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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19890613 ~x~ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION JUNE 13. 1989 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll call Herron, Jim Colombo, Welton Anderson. were Graeme Means, Bruce Kerr, Michael Mari Peyton, Roger Hunt, Jasmine Tygre and ASPEN MEADOWS CONCEPTUAL SPA Welton opened the public hearing. Roger made a motion to table this hearing to date certain of June 22, 1989. Mari seconded the motion with all in favor. Welton closed the public hearing and continued to June 22, 1989. COMMISSIONER'S COMMENTS Graeme: I read in one of the papers today about the Mayor of Glenwood trying to institute a vail to Aspen re-cycling program. If there is anything we can do to help push that along I think it would be a good idea. It needs to be co-ordinated all the way to Vail in order to make it work. Tom Baker: The Manager's Off ice is working on a re-cycl ing program. I don't know if they are co-ordinating it with the Glenwood effort but are with the Windstar effort. Jim Duke with the County has been working on it as well. Jasmine: been an dollars. to build I saw in the paper today where apparently there has offer made on the Community Center for 1. 5 million It said the County would like to use the money it gets office buildings. I remember when we were discussing the locations for employee housing, the Community Center, we were told, was absolutely off limits because it was much too valuable a resource as a Community Center. The County needed it and we couldn't possibly consider it for employee housing. Yet now apparently it is not that valuable if it means that the County can sell that land and use the money for building more office buildings. I would like to pursue this. Tom: I do remember when we were doing the housing we were told not to look at the Community Center because that was off limits because of it's needs as a Community Center. What I would like to do is ask Mark Fuller who has become the new section head for the County portion of the joint City/County Departments. PZM6.13.89 Jasmine: I would hate to see that land sold. It seems to me now that we have got 2 pieces of land--one being the Billings property and one being this property that there are a lot of uses those pieces could be put to rather than letting it go immediately into the hands of private developers. I don't want to see it slip out of our hands into private developers just so that the County can build offices and not get any community benefits out of it. We have identified over and over again that we don't have land to put any of this stuff so I would like to see some action taken on that. Roger: city council passed a resolution last night concerning carbondioxide and chlorophyll carbons without so much as reading anything or understanding what was going on. We don't know what was in the resolution and whether it made any sense or not. The humorous thing is they pointed out that one of the points in the resolution was that the city should buy no cars with air conditioners in them. Yet compared to all the City fleet with air conditioners, it is probably one one hundredth of the amount of CFS's that they just approved for the Ice Rink. So this is the absurdity of it all. It just doesn't make any sense. The City Manager is going to take a look at it and see where we comply and where we fall on our face. They took out a bio- degradable system and stuck in a CFS system. Michael: What about RFTA with all their ugly polluting buses? Roger: And the resolution commented about transportation but it didn't go into depth transportation-wise. If they were really in earnest why not start electrifying our transportation system for example. AFFORDABLE HOUSING ZONE DISTRICT PUBLIC HEARING Welton re-opened the public hearing. Tom Baker: Council really liked your 2-pronged idea. That made a lot of sense to them given the nature of the problem as being very different in some areas than some others. So they liked the idea of a one district and multi--the 2 pronged effort. The other idea that really got a lot of support was the carriage house idea. They felt that it was an excellent way to lead the community back into the west end. 2 PZM6.13.89 They felt that the carriage house idea would probably need an exemption from FAR or an FAR bonus where it would almost be something that could be done by right. Or maybe it is just a conditional use for this. But they were interested in having a 300sqft footprint off the alley, stand alone, typical carriage house concept. And allow that to happen especially in the west end but also in the R-15 or R-6 neighborhoods. They thought that was much more appropriate than going after the housing problem with more Centennials but realizing that that was only 1 way of getting at the problem. Graeme: I like that concept also but I think that it should be expanded to also include putting in affordable units in the main structure also. I really think that what we passed as part of 47 before where we required accessory dwelling unit in single family house in the R-6 zone I think that was a really good idea both to invigorate the neighborhood and also to supply some employee housing. I think that this Council might pass that whereas it was kicked out of the other one. Jasmine: I think you have to take