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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19890321 A -rt/ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS '~ PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MARCH 21. 1989 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30 PM. Answering roll call were Graeme Means, Bruce Kerr, Michael Herron was excused, Jim Colombo, Mari Peyton, Roger Hunt Jasmine Tygre and Welton Anderson. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Roger: I am pleased to announce last night City Council approved the continuation of the feasibility study of trolleys which will be progressing very quickly. One thing that will have to be discussed will be the routes. I think we have seen most of them conceptually. One is the concentration on the Gal~na street corridor and the other is the Galena/Mill loop. Essentially everything else in the system is the same. I would assume that the feasibility study would study both those loops and hopefully we will get it back to P&Z to make comments on which way to go. Graeme: I have often felt that maybe a rubber tired thing be quieter and more flexible and maybe move people efficiently. Is that going to be studied at all? Roger: That is not going to be part of the trolley study. If you want rubber tired vehicles, you can go to RFTA for all those studies. The trolley study will be comparing for showing benefits of the trolley compared to the rubber wheeled vehicles which are of substantial benefits particularly in the area of dust generation. would more And trolleys are no noisier than busses. That is a basic proven fact. The one disadvantage of the trolley is an overhead wire. Jasmine: Is there any technology possible that would make it feasible to remove the overhead wire? Roger: A lot of people are concerned about that. But it can be treated very well. You could pull a diesel generator behind but you defeat what you are trying to accomplish. You are combining the noises of the beautiful diesel bus on a beautiful trolley. ,~ Mari: Do they have to have bells? The thing I object to is the bell. '"., PZM3 . 21. 89 Roger: It is many times argued that they have to have bells because they are so quite. As a matter of fact this is the case in Oregon. It is documented. Their system is so quiet that they have problems so they have added noise makers on the vehicles in the form of bells and things like that. #2. Tonight the RFTA Board is meeting concerning the down valley commuter and the use of the Rio Grande right-of-way as to whether it be bus way or rail alternative. I will be happy to convey any comments you have to the RFTA Board. MOTION Mari: I move that we authorize Roger to express the feeling of P&Z that we do not think that it should be turned into a busway. Graeme seconded the motion with all in favor. HANS GRAMIGER Hans: When we annexed the area of Block 19 territory we came up with an ingenious description. Watch my pencil. We took the whole rectangular which consists of 2 sites and deducted what is already in the City limits which means here is the description and then it says "Excluding Lots K, L, M, N in Block 19 of the city". I am going to take the blame myself but I am going to say it was an error, an oversight when we then went for the rezoning within 90 days. That little bit excluding Lots K,L,M,N should have been deleted so that we zone the whole thing. So now what you did the zoning office the Planning Office recommend RMF, you recommended R-6, we are not going to fight you. We accepted R-6. The City Council has already had its first reading and final reading. So this is now R-6. But the rest of it is R-15. Welton: Would you like us to sponsor a zoning code amendment to rezone? Hans: I discussed this with Alan and he said the former zoning code allowed if an applicant initiates zoning he has to go by 2 dates. February 15 or August 15. If the P&Z goes to City Council they can do it any time. In the new code it does not preclude the City or the P&Z for doing it. And Fred Gannett will have to back me up on that later. yr.,.,.... What I am saying is please sponsor when you get the input from Fred Gannett sponsor this little change and I go through the legal hoops by 300ft new notification, new newspaper and all. But we don't want to wait until August 15. Thank you. 2 PZM3.21.89 Alan: If Fred says that that is OK, there is nothing in the code allowing it. MOTION Roger: I move that we sponsor rezoning that portion of Block 19 annexation that was not included in the Aspen Town site and assuming that it is capable for us to do that according to the city Attorney. Hans: That is Lots K,L,M, and N. Jasmine seconded the motion with all in favor. STAFF COMMENTS Cindy: I would like to Callahan PUD amendment. new development proposal. add something to the consent agenda--the This is an amendment to the PUD not a It will go to City Council. MOTION Bruce: I make a motion to put this on the consent agenda. Jim seconded the motion with all in favor except Jasmine. CONSENT AGENDA Mari: I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Bruce seconded the motion with all in favor. RESOLUTION t/89-4 HISTORIC LANDMARKS CODE AMENDMENT Alan: What we have done here is totally repeal and re-enact the 2 exemptions for historic landmarks in the growth management process. Right now you have an exemption that says you get up to 500sqft free and then anything beyond that you pay the full cost of parking and housing, open space, etc. The approach we talked about during the course of our hearings was instead to look at allowing change in use in its entirety to be exempt. Purely and simply this talks about if a commercial building is not expanded regardless of how the uses are changed inside, that is exempt and there are no requirements. They won't even come to this Board. 3 PZM3. 21. 