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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19880927 U ~.\ r RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION SEPTEMBER 27.1988 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll Markalunas, Jim Mari Peyton was call were Jasmine Tygre, Colombo, Michael Herron excused. Roger Hunt, Ramona and Welton Anderson. COMMISSIONER'S COMMENTS Jasmine: In view of the proposed school bond issue and the possibility that if that passes that the school property is then going to no longer be used as a school. Is there an underlying zoning for R-6 so that it would just revert to R-6 if they decide to sell it? Welton: It wouldn't revert. It would have to be rezoned. It is already R-6 so there would be no rezoning necessary. Tom: One of the things we said we would do is to identify not only where potential future locations for community facilities are but what is an appropriate use for abandoned sites. I am sure the school district wants to maximize the dollar value out of that and sell it for development. But we got some input into that. Roger: I think it would be an ideal place to locate some employee housing. Jasmine: I agree. There should be a method we can go through to have somewhat of a proposed plan--to put it on the agenda as a discussion item. If it is not going to be a school what should happen there. I think that input should come from this commission as part of the decision-making process rather than being dictated to us as to what it is going to be. I think it would be very important for us to talk about it from a land use planning standpoint before anything irrevocable is done. Roger: I would like on the next agenda item take some time to walk down for a site inspection and look at where the snowmelt machine can go and what looks logical. There is a lot to be seen there that you don't see on a planning map. Welton: I would like to see if the Commission would be amenable to sending a resolution to city Council in response to the Mayor's idea that there should not be anybody on a Board or Commission that could possibly have any business before that board or commission. r As of 2 hours ago the HPC lost Augie Reno. If this idea of Bill's becomes the rule, I am gone as are several of the other members of this Board. /-- PZM9.27.88 Michael: I agree with you. I think what we should do is go along with it so long as it is applicable to city Council. Jim: If that is to be the rule then the Mayor or Michael Gassman have no right to be on Council. Welton: The Mayor couldn't even be sitting as Mayor if his wife wanted to have the alley behind her store paved. Michael: Actually they could all be bumped off for one reason or another as could everybody on this Board. Welton: You can't limit it to possibility of being involved requires an approval. only people who don't have any in business or anything that Michael: I think the Mayor has picked himself a corner with this particular position that nobody is going to be in favor of. There is no sense of us reacting to something as ridiculous as this. - Welton: His statement was that because of what has happened with HPC you shouldn't have people on boards or commissions who could possibly have any business before any Board or Commission. You can't do anything in this town without an approval. There was a period of time when I was thinking about quitting this thing because I thought I was losing work because of it. Jim: I think being on these boards really costs you more jobs than they ever get you because they would rather have you on the board judging it than they would hiring you and have to have you disqualify yourself. Being on this Board has cost me more jobs than it has ever gotten for me. Michael: I think the argument to Bill is that if you restrict the boards in the fashion that he is suggesting then you are going to lose a lot of the people who are helpful to the Boards. For instance when issues of architecture come up if it weren't for Jim and Welton, I wouldn't know the answer. And hopefully there would be somebody with some concept of the law and Roger with his concepts. And I think that is true of all of the Boards. If there is a specific individual who is violating the integrity of being on a board and going before it then that individual should probably be singled out as opposed to making it difficult for everybody else to be on a Board. In this town you would end up with nobody. ; 2 /' , PZM9.27.88 Welton: All in favor of a resolution with this format please signify. Roger: I am in favor of a resolution basically that says "Let's get together face to face and discuss this around a table". Michael: I think what Roger says makes more sense. I feel resolutions can be ignored. If you sit down and talk with them you can try and find out where their perception of a problem is and try to address it. Roger: I suggest a resolution requesting a joint meeting giving some of the reasons we have discussed. MOTION Welton: A resolution stating that we think that it is not a practical suggestion to do this kind of limitation of board and commission members in a city of this size. Explain the reasons why and request a meeting to discuss these points personally with them. Roger so moved. Michael seconded the motion with all in favor. STAFF COMMENTS Tom Baker: R&L is doing the on-site design work for the parking garage this week. One of the things we are trying to get a handle on up front is the program for the plaza. The primary goal being the, flexibility and the activity on that plaza. At some point I would like your input so that when we come to you with an application for final SPA that it is something that has been thought through with you. Some suggestions from Commissioners at this time were: Michael: Combining a beer garden with a reading room. You could also combine a beer garden with a teen center. Tom: We have got the Arts Council coming in tomorrow to give us some of their thoughts on what the possibilities for that plaza could be in terms of sculpture or a summer tent facility. We are looking for ideas a this point. We are trying to avoid having that plaza be a dead space which it very easily could be if we are not careful. Jasmine: We could have the volley ball and the sculpture garden together--a gazebo or a belvedere. 