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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19891212 ~/J "...,,... RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION DECEMBER 12. 1989 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll call were Richard Compton, Graeme Means, Bruce Kerr, Michael Herron, Mari Peyton, Roger Hunt, Jasmine Tygre and Welton Anderson. COMMISSIONER'S COMMENTS Roger: On the Little Nell Hotel concerning the roof line and how high it was. The rational as I rece"'.l it was that they represented that the machinery was going to be under the roof which I thoroughly approved of. I walkad through the Hunter street Court the other day and I heard machinery and on top of each of what would look like a chimney they have attache a turbine-type of blower. As far as I am concerned that seems to me to be outside of what they represented to us as where the machinery would be. I also talked with Bill Drueding about that and he said that the report of conditions to him from the Planning Office did not happen to specifically include that. Consequently that comes in the area from his point of view and the area of machinery over and above what can go on the roofline. We have 2 problems. #1. Little Nell is not in compliance with what I think they represented to us. #2. We have apparently got an internal problem as far as getting that type of condition to Bill Drueding. Mari: I remember they were saying that the reason they needed the extra height was they were going to house the machinery in the extra height so that no machinery would be on view. Roger: It is that roof line on the west end of the building. Mari: They wanted to enclose the machinery. Roger: Now we have 2 pieces of machinery on top of 2 smoke stacks. Baker: So these are those things that turn around on the chimney. Roger: No. They are not the turn-arounds on the chimney. They are motorized turbine-type blowers that are high-speed blowers and noisy. Baker: We will have someone check that out. PZM12.12.89 ~ Welton: The discussion was generic machinery and I said they are still going to have machinery showing. They said "Oh no, we will have it all up underneath there if we are allowed to continue this roofline out like that to cover it". And I lost my argument. I didn't want them to raise the roof because I said they were still going to have mechanical equipment showing anyway. Roger: But they represented "Oh no, all the machinery was going to be confined within the roof". Right? Welton: Yes. Roger: At least 3 of us remember it that way. Jasmine: I remember it that way. Roger: So 4 of us remember it that way and I am furious about it. Number 2 item--I read in the paper that RFTA is having personnel problems and the first thing they are going to cut is the airport shuttle. That airport shuttle I considered very important as far as servicing what is now the Truscott Housing. I would really like to know what is going to be put--because these discussions were part of the Truscott Housing thing--I want to know what RFTA solution is to--all we decided in that approval because now instead of half hourly service the service to that has been dropped down to down valley service which is maybe once an hour. Baker: That is a good point. I remember that that was a very specific concern that P&Z had that there would be adequate transportation for the people who were going to live there. And we had all our disincentives for reduced parking because we were going to have high frequency transit. I will ask Dan Blankenship to come in and talk to you. I have a report on Truscott Place regarding Roger's concern about electric vs gas. I talked to Peter Dobolvrony. He said that he would be glad to come in. Peter did an analysis on the hospital project. It was primarily on the hospital project to be applied on the Truscott Place as well. And that was an efficiency analysis in terms of gas vs electric realizing that it was cheaper to put electric base board in from a front end cost. They looked at what it would cost to do gas. Peter put electric into both the hospital and Truscott Place. And the money that was saved he put into insulation and low heat glass. 2 PZM12.12.89 The net result was that the occupant on a monthly basis is going to pay the same. The benefit to the project was that each individual household was individually metered. Conservation was then put into the control of the people using the units. Michael: Last night at City council, Hal Clark came forward on behalf of the Parks Association and proposed 2 ballot issues relating to the use of the 6th penny open fund--the use of those funds and then to change the vote procedure as to what was required for a public vote in order to take open space and use it for something else. I am particularly concerned about the latter because I think we have identified on several occasions the fact that Koch Lumber and the Marolt property are pretty high on our priority list of land in the City that could be used for employee housing. And I am concerned about anything that is going to make it more difficult. In addition to that I think there are lots of circumstances when you can turn around and buy property under one set of circumstances and years down the road the circumstances or conditions change that it may be appropriate to take what was once thought to be appropriate open space and use it for something else. And I think that tying our hands into a system that it makes it very, very restricted to ever make a change. It is not that official but since that is part of planning I don't know that that is not something that we should consider also. I know that the city Council put it on kind of a quick track so that they could work it out so they would get it on the next ballot issue on the next election. Roger: It had required 2j3rd of the public to change use from Park to anything else. And I asked if this would be effective retroactively to things like the ball field on the Rio Grande and Shaperie, etc. where we definitely have designs transportation wise in the long run. And Hal before the Council said "Yes". During the council meeting he called me out and said I had hit on something that they had not even considered. And to get over this he was going to go back to the PCPA Board and recommend that this is only for future properties. I agree with Mickey in the long run that things do change over time and to lock it in cement with a 2j3rd vote--you only need a majority vote to get it back again but still it is the nuisance of the thing. It will be nothing retroactive. Just for new properties. 3 PZM12.12.89 Michael: We don't know if that is how city Council is going to work it. It is the Board of Directors of the Parks Association will agree to that. Roger: But not yet. Baker: or that to give We could ask Council to at least the concept be Council some guidance. request that this come before P&Z remanded to P&Z for some analysis We can transmit that to Council. MOTION Michael: question Council. I make a motion that that proposal come before us for comment before it for goes a ballot to city Roger seconded the motion with all in favor except Richard Compton and Graeme Means. Richard: I share some of Mickey's concerns but I think we can bring those individually before Council without having to slow down the process. Graeme: I feel the same way. I think we need to limit our focus a little bit. STAFF COMMENTS No comments. PUBLIC COMMENTS No comments. HOUSING REPLACEMENT PROGRAM CODE AMENDMENT CONTINUED Tom Baker: In terms of the mandatory occupancy of accessory dwelling units: At the last meeting P&Z directed staff to put together a resolution regarding the P&Z's concern that accessory dwelling units if they weren't rented were not going to be of benefit to the community. I have added that into the "Whereas" section. Something Staff had discussions about was to keep flexible as much as possible the options for single family resident to allow the accessory dwelling unit to be rented or not rented as the property owner wished. And if it was rented it would have to be rented to qualified residents. 