89 If there is an addition to a commercial project or if you exceed these standards and you have Residential for bed and breakfast, that is when it comes to the Commission for impact review. And we use FAR which was the measure that we all talked about at the last meeting to allow some space to be exempt as well. And then it was pretty simple from there what we wanted to do. After further discussion: MOTION Roger: I move to adopt Resolution #89-4 as amended. Graeme seconded the motion. Discussion: Jasmine: I am going to vote against this resolution. I feel that Alan's points are very well taken. That the encouragement toward oversized structures under the gu~se of historic preservation is very obvious in the scale that is adopted. I also object to the fact that the City is not stepping in and fulfilling its obligations in the historic preservation area by relieving the applicant of the responsibility of providing mitigation by doing it themselves. There is going to be no mitigation. I think if the city really believes in historic preservation that the mitigation should come very specifically from the City. I don't see any mitigation here. I think this is a real problem for the GMQS and I am very much opposed to it until or unless the city adopts a way of formally mitigating the impacts of the historic structures. Jim: Is there any precedent anywhere in city government where the city ends up taking care of waived mitigations in any other part of the code? Alan: In point of fact all of the funds have to carry their own weight. If the community chooses to tax itself this summer as part of a ballot question for affordable housing it will be because of things like this. Areas where we have had leakage through the system and therefore have a shortfall. Jasmine is right. Somebody has to pay the cost somewhere. Whether it is the city general fund or it is the taxpayers by increasing the general fund. r"'....' Jim: Politically you are talking defeating the public awareness and public concern of saving historic landmark buildings if you are going to start asking the public at large to support the 4 PZM3.21.89 mitigation of historic buildings. I can't think of a more anti- public incentive program than saying "OK we are gong to try to save all these buildings and we are going to give them some incentive by giving them a break but we are going to ask public at large to pay for it." Jasmine: They have to anyway. What I am saying is you should have an accounting of what you are doing. Somebody has to pay the cost and I think those costs be clearly stated and that we know what we are doing. Welton: I think we have to look at this realistically. And as logical as your argument is, Jasmine, I think the city council that adopts that stance is going to not meet with a great deal of public favor with historic preservation being the scapegoat of the whole thing. I think we can't say we are going to vote against it because in an ideal world historically designated structures would have it s impacts paid for by the City. Jasmine: My point is that the impacts occur anyway. And we have to realize that these impacts occur. Part of the problem that we have had with GMQS is that things happen that are waived and then nothing is done. Historic preservation is just one example of situations where you waive a parking requirement or you waive an employee housing requirement. It is as though you are saying the impacts don't exist--you are going to sweep them under the rug. Now you are saying just keep sweeping them under the rug because otherwise people are going to be upset. I think people are already upset. I think we have been avoiding grappling with the problem of what happens when we waive something and don't take steps to take care of what you waived. Welton: I agree. And I think whether it comes up for a vote in Mayor November, we are going to have some sort of taxing mechanism one way or another I hope. Whether it is a real estate transfer tax or whatever. It is going to, from a public sector point of view, address some of these things. We don't want anybody to vote against this because the mechanism is not in place yet. Bill Dunaway: The City is amending one of its tax measures on the May ballot to say what the funds can or can't be used for and how they would be paid back. There is no reason you couldn't add a sentence to this that' the city will mitigate or finance its mitigation as soon as possible or whatever it is. " 5 PZM3. 21. 89 Jim: I would rather send a separate resolution calling attention to Jasmine's point suggesting that mitigation be made upon this resolution if possible. But I don't want to see this resolution defeated and any type of historical incentives delayed in which case we may lose historical buildings while they are waiting for that process to go through. Everyone voted in favor of the motion except Jasmine. MOTION Jasmine: I move that in all types of situations where waivers or exemptions are granted for employee housing or parking that the City should commit to specifically make up the deficit of what is granted or waived. Roger seconded the motion: Discussion: .......... Bruce: In principle I agree with Jasmine's point. I really don't see the P&Z as a body that should encourage increasing taxes. It seems to me that what we are trying to do is balance public interests against one another. What we have said in the past is in the public interest of preserving historical buildings, we are going to waive these impact fees and now what we seem to be saying is we want our cake and be able t eat it too. I don't know where the actual dollars are going to come from. I am opposed to any increased taxes to have the City somehow mitigate its impacts by virtue of its waiver of the these mitigation things. I don't see any point in trying to do this. I think it is just an accounting j uggl ing nightmare and I don't think it is our place to try to suggest or impose any kind of tax on our citizens. Roger: To some degree it is an accounting. But to another degree we make the assumption that it is a community benefit to preserve historic structures. Now there is a cost for that. I think that is what Jasmine is assessing. There is either the cost of the mitigation or the cost turns out in not addressing the mitigation of that in which case we have problems with too many cars on too few roads. I think in order to address the problem, the City has to be aware that this is occurring and what the cost is. Alan: You pay me now or you pay me later. Roger: Right. So I support Jasmine's motion completely. 