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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19960730PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30, 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Chairperson Sara Garton called the meeting to order at 4:30 p.m. with members Jasmine Tygre, Roger Hunt, Timothy Mooney, Steve Buettow, Marta Chaikovska Robert Blaich and Dave Johnston present. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Hunt said the Post Office is still in array, the City Engineer is arranging a meeting in the next two weeks with the Engineer from Denver, the Postmaster and Staff to get it corrected. Blaich said the Downtown Enhancement Pedestrian Program asked if the Planning & Zoning Commission wanted to respond to the state highway DSEIS. David Hoefer, Assistant City Attorney stated the preference of Administration would be the Commission wait, he is sure they will make a presentation when it is appropriate for your comment. Dave Michaelson, Deputy Director said he would talk with Tim Malloy and come back to the Commission. Garton asked that copies of the DSEIS be put in the Commissioners boxes. Michaelson responded he would. STAFF COMMENTS Michaelson said the next regular meeting, Tuesday August 6 is pretty lengthy and there is a special meeting on Wednesday August 7 on Lot 5, Aspen Mountain, it starts at 5:30 p.m. Garton stated that Tygre will be chairing both those meetings. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA Sy Kelly, public said he submitted a letter to the Commission asking that The Buckhorn Lodge be considered in any changes that are made for small lodges, he said he has been excluded since day one. Kelly stated they have such a small place it is not economical to have a lodge, they like others have suffered because of the large hotels in Aspen, he said a very serious problem they have is safety, they can not be there 24 hours. Garton said these text amendments are addressing the LP Zone District. PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Kelly stated he realizes that, he does not know why all small lodges can not be included. Garton responded it is the restrictions on the LP Zone District that need to be changed. Michaelson stated that The Buckhorn Lodge is zoned Commercial Lodge (CL) and the restrictions placed on them are not as severe as those on Lodge Preservation (LP), he said The Buckhorn Lodge can apply for a rezoning independent of what we are doing now, the problem is the way the mechanism is proposed it would drop into underlying zoning, Buckhorn has underlying zone, if he chose to rezone to Neighborhood Commercial, for example that avenue is open to him. Kelly said he tried rezoning a year ago and the demands placed on him as a lodge owner made it impossible, he could not make if financially work with the mitigation required. Michaelson responded in terms of use, all the Central Core (CC) uses are allowed as a permitted use in that zone district, on the first level there are uses available that are not under LP zoning. Michaelson said in terms of mitigation that is an issue that we have talked about looking at again, the text that is proposed as part of the LP problem still requires mitigation, he noted City Council had a retreat two weeks ago and one of their priorities was to revisit how we look at mitigation, that may help down the road but he can not be sure. Michaelson said he would be happy to sit down with Mr. Kelly and go over his options. Minutes MOTION: Hunt moved to adopt the minutes of July 16, 1996. Seconded by Tygre. All in favor, motion carries. CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING: Small Lodge Text Amendments Michaelson said Staff proposes that the LP zone district become an overlay and they have included affordable housing as a conditional use in response to both Planning Staff and the Housing Office's intent that if the small lodge issue can be resolved we would look at some of those for outright purchase, in addition the LP zone properties would revert to underlying zoning. Michaelson stated the uses are inclusive, they would roll over into commercial office use, single or multi family 2 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING there would not be a mix between the three, Council asked Staff if there was quantitative information, specifically from tourist accommodations to single family homes and if that conversion took place, would the impacts on the community actually decrease. Michaelson said for example, a 20 unit lodge on a 15,000 s.f. lot, zoned RMF assuming it goes into underlying zoning the conversion would allow 4 three-bedroom units, the applicant could conceivably develop 8 residential units without increasing those impacts i.e., changes opposed to growth because underlying zoning would hold them to less than eight units, Staff noted there is some residual development that could potentially be used, Staff is not suggesting in that case four additional residential units be put in a pool but that there be some mechanism to allow some lodges to expand. Michaelson stated the members of the round table wanted some opportunity for lodges that are economically viable and can expand under the underlying zoning to do so with a process similar to the change in use provisions that have been talked about for free market homes. Staff notes it is not nearly as simple to balance the conversion to commercial and office space, primarily because that deals with employee generation and we felt the time to discuss that would be during the review of each individual project so the applicant could make a case and staff could analyze in a more precise fashion how many employees could be generated. Michaelson said the most significant change in the language will provide P&Z the opportunity to actually look at specific criteria that staff would use to provide P&Z with a recommendation, if they are in fact mitigating their impacts. Michaelson stated he knows several members of the Commission were in favor of the word minimal, in terms of minimal impacts, he struggled with the word minimal