4 PZM12.l2.89 P&Z felt we should require the units to be rented. The one thing that Staff came up with on the side of not requiring mandatory occupancy was that at a minimum we are getting an inventory built up in the existing mature neighborhoods. And that at some point in the future we can tap into those units whether or not we require them to be occupied now or not. Mari: Are you suggesting that in the future, occupancy might be required? Baker: No. I am suggesting that the economy could change any number of ways. I can remember a point in history when we were upset with bandit units and we tried to get rid of bandit units. Now we have come full circle and invite people to come in and legalize those as accessory dwelling units. Maybe we don't run such a huge risk of having an underutilized inventory if we do not require mandatory occupancy of the accessory dwelling units. Compton: I still have the concern of particularly if people are getting incentives to build these things--extra FAR and that kind of thing. They will just build it and leave it empty to get the extra FAR without any intention of ever renting it. Seeing as there are other options in the regulation now such as cash-in-lieu that it is not like people are being forced to build these units and then forced to rent them to somebody. It is an option to build it. It is not a requirement. I understand your feeling about creating more openness and flexibility in the system. It is just that I don't really see it working that way. Baker: We were trying to develop different standards. If we require mandatory occupancy then fewer people will do these. If fewer people do them 10 years down the road we will have fewer of these in our inventory so that if the time were right for people to utilize them we won't have them. If we don't require the mandatory occupancy we could potentially build up an inventory even though it is underutilized at any particular moment in time, when the time is right we will have that inventory in place. Jasmine: I guess the part that confuses me about this is that if somebody puts up an accessory dwelling unit voluntarily and then doesn't rent it--then you have had no mitigation. And the purpose of what we are trying to do is to mitigate this housing situation. In fact it has not been mitigated in this instance. Then there is the poor slob who is paying cash-in-lieu. He is paying cash and he is doing whatever his bit is whether he thinks it is right or wrong, he is doing it. The person with the accessory dwelling unit that he has built and is not renting, isn't doing it. And I think that is - 5 PZM12.12.89 discriminating against the means by which you fullfil this requirement which is not going to be popular with anybody. But I think it is going to be equally unpopular for all options and should be fairly applied. You shouldn't allow one segment to build something that maybe it will take him to use 10 years down the road when this other poor guy has to pay cash. I don't think that is right. Michael: There is a lot about this legislation that confuses just about everyone. If you make people put somebody in them then I think that you probably are going to create a lot of incentive for people to pay in order to get out of this. I think then what we are going to end up doing is that we are going to have a fund that will provide housing that may be meaningful as opposed to 300sqft, as far as I am concerned, jail cells that I don't think is suitable for anybody to live in and I think is a result of this legislation. I think we could end up with money and by virtue of the money you could buy units or build units and end up with a better product for people to live in. Welton: What Richard said, I would like to take one step further. Rather than it not being used I think if it is not mandatory to be used as a resident housing unit it would end up being an accessory portion of the house that would be used by the homeowner for what they want to use it for. A case in point is the duplex over on Hyman Avenue. There he used it for visiting business associates, decorated it to within an inch of his life so that it was good enough for his Texas oilmen friends to have their own separate place. In the presence of changing hands it was sort of forgotten that that was why this space was built in the first place. As it got more and more yupified, it got less and less appealing for the owners to want to allow it to be used for employees because they had forgotten the initial reason. I thin if we say you can build it but you don't have to occupy it people will stop thinking about the reason why these things were built and they will become more and more a part of the house. Graeme: In general I am sort of reluctantly on board in terms of thinking you need to enforce it if you are going to do it. But also there are requirements to have a certain amount of natural light and ventilation in habitable space. Roger: I have to agree with Graeme. Extending on Jasmine's point of if it is not occupied by a resident, we are not mitigating. In addition we are not mitigating the extra size of the house that we have allowed. If we have allowed them to build a larger house and then just leave that unit unoccupied--maybe 6 PZM12.12.89 the way of wording it is that if the unit is not occupied by a resident that it comes under review of the housing authority for either occupying the unit or possibly assessing cash-in-lieu charges at that time. It should be kept on the inventory of the Housing Authority as a unit and I think they should overview it. Baker: At the last meeting we were looking at making single family and accessory dwelling units a permitted use and still condi tional for duplexes. But in looking at how we wanted to enforce this mandatory occupancy issue it is our opinion that we should leave these as conditional uses so that we can apply the condition of occupancy in there and also allow us to review them on a case by case basis for the density concerned. Welton: occupancy way we do In essence we would simply be taking the mandatory out of being codified and put it into a "This is the it" kind of scenario. Baker. Yes. Because Dave said from a legal point of view for us to have an enforceable piece of legislation for accessory dwelling units mandatory occupancy that as long as we are requ~n"ng accessory dwelling unit as mitigation we can apply these conditions. But there may be situations in the future where if somebody comes in and an accessory dwelling unit isn't provided as part of mitigation it is just something somebody wants to do and in those cases we seem to be on less stable ground from a legal point of view for requiring mandatory occupancy. This gets around the difference between the 2 accessory dwelling units by allowing us to apply conditions. That would be just a standard condition of approval that we put onto every accessory dwelling unit that comes before you that results mitigation. Michael: If you can't approve the conditional use then they pay they pay the cash-in-lieu. Baker: 80%. They have other options but, yes, cash-in-lieu or the Michael: So somebody who lives in town and who isn't displacing anybody is nailed by this ordinance. How do we address that person who has a home and that reaches a stage in their life that they want to build themselves a better home. This is a burden that isn't theirs. Baker: We have got an exemption for 80% of FAR. 7 PZM12.12.89 Michael: But that is not an exemption. They are penalized by making them build a house 80% smaller than they are allowed to build. Baker: And I think we can build a case and we have done so in condominiumization. We can build a case for the fact that you take a small house and you build a bigger house, there is some impact on the community in terms of employee generation typically. Welton: What about the resident occupancy deed restriction-- Baker: That is an option still. Welton: That applies directly to the local person who-- Michael: market. market. Right. Who has a house they can sellon the free Once they do that, they can't sell it on the free Welton: They can sell it on the free market. Michael: Not on the same basis. Welton: They can sellon the free market for whatever want to to another local resident or if they want to an out of town person that wants it as a second home. out of town person pays the impact fee. basis they sell it to Then that Roger: In the case of duplexes right now--technically with this you could end up with 4 units on 9,000sqft. Baker: That is one of the options, yes. Roger: I have problems with 4 units on 9,000sqft. So there is a problem. For example what about the non-conforming duplexes or a duplex on a non-conforming lot like mine. I can't imagine 4 units in that. Baker: I think that is why we are leaving that as conditional use. We were always leaving duplexes as conditional uses. It would be on a case by case basis. Roger: doable. certainly 3 units on 9,000sqft makes sense. 