next step of rezoning. Houben stated that what she hears is, lets understand the proposal in full, understand all the elements of the proposal so we can then decide if this is an appropriate rezoning, we can not ask if it is appropriate without giving it a fair shake, in terms of what is proposed. Mooney stated that what he hears from the applicant is they would like to sell lots to allow people to come in and build homes according to certain guidelines to give the opportunity for people to expand their lives and the applicant would like to have the RO cap eliminated so they become free market at a later point in time, with this philosophy he does not feel this is going to be, what he understands the AACP defines as affordable housing and the AH zone. Mooney said in the AH zone there is a progression of growing in the community and changing your housing as your life and income expands and other optimistic factors fall into place, to him someone who qualifies for this will go in and build a house exactly like they want it and then have no reason to move or play the affordable housing pyramid, he feels it is something within the ideas of AH but is not really a part of AH, it does not have category housing, it doesn't have a progression or units that will be applicable to people moving in and out. Mooney said that if the cap is removed people will not have to move, if the cap remains then it will keep people down and they will not be able to move up, are we creating one of a kind, for the rest of their lives type houses, he is not sure if that is what the AH zone in the AACP is really saying. 7 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Hunt asked for clarification of the removal or modification of the RO caps. Baker responded that they are proposing that this be RO, RO is codified any change has to go through both P&Z's, at this point it is the applicants risk. Baker stated that if McBride could convince the Commission that some modification could be an improvement to the Housing program, he may try that. Garton said that the AH program is to establish a permanent community, if these people move in and never leave that is wonderful. Gutherie stated when Mooney talked about changing geographically vs. changing on site, to him they are almost one in the same, grow by moving is not so bad, if you have places to go to. Gutherie said he understands but doesn't know if it is practical. Vickery stated that these people will need to have a $100,000 income to participate in this program, he feels that the category housing has to be included in the project, simultaneously with the RO and maybe even free market to create a stratification and to work for different income levels. Garton asked if they had to have a $100,000 income to qualify for a loan to buy the lot. Vickery stated that RO in William's Ranch sell for $300,000 - 400,000 each unit, to get one of those units you have to have $100,000 income, lets say the applicants lots are $80,000 then add the tap fees and construction to build a small house, maybe it could be done for $200,000 and he would say that is the very beginning point. Baker responded that the RO lot concept builds in a little more flexibility than Vickery eludes to, he assured McBride that he was not locking him into a sale price on his lots but assume the lot is $80,000 with infrastructure and we will build a 750 sq.fl, unit at $125 per sq.fl, then we have a unit cost of $93,750 a $173,750 package, assuming 10% down the mortgage would be $156,375 the total income would have to be at least 30% of the mortgage so it would have to be a minimum of $47,000 to support the purchase of the lot and build a two bed/one bath home. Baker said that because they are building lots and not units it gives them that flexibility. 8 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Garton asked if people would be able to purchase the lot and pay it off before they build their home. McBride responded that if they are to have a vital community they would like to encourage people to build within a reasonable amount of time, we do not want people accumulating lots. Mooney stated that there are other costs that are not figured in here taxes, association dues, then what about the 71 different builders, 71 different designs and dumpsters with debris make it a burden for those who already live out there and 3 years down the road will people still be building 700 sq.ft, houses not knowing if they will get a return on it. Baker said that he does not know if this is a good investment or that they are a good shelter. Garton responded that affordable housing is not a good investment, we all know that. Baker said they are not promoting this as an investment, it is being promoted as a way to revitalize the community and creating a place for permanent residents. Tygre stated that she loved the concept that everybody can build there own little house, a big house or little house whatever they can afford, to her that is a very important part of the community feeling, the problem she has with RO is there is no initial sale price of these lots and she would have one opinion if the lots sold for $80,000 and another if they sold for $150,000, we do not have the right under RO to insist on an initial sale price from a developer and to her that is a sticking point, the higher the price goes the more people, who may do something nice are locked out of doing this. Tygre said that is what RO is all about, even if people are not using it as an investment are we going to score this project because it is going to revitalize the community if a very small segment, the ones with the higher income can do this. Richard Seedorf, applicant said that they have given a lot of thought into what it will be like having a construction site in his backyard for "X" years, to that end they are concerned as to how they will phase this and summed out effects and economies of scale, they are looking into sets of predesigned buildings with a known construction price that can be componentized for example bathrooms and kitchens, they can add this or that for so much and then they can assemble the house as they can afford it. Seedorf stated that there are creative ways they can go about this. 9 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Caskey stated there are several things to remember when we think of why we came up with RO in the first place, we were hungry for affordable housing, having our friends living back at this end of the valley and for the sense of community that we recognize we have been losing, she is hoping, from this project that we get rid of the sterility we've added. Caskey said that we came up with RO because there was a segment of our population, that we wanted to keep and did not fit into category housing, and in regards to the comments about affordable housing not being a good financial investment, there is no one in this room that came here because it was a good investment, affordable housing is an investment in the community. McBride stated that they would like to do the construction quickly and get it over with, they do not want construction to drag out for 10 years, he does not know the costs of the lots because he does not know what his costs will be. McBride said that they have had a request to build a waterline up to Starwood, if they can not do B2 in the comer that will change things, there are so many variables and that is why they have not made detailed projections, if they do not have a lot of weird things put on them, they can do this reasonably and have a reasonable profit on it and if they can keep the price down, the project will happen in a shorter time period and take on the liveliness that Caskey talked about. McBride noted that the highest prices at the AABC have been around $200,000 so we are not looking at an existing high market out there, he hears Tygre's concerns he just can't give an answer right now. Hunt commented that there were a couple of things that shifted him to be supportive of this project, one was going to 100% RO and now that the free market is out he does not see anything that can not be worked out, he thinks it fits well within the AACP goals. The Commission will have a special meeting on Thursday June 27, 1996 at 4 p.m. Hunt and Tygre excused themselves. Vickery said if the 71 RO units were approved how would this work with other projects, would this not allow others to do smaller scale projects. Houben responded that the Commission needs to discuss this and because we are losing Commissioners maybe we should continue this at the next meeting. 10 GROWTH MANAGEMENT COMMISSION JUNE 6~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Vickery said he can see the improvement concept in getting rid of the free market units however, is there a mechanism that could have free market lots available for $120,000 and then offer RO lots for $40,000 that would be subsidized by more expensive lots. Baker responded that McBride and Knowelton have discussed that in the past but he does not know where that sits. McBride said that he looked at that and some of them will be different prices because the lot sizes vary, the problem we had when we looked at that was the price of category 4 lots had to be so low that the price of the free market had to be so high that we wouldn't have residency there. Gutherie continued the discussion of the North Forty project to June 27, 1996. Meeting adjourned at 6:45 p.m. Amy G. Schmid, Deputy City Clerk 11