because when an applicant comes to him with an application and asks what does minimal mean, his only response is ~less than the lot and somewhere greater than zero", it is a struggle. Michaelson stated in terms of reviewing projects within the city with public facilities, it is not a minimal impact but P&Z will determine that adequate public facilities exist or will be provided, the AACP has language that recognizes the small lodges are an important part of the community, he thinks the way to do that is a ~Where as" within the ordinance as opposed to going back and amending portions of the AACP, hopefully this mechanism will allow lodges that can not compete to go into other uses and at the same time provide a pool for other lodge expansion that will keep the bed base. Staff has been very sensitive to the idea that we do not want to see a land rush and a bunch of lodges go out at once, a mechanism has been included to control the total number of units that would be allowed to convert during a year and the overall rate of that conversion be controlled. Michaelson said the applicant is concerned that the pool staff has suggested, particularly in reference to residential development is too low, it does not allow enough lodges who may not be able to compete or for one reason or another want to convert, to do so, Staff indicated a possible percentage difference, the best number he has seen for total pillows in town is around 9000, in addition he has seen information that 3 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING indicates there may be up to 3000 other pillows that are rented through single family and second homes, we have also included the s.f. for commercial, he assumed, for sake of discussion the 4000 s.f. of commercial expansion that is allowed is a reasonable threshold particularly when you consider that we have seen no commercial expansion, in terms of lodge expansion Staff is suggesting we use the same conversion pool/factor presented to keep a level playing field, he suggested a lottery system whereby each lodge interested in conversion would enter into a lottery and be selected, separate lottery's would be held for free market conversion expansion and commercial office because they are tied together, the number of potential lodge expansion units are driven by how many free market homes are built, that is what that conversion formula is banked on 2.5 tourist accommodations to one free market unit. Michaelson stated that Kaufman was concerned because the last thing we want is people speculating with these units, in other words going through the pool to bank units and either take them out of the market or collect them for future allocations, Kaufman proposed that as soon as a lodge pulls through that lottery would have to abandon lodge use and have a building permit within eighteen months. Gideon Kaufman, representing Small Lodges said the definition of lodges talks about combined utilities, they do not think it is appropriate to require combined utilities, when a lodge is renovated it may be more efficient to have independent utilities, some of a building may be electric and the rest gas, ect... Garton asked staff if that was in the code language. Michaelson stated it came out of the old lodge definition. Kaufman responded that it is an artificial barrier to the older lodges or those who want to renovate, does that mean they would build the new lodge units and make them as inefficient as the old lodge units. Hunt said he thinks combined utilities typically, is a lodge has one electric meter for the entire system, one water meter for the system. Kaufman stated he thinks they should have the flexibility to separately meter, he does not see a need to combine utilities. Hunt stated that the idea was units that condominiumized would tend towards individual utility services. Garton said there are lodge buildings that are separate and they don't have combined utilities so why not clean up the code to reflect what is happening. 4 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Kaufman said there are three or four condominiumized lodges, zoned LP that have separate utilities. Kaufman agrees with the changes that Michaelson proposed in terms of change in use, he has come up with some good modifications to minimal, for the health of the small lodges some of these lodge units need to go out, only the small lodges have totally remained unchanged for 25 years between the nonconforming status where they were not allowed to do anything with their lodges and the LP that said they could only be lodges, so we have some lodges that for the health of the community are buildings 40 years old and don't make economic or structural sense, the problem with the limited number the planning staff is proposing is, if you take two lodges for example, The Brass Bed is a shell that has been there for 8 years and has not provided any lodging in the community and The Fireside that has chosen to operate two or three months of the year because given its configuration makes more sense than operating full time, if we take just these two, we have used up half of what the planning staff is proposing therefore, there isn't the ability for there to be any real change. Kaufman stated both of these ought to be four or five year programs in which we extend out the 172 units and the 4000 feet, the reason they support the 18 month and 5 years is they did not want to get into a situation where people get into the lottery and think if they win they can turn around and sell their lodge with this bonus and nobody does anything with it, they wanted to put a commitment on people if they do choose to sit in the lottery there will be an 18 month period in which they will have to pull their permit, cease the use of a lodge and if they don't, not only does it go back in the pool, but they will not be able to compete for another 5 years. Tygre asked about the process for allocations it says, "each lodge interested in conversion or expansion and selected in the pool would be allowed to go through the change in use process", does this mean they apply to the pool before going through a change in use. Michaelson responded yes that is how P&Z selects which lodges would be able to go through change in use, if you did not have a lottery every single lodge could come to P&Z in a change in use process and it would be first come first serve, you wouldn't have any way to track how many units are going out the door. Tygre said her concern is if this will be selected by lot, as a lottery would indicate isn't it possible that some of the lodges that would not be selected would have a better project and we wouldn't even get to see it as a change in use because there were not enough lottery numbers available for them, maybe it would make more sense to have them apply for the change in use first, maybe some of the applicants would not have projects P&Z thought were worthy and then they wouldn't necessarily contend for the lottery. 