Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19880802 ~ ,",,- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION AUGUST 2. 1988 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll call were Michael Herron, Ramona Markalunas, Mari Peyton, Roger Hunt, Jasmine Tygre and Welton Anderson. David White was excused. Jim colombo arrived at 4:55. COMMISSIONER'S COMMENTS ,r';;' Jasmine: I remember when they redid the building on the corner of Cooper and Galena--the volk Building and the restaurant use was prohibited because of the fact that they had no trash access. But they did allow Cookie Munchers because it was not a restaurant. In the meantime Cookie Munchers garbage is allover Cooper street. They do not have adequate garbage facilities. Apparently and it is being dumped in all the City dumpsters along Cooper Street and the last couple of weeks there have been big pile-ups in the one barrel right in front of Eastern Winds which is just overflowing Cookie Munchers crap. We have had to go out and empty it so I am very much aware of this. I don't know what can be done about it but the trash problem was one of the major concerns that we had with that building in the first place. ,~ Obviously they are generating more trash than they thought they would so whatever trash arrangements they have are obviously not adequate. Welton: Andre's to be. Or their employees are too lazy to walk out around and into the alley where their trash area was negotiated Jasmine: Then a question just for fOllow-up. I have asked Alan about the hiking trail along the river that was supposedly part of the 1010 ute property which seems to be being encroached upon. I don't whether Alan ever found out anything about that. Baker: I went out there and took a look with Al Blomquist. There is only a 5ft setback. But the trail has been destroyed in the construction process. I don't know if they have encroached on it in terms of the structure or not. But the trail is gone and has to be replaced. Jasmine: Has anybody notified the owner? by there I was told by the construction allowed to walk there. The last time I walked people that I was not PZM8.2.88 PLANNING STAFF COMMENTS There were none. MINUTES JUNE 21. 1988 Jasmine made a motion to adopt minutes of June 21, 1988. Roger seconded the motion with all in favor. MINUTES JULY 19. 1988 Michael made a motion to approve minutes of July 19, 1988. Roger seconded the motion with all in favor. INTERPRETATION OF A USE IN THE C-1 ZONE DISTRICT CONSENT AGENDA MOTION Michael made a motion to approve the item on the consent agenda. (Attached in record) ,'..", Roger seconded the motion with all in favor. BRAND BUILDING CONDITIONAL USE FOR HISTORIC STRUCTURE ALLOWING EXISTING RESIDENTIAL UNIT TO DELETE THE 6 MONTH MINIMUM LEASE RESTRICTION PUBLIC HEARING Welton stepped down from this hearing because of a potential conflict of interest. vice Chairlady Jasmine opened the public hearing. Cindy Houben made presentation as attached in record. The Planning Office basically found that this was an appropriate request. I think our concerns come to light with the service to the structures. Harley and I met this afternoon to discuss some of these concerns and some of the Engineering Dept recommendation. The concern in my mind is the intensity of the use. If this is actually going to be a short term situation--the Brand Bldg to be short termed my concern is that the intensity might be greater in regard to trash. Harley disagrees with me on that point and Jane Ellen may want to comment to that. 2 ,"".... PZM8.2.88 My ~t~er concern is that there may be more service vehicles servJ.cJ.ng these units if they are to be short term. The conditions of approval deal with adding a trash compactor on site to deal with some of the additional trash that may be generated by the more intense use of the unit. Then taking the existing trash receptacle outside of the alleyway. I suggested that the applicant explore trash storage options that are acceptable to the Engineering Dept. We are presented with a unique situation with historic buildings because historic buildings typically go from setback to setback on the alleys and on the streets and on the sides. So we are presented with the unique situation with how do we deal with all the service impacts on historic buildings without jeopardizing the integrity of that building. The other conditions deal with allowing no encroachments in the alley. Somehow removing all the encroachments that are existing and also solving a roof drainage problem in the alleyway to help with the problems that exist in the wintertime when ice builds up in the alley. .