6 PZM3.21.89 Welton: My sense of the motion was that this was something we were moving to study in better detail and I am getting the impression from you, Alan, that it is something you want to preach to city Council. And if that is the case then I am in agreement with Bruce and I am going to vote against this motion. Jim: I feel the same way. Mari: I feel that like Roger said--we are asking individuals to do something which benefits the public. If the benefit is for the public then the public should bear the cost of it, not the individuals. And however that has to be done, that has to be done. Welton: But I feel that without greater knowledge that buildings A, P and Z are creating this much of a deficit or they are being exempted from this amounu of parking and employee housing that it is going to be something that automatically the public sector should pick up. I don't know whether it is a minor cost or a major cost. Mari: Who should pick it up then? Jim: Actually it doesn't have to be picked up. In a case that Alan just gave, specifically affordable housing, parking fees are often waived because of the fact that it is known that a lot of the employees who inhabit those buildings do not own cars. Mari: That is not the reasoning. The reasoning is that if there has to be parking, they won't build the employee unit. Jasmine: The motion is to have the Planning Office look into the exploration of mitigation by the city in very specific forms for employee housing or parking requirements that are waived as incentive for historic preservation or in any other circumstances when the waivers occur. That the city should be responsible for that amount of mitigation not handled by the applicant as generated by that project. Mari seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Graeme, yes, Bruce, no, Jim, no, Mari, yes, Roger, yes, Jasmine, yes, Welton, no. Alan: Just so you know, the code consultants suggested to me that without that kind of provision similar impact fees are subject to being challenged. So you are really onto something. 7 PZM3.21.89 , Our courts are saying it should be done. You can't waive things without accepting the cost. Welton: I want to study this but I don't want to say "I know so much that I can say right now this is going to be the answer". GORDON/CALLAHAN SUBDIVISION Cindy made presentation as attached in records. I feel that the basic point here is whether or not you agree that this conceptual plan can be revised to include 2 additional lots. Welton: There were 3 then, there are 5 now. Bruce: They are proposing nothing beyond what we already approved that Council didn't approve and staff didn't like. Cindy: Council agreed with development. The applicants build-out potential up front. conceptual plan. me. This is now a new proposed decided that they would show the They have come back with a revised stan Mathis, architect:. Council wants to see a whole PUD submission. They don't want to leave that open ended and therefor they did not accept the fact that we are willing to identify the envelopes at all. So we went back and revised the plan to match and show a total development on the total site. Jim: What you show here is what you inferred last time. stan: That is correct. Jim: And what you inferred last time is what we approved last time to go to Council which Council voted against. So if we approve what we approved last time, Council is going to reject it. stan: They did not know we bought Lipkin development rights. Cindy: At the time you saw this we were basically only creating 2 new lots and doing boundary line adjustment for the Callahan lot line. Now we are creating 4 new lots. This is a new development proposal. There are 4 lots vs. 2 lots. There is no way Council can approve something like that without the Planning commission reviewing it. . There are 2 new lots here. That is the bottom line. John Elmore, one of the owners of the property: We have gone over this development plan thoroughly with Mr. Enloe and Patsy 8 PZM3.21.89 Madalone and they are in support of it. Mr Enloe in particular would rather have a house on the river than a house up above. Cindy: The Commission did agree on the condition that there could be potentially another lot down on the river and one up above. However, I think that you were thinking that you would be looking at that through the GM concept. At that time we had no idea that the applicants would obtain additional development rights. Welton: The PUD context is we have more ability to do more changes throughout PUD than we do through GMP. We can't score GMP application on anything other than what is presented. We don't have the give or take in any negotiation capabilities like we do with PUD. Bruce: Do I understand that the river side neighbors would rather see that kind of configuration than 2 lots up on the hill. stan: That is correct. Cindy: The question is are there going to be 2 more additional lots or 1. stan: There is one added thing here since we did buy 2 Lipkin rights. The GMP--it is a tough deal to compete with and where you usually get hammered is employee housing. It is really difficult to provide it because of cost. We are willing to put in 2 studio units that we can assign. You let us assign to whatever units they go on here as part of this application--deed restricted