5 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING Michaelson stated then it would be more of a competition than a lottery. Tygre stated that it seemed to her that as a community benefit it would be better to have those lodges that already had an indication their change in use was acceptable or desirable be allowed to compete and somebody with a marginal project wouldn't take a lottery space away from a project that was better and we would have an appropriate mechanism for the two year "sunset clause" review. Michaelson responded that he put two years on it because no one has ever done what we have with LP zoning therefore no one has ever done what we are trying to do in dealing with those issues, he was very concerned about the rate getting to high right off the bat, at any time City Council can say this is not working like we thought it would, that could be 6 month or 6 years, he is not locked into two years. Tygre said she thinks that is good and needs to be incorporated into the wording. Tygre complimented Michaelson on the language drafted to substitute for minimal, limited, ect.., it is very specific and thinks it is excellent. Garton agrees that the time limit is not so important it is the rate, she asked Kaufman what rate he is looking at. Kaufman responded his concern is the 172 units and that can be divided over 5 years as opposed to 2 years, he said he does not have as much of a problem with the natural process as he does with the artificial process, the natural process is we discover problems with it, we bring them up and deal with them, a 2 year sunset is an artificial process and is such a limited time chances are we may not know the affects of this. Garton said the residual development left after conversion to free market homes, could go to the lodge pool. Michaelson responded that would be the lodge pool. Garton stated they would not go to more free market homes. Michaelson responded he did not think it should, he was convinced a very important component of this is allowing lodges to expand, the small lodges provide a certain segment of visitors the opportunity to still come to Aspen. Garton asked about lodge expansion, the 11 units. Michaelson said he was using that as a baseline for what GMQS allows through competition. Blaich said assuming today most of the lodges are independently owned, is it conceivable that a number of lodges could come on the market and one owner for PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30~ 1996 SPECIAL MEETING example, the Ski Co. could buy them up to provide lodging in the community, is there anything in the language that prohibits it. Michaelson said there was not. Garton asked if there was anything wrong with that. Blaich stated that he is not sure, it could be wrong if they started to trade it for other rights. Kaufman responded it would be a change in use meaning they would have to come forward, if you are worried about a small lodge becoming a 100 unit lodges or combined together for that, it seems to him that would not comply with the AACP. Blaich responded he was thinking more of the prices being raised to a level that the would eliminate visitors that could only afford to stay at a small lodge. Garton responded the change in use would kick in. There were no public comments'. Garton stated that mitigation is something that does have to be looked at on a case by case basis, she would hate to see it put in black and white, it doesn't work for what we are trying to do. Michaelson said that is why we built it like we have, we recognize that there are differences depending on what they convert to and we should have a handle on that, conversion to commercial and office brings up a scope of issues that go beyond a lodge to a free market. Kaufman responded he does not have a problem with that as long as the playing field is even for residential and office, they should get the same credit that a residential lodge conversion gets in terms of what was there. Michaelson stated that he and the county planning staff have confidence in the residential conversion factors, there is no equivalent factor for commercial and office and that is why the language says they will come before P&Z and discuss the community impacts. MOTION: Hunt moved to recommend the approval of the proposed amendments to City Council with the following changes: 1) Removal of combined utilities. 2) The rate will remain the same. 3) Removal of the two year sunset clause. 7 PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JULY 30, 1996 SPECIAL MEETING 4) 14 units per year. Seconded by Chaikovska. All in favor, motion carries. Oarton congratulated Dave Michaelson £or the work he did on small lodges. Kau£man stated that he did a great job and he appreciated him working with them. ADU Regulation Amendments - Worksession The worksession was recorded, minutes were not transcribed. Meeting adjourned. Amy G. Schmid, Deputy Clerk Minutes .................................................................................................................. 2 Small Lodge Text Amendments ............................................................................. 2 ADU Regulation Amendments - Worksession ....................................................... 8