3 /' PZM9.27.88 Ramona: We could paint some pretty pictures on the back side of the Candahar building. RIO GRANDE SNOW MELT FACILITY/SPA AMENDMENT. STREAM MARGIN REVIEW CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING Welton re-opened the public hearing. Cindy Houben, Chuck Roth and the Commissioners discussed the Rio Grande snowmelt facility. MOTION Roger: I move to recommend approval of the placement of the snowmelter facility in the vicinity of the Aspen 1 property, with approval of stream margin review to stabilize and channelize the Roaring Fork River along the Rio Grande property in order to increase the flow capacity and final SPA amendment approval with conditions: #1, #3, #4 and #5 being identical to that of the Planning Office memo dated 9, 20, 1988. (attached in records) #2 being changed to read that the snowmelter shall be moved to the embankment below the impound lot and excavated into the embankment to provide the best possible sound reduction towards the critical areas of Oklahoma Flats. #3 add sub (d) indicating that relocation of the trail and e either relocation or covering of the ditch. Also a strong recommendation that the Council conduct a site inspection and see the benefits of this relocation. Jim seconded the motion. Welton asked for public comment. , Sara Platts: I have a real problem with the snowmelter in general. I understand that you are going to maybe get a couple more. The EPA just announced another study yesterday about the problem of the ozone. It looks like it is worse than it was thought to be. I also have problems with the noise. I just really question whether or not this way makes energy sense and I would ask that if you have future funding and other ways to do this that you would use solar power or some other way. Kent Reid: I am director of the Aspen Theatre Company. I am here representing my theatre company also. I polled Jeffrey Bently on this as the director of the Ballet Company and also the 4 PZM9.27.88 director of the museum and members of the Aspen Arts Council. Because we all have an interest in the property down there--the snowmelt property in the comprehensive plan being developed as arts usage. I just want to voice our acclamation for support of the fact that you suggested it to be over by the impound lot. We are afraid that once the deal is struck, one snowmelter gets on that property--and they are talking about 3--then there will be a gradual encroachment upon that whole area and it will turn into some kind of small industrial park to melt snow. I know that the museum is interested in their input on that particular piece of property, if it does happen, having a sculpture garden. We are interested in having our tent down there. The ballet would like to do some fabric structure down there in the future. So we would like to voice our support that the snowmelter go over by the impound lot. I would also like to go along with Sarah in that we are all interested in something that would not involve, especially the noise that the thing is going to generate. The museum is concerned about if it were to go on the snowmelt property where the City Council suggested that the noise bouncing off the museum would rattle their windows. Welton introduced into the record a letter from Jess B. Heath, Jr. expressing his objections to the noise, pollution and current '-' use of the park land. (attached in records) Michael: Last week I went to a meeting City Council called with HPC and the P&Z to talk about moving the Berko Building. The issues get presented that the boards have an opportunity to do A and B. And then when they do one or the other there is always a group of citizens who are not happy with it. To the most part we work under the constraints that the city Council imposes on us. The motion that is made tonight under the constraints that the City Council has given the staff insofar as spending money and locating the impound lot and whatever makes the most amount of sense when you consider all of the factors that we have to do something when it comes out that we make this vote, there is going to be a group of citizens that are going to turn around and say "It shouldn I t have been there." when it really wasn't our decision because our decision was based upon the constraints placed upon us by the City Council. ,#' It really wasn't our decision. I am going to vote against the motion because I think if you read through these standards that staff has prepared for us, the SPA standards and the other standards and anything else that was a commercial venture that came before this Board we wouldn't even be sitting here today 5 PZM9.27.88 listening to it. The compatibility enhances the mix of development in the immediate neighborhood. The only thing that might be better than what we had before is what we had before. But that doesn't mean having the snowmelter there makes any sense at alL It really is one of the most beautiful sites in Aspen. We went through extensive hearings on what to do with the Rio Grande and I don't think anybody ever suggested that one of the things that we should put on the Rio Grande site is a snowmelter. The snowmel ter is only being considered there because the snow dump is there and because the 'snow dump is polluting the river. And the only reason the snow dump is there is because it is expensive to do it someplace else. There are certain things in life that have a price. Somewhere along the line we have to pay the price. And if we have to move the snow someplace then we should find the site that is the most appropriate site for it--not just do on a site that is the cheapest site. 