units. And S0 we are not really circumventing GMP as we see it. Jim: As I see this what we are deciding here is whether or not we are going to approve the homesite down by the river or not. And we cannot tell him we want this up there. All we can approve or disapprove is what they are presenting to us right now. So it is a yes or no vote on our part as to whether or not we are going to allow this configuration or we are not going to allow this configuration. Jasmine: Does this represent the total development potential of this property? stan: Yes. There is a development right to this already. This is already subdivided as part of the Callahan subdivision. Bruce: That is not part of this PUD. stan: It has nothing to do with it. 9 PZM3.21.89 Gene Alder: You have a letter from Richard Y. Neiley, Jr., representing 1010 ute Board of Directors which covers the points that they are concerned with. The building envelopes below the existing ditch line, next to the river and any increase in density at all. (attached in record) Cindy: I got a call from a woman who is a manager or caretaker who expressed a concern of people who have built homes along the river there and I asked her to write a letter. Welton: This is not a public hearing but I do have 3 letters. One is from Oates, Hughes & Knezevich on behalf of Riverside Joint Venture in support of it. (attached in record) There is one from Pat Maddalone, Vice President Benedict Land & Cattle Company in support of it. (attached in record) There is a letter from Richard Y. Neiley, Jr.,P.c., the 1010 ute Board of Directors in opposition. record) representing (attached in Graeme: Do you think that they should put 2 houses up on the bench or that they should do just 4 houses. '"". Cindy: 4 houses. Actually 3 additional houses and the lot line adjustment. Graeme: Because you just plain don't feel there is room on the property. Cindy: The whole reason it is a PUD is because it is along the river and all of the things I pointed out in the last meeting I did explain the stream margin review criteria and density along the river. Your impact on the river and a PUD just gives us another ability to look at the appropriateness of the site and how dense the site should be. I feel that with the additional lot along the river you are really impacting the river frontage. You just have additional river impact and especially where a public access trail is to be located. Bruce: I am having a hard time seeing how one additional building envelope where it is does anything to the river or the beauty of the area that is not already done by the other 3 houses on the river and the other 7 jammed together there across the river. Cindy: Either you think it is already so messed up that it doesn't matter what more we do there or you look at it from the 10 PZM3.21.89 perspective that we can' save some of the integrity along the river by limiting the development along the river. Graeme: What is the maximum square footage you could build on each of these lots and maybe if we are concerned about this we could give them the 5 sites but maybe restrict even more the square footage of the houses. I personally feel that there is more gigantic houses than we need in town. stan: We are prepared to address that. We have stated before that we were willing to do 4,500sqft. We are willing to stick to that except for the 2 units where we would place the studio employee units. Then we need to be able to add that square footage which means 4, 900sqft. That is below the zone density allowed. Welton: I buy your argument that 2 houses on the upper plateau is not a benefit to either the riverside people or the people who use the Aspen Club or anybody that--one is better than two. My question is the one down by the river. We knew when we approved the 3 there and all this vacant land over here that when it came in for GMP that we were going to look at it real closely. And it may not make it. _.c, Jim: I think Cindy's concerns are valid. I think an argument can equally be made that there is significant impact going on already by the river that this home does little or more to add to the impact. And it can also be argued whether the homes should go up on the ridge or down below. I think we can take a closer look at it at final. Cindy: At final it is harder. Welton: There is a certain degree of reliance. If you give approval at conceptual for 5 units it is real difficult to say "no" at final. stan: We took a certain degree of reliance the last time around that if we did go through GMP that is where you guys were going to see those 2 homesites be placed. Welton: That's where we would see a GMP application place the homesites, not where the GMP would be approved. MOTION Welton: I think the question boils down to that Lot 2C whether or not Lot 2C is going to be approved. .~-, -- 11 PZM3. 21. 89 I would entertain a motion to either approve it with the conditions as listed 1 through 9 on Planning Office memorandum (attached in record) with #7 being either included or not included. #7 being Lot 2C shall be eliminated--the lot down by the river. Graeme: Another alternative would be to restrict the size of the house on that lot if that is the one is causing the problem. It impacts the bridge most. Mari: I could support that. Welton: This one is lowest of any of the houses and closest to the river. That may be the setback from the river be increased, the FAR be decreased and the seeming conflict between the building envelope and the trail easement be resolved to-- Mari: What kind of decrease in FAR are you talking about. Welton: I think a decrease of less than 10% really doesn't mean a whole lot. Jim: You can accomplish that by when you increase in setback from the river. stan: What I would rather see you do is tell us what you don't like about the distance between the trail and the building envelope and let me deal with it that way. And think about a decrease if we can do that. Bruce: If I were the developer and I was looking at the choice between 4 lots and 5 lots with my building envelope being reduced from 4,800 to 4,000 or 3,600, I think I would rather have the 5 lots. I like Graeme's suggestion that somehow we make Lot 2C leave the lot size the same but shrink up that building envelope so we pull it back from the river and we eliminate the trail problem. Welton: things. The building envelope and the FAR are 2 different Bruce: I don't care about the FAR. envelope--getting it reduced. I am talking about the stan: Let me point out to you in here it says we are 15 feet back from the river bank. That is different than being from the river edge. We are an additional 10 feet from the river edge. We are 25 feet from the edge of the river. Jim: What is the buildable size of Lot 2C? 12 PZM3. 