~-- One drywell has been established on the site. There is a possibility where some of the roof lines drain off into the alley another drywell may be needed. But that is something I think should be left up to the Engineering Dept. Michael: In connection with the trash and in connection with the utilities--are the trash dumpsters and the utility boxes located where they were approved the first time this building was approved? Cindy: The building has been there forever--in 1986 the reviews discussed these problems. But they didn't bring them out as conditions. I felt in my review that we couldn't ignore the continuing and growing problem with the use of the alleyway. Michael: But they were approved at that time so this use doesn't change whether the utility box-- Cindy: No. Not the utility boxes. It may change with regard to the intensity of the use and the amount of trash and therefore the need for more compactors towards-- Michael: There is no way practical for them to get the trash out of the alley. Cindy: There are some lots adjacent to the Brand Bldg that Harley has looked at with regard to leasing space on those lots 3 """=' PZM8.2.88 "- to pull the dumpsters off. But he apparently hasn't been able to reach an agreement with the owners. Michael: problem. So there really is no practical solution to either Cindy: One thing that I did see on the site review was an existing old arched doorway off onto the alley. And in order to use that doorway to access any kind of storage within the building for trash some of the net leasable space in the building would be lost but yet the impacts of the building with the trash would be taken care of. I don't know if this is a solution or not. The Engineering Dept would have to look at it as well as Roxanne Eflin, our historic preservation specialist. Michael: But if you didn't let them build a dumpster and they are stuck with what they have got and they are not increasing, what is the problem? Is there 1 dumpster there? Harley: of which Drug. Michael: If we didn't allow them to have another dumpster then they have got to deal with getting all of their trash in 1 dumpster. And the problem doesn't change from what it is where there are 4 units up there that are 6 month restricted or whether they are there every day. Right? There are 3 there that are contiguous to the Brand Bldg 1 is ours. The other is Toro's and the other is Aspen Cindy: What we would in effect be doing is probably increasing the service level as to how many times BFI comes to the alley. Harley: The one thing I would say is our experience with renting short term is that all we make for these people is reservations at Gordons. In fact they are not cooking. They are not making trash. The reason we want to short term it is because I don't want to see those--I think we need a certain amount of life. I intend to condominiumize it. Of the 4 units that I hope to have the--this change on 1 of which I am going to deed restrict to employee unit. So it is really just 3 of the 4. But our absolute experience is that people don't cook, don't create garbage. They come in, sleep, eat at Gordons and ski. Mari: How many units are in the building? Harley: There are 7 total. Mari: But only 4 of them have a 6 month restriction? 4 PZM8.2.88 Harley: Right. apartment. One of those I have always used as a manager's Jane Ellen: We are condominiumizing. Depending on who buys the units we don't know if they are all going to be short-termed or not. We may have people who intend to just keep them to themselves. In response to Michael's question. I spoke to the manager of BFI today and he said that if we did increase to short term he suggests we go to 7 day a week pickup. We currently are doing 5. Harley has no problem with that. Cindy is most concerned about the impact short term may have. Not only may this not cause any difference in it, but we already have a lot of the services. We have a 24 hour manager. That would remain. We already have daily maid service. That would continue to be there. So we won't have those kinds of increased services. We will increase the trash pickup to 7 days a week. We will install trash compactor for the residential units. That will help to mitigate the trash collection problem. The reason why we can't do the downstairs is because of a couple of things. #1 the Engineering memo seems to indicate that all 4 of those dumpsters out there are ours. They are not. Just 1 of them is. We cannot recess them into our structure. There would be not only a disturbance of the structural integrity of a nationally historical registered building but it also would require approvals from the HPC, the National Park service, the Department of the Interior--all kinds of steps that would make it an incredibly involved process to get done. Cindy has suggested underground trash receptacles. Welton Anderson has had some personal experience with lifts located in an alley. And has found they don't work. Dirt can clog them up. They can break down and therefore disrupt trash removal. Then what is your backup going to be? It is just going to build up. winter conditions may make them unusable, pile up on it in the driveway or in the alleyway, compacts snow and ice on top of it, force the lift to become inoperative. Tony Vagneur said that I could let you know exactly what he and I talked about. He feels very strongly about this issue. He said that first of all since the Brand Bldg has been remodeled in 1986 that he has had no increase in any kinds of problems with the dumpster usage. He also said that the Brand Bldg has been one of the better ones as far as usage in the "alley and has never had an overflow. He feels that a lift would be less convenient. It would create more work for him and that trash in the alley might clog up. He feels that the problem of security on the lift would 5 PZM8.2.88 be a problem. You can't just have a button outside in the alley for the trash collectors to come by and push because that could get pushed by anyone. Therefore you have to have it inside and then you have to have someone co-ordinating inside the building with the trash collectors to get the trash