footprint into account also. Tom: So the carriage house concept would also include accessory dwellings that could be attached or detached. But there would be a limit on the FAR of 700sqft. And a limit on the footprint of 400sqft. Graeme: I think we could go backwards and say no you can't have your FAR unless you include this or some happy medium. I think people would get upset if we all of a sudden add 4 or 5sqft or more to the FARs in the R-6. Tom: It would be deed restricted to employees of the community. No price or income guidelines. Jasmine: I think this is where size becomes crucial. keep them small enough they are not going to be able that much more because people are not going to spend for 600sqft. If you to charge that much Graeme: There are some people who could rent it all winter and be there for 3 weeks when they are on vacation. Welton: If, in fact, it is restricted to a qualified employee of the valley and the price is so high that no employee would want it and they understand--as I told the Goldsmith's you are going to have to have an employee. It is going to have to be somebody that really works here and lives here and if you can't find 3 PZM6.13.89 somebody that qualifies then they are going to find somebody for you. That prospect scares them to death. Tom: We don't have any enforcement. We don't even intend to have enforcement. In other words if somebody puts in an accessory dwelling unit they can leave it vacant and have their Grandmother stay there for 2 months in the summer and that is OK with us. Jasmine: Why? Tom: I don't know why. Roger: I think that is where we should be inventorying these and keeping an overview of what is happening with them. Otherwise how do we know if there is a legitimate employee occupying them? Tom: We can write the deed restriction so that we can do that. Right now the deed restrictions are not written that way. Leslie: Under Ordinance 47 you all wanted that in there that if the resident did not rent the employee unit then the Housing Authority would fill it. That was struck by Council. Welton: I would entertain a motion to re-submit Ordinance 47 as originally submitted to the Council. Jasmine: I make that motion. Mari seconded the motion. Graeme: There are a lot of other things involved. certainly want to take a look at it. I would Roger: Maybe what we should do is take a look at the Ordinance and see where we should try and re-insert some of the things that were dropped out of 47. Jasmine withdrew her motion and Mari withdrew her second. Tom: I haven't heard any conclusion on price or income guidelines. Jasmine: That is because it doesn't matter if you are not going to enforce it. You can put in all the regulations you want. If you don't have any enforcement, forget it. You are just spinning your wheels for nothing. Mari. I don't think we have to have the price guidelines. But I do think it needs to be enforced. 4 PZM6.13.89 Roger: The stick is that if it is not occupied by a legitimate employee/resident then the Housing Authority will find someone at a reasonable price. That is certainly an inducement for the owner of that unit both to keep it at a reasonable price and keep .it occupied by an employee of his choice. Jasmine: At first when we started talking about enforcement of employee housing regulations it sounded very gestapoish. Then they started turning up all these units that had actually been built which were not being used for employees. They were being used for storage or offices or they were people who had moved to California or whatever. We turned up quite a few units under that enforcement. All those things were contributing to the problem. We thought we had X number of units. We really had X minus 50. The other problem I have with these regulations as in all regulations is when you find somebody in violation of the regulation, what happens to them? Puff! Nothing. Mari: Didn't they force the sale of one? Jasmine: They can. But with these accessory units what do you do? Tom: Typically how it is handled is when you find they are required to bring it into compliance. ultimately go to court if they don't comply. a violation It could A person spoke here from the public. with all the street noise I could not hear what she said. Jasmine: I think you have to have some kind of an automatic penalty situation. Part of the carrot on the stick is that there should be some kind of swift vengeance which doesn't involve 3 years to get somebody out of a unit or 3 years to get that unit actually working for what it was given the exemption for and is not being used. Jim: What is going to be the incentive for these people who are building these very nice luxury homes to build these units if they are going to be deed restricted, regulated and supervised by the Housing Authority. One it is going to be a pain in the neck for them and two is that when they go to sell the property who is going to want to buy it? Graeme: The FAR. 5 PZM6.13.89 Tom: There is probably not an incentive that is going to come out of the affordable housing overlay. That is going to be an incentive to do carriage houses for somebody who doesn't want to do it. The re-assessment of Ordinance 47 might make some of this attractive. . The carriage house incentive isn't going to solve all of the problem. It is going to solve a certain small increment and it is an important part of the whole