21. 89 stan: The envelope is 4,800sqft. envelope already. We have right now Lot 2C is 21,000 with the current FAR. We are proposing 4,500. That under That is a pretty small the FAR 5, OOOsqft. would be 5,400sqft. MOTION Bruce: I make a motion to approve the Gordon Callahan PUD new conceptual plan subject to the 9 conditions listed in the Planning Office memorandum eliminating item #7 and replacing it with language that reads "Lot 2C shall be redefined with setbacks from the river, the trail easement and that the building envelope and FAR be decreased by a minimum of 10%". Jim seconded the motion. stan: Item #6--we can't do that. That is not in our power. Cindy: It is not for the trail. access to your lot. It is to show that you have stan: That we can do. Jim: On the 10%, I have no problem with the FAR. I am wondering if we wanted it set back further from the river that 10% is going to equal 1.5 feet for the setback. I wonder if we want to make something specific for the setbacks. Bruce: I said a minimum of 10%. Let me add in language that says "To the reasonable satisfaction of the Planning Commission". stan: You know that we were committing to do a stone fence at the base of our building envelopes to keep this area natural out to the river. That really defines what is natural. It further preserves that area. Jasmine: I would also like to see an inclusion of the employee units as a condition. Bruce agreed to this. cindy: And you are agreeing to allow them the additional 3 to 500sqft per lot for the employee units? Jasmine: Yes. Except for 2C. Mari: Also the representation that was made regarding floor area to 4,500. 13 ....-.,"~,,-",--~._._~-. PZM3.21.89 Graeme seconded the motion. Jasmine clarified the motion as follows: All envelopes are to be 4,500sqft FAR with the exception of the 2 lots for employee units which are allowed a maximum of 500sqft. more. Bruce amended the motion to agree with the clarification. Jim amended the second to the motion. All voted in favor of the motion. GOLDS BURY PUD AMENDMENT PUBLIC HEARING Welton opened the public hearing and continued hearing to date certain of April 4, 1989. RECOMMENDED REVISION TO GROWTH OUOTAS CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING Alan: The report was st~essing the idea that this is an interim strategy that the problems are much bigger than reduction of quota or adoption of the change to the duplex GMQS exemption. That is really not the issue facing Aspen right now and that we need time. What we thought might make sense would be to spend some time today and hopefully again next Tuesday to do a discussion toward scoping out this plan of what we need to work on. The thing we are trying to accomplish is to try and recognize that we have gone through this planning effort for about 3 years of identifying 6 separate elements of our plan. We have got growth. Then we did open space, transportation, historic preservation annexation and housing. There are internal conflicts between those 6 plans. We have housing location on open space sites. We have got transportation corridors that effect open space or that don't co-ordinate with housing locations. One thing we would like to do is pull it together and try and resolve these conflicts and to do it in map form. We hope you would agree that it should be physical and that it should address the internal conflicts. And what are the answers you are looking for this plan to give you. .'.""- Tom: When you look at the 1973 Land Use map and you see the tourist accommodation section the LTR district--one of the things we have learned since then is that the small lodges are important 14 PZM3.21.89 to the community. You all responded to that with the L-3, L-P zoning. So that was a trend you identified and you did something about it and it is a trend we want to re-enforce. Are there trends right now that you can identify that are good for the community or bad ,for the community that you would like to put on the list. Bruce: If we assume that the trend of small lodges is a desirable trend I think we can also assume that the trend of mega bucks is the same trend that is effecting our second home market and our lack of employee housing. That is also working against the preservation of small lodges. And it is being driven by factors which small lodges have no control over ie. the Ski Company and ARA and their emphasis of marketing on the upper crust. All of those factors are working against this preservation of small lodges. The lodges may have to stay small but they may have to tear themselves down and rebuild and charge 3 or $400 a night instead of $100 a night. Graeme: Bruce has a good point. Along the same lines something that irks me is the marketing of this town or people who hope to make it into a world class resort. I think a lot of that comes at the expense of a community for people to live in. To my way of thinking that is the most important issue right there. That is to keep this place a place where people want to stay for long periods of time. To be able to do that, be able to find housing and be able to get to work without spending an hour and a half on the road. Jim: I am not sure that the forces at work here are stopable. Bruce: I am afraid you are right. Jim: Yea--for this not to be a world class resort or not to be a mega bucks type of area, I think what we need to do is to try and find some balance at which we as a community can survive in spite of the fact that the forces that will make this into a mega bucks community. I don't think we have any ability whatsoever to stop the ball from rolling or even to slow it down as far as the influx of money goes or the Ski Corp's idea of whom they want here. I think our task here is to create some sort of balance and co- ordinate a community living that can survive that type of influx and that type of philosophy. 