lifted up when they are there. But they can't do a set schedule. The closest they can come is within approximately 1/2 hour delivery. So you can see there would be some real scheduling problems with trash pickup on a 7 day a week, 52 week a year basis. He said the more complicated we make the system the more expensive it makes it, the more things that could go wrong, the less service they can give and therefore the more people will get upset. Therefore he doesn't want to see anything that will screw up the system. He said that having the dumpster in the alley is great with them. And they would rather not see it changed. -- He said the lift that is being installed at the Concept 700 is basically located indoors so it does seem to work. But they also refuse to go to lift and get it. So they physically have to bring the dumpster out, put it on the street side for the trash people to pick up. So he asked me to encourage you not to make them underground it with the lift. As far as the utility encroachment and dumpster encroachments go we would be happy to agree to no further encroachments for what is there now--the dumpster, utilities and the building as necessary. We will have to check the plat to see if that is necessary. We simply can't re-Iocate the utilities. The encroachment is all of 6 inches. We are talking about the utility box is located on the wall that is encroaching into the air space of the alley about 6 inches. They have been there ever since the Brand Building has had utilities connected. They are not a recent addition. The drainage as Cindy noted has been corrected for 50% of the roof in conjunction with the drywell that we installed. And we would be willing to put in a drywell to correct the other 50% if we could work with the City and maybe get some kind of license or easement in the alley to put it. We simply do not have the property to put it in. The other suggestion that the Engineering Dept made about drain pipes to Mill st is really impractical. We would be tearing up the entire alley and part of Mill st in order to connect the drain pipe into the storm sewer and it would also be very expensive. So we would like to work with you on these things and hope that you understand from our perspective and from BFI' s perspective 6 PZM8.2.88 that this trash dumpster situation does work right now and we don't see an increase in impact. If there is one we are going to deal with it with a trash compactor. Mari Peyton: Are you talking about 1 single compactor or individual compactors in the residential units? Jane: One large one. Roger: There is not a storm sewer in Galena street? The answer was "No". Roger: I know many gutter and let it possibility? Chuck: The same problem as draining into the alley with freezing up in the winter. old cities they will run a pipe out to the drain down in the gutter. Is that a Baldwin: I do think the alley is a mess and we would love to participate in any improvements. I think heating the alley would make sense because that particular alley generates so much volume and so much sales tax that it is constantly full of trucks. - Jim: Is that alley supposed to be paved? right now. Just compacted gravel. It is just gravel Chuck: I don't know. Jim: The utilities go all the way through that alley, don't they? I mean it would be impossible to go into that alley to do much of anything as far as putting a compactor in the ground or a dumpster in the ground because of the utilities. Chuck: would be sidewalk I think that would be out of the question. The sidewalk the only possible area because utilities are not in the area. Cindy: Harley and I discussed that this afternoon and he is worried about the structure. If you are going in next to the structure with a dug out situation in the sidewalk that the structure may be___mumble___ Jane: Because there is no basement. Jasmine: In the history of this application when the application was first approved when the applicant first asked for a change in use for commercial to residential use, there was a great deal of discussion about whether or not a 6 month minimum lease 7 PZM8.2.88 restrictions were appropriate. background to that in here. But I don't see any of the Cindy: Maybe there was discussion. I didn't read the minutes. I read the old memo that was done by the staff and then the motion of approval. I have the result of the motion which was that a 6 month minimum lease restriction be placed on it. My understanding that the code required that at the time and now we just have the ability for them to waive that for historic structure. Jasmine: No. That is not exactly my recollection of what the history was. And it would have been helpful in this case to include the reasoning behind the requirement that 6 month restrictions be placed on these units. It was a very lengthy part of the discussions. - Part of it had to do with the history of the building and the fact that at one point this was not allowed at all. No residential uses were to be allowed. And the Commission felt that residential uses were not necessarily a detriment and in fact might be a way of allowing people to preserve an historic building. Furthermore that in the Brand Bldg there has historically been residential uses on the 2nd floor. But this is residential uses--not short term uses and the Commission was very concerned about the difference here between residential use and short