'Another standard in the SPA "Wherein it enhances the prospect is the right of the community to usable open space along the river". I mean--it is a joke. If a private developer came up here and we looked at that standard and his development was to put a commercial snowmelt in there, we would be throwing him out of here. Another thing that concerns me is that there is another standard about--it said "The approval is unclear regarding the potential pollution to the Roaring Fork River and its maintenance of the pondS". And the comment is that "This will reduce the pollution of the river caused by the oil and grease of the surface of the pondS". It doesn't say that it is going to eliminate it. And I don't see how we can sit here and in good conscience and approve anything that is going to have any kind of a polluting effect on that river on that site or in that area. And just to turn around and say that we are going to be monitored by the EPA-- I don't have any comfort in that. The Smuggler Mountain site has been monitored by the EPA and so has the Love Canal. They are being monitored now but nothing is being done about it. So for that reason I am going to vote against this. I think it is time that we recognize that there are certain costs involved in maintaining what we think is so important here and you just can't keep avoiding those costs. Somewhere along the line you have got to pay the piper and if we want to have the most wonderful place in the world then we have got to do it the right way--not the most expedient way. -'#" I am suggesting that there is some other spot where--if this is a temporary-this winter solution, then fine. But we own property 6 PZM9.27.88 out west of the golf course, the Zoline property. If the only consideration as to why we don't dump snow out there is that it is expensive for the trucks to go out there then maybe we should spend that amount of money and do it. If it is just hauling it out there and letting the sun melt it on the Zoline property and if there is not effect from that, then that is the way it should be done. If there has got to be a way to remove the oil and gas and pollutants and dirt from it then we should bear that expense and we should do it the proper way. I don't think we should make our decisions on something this important based upon what is the cheapest and what is the most expedient. Right now we have got these busses coming through town. I am sure 1 bus in 1 trip through town is polluting more than the snowmelt is going to do all winter long. A bus came by me and for 5 minutes it stunk. I don't think we can make all of our decisions based on just dollars. That seems to be what we are doing. Welton: Chuck, how long have we been looking for an alternate site to dump the snow. How many different alternatives have been investigated? Chuck: I would say we have been actively looking for 4 years. We had a list of 17 or 30 sites and we parameterized how the additional dollars for hauling the additional distance, additional number of trucks and drivers. Michael: That is my point. The additional number of dollars shouldn't be the thing that derives this decision. Jim: But the traffic in town would have been severely increased as well. We didn't look just at dollars. Chuck: Our recommendation was to improve this site to put a trail along there and to plant the place to make it look nice. But to keep the snow dump down there functioning approximately the same as it does now and the same as snowmaking on the mountain as Welton: I really don't think we want to start this whole process al over again and analyze the various sites and come up with a different solution. Michael: I am not asking to do anything. against it because I don't think it is right. I am just voting Welton re-opened the public hearing. ,# 7 PZM9.27.88 ,-.. Richard Roth: What was done in the late 40's and the early 50's for snow removal in this town? Ramona: They didn't haul it. They just let it sit there. Chuck: That has been reconsidered. Richard: My point is why waste all this money removing all the snow when it pisses everybody off, gets everybody upset and harms the environment more by removing it. Leave it where it sits and let it go by itself. And it is not costing any money. In fact is reducing the cost to the city. Just leave it set where it is at and you reduce the particles that are flying in the air from the sand and you solve a lot of problems. Just leave the damn stuff where it is and let nature take its course. Welton: There is a motion on the floor and a second. There was no further discussion. All voted in favor of the motion except Ramona and Michael. DISPLACEMENT/AFFORDABLE HOUSING CODE AMENDMENTS PUBLIC HEARING Alan: All I am looking for tonight is for you to give me some feedback on the ideas I have put forward. This will be coming back to you at least 2 more times probably on the 11th and again the 18th of October. The administrative delay was initiated on August 8th which means we have 6 months from August 8th which is February 8th to get this work completed. That means I have to be to City Council in December and January to get this work completed so I have got all of October and November to work with Planning commission. Alan and the Commissioners went through question, requirements for housing on site, incentives and finally the scale questions. summary attached in records.) the displacement new developments, (Information and Members of the public took part in all parts of the discussions. Wel ton and Commission members commended Alan and his staff on their work on this project. Welton continued the public hearing to date certain of October 11, 1988. Meeting was adjourned. Time was 7:10. ,'''''' Ja ,,-... 8