15 PZM3. 21. 89 I agree that it is important to maintain the small lodges. I also agree that those lodges are probably going to have to compete directly and then indirectly with the large hotels. Directly in that I think they are going to have to provide a certain comfort luxury level. A certain fixture luxury which may be the tear down/build up that Bruce talked about. Indirectly they are going to automatically provide a different type of atmosphere from the large hotels which people are going to seek. They are going to look for relief from that type of atmosphere from the large ones. So they may find themselves a nitch in who they are to begin with. But the other point being if we find that we have an enormous amount of these small lodges competing with themselves even at an upgraded level becomes pretty suicidal. We may find that these are great locations to accommodate some of our employee housing and affordable housing trends. Rather than have them on the open market for commercial development because they are going to end up dying because inner competition, we may want to take a look at holding onto these properties or putting together a plan for the excess of these properties for affordable housing. Jasmine: I agree with Graeme and Jim. I think the problem of the mega bucks is in a way people are starting to address it because I think one of the real danger parts is that Aspen has become a giant monopoly board for speculators on a very large scale. And to a certain extent the real estate transfer tax is very important because the problem is not even so much the mega bucks. It is the playing with us with the mega bucks that we object to. It is the speculation. Over at 700 East Hyman there were 2 units there that have turned over 3 times since they were built and in 2 instances the interim owners never even set foot on the property. They had no interest whatsoever in the property. The speculation part of it is something I think can be addressed. I also think we need to do a wage scale study here. I think the immediate income doesn't mean anything either. Because you have got people who have astronomical incomes and then you have people who are making $5.50 an hour. Therefore we don't have a realistic idea of what is affordable to various people at various occupation levels in this town. We have a town which is based on the availability of low cost service-intensive employees. And the more you have the mega bucks types of people coming in the more need there is going to be for the low cost service-intensive type employees. ">"",..' 16 PZM3.21.89 Bruce: I think to some extent this condition in the City has driven this kind of thing to happen. Our growth policies and land use policies have been so restrictive that, in effect, we have caused this kind of thing to happen. We have caused this speculation. I almost think if we had not had growth management or not had such restrictive land use policies that the market forces would have taken place and we would have had employee housing built because land would have been cheaper back years ago. So what we have got to try to do is to figure out how we can still get some employee housing built and how we can loosen up some land use regulations here and there that will let the free market and let free enterprise work. Welton: I have been thinking about that for as long as I have been living in this valley. I came from a resort community in virginia named Virginia Beach. When I was a child there it was a nice family home place with shingle cottages on the ocean front. Then a bunch of corrupt politicians in City Hall were making money by turning farm land into subdivisions. It was the free market in its freest sense. Virginia Beach started off as about 3 blocks deep from the ocean and about 5 miles from north to south along the Atlantic Ocean. In the 60's they annexed Princess Ann County and became the world's largest resort city. It was all farm land and the free market just went ahead and it grew on itself. Development grew on itself. There was very little zoning and you could turn a farm into a shopping center or a tract housing development relatively easy. I left there in 1973 because it was the pits. As for employee housing--I stayed with a friend. She bought a nice townhouse right in the flight pattern of Ocean Naval Air Base. Every 7 seconds like clockwork a supersonic jet would take off or land. She got that thing for $20,000. That is free market. Jasmine: The problem has to do with the desirability of Aspen as a resort. People come here and have such a good time that they want to stay here and live which is what happened to most of us. I don't care what kind of restrictions or non-restrictions you have as long as you have people who are willing to pay a million dollars for a piece of property, if you are a developer why are you going to bother with employee housing? Let's face it developers develop. living. And there is no reason profit than anybody else. That is how they make their for them to expect less of a 17 PZM3.21.89 Bruce: We really don't have developers coming to Aspen. We have speculators. A