term use. It was a distinction that we did feel was important to be made because the units that have been up there many years in the past which many of us knew people who lived in those units were definitely like more itinerant artist types and they were very inexpensive places to live. And we felt that that was a part of Aspen history that should be maintained. The intent was definitely not to allow the entire building to get into short term uses. And because of previous existing units and replacement units and counts like that we finally came to the compromise that some of the units would be short term but there was very, very strong expression from the Commission that it was never intended that all of those units would be short term. And so this whole application really surprised me. Cindy: If the minutes reflected that I need to get back to the minutes and really do some research and maybe table the issue. Jasmine: The thing is this--the applicant still has the right to come in and apply anyway regardless of what we decided at that time. That does not preclude the applicant from coming in again to request this conditional use. But I think that that discussion might have been very helpful in the background. 8 PZM8.2.88 cindy: It may have had some bearing on our recommendation as a staff had I had some other history on it. Michael: When it came up before you, was the construction plan before the P&Z? It just doesn't seem to me that the type of construction that went on at the Brand Bldg is conducive to having itinerant artists. It just seems to me if we approved what is there then it just follows that what is there whether it is short term or long term, it just doesn't matter. Jasmine: It wasn't how much it cost them to put them in or what they look like. It was the idea of the fact that the residential uses were not permitted at all. And we like to preserve uses and the actual stuff that was put in there was really not part of that discussion at the time. Michael: Again, it is too late. The horses are out of the barn. If we had put up 20 units there it might have been practical to have itinerant artists. Jasmine: It is a matter of residential vs short term and that was the distinction. ._. Michael: It is just to me the nature of the units that are up there that nobody could afford to rent those on a long term basis. Baldwin: In response to the Engineer's comments: If we tore a hole in this building that we have tried to lovingly restore-- and this is no joke--if you go over there and you look at the pointing between the bricks you can tell that the way that we have done this is to really try to maintain the structural and aesthetic character. There is still a lot to be done. I have got one of the dumpsters right here by the side--it is just sitting between Toro's and Aspen Drug. without a concerted effort to solve the entire alley problem--sticking the Brand Bldg dumpster inside the building isn't going to solve the real problem. It needs to be a concerted effort. The other thing is that right through that wall happens to be Ri ta st. John's store which she has a 10 year lease to that I can't just wish away. Roger: Wasn't there an agreement to get all the dumpsters on one side of the alley? Baldwin: Yesterday I was standing on the roof looking down. This guy walks out of the Mine Company. He has got a sack of 9 PZM8.2.88 garbage--stands there and from 80ft away just pitches this thing straight across. It landed in a tree. After further discussion regarding the trash problem in this particular alley-- Cindy: Something that throws it back to us is that as we do on all condominiumizations or anything that comes before us we say if an improvement district is formed, the applicant shall agree to join that district and pay the proportionate share of the cost. That is an option. MOTION Jim colombo: I make motion to approve this application as stated in the Planning Office memo of August 2, 1988 with the conditions #1 as written, #2 is eliminated, #3 shall be eliminated, #4 as written and #5 as written. Michael: I think there is a problem with #4. The problem with #4 is that the Engineering Dept wants them to run a pipe under the alley back there and the applicant doesn't want to do that. Jane: Or put in a drywell which we would be happy to do if we could get the city to grant us an easement in the alley in order for us to install it. Chuck: That is no problem. Jim: Change condition #4 to read--an encroachment permit shall be obtained from the Engineering Dept and approved by Council in order to solve the drainage problem. Jane: To get this encroachment permit there is a review period for the Engineering Dept. Then we have to go before city Council and I am saying we are going to miss this building season. So what I would like to do is perhaps just extend this 6 months to 1 year to make sure that we can get all of the permits and then get in and have a building season available for us to build in. Jim: Just say that the applicant has 12 months from the date of P&Z approval to satisfy #4 and #5. But if it is possible I would like to have it get done this year. Jane: We will try. Cindy: In my mind there needs to be a #6 condition that says that if an improvement district is formed then the applicant shall agree to join that. 10 PZM8.2.88 Roger: I will second the motion. which conditions are what now? Jim: The motion is to approve the application as put forward in Planning memo of August 2, 1988 with the conditions # 1 be the applicant shall install a trash compactor on their property. #2 will be the roof drainage problem in the alley shall be corrected by the applicant to satisfy the Engineering Dept ie an easement shall be applied for--an easement encroachment license shall be applied for by the applicant to go into the alley to solve the drainage problem. The new #3 would be the above conditions shall be met by the applicant within 12 months of the date of P&Z approval of the conditional use or the conditional use shall be revoked. And the new #4 is that if an improvement district is created as recommended by the P&Z to Council, then the applicant shall participate in that district to the affect of solving the both their trash and other drainage problems. Michael: You said the above conditions--it should be the above sir-gular condition of the roof drain, not the trash compactor. Cindy: Right. The way I re-wrote that was that we left old condition #5 as is except that we added a requirement that the aprlicant shall have 12 months to satisfy the condition #2 or the drywell. Jasmine: Once again for the record, when I voted in favor of ap;roving the conditional use for residential uses, it was with the understanding that this was not going to become a short term plaza and that had I thought that this was going to happen, I would never have voted in favor of it in the first place. Jane: The units have been long term leases ever since that approval. Chuck: What I am concerned about is that a question in my memo whether or not P&Z has the ability to approve the conditional use which has none of the licensed encroachments. Is that all of the ensroachments? Is that issue being addressed? Are they going to go to Council for encroachment of all the encroachments? Mishael: ap. -roval. I don't think that has anything to do with our Jasmine: No. licenses. We don't have the right to grant encroachment Ch'.lck: But do you have the right to give them a land use when th'y have unlicensed encroachments? 11 .","" PZM8.2.88 '- ?: How many encroachment licenses are there for dumpsters and electric meters in town. Is that a common occurrence? Chuck: No. I don't think it is a common occurrence. It is common in 1988 and 1987 for land use applications to be having their encroachments licensed or not licensed as the Council may determine. It is common in 1987 and 1988 and maybe 1986 that we don't do land use approvals with a structure that has unlicensed encroachments. Cindy: I just think that we have gone over and over and over this issue of how to deal with the trash and we have come up with an agreement that the applicant will join an improvement district. I think technically Chuck is correct in that we don't like to make approvals of their outstanding problems with the si te. And one of the problems with the City is if someone is er..'roaching we always make sure that someone gets an encroachment pc ~'mi t for whatever the encroachment is. I ~hink we have dealt with it the only way that we can. If we wa:lt to make it a condition that the applicant go before the city Council and get an encroachment permit until such time an improvement district is formed I think that is appropriate too. Roger: Inherent in this motion is more or less our finding that the applicant can continue in his non-conformity by the addition of a trash compactor. And the continuing in that non-conformity is his present use of the trash system that he has that he has gr ~dfathered in there. Ro"er: I don't think we should hold up this approval for that. I ( In't think it is our place to hold up the approval for that. Michael: I agree with Roger. Even more to the point that I dc., 't know that we have to deal with it. If there is an encroachment then it is up to the City which has a Building Dept or a Zoning Dept to come in and give them whatever violation nc',ice they have. Ja~mine: We have a motion and a second on the floor. Evryone voted in favor of the motion except Jasmine. MO':'ION Ji.: Resolution: I would make a motion for the Planning Dept to cr.ate a resolution requesting Council to form an improvement d~,.trict specifically for this alley for the purpose of solving 12 ".>,0"... PZM8.2.88 the trash, drainage and other congestion problems which lead to problems with congestion, traffic and fire and safety access. Michael: I think we should make this a recommendation to the Council and part of the recommendation should include condemning the area that we talked about and the abutting property owners joining the district. Cindy: at. There may be other solutions that we might want to look Jasmine: I think that what we are saying is that as a Commission we feel that this whole alley is an area of tremendous concern and that it is something that should be addressed as quickly as possible. And it cannot be done by anyone individual property owner. Nor should anyone individual property owner on the alley be expected to assume all of the burden for correcting a situation to which they all contribute. Cindy: I will get that to you at the next meeting. Roger seconded the motion with all in favor. DISCUSSION ON PLANNING OFFICE WORK PRIORITIES ","""'" - This discussion centered primarily on displacement issues and methods for correcting the problem. Meeting was then adjourned. 7:38pm. 13