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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19880202 "' , II RECORD OF PROCBBDINGS PLANNING AND ZONING FBBRUARY 2. 1988 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 5:00 pm. ROLL CALL Answering roll call were Welton Anderson, Jasmine Tygre, Roger Hunt and Ramona Markalunas. Jim Colombo arrived late. Michael Herron, Mari Peyton and David White were excused. COMMISSIONER'S COMMBNTS Welton asked Board members if they would like to start meetings at 4:00 or 4:30. It was decided to wait till next meeting when more members would be present before voting on this. STAFF COMMENTS There were none. LINDNER STREAM MARGIN REVIEW Cindy Houben: This request is to extend a patio on the north side toward the river and add a second floor to the existing house. Their property line does not go all the way down to the stream and therefore does not effect the trail along the river. They agree to the conditions we have requested. MOTION Jasmine: I recommend approval of the Lindner stream margin review subject to conditions 1 and 2 in the Planning Office memo dated February 2, 1988. (Attached in records) Ramona seconded the motion with all in favor. 700 BAST HYMAN RESIDBNTIAL GMP AMENDMBNT steve: There are two aspects to this. One is to modify the staircase rather than do what is shown. They would rather have a straight staircase gOing directly from the western entrance. The other modification is to change some site amenities that had been presented in the application where they had benches, bike racks and tree grates. They want instead to do either on-site landscaping or contribute money to the City for the installation of similar type landscaping where it would benefit the community. In neighborhood compatibility it received 2.5 points. In site design it received 3 points and in greenspace it received 2.1 points. In the area of these 2 modifications that are proposed the application received high points in the 1986 residential GMP scoring. PZM2.2.88 staff finds that both of their requests are acceptable. We think that there is at least a tradeoff in the re-design of the staircase. That puts some additional greenspace on the western side. With regard to the site amenities, because of the ability to contribute, we think that that offsets the point allocations and that the idea for the City to accept $1,100 to the Parks Program for the purpose of installing bicycle racks and planter box at the entrance of the Aspen Ice Garden is acceptable. We think that that would be acceptable and recommend approval for a confirmation of the original score subject to the proposed modifications. Jasmine: I don't think there is a consistency here. have more lands capable use for open space, I don't justification for not having the street furniture. steve: The reasoning that they gave is that for a residential project to have benches are not really necessary or essential to the function of the proj ect. And I don I t think the benches are necessary either. Perhaps there could be a combination of some benches and some contribution. If they see the Jasmine: I am not comfortable with cash-in-lieu of landscaping. I think we are setting a really unfortunate precedent. For example, we have gone through this whole thing--the modification, the GMP application and their showing these things that are very lovely. Whether they are useful or not, they look terrific on the plans, they get really high scores and then they come in and say "We will give you $1,100 and then forget it". I just think that this is something I would rather not encourage because once you let this applicant do it you are not going to be able to stop it and we are going to start getting cash-in-lieu of landscaping and benches. Then we are going to have to look for bench locations and, like employee housing, where are we going to put these benches? I am appalled by this staircase. The original design does break up that facade. That whole Spring Street side is really ugly. I would rather see the money spent on trying to improve that facade than putting benches by the Ice Garden. MOTION Jasmine: I would like to recommend that we don't approve any of this. I think we have a right to say "This is what you sub- mitted, you were scored very high on it and this is what we want to see built". 2 PZM2.2.88 ~unny Vann: Obviously the architecture is a very subjective lssue. The decision was made for practical considerations. We were concerned about how we were going to devise access to the rear parking garage. It became apparent it was not necessary to duplicate the sidewalk parallel to the sidewalk back to the garage itself. People could simply walk down the sidewalk to the rear of the property. So the decision was made not to put the sidewalk in and to landscape it with grass and trees was made. Once that decision was made it was no longer necessary to have a double loaded staircase. The other concern was because of the proximity of the staircase to the wrought iron fence. Once we got the actual survey, it turned out it was going to be higher than originally depicted. You would have had a solid wall of the side of that staircase right at the fence so we decided to try to soften the appearance of that staircase and turn it 90 degrees in addition to removing the superfluous sidewalk and put in landscaping. At the time it was felt that we were within the allowable design development. Now we have got new rules for what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. We