4 units is really touchy. That seems Jasmine: I can understand your point about the conditional use. It just seems to me that I would like to find a way to make it possible for somebody who wants to do an accessory dwelling unit to not have to go through a conditional use--through the expense 8 PZM12.12.89 and hassle of a conditional use procedure if it is, in fact, a real accessory dwelling unit that is, in fact, going to be resident occupied. I would feel more comfortable about this if we gave people either incentive if you are, in fact, going to build this small accessory dwelling unit and it is, in fact, going to be resident occupied one of the incentives is you don't have to go through a conditional use process. I am trying to figure out if there is a way that we can do that because I think freedom from the regulation to do something small and simple and which is in keeping with what we want to do should certainly be encouraged in every way possible and that is one way that is pretty obvious. Welton: Graeme, when you did the conditional use, did you have to do the mailing? Graeme: I also suggested that for some conditional uses there be a smaller mailing--something for that kind of thing. But the fee was waived. Baker: owners. How about the Planning Office doing the mailing? We used to have a mailing that was to adjacent property I don't know why that was taken out. Welton: Welton: It was done to eliminate one sentence in the zoning code rather than having one set of conditions for these type of approvals and one for these type of approvals it was all put together and made most odious for everybody across the board. It was when we were trying to eliminate words from the code. Baker: What I would do is I would be glad to bring up, when we go to Council, talk about reviving that for just accessory dwelling units. The mailing is the most onerous part of the conditional one step review. The fees are waived. Adjacent property owners would be a lot easier than 300ft. Bruce: I am concerned about proper notice or whatever to the neighborhood if somebody is getting ready to put a duplex next to my single family house. If I own a home and somebody is going to build a house next door to it and he is going to put in an affordable dwelling I want to know about that. We are still talking about the impact on the neighborhood. Single family neighborhoods becoming duplex neighborhoods and duplex neighborhoods becoming quadplex neighborhoods. And we still haven't addressed what that is going to do to congestion and parking and all those kinds of things in our traditional 9 PZM12.12.89 neighborhoods of single family or duplex. And certainly I think if this goes through, there needs to be some way that the neighborhood is notified that somebody is going to be building a duplex along with 2 affordable dwelling units so that there is going to be a quadplex in effect next door or down the street or whatever. Michael: I understand where the 300sqft distance is a burden. But I certainly think if you have a block in the west end and somebody comes up on 2 duplex lots and wants to turn around and do this where there is going to be 4 uni ts and you have a situation where there is going to be 8 units and if your are only notifying adjacent property owners I think that there is a lot of impact to the surrounding neighborhood that is affected if you don't give notice to the others. Welton: 2 duplexes would constitute a growth management application. Michael: No. What if 2 different people on the block decide to do that or one on one side of the street and one on the other and they come in a week or 2 of each other. If you are only telling the people on either side of them, there is a tremendous impact to that neighborhood by taking 2 duplex lots and making it into 8 units. If you don't notify more than just the adjoining property owners I don't think you are being fair to the people there. posting a notice on the corner--we have a lot of people who don't live here who would not see that. Roger: As far as the area of notice I think it should not only be the adjacent property owners--I think across alleys and across streets I think should be included. Getting back to the number of units in a particular duplex and the size of the land--what about the idea of stepping when the conditional use occurs? A duplex on 12, OOOsqft there is no conditional use requirement for the 2 units. At 9,000sqft no conditional use at one duplex or at one employee housing unit. And then on 6,000sqft then it is conditional use. Welton: Another sliding scale. Welton asked for public comments. Spencer Schiffer: You are talking about the same thing to some extent. You are telling about the single family house getting the exemption under the provision of providing accessory dwelling unit or the alternate is to only building 80% of FAR. Now isn't that the exemption section? 10 PZM12.12.89 Welton: It is not that it is exemption from GMP. It is just an exemption from mitigating the GMP type impacts. Baker: It is an exemption. But on top of that any accessory dwelling unit in the use tables in the zone district ___mumble the exempt from competing from growth management. But you have conditional use review. Schiffer: So you have public hearing under conditional use. Baker: Yes. You are exempt from the annual competition. Dunaway: So what if you decide you want to go through the competition and not give that housing? Baker: Then you go through the competition and you compete. And if you are successful then you build. But you are going to be mitigating through competition anyway to get the points. ~....<- Dunaway: What was the reasoning for adding single family/duplexes to exemption and not putting them in-- Baker: It was a demolition. We had them in the demolition section initially and what we found out was that when you look at the so-called owner-occupant exemption that we have in the demolition replacement that the second homes weren't included and P&Z brought up what was a concern which was right on. That was that by having single family and duplex in the demolition replacement portion of the code it looked like we were going to end up encouraging second homes to be built to avoid a demolition replacement section of the code. So we worked with the Attorney's office and decided that for multi-family that we could control displacement through demolition replacement. But the only way that we could really get at it with single family and duplex was in the production end. So we went back and looked at the exemption language in the code for single family and duplex and went after it that way. Sally Roach: I own a home in the west end and I some day hope to take it down and build a new home. From what I understand what is being done I feel like I am being punished. And I resent what is going on here as a single family home owner. Sometimes I