puzzle. Roger: If you reduce the FAR in the R-6 and lower the size of a single family dwelling and then you give a bonus FAR that would include an employee unit plus maybe some additional for the primary resident unit then you get the sort of bonus approach where there is some benefit if they want to put the accessory unit in they will get some bonus FAR for the primary unit. So on that basis I think you can make it work. Tom: There is a task force that has been put together. Betsy ? who works as an appraiser. Dick Butera has been helping us try-and understand what is going to work and what is not going to work from the other side of the fence. We are talking with Perry Harvey as well. Jim Adamski, Jim Curtis has also been invited. We have tried to put some more information together. We have got the zone itself and then the overlay. In the overlay we have got an FAR bonus for the carriage house. We are looking at the density bonus for a mixture of affordable and free market stuff. We are looking at the possibility of a city-wide overlay vs. a parcel specific overlay. Then we have the question of FAR bonuses. What the Council told us very clearly was that we should look very seriously at a pre-market component to this. We have been working on the premise that we are going to do a 100% deed restricted zone district. And maybe for the zone district that still works. But for the overlay it doesn't seem to work. Betsy, DiCk, Perry, Leslie and I worked these out before but what we looked at was given an R-6 lot, 6,000sqft. The existing maximum floor area in that zone district is 3,240sqft. That is what is allowed right now above grade. That is countable floor area. That does not include basement or garage. What we looked at was taking 4 2-bedroom units on that site--those units would be 800sqft and we would sell those at the middle income price range. The subsidy that would be required per unit for that kind of development would be $67,000 per each unit. Now the assumptions that were going on there are that to build affordable housing that costs $100 per square foot for construction and for development costs. 6 PZM6.13.89 The land costs are based upon the potential that is also $100 per potential square foot you have got $324,000 in land costs and construction and development costs and your short by $67,000 a year. square footage and of floor area. So about the same in revenues that fall Leslie Lamont then made a presentation as per attached. After further discussion-- Dick Butera: Perry and I have been called in as inducies. This is sort of inducements to get people like us to produce housing and as an inducie it is interesting to hear your views because it is informative to hear the other side of the coin other than just the developer's side. I have some reactions which are maybe valid and maybe aren't. I get a sense that this overlay--the whole thing about the overlay really seems to be trying to solve a social problem and not employee housing numbers of volume that we need as Mickey referred to. The idea of mixing more people in the neighborhoods if that is what the majority of the P&Z and the Council want to do that is probably a way of doing it. But it is a very slow process and doesn't induce very much. It doesn't get a developer's blood flowing to step up and get 250 units that need to be immediately built. So I think it would be good to try to separate a social problem from the actual problem being housing. They are really different things. And every time I have seen in the past in different communities I have worked where we have tried to use zoning to solve a social problem, usually nothing happens. Because the social forces all come to the hearings and it all stops. You have seen that in Ord. 47. It began to be a social problem and all the forces of the community came. We stripped it down and it is not worth very much and won't ever be. It produced 5 units in maybe 5 years. When developer's are making 3 and 4 hundred thousand on an R-6 lot, they sure as hell aren't going to come in and make $72,000. So what Leslie has done is taken the toughest situation in Aspen and try to make it work and even then it is probably not going to produce any housing. I agree with Jim that the housing that that will produce will cause more social problems in the west end than we have solved. So I think the overlay thing that we have just passed out really can produce housing but there are sites in Aspen where 40 units 7 ...-.--.....,...,,-~ PZM6.13.89 can be built, 30 units, 20 units and get the critical problem solved. Then maybe the social problem can be worked on and weaved into our society in a sensible way that doesn't solve one social problem and create another social problem such as too many cars. If you wanted to know from an inducie what would work up there-- the carriage house--if you said to everybody in Aspen that you get a 4 or 500sqft bonus, separate entrance carriage house--I don't think it has to be separate. I think it can be over the top of a lot of garages. I think you are going to get a lot of units built. A lot of people want to have somebody watch their homes when they are not here. And that kind of thing--you get something for nothing and that is what turns people on. So I think that will work. The other ones are very difficult. There are problems on the developer's side that is going to make