are not going to say we don't want to put it in. We thought about how to compensate for taking out the benches. The Parks Department suggested putting in additional on-site landscaping. We said "Or we will contribute money for the Parks Department to use as they see fit". Steve has recommended benches off-site and other street furniture. Our preference was to install land- scaping on the site itself. We will do either one. Larry Yaw: Architecturally why we found this less attractive than what we are proposing now was--when we got the survey there was a couple feet of difference there. The real survey showed the sidewalk was 2 ft lower on this side of the site. That would have made this thing a rather barrier-like thing. We wanted it to be more friendly and secondly you see that a lot of the south and westerly sun, which you use to keep things snow-free, would have created huge shadow both on the steps and on the walking surface itself. We also understand how the Planning Office wants to administer modifications of this nature. That was not generally known or known at all nor was it in customary effect at this point. We really regard this as a small modification. We now know that any changes to GMP must go through Alan's office to get admin- istrative approval prior to going for a building permit. 3 " PZM2.2.88 Sunny: whether that is a design flaw that it is rotated 90 degrees, I think the tradeoff here in more landscaped area for the property itself and the appearance of the stairs from the street is much less monumental and much less imposing than if we were to do it the other way. Steve: If landscaping on-site is more appropriate and you are concerned about cash-in-lieu, then the Planning Office would also agree with you. It would also be appropriate to put the $1,100 into on-property landscaping. Jasmine: I made a motion that we would not approve these changes and would like to see the staircase as built. The motion died for lack of second. MOTION Ramona: I move for confirmation of the 700 East Hyman Residen- tial Application and approval of modification number 1. I recommend that the $1,100 be used on the site for landscaping. Roger: I would second the motion for discussion. We don't have to rescore the whole application but there are certainly 2 areas that this applies to. One is site design and the other is architectural design in the scoring process. I would suggest arbitrarily reducing both architectural and site design by 1 point each. I think that was a very sensitive area in the scoring. Some benches could be accommodated on the property. I would like someone to review the possibility putting benches along the Spring Street area because it appears that that would be a nice area for benches as it is the sunny side of the building. Sunny: Benches in the neighborhood did not seem to be a high priority to us. It is not like we have people commercial shopping and they are waiting for someone. And the snow gets plowed. It is going to be a grass median between the sidewalk and the street. We just thought the money could be better applied to additional landscaping. We will put trees on the property or more trees in the right-of-way. Roger: That is why we would like it reviewed. Alan: How about if the staff review with the applicant before installation of the landscaping. If we can find a successful bench location we will put it in. 4 PZM2.2.88 Roger: That would be my modification if you are interested in modifying your motion. A reduction in points on the final score on both of those aspect by 1 point. Sunny: Is that a sort of slap on the wr ist or do you bel ieve that the fact that we took out excess paving and put in more landscaping is a reduction of a site design. Roger: The access there is part of the site design. It is inevitably part of the architectural design. So, yes, it is a slap on the wrist at this point. And as long as it doesn't effect your standing as far as the allocation of the points I think that is an appropriate measure. Sunny: This is time and money and problems for us to resolve. I just want to say again for the record these were done in good faith as improvements to the site design and the quality of the project. Roger: We hear that but we have witnessed great promises from some developers. They come in and promise the moon and through this modification process all of a sudden it all ends up being a different project. Certain essential aspects get modified out. That is why I am taking this approach to it. Ramona: I will modify my motion to say that the architectural design should be lowered 1 point and the landscaping lowered 1 point. I would add that the landscaping plan will be approved by the Planning Office before it is installed. Roger then modified his second. Welton opened the public hearing for public comment. There was no public comment and Welton closed the public hearing. Roll call vote: yes. Ramona, yes, Roger, yes, Jasmine, no, Welton, RECOMMENDATION OF NEW CODB Welton opened the public hearing. Alan: We can table the zoning maps till the next meeting because it was not my intention to discuss them tonight. MOTION Roger: I move to table the adoption of the zoning maps to February 16, 1988. 5 PZM2.2.88 Jasmine seconded the motion with all in favor. The Commission members and Alan then went through the third draft of the revised Land Use Regulations. Welton then continued the public hearing to February 16, 1988. Meeting was then adjourned. Time was 7:10. Jani~ M. Clerk 6