feel like all of this government interference that goes on just exacerbates the problems. Deed restrictions for instance--as a home owner I am not going to buy a home with deed restrictions on it. If I do it will be very reluctantly. I think what you are doing is encouraging out of state home owners--second home owners because they are the ones 11 PZM12.12.89 who would really like to have someone living on their premises watching their property. For years people have looked at homes and they ask for a unit for a caretaker and of course they couldn't. Now we are going to mandate it. But for me as a local I don't want that to be mandated. I might like to have the unit but maybe I want to have employees living there. Maybe I want my Father who is getting old to live there with me as time goes on. And then maybe later I would like to take it back into a little additional income. And I think there is a misconception that income is always the motive for occupancy. I don't think that is necessarily true. Sometimes people want good, reliable, folks watching their property. I think that sometimes if you would just allow things to happen instead of building in more hurdles for everybody to jump over, building in more expense for the ultimate product by having more processes--now we are going to go through GMP, now we are going to pay cash-in-lieu. Who is going to take that burden up in the end? It is always be on the private property owner. I just feel like we are getting bashed time and time again. And instead of an incentive--I think the greatest incentive in the world for me would be--leave my FAR alone but maybe allow me within that FAR to have a unit that could be closed off or not. But to put a deed restriction on it is a disincentive to me. I am being punished if I do do that and have to get a deed restriction. More and more and more government intervention is not solving the problem. Down the road I don't think it is going to solve the problem either. I think it is very important to ask "Who are we helping? Who are we hurting? And what is the long term effect of this going to be?" Frankly, I am feeling bashed as a long term local. Fred pierce: I have to agree with a lot that is being said. I will admit to not being as familiar with this as you are and more confused by it than you are. But in any event I get a sense that it is directed at a problem that definitely exists in this town. And I think that it does a lot of good in trying to address those concerns. But in terms of the way it is put together I get the sense in reading this Ordinance that what we are really thinking about is we are thinking about most property owners as being #1, very wealthy and #2, cowardly, part-time residents and we are thinking about most people that we are going to help with this ordinance 12 PZM12.12.89 as being people who live and work here as being able to afford to own anything. I think it misses that broad spectrum of people and I consider myself as part of those who came to this town at some point of time in the last 20 years and housing was no easy thing then either and who have done whatever was necessary and usually required a tremendous sacrifice to try to buy something and I made that sacrifice. Some day I hope to be able to add onto my duplex because I am currently single and it is 1,000ft. And if I want a house and get married which I am doing this weekend and have a family, it is not going to work any longer. So if I want to expand that how am I going to be able to afford to do that when all of a sudden I am looking at the cost of just the construction to put on an addition and getting a building permit, it is beyond my means right now. If I could get to that point and all of a sudden this additional cost and #2 adding an accessory unit or paying the cash-in-lieu or conversely limiting to size of what I can live in and a family on 1,000sqft or whatever 80% of the FAR is. I mean you really are affecting a substantial portion of people that are locals and who have been here a long time. I grew up in this town and moved back to live here permanently 10 years ago and those of us in that situation are very seriously and adversely impacted by this. It is my experience in this town that the larger houses are usually second homes. Maybe rather than or in conjunction with an 80% (much noise here) if you were to think about what your local residents who have families and live and work and contribute to this community to have a house that they can afford with a family of say 3,000 to 3,500ft for a single family home, and maybe 2,000 to 2,250ft for a duplex. Maybe rather than limit the FAR you could say anything less that can still be non deed restricted and still be a resident occupied. But it could still be a free market unit occupied by a resident and my guess is that that will not really become a second home market structure. It won't be large enough. Baker: Myler did some numbers and it is essentially exactly what Fred has just said. That is 80% of buildout on the lot or 3,000 or 3, 500sqft whichever is greater for single family home. For duplex 80% of the buildout or 2,000 to 2, 500sqft whichever is greater. What we really have to do is determine in our minds 13 PZM12.12.89 what an appropriately sized home might be without being excessive. Michael: I don't like this legislation at all. I didn't like Ord 47. I don't think the 300sqft is any kind of a goal that we should try to set for people. I think that if you took a look at this legislation the way it affects multi family housing and if you listen to the comments that have been made I don't think it accomplishes anything because it is doing everything with a stick as opposed to with a carrot. I really feel in a glib sense that what we are trying to adopt here is a system that didn't work in eastern Europe that we are going to make Aspen that little pocket of communism where we are going to sit there and tell everybody how big their house should be and how many units they are going to have and how they are going to do this and who should live there and who is the right person to live there. I guess that is probably what I find the most offensive about it. The second home owner who lives here is not a second class citizen because he has money. And neither is anybody who is a resident who lives here and that is basically how I think we are treating them. I know that probably the rest of P&Z doesn't agree with that or possibly City Council either. I would like to propose that we eliminate single family homes and duplexes from this ordinance if we go forward with this and we think it is appropriate. But I would like to suggest that we go forward with it just on the basis of multi family. If you start to read the preambles that we have talked about what we are talking about we want to put people into these neighborhoods. To me that is not planning. That is social engineering. And I don't mean that with any disrespect to the Planning Office. They have worked long and hard to come up with this but I don't think it is appropriate for us to sit at a table and say who should 1 i ve in Aspen and who shouldn't. The next thing they can come up with we will talk about what color their hair should be and what color their eyes should be. And I don't think that that is appropriate. I think if we feel that there is a community wide problem that there is not enough housing in the community then the community should solve it. We shouldn't pick on especial Iv the people who own a single family home or a duplex who live here. To say to somebody "Now if you want to tear down your old house and rebuild but you can only build 2,500, to me is just inherently wrong. To tell them that they can build without having to make any of the impacts that we now think are appropriate up to 80% of their FAR is putting a penalty on them 14 PZM12.12.89 for a problem that is not their problem. It is our problem. If we want to solve it we have to solve it by turning around and