real estate developer would be crazy to come to this town. I have been in that business. I would not come to Aspen to be a real estat~ developer. I would come to Aspen to be a speculator. To develop real estate I would go to Texas or Florida or California or somewhere else. Aspen is not the place to be a developer. Jim: These problems are inherent if you are a resort town. Welton is talking about uncontrolled resort towns. Bruce says maybe we are too controlled. I think the problems which are occurring cannot be avoided if you are a resort town. Any goal of a resort town is to bring in the mega bucks--to be a better resort town--to be bigger. The resort town that I can think of that are not being crushed with the same problems that we are right now are ones that are totally filled up or totally boring. Carmelle, California--there is no place else to build right there and the atmosphere itself there is very stifling. An active atmosphere, an active community which to me insinuates that you want a resort communi ty with Summer acti vi ty, Fall activity, winter activity. Those activities are generated and provided by by the tourists who are able to come here and employ the restaurateurs, the a~chitects, the lawyers and everyone else. So I think we are at a conflict here of whom we are. We are a resort community with a community of individuals who have been here for a long time and want to make it a lasting community. So I think we come to grips with that first and say "Let's eliminate the mega bucks and tourists." And we have to realize we can't do that. So I think we have to come to grips with that first and then say "But we do want to make it a better community." and then start to take some corrective actions. But if we are going to get into an argument of how to eliminate speculation which is what generates activity in the area or how to eliminate the number of tourists coming to town, I think we haven't realized who we are. Jasmine: I don't think you can eliminate speculation. I think you can control it because I think that is important for the community. Welton: I agree. Jim: the If you control speculation too tightly, you are stifling community. I would agree with controlling the areas of 18 PZM3.21.89 speculation. If the downtown areas are developed, if we start talking about a restriction of tear downs of small lodges or if small lodges are torn down they have the ability to do this or this, this size this way, you eliminate some speculation in what could be the size of the small lodges or affordable housing. So you are limiting the type of speculation that is going on. There is still possible speculation for people to come in and do things but you are steering them towards the type of speculation you would like to see happen anyway. And then the peripheral where we have the large condominiums, the large townhouses are goi~g up that are so objectional to everyone make sure we keep those on the peripheral. By our own futility, much of that peripheral of the city has become filled up. So if we restrict those types of elements to that peripheral, which there is very little land left, we can soon see the end of that type of speculation. Or at least they will be pushed further out. The steering of speculation and the type of speculation is perhaps where you want to go. Let's manipulate them. ~;"." Jasmine: That is a good point because what is happening now it is almost all re-development rather than brand new development just because we just don't have that much space. I think Jim's approach is really correct that we didn't foresee what would happen with all these big houses most of which are re- developments. They are tearing down small houses and putting in big houses. Jim: For any type of development you want to do right now you have got to know the code book and hire 5 guys. I think if we say "Yes you can go ahead and speculate but the type of speculation we are going to allow in this area is going to be this type of speculation from small lodges to small lodges, etc. Those areas are going to catch on because that is all you can do in those areas and people are going to start speculating on that. It may not be the million dollar turnover townhouses but speculators will come in because it could be a $500,000 or a $250,00 speculation turnovers. Welton: I almost think that you are right. No matter if you limit down to such tiny little areas that nobody would want to look at in previous years now they would. I almost think that is a possibility. Jim: I think small projects like that equals one large townhouse proj ect. There aren't going to be that many large townhouse projects left. If we restrict the development of those townhouses to the peripheral it is almost already totally taken over. If we restrict the number of large projects that can occur along the peripheral and keep them on the peripheral so they 19 PZM3.21.89 don't interfere with our daily downtown community living then there is not going to be that many left. Then if all there is left is the direction steering of the type of speculation we are going to allow the type of speculation we want, we want someone to build this then let's start manipulating the speculators so that the type of speculation available are the type of buildings we want. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about oranges you are going to speculate or you are talking about watermelons you are going to speculate. If there is only the ability to do oranges, they are going to do oranges. In this community, they are going to do it. They might do 5 crates of oranges rather than do 1 watermelon but they are going to do it. Alan: Would you want to some open space parcels invaded whether it is by ,a have are rail statements in the plan that say sacrosanct? They shouldn't be spur or by a housing project. -......,.. Graeme: The concept of having a certain percentage of the area in town devoted to open space might make sense rather than particular pieces because patterns change. If you have got a piece of open space and it looks like you need a railroad station and it should go there then sure we can do that but we have got to designate something else. Set a certain goal percentage as a goal for open space. But let it move around perhaps. Mari: There is a misperception out there that open space land is free land. That land has value. If you use a piece of open space that is worth a million dollars on the free market, you are the same as using a million dollars. And if we don't do any accounting, people seem to think it doesn't cost anything to use a piece of open space that has a value of a million dollars. Each community facility should have its own funding and it shouldn't be raiding another fund. And if they do decide to use an open space then the City should replace the open space fund with the value of that land if they use that. Then we will see how free it is. If we are talking about public land, we do have categories and we should transfer the funds from one category to another and see what it is really costing us. It is not free. Alan: ability wants. obvious Would you be interested in studying the issue of the of this community to afford the kinds of things that it I think without doing a lot of analysis it is pretty to me that if we compared our tax rate to that around the 20 PZM3.21.89 state we would find that we are if not the lowest--certainly compared to the incomes here we are the lowest. Jim: The type of needs we are asking for are high community needs. Projects such as employee housing that are the people who have the least ability to pay are who they are going to serve. And then you are asking the community to pay and that becomes a very unattractive type of taxation program. Mari: I have heard developers say the reason we can't solve the employee housing problems is because no one realizes that the price tag to the solution of the housing problem is in the neighborhood of $20,000,000. Until the community realizes what the price tag is for the solution and sets about a way to raise those funds that there will not be a solution. I have asked developers because I have heard a lot of these same letters that come to the paper that say "If you could only change the zoning, people would build employee housing". To me that is the same category as developers who come in and say "Well, you are charging me so much expense in getting this thing through the approval process, I am going to have to only have fur stores instead of hardware stores". .~ You can't tell me that if they have a choice between a fur store and a hardware and that fur store is going to pay more that they would take the hardware store that cost them less money to develop the property?" It is the same thing with employee housing. If they gave you high density, would you charge less for the property than you could get on the open market? No! And every developer that I have talked to says there is no way that just by zoning and density increases alone could employee housing ever be produced that would be affordable to people who live here. Jasmine: This goes back to the housing report. One of them that came up with the cash-in-lieu amounts--it was predicated on the fact that there was land available and that land costs were not factored into the cash-in-lieu which was one of the reasons I was so opposed to it. Where are they going to make this land? We don't have it! Alan: Are you interested in looking at how much do you need to resolve the housing problem given the tradeoffs that you have to make. Maybe we don't want to house every single employee. Is that target number something that is important to you? We think you should have that kind of number. What is our target for the next 10 years in terms of affordable housing? 21 PZM3.21.89 '-"'..-- Jim: I think we should also know how many employees do we want to house. That is really important too. Jasmine: And how many do we really have? Jim: If every senior in college decided to spend 2 years in Aspen and wanted to come here, are we supposed to house them? You are talking about the carrying capacity of the area. We also have to look at the very real possibility that one of the best ways to control or slow down growth is to control and slow down the supply of employees. , As long as we continue to provide for an unlimited number of employees they become the weights of the community that we have to provide for. Then that means that developers are always going to have a pool of employees. "..- Welton: Actually what Jim is talking about is what happened in Virginia Beach, Virginia. You build housing for employees. That would get filled up and then we would have additional work to do so they would build more housing for more employees who would come in to work. Then there was this new shopping center which would generate more influx of people to build more housing to meet the demand caused by the shopping center. That is the way growth kept feeding on itself. Alan: It changes the nature of who votes and what they vote for. You have a whole construction lobby that may vote out growth management some day. Bruce: One of the things I would like to see is what is Aspen's buildout potential. A lot of the problems we are talking about go way beyond the Aspen city limits. It is fine for us to address all of these problems but if the County is not doing anything in this same regard, we are not going to solve any of these problems. I would like to know what Aspen's physical limitations are. Alan: It does have to be a joint exercise. It will be real interesting when you do that. We can come up with a scientific physical number. But it is only when you do a qualitative look at that--it is like "So we could physically accommodate this but the air might not be breathable". Meeting was adjourned. Time was 6: 22