that not do very much to solve the problem. I think the other side--there is a lot of land and a lot of air rights in this town where I think 200 units could be built rather quickly although I think Mickey's solution is more of a solution. Let's get out on the pieces of land all around the town. They don't have to be 10 miles out. Go where there is 20 units here and 10 here and a plateau here and a little piece here and a little piece here. That can work. Lastly I really think that this problem is a problem of the employer. You are going to penalize the single family home owner or potential single family home owner who didn't cause the problem, is not part of the problem and isn't ever going to be part of the solution. It is a mUlti-family problem that we are trying to squeeze into a toothpaste tube that is a single family lot. First of all the problem is me. I came here 8 years ago and had o employees. Now I have 450. So I am your problem. And I think these moratoriums and these penalties and these taxations and all this heat belongs on me. It belongs on Maynard. On Hadid. On the people at the banks. Some of these new buildings that were built where the City Building Department Office is. There are about 115 employees in that one little building. That gray brick building across the street here. That guy is a problem. He had o employees before he built that building. And now there is 150. And we want to sock it to some single family home owner--Iet' s sock it to him and me because we caused the problem. So I think we need to be taxed. We need to pay for it. And if we can think about that and start to focus the attention on who 8 PZM6.13.89 is causing the disease and how do we get to that core to stop the disease from spreading. We are creating more employees than you are fixing. I can tell you the problem is getting worse every day--not better. So maybe all this attention ought to be on the employers. A, you can stop expanding businesses and B, start paying for the social problem we created. And we have to do it. A lot of guys are doing it. The only problem is you need to give us the tools to let us get to solving the problem. Because to work around the system to solve it is very tiring. Going through these processes, you just throw your hands up and say "The hell with it! ". So from a developer's side that is how I see it. Mari: You have made a lot of really good points. The one thing though that I think we need to hold in mind is it is not only developer's that we are trying to get to build housing. We are also trying to get--there are individual people who do individual houses or multi-family. I think that professional developer's look at things differently. I don't pretend to believe that this will get 200 units built but if it would get 20 units built I think it is worth pursuing. Dick: I agree. And someone like Tom Starodoj at the bank--he has al those wonderful young people who work in there. If there were a tool for him, he may go out and take care of 10 units for his employees if there was something for him to work with. It is better to get everybody in the community to participate. I don't mean that major developers have to come in here and build Centennials. Tom Baker: Dick has been saying for a long time "Give me the appropriate tool so that I can go out and do some housing in town and I will do it". And we have been working with Perry to try to understand what the numbers are to make things work in the affordable housing zone district. I guess right up front under the permitted use section it talks about a mix of units. We are talking about an 80/20 mix. 80% price and income restricted and 20% resident occupied. But there is a deed restriction there. I don't know if we want to look even further in terms of free market component of this or not. It might be able to work without it. But it might not. Certainly free market component of it is going to help. I will come back to you with more on that. Tom then made a further presentation as attached. 9 PZM6.13.89 Graeme: Would there be any way that we could incorporate into this affordable housing zone district some mechanism that the Planning Department wouldn't be charging review fees and things like that. Tom: Ord. 47 did that. Any 100% affordable housing project the review fees are waived. Dick: This is really a critical issue. Maynard, Butera and Hadid have an obligation to take care of dishwashers--the lower income people. What has happened is that that burden has been shifted to the tax payers to solve it for us with no data on how many of them there are. It is unbelievable. The people I feel this community should be helping are the school teachers, the policemen, the junior bankers. The 20 to 35 year-olds who want to make a home here who are real long-term people here. I think it is appalling and morally wrong that the community is taking resources that should be helping a school teacher and instead are helping me with my dishwasher. What you should be doing is saying "Butera you are not getting tax money for your dishwashers. Here is the tool. Now go take care of yourself". Then the numbers will be counted because we are going to count them before we build them. Why does the community have to count them? Dormitory housing was then discussed. Welton the continued the meeting to date certain of July 11, 1989. Meeting was adjourned. Clerk 10