biting the bullet and saying we are going to raise taxes. We are going to take property somewhere that the city owns or we are going to condemn property. We are going to upzone it and we are going to let some developer, some horrible person come in here and build enough units on it so that people can live and buy a unit that is more than 300sqft. I have a secretary and her husband who both earn a living and they can't find housing in Aspen. They go down to Basalt. Those are the kinds of people that I am concerned about that we are losing here and this kind of an ordinance doesn't address anything. They are not going to go raise a family in 300sqft in somebody's accessory dwelling unit. So I would like to propose that we consider eliminating single family and duplex. I don't like the ordinance as a whole. But I think at least that is a better function of planning that we could do. Welton: Is that a motion? Michael: That is something that we should discuss and maybe later make a motion. Dunaway: When you talk about enlargement over 50% but nowhere here do you exempt issues that aren't enlargements and I thought that was going to be in there that you can put on a certain additions without triggering provision to this. Welton: I noticed that too. It didn't seem to relate. Baker: Maybe we need to go back in and take a look but I think that once you are at 80% if you go above that I think the intention was that the mitigation kicks in. If you are below 80% you can remodel all you want up to that. In the multi family section, 50% or 1,000sqft is still in place. Welton: I think we need to first resolve whether or not we want to add to that 80% if we want to add for instance the 3,000 or 3,500sqft maximum for single family and 2,000 to 2, 500sqft for duplex. And then address Mickey's thing. MOTION Michael: I move that we exempt single family and duplexes from consideration as part of this ordinance. Bruce seconded the motion. 15 PZM12.12.89 Dunaway: To me the whole purpose of this Ordinance is to include single family and duplex. otherwise in essence you can stay with Ord 47 and then there is no need for all of this discussion. Graeme: I agree. It seems like we are doing this for 17 properties creating this Ordinance. I really feel that to deal wi th the housing problem everybody is going to have to make a certain sacrifice and one thing to keep in mind is that this Ord is just part of the whole approach. It is not just one thing and you could go and pick every different little part of the whole and say "Well, you are picking on these people" and then you are picking on these people later". And there wouldn't be anything done. One of the reasons why I am in favor of this is that I think it will protect some affordable housing that we have and create some. I think every unit that it protects is a much more valuable unit than one that we could go out and you talk about social engineering--I think the housing projects are a lot more social engineering than keeping an existing neighborhood to some degree in tact. I do think the middle class is getting lost in this whole thing. And that is a real concern that I have. This can't do it all. Brian Harper: What you haven't thought about is what is going to happen to the middle class? Essentially what is going to happen is you are moving them down valley. They may be to the point where they want to do an addition but because they can't afford the additional housing unit--they can barely get it together. They struggle like a lot of the middle class here. They finally get enough for an addition and now they have got to provide another unit. It is a lot easier to sell it to a tourist who can build a bigger unit and they move down valley. Welton: They don't have to build a unit. They can build 80% of the maximum square footage which an awful lot of people think is too much as it is. Or they can say "OK, I am living here. I am working here and as long as I am living and working here it will be a resident occupied unit. I can build up to 100% and when I sell it I can sell it to somebody else who is going to live and work here or somebody who is out of town and then that person has to pay the $15,000 or $20,00". Jim Martin: I don't have a house and don't propose to have one in the City of Aspen. I am opposed to this ordinance however because of the concept of it. It is a lot more of the stick than the carrot. I don't think it is going to add any significant number of housing units. I agree that it is a wrong solution to the problem. I think that we have simply got to build some 16 PZM12.12.89 housing. But with regard to this what is going to happen is you are going to get cash-in-lieus. You are going to get people building under the limit because now they have to. Let's figure out a way instead of a negative approach, beat them over the head and make them do it. Let's figure out a way to lead them to do it. Give them an incentive. I don't think there are so many of those accessory units sitting vacant. I don't think so many of them are being abused. I think people are either giving them away or renting them very nominally as caretaker units in the case of second homes or they are using them for some income. The way you will get people to do that is to make it palatable to them and encourage them to bring those units to the market. Fred pierce: I would like to encourage you to consider the motion on the floor favorably. And it goes back to my earlier comments with respect to how the on something here that may not be adequate now and in the struggle to get by being disenfranchised by this proposal. with respect to resident occupancy I recognize that as an alternative under this proposal. However I must say that when I first tried to buy something in this town, deed restricted units were available. I wanted the option to be able to try to buy something on the free market because that is the way I am and now I think I and other people in my situation would feel disenfranchised if they are told that they no longer have a free market unit. When you bought your unit 5, 10 or 20 years ago and you didn't buy a deed restricted unit--you went ahead and struggled and eeked out a living for a longer time in order to have a free market unit--we are not taking that away from you if you no longer find it large enough and you want to do something with it. And I think that if you have an expanding need and a lot of us in that situation do, this ordinance is really unlivable. What we propose is a scenario (people talking) very realistic possibility if you leave these provisions in the code and that is a scenario where I in my situation where I have a free market unit and all of a sudden I am being told that if I want to make it large enough for me to live in with a family I have to either limit it to 80% of FAR which may not be large enough or I can deed restrict it to resident occupancy or I can pay cash-in-lieu or I can put an accessory unit. I will say--you know I came here. I struggled to have this free market. My preference would be to sell that property to someone who wants to build a large second home who can afford to put on an accessory unit and will do so and then what you have done is 17 PZM12.12.89 you have displaced a permanent resident who lives in this town and has a family and you sent them down valley. And you put up a second home with a 300sqft accessory unit that houses 1 or 2 individuals who are probably seasonal. And I think that that is a real concern the way this is written right now. Bruce: Graeme, I agree with what you said about the housing problem and how all of us ought to be paying to help get out of this situation that we are in. But the fact is that this ordinance doesn't do that. People that built the home 2 or 3 years ago or that built a lodge 3 or 4 years ago that don't have any employee housing--they are not being affected at all by this. They, in effect, are already in the boat and they don't have to mitigate their impacts at all. So this legislation is not fair in the fact that all of the community is not paying our way out of this. It is only somebody that is getting ready to do something or that may do something in the future that is going to be affected. That is the reason that I am opposed to it as much as anything else. It doesn't really cut across the board. It doesn't affect everybody equally. Spencer Schiffer: Not only that, Welton, but it now creates a situation where the guy who has built the maximum FAR has a say in how big my house is because if I want to build to the full FAR as well and I want to--in order to do that I have to create an accessory dwelling unit and I have to go through a public hearing process. He can have a say in my ability to do that which I don't think is fair. So these people who have already built to the maximum FAR now have the say in what the rest of us can do. And if you eliminate single family from this, I think you eliminate a lot of their problems. Rick Neiley: This legislation started out being a demolition replacement ordinance. It has evolved into something considerably different with respect to single family and duplex portions of it. Those portions of it may have some merit to them. I frankly don't think they belong in this ordinance. I think this ordinance is regressing rather than progressing. I think what you ought to do is go back to some of the things that you started out with. That is looking at the consequences of demolition and trying to mitigate demolition without trying to incorporate some development or production incentives or disincentives or penalties into this particular legislation. If you are going to get some legislation enacted and get it through City Council I think the only way it is going to happen is if you go back and narrow your focus. Just from the comments that we are hearing here tonight I think you can anticipate the 18 PZM12.12.89 sort of public reaction that you are going to get. To bring the 80% level up to City Council--I really think you ought to be focusing more on what you have been working on the last couple of weeks not on this particular draft. Joe Krabacher: I own a small single family house in town. Like a lot of other people who have come here with no trust fund, I have worked my but off to get what I have. And I see the ordinance as penalizing the small property owner who hasn't built out to the maximum floor area. I don't know if I am necessarily in favor of Mickey's proposal to just drop everything on single family and duplex. I think what you have done is the people who have the small houses which are typically your people who don't have the wherewithal to get something big. They haven't built out to the maximum FAR because they can't afford to do that at this point. They are the ones that are paying for this. You are not giving any incentives in this situation. What you are saying is that we are knocking 20% off of your FAR unless you do an accessory dwelling unit. I don't think that anybody who is looking at it from a rational point of view--from a business point of view is going to say "Well I will go in and deed restrict my unit". You are just not going to get people to do that. I would rather see a proposal where you provide incentives instead of saying we are going to penalize you if you don't do this. Why don't you say "OK if you want to build an accessory dwelling unit, then we will give you bonus FAR to do that". Laurie Moss: My real concern is mumble we will not mortgage it. They said that they could not find her mortgage money for deed restrict housing in this town. I have been trying to work on this for my friend_mumble_I am very concerned that we are not going to be able to find loans for these people. And if as a local with a free market house and I do keep a tenant's apartment in there because I like having locals in my house also who can't afford to buy their own place, we won't be able to help them buy anything if it is deed restricted. I am having problems with that. Baker: That is a problem. Jim Adamski with the Housing Authority Board is working on this. The housing masterplan also identified it as a problem and they are working on ways to develop ways to work with lending institutions to provide mortgage pools for deed restricted units. 19 PZM12.12.89 Laurie Moss: I have talked to all of these banks to try to help my friends get loans now. I know a woman who has a beautiful piece at Loan pine and can't sell it_mumble_ Welton: Well, that is what we are talking about--single family and duplex. You can sell it for a million dollars. There is not restriction on who can buy it as long as they are local. As long as they are a local who works or as long as they are a senior citizen. ?: Sure and then the bank is going to have to foreclose and find some way to sell it to somebody else who is a "local" because they are not going to do it. As long as it is a deed restriction, they are not going to go for it. Wel ton: This is a problem that doesn't really affect this legislation we are talking about as much as it does the whole concept of employee housing. They are restricted only to the type of person that is occupying them and not restricted to any income level. It is not the Lone pine or Centennial. It is not that kind of deed restriction. It is simply that it is a local rather than a vacation home. Welton: We have a motion on the floor and we have a second. Roger: Though I am probably hardest hit by this proposal I basically am in favor of it because I believe that we are all part of the problem. As far as the argument of we should go for incentives, I agree with that. However, I have to say that the present FAR in position in the R-6 zone is too big. And my reaction to that would be to step back and say OK it is time to downzone FAR wise in the west end or R-6 zone. Either that or we should address bulk. Welton: I agree 100% with Roger. Michael: Listening to all of the comments before we vote--it is not that I am on the developer's side or anybody else's side. I do think that this is a community solution and I think that the way we are solving this right now is to only put the solution on the very few people who remain in this town who have not demolished their house. And I bet you that if we went through this whole town we wouldn't find 20 of them. We have got a problem in this town that has gone on for 20 or 30 years by the way we have adopted most of our codes that we have tried to accomplish something good for and have created just the opposite in most instances. And now we are taking a community wide problem and we are not passing it on to the community. We 20 PZM12.12.89 are passing it on only to those people who have a house and want to demolish it and I don't think that that is solving the problem in a fair fashion. That is why I don't like this and that is why I made the motion. The second thing is it is like everything else we do in this town. We adopt legislation that we hope will accomplish one thing and we get the exact opposite results. And I think if you think about it the only result we are going to get out of this in 98% of the cases is what Fred pierce says. He is going to turn around and sell his property to somebody who will come in who can afford--and it is not going to matter whether it is a million dollars or a million one hundred thousand by the time he pays all of the RETTs and the other affordable housing things. That is what is going to happen. The people who live in this town who have got a vested interest in this town are going to be then kicked out of town and they are not going to be here anymore because they are going to sellout because it is easier to go down to Elk Run and buy any kind of house they want or go down further than that and we are going to have another second home there. That is what we are going to accomplish. And I don't think that is what we intend to do when we sit here and make this vote. Anybody who would deed restrict their unit? I think if you think about it that way, why would anybody do it? You would have to be crazy. That is the point I want to make. I don't think this legislation accomplishes what we want to do other than just to stick whoever is left who hasn't demolished an old piece of junk. Welton: Restating the question: To eliminate single family and duplex from any consideration of this ordinance. Roll call vote: Graeme, no, Bruce, yes, Michael, yes, Mari, no, Roger, no, Jasmine, no, Welton, no. Motion failed. Baker: We do need incentives. The cottage infill program is an attempt to provide FAR bonuses for the accessory dwelling units. So we are addressing the incentive issue. What it looks like to everyone in the room they think this is the only thing P&Z is going to be working on. In fact it is just the first of 6 or 7. Mari: One thing that occurred to me when talking about incentives is the Housing Authority now is going into a program where they call buy-downs where they pay people to deed restrict their units for employees. I think that the same thing could be 21 PZM12.12.89 used for people who want to live in their houses. They could pay people to deed restrict their houses for resident occupancy. Welton: Another question that has been brought up is in addition to the 80% FAR cap. Do we want to put a maximum FAR cap on that too? I would like to give you a case in point of a little house that I was working on for a client who is a local person but he is doing it as a spec house on a 4, 500sqft piece of property. The maximum FAR. was 2,820. Through some negotiations with the Board of Adjustment that got knocked down about 100sqft below the 2,820 and he got offered two and a half million dollars for it. It is about 60% complete. So I don't know that a FAR cap necessarily dictates that a house will or will not be in the second home/unaffordable-to-locals market purely by square footage. You can find ways that weren't imaginable years ago to pour money into houses to make them sell for $l,OOOsqft. Baker: Myler said that one of the advantages of this cap is that we are looking at some relationship between size and the likelihood that it is going to be a second home. And if somebody has a non-conforming lot where the biggest house they could do is 2,800sqft or 2,300sqft, 80% of that might not really work. Wel ton: I was thinking if I had a 4, 500sqft lot and I had a choice of going to 80% or 3,000sqft then 100% would be 120--yea-- I would go 3,000sqft. Baker: When Dave and I were talking it struck me as that would be equitable. But your point was that you could pack a lot of money into it regardless of the size. Welton: You can pack a lot of basements into it too. Fred pierce: Right now as I understand the ordinance proposal, the only way to expand a single family residence or duplex to the maximum FAR would be either to build an accessory unit which is considerable more expense to that individual or to pay cash-in- lieu which obviously would be considerable more expense. Welton: Somewhere between $15,00 and $30,000. pierce: To me that is a lot of money. Or to deed restrict it to resident occupancy. Let me suggest that I think that 80% of FAR is not sufficient for purposes of the individual that owns. He is not going--unless he is more wealthy than most of us in that position--the option is really not viable and that leaves either selling or deed restricting. 22 PZM12.l2.89 Now let me tell you what happens in deed restricting. And it has nothing to do with price restrictions. It has with mortgage companies. If you put a deed restriction on a piece of property that says it must be occupied or sold to residents. No mortgage company will touch that because the only way that they get paid is if the person that they approve for credit in that unit lives there and makes payments. And if that person is not a resident for whatever reason and the City says "We don't think you are a resident," then he is out and all of a sudden the mortgage company is left holding a piece of property that #1 is deed restricted and #2 it has no one in it paying mortgage payments. So that means a mortgage company when it sees that deed restriction, they will say "We are not going to put a loan on this property". And it doesn't matter how much the loan is for or who borrowed it. They are not going to loan. So I think that is not really a viable alternative to anybody who like most of us whose major investment is their house. Basically you take the investment completely away from that house when you put that deed restriction on it and you can't ever get your money back out of. Jasmine: The question of deed restriction can easily be changed to a restriction of primary residence which is a restriction that lenders make all the time. If you have primary residence as your qualification you will not have trouble with a lender. They prefer lending to people who are doing primary residences. It is simply solved. When you apply for a loan for primary residence the banks make this distinction. I don't see why we can't. pierce: So you are saying instead of the deed restriction then the requirement would be that it be a primary residence. Jasmine: That is what a deed restriction is. Compton: On a single family house. pierce: No. Because a deed restriction provides that it must be occupied by a "resident". Banks don't know what that means. Jasmine: I think that there is a way to explain what we mean. pierce: In a more generic sense they understand what it means. But they are not going to loan on it because if they end up owning it, their ability to sell it, to rent it is going to be restricted. And why should they loan money on something like that when they can loan it elsewhere without having that. Joe Krabacher: To follow up on Fred's point the result of if Fred sells his unit to somebody who can come in and afford to pay 23 PZM12.12.89 cash-in-lieu--if you are talking about $30,000 people are going to pay the cash. If you can get 300sqft for $100ft, any developer who has got the cash that is willing to pay it is going to pay that cash at current prices that range from $250 to $350sqft for new construction. Maybe what you are doing is ending up with is everyone putting it into cash-in-lieu anyway. Dunaway: I would like to point out that when Aspen Savings & Loan was locally owned and making money, it was lending on Centennial and deed restricted properties and a lot of other mortgage companies do lend on deed restricted properties if they are confident in the owner. Schiffer: And look what happened to Aspen Savings! Welton: They got taken over by second home owners! I agree with Graeme that simplifying the conditional use in addition--creating a kind of conditional use with this where there are no fees, where there is much easier notification requirements will accomplish and notifying adjacent property owners, property owners across public ROWand diagonally. That will get you a minimum of 4, maximum maybe 12 people that you have to address envelopes to as opposed to--I did 450 for the property on ute Avenue a year ago. Schiffer: Let me make another suggestion. The incentive thing has been bandied about. I think it is important to really try and create incentives for people like myself who have a single family dwelling and would consider adding on another unit if there was some reason for me to do that. I am not interested in selling the house and not interested in creating another unit now. I miqht be. And I might be interested in creating more than just one unit if there is an incentive for it. This does not create that. It creates more of a problem for me. I think also in contention with what Welton was saying about the type of people you find buying these houses. It doesn't depend on FAR. I think it depends on the location and I am sure you are talking about a house that sits in the west end. Welton: It is a house on ute Avenue which is even more ridiculous than the west end. Schiffer: Look at what is happening in the neighborhoods that are being affected. Look at my neighborhood. I live on the corner of Cemetery and Sierra Vista. It is all duplexes. I have the only single family house there. And take a look at what kind of duplexes you have and what kind of residents you have there. Now do you want to penalize people who live there like Fred and 24 PZM12.12.89 myself and prevent us from being able to do things to be able to stay in the community and create additional housing for other people like ourselves? Take a look at our neighborhood. Take a look at the west end. Take a look at ute Avenue. If you feel you have a problem with FARs, Roger, decrease the FARs in the R-6 zone. Don't do it to the R-15. Instead of disincentives, create an FAR incentive for me to create additional units on my lot. I would be happy to. Michael: We had extensive hearings a year or so ago where we considered reducing FAR in the R-6 zone. We decided not to do it. It went to City Council. We adopted whatever that size and bulk ordinance was and now we are doing the same thing again through an ordinance that hasn't even been advertised to do that. It is like you guys, whoever didn't get their shot at it the last time is going to get your shot at it this time. And that also isn't fair. We are doing nothing here that is fair. And as far as I am concerned, nothing is logical. Baker: The direction that I am hearing is that we need to keep it as a conditional use. We need notification requirements but want to reduce that. Welton: It should be as simple as possible for a single family home owner. Dunaway: I don't understand why you are thinking about making a single family house a conditional use when you just adopted and this Council took a recommendation and adopted an Affordable Housing Zone for single family and accessory units can be done and considers that a use by right. Wel ton: Because in order to be zoned Affordable Housing, you still have to go through public hearing processes to do the rezoning which gives the neighbors the opportunity to comment about what is happening in that neighborhood. Baker: There are 2 pUblic hearings. We don't have any AH zones on paper. We just have them in the code so this would just be folded into that review process. Dunaway: It is certainly not an incentive to require pUblic-- conditional uses for single family dwellings if you are trying to encourage acquisition of some type of affordable housing. Welton: No it isn't. And that is why it is incumbent on us to try to make it the least onerous as possible. 25 PZM12.12.89 Michael: I think there is a bigger impact than the neighborhood and just your neighbors. I don't know that there has been a problem with reducing 300ft to 100ft or something that makes more sense. But I think there is a considerable impact in the neighborhood other than just the immediate neighbors and the people across the alley and across the street that we should consider. Baker: if you owners, In working with assessor maps, I would say that probably are going to do anything other than adj acent property you might as well keep it at 300ft. Graeme: I think that it is fairly easy for somebody to go through if they know exactly how to do it. Unfortunately most of the applicants probably don't. I can say that my wife and I spent 2 hours doing it. I had been through it before. It might well have taken somebody else 8 hours. And so maybe a solution is to come up with 150ft or whatever. And then just have somebody on the staff do it. I think they can do it in an hour and a half where the applicant might take 6 hours. Welton: There seems to be 2 directions on this. The consensus seems to be to simplify it as much as possible. straw poll vote for adjacent notification: 4 votes. straw poll vote for within 100ft: (fill this in for me) Baker: The cash-in-lieu issue that I have identified here. I have talked to Myler and that seems to be an issue. We think that the way that P&Z suggested is exactly the way it should be. Then the issue of a cap on 80% or X whichever is greater for the exemption. I think a lot of people in the community think that 2,400 or 2,500 is an appropriately sized family oriented unit. But you don't have the ability to get that in the R-6 or the R-15 zone districts for a duplex. So this cap, although it would allow a lot of the R-6 and R-15 lots to go above the 80%, it would still keep it within a range that you might feel is affordable coming from a size perspective. Fred pierce: But if someone owns a piece of property with a certain FAR if they want to develop to the FAR or even if that were below the cap that is greater than 80% at least they have the opportunity to use their property to whatever its current maximum value is to try to create a single family residence or duplex. 26 PZM12.12.89 If the 100% is greater than the cap then you could use the cap. But I just think that the 80% especially in many cases is sufficient for what would work out for a family that has been here and that is growing. Krabacher: I agree that you should have some sort of cap. My perspective with a non-conforming lot would be if you are giving me--certain FAR and then I have got to take 80% of that FAR and it is a non-conforming lot it is going to be small. So even if you don't do a cap I think you should look at something for non- conforming lots so you get some minimum that is acceptable. Compton: The discussion I am hearing here is concerned with smaller lots. Would it make more sense to have lot size below which the 80% doesn't apply. Baker: There is one issue with non-conforming lots. There is the other issue about what is an appropriately large family dwelling unit. Graeme: That is impossible. Families are 2 people or 5 people. Baker: I think it is the duplex unit that you should focus on because I ran all the numbers on R-15 and R-6 for single family. ". You still get a pretty good size unit for both of those. But when you have a duplex side for example in the R-6 zone a duplex is 1,500 a side at 80% on a typical R-6 lot. Welton: This is too complicated to be just throwing numbers in the air and coming up with our divine inspirations. You need a code and calculator and some tear sheets and graph, matrixes. What you are really talking about is for the nonconforming lots and the substandard lots--going above what is now allowed which maybe for duplexes is a good idea. We are talking purely things that are exempted from any provision of employee housing and upping them what they are allowed now. You said greater. lot-- 80% or 3, OOOsqft for a single family whichever is But if your FAR is 2,820sqft because it is a 2,400sqft Baker: Then you would have to have language up to your maximum FAR allowed on that. Roger: My concern when you bandied out 2, OOOsqft for a duplex because that means on 6,000sqft I could have gone up to 4,000sqft in total that is incredible. 27 PZM12.12.89 Baker: I don't have enough information for you to make a decision. I would like some direction to go to Council with. That you give staff direction to explore this option that you are not certain that it would work. Or if you feel like it is just unreasonable, just say "No" and that is the way we will go. Dunaway: You are going to Council with something this vague-- Welton: Is there any way you can put into the text of this leaving it at the 80%--can you parenthetically insert that this was explored and needs further study? Baker: Sure. There are a lot of things that Council is going to discuss again. I can add in the body of the cover memo our issues that are unresolved. One of them is this 80% or this cap. Welton: We hate it when you have a 6 month moratorium and you give us the last 3 weeks and city Council the last 2 weeks of the 6 month period. It is not fair. -..,,;.;~ Does the Commission feel comfortable leaving the text of resolution as regards 80% as is with an expansion of discussion and probably some charts would be appropriate Council's wisdom and sage consideration? the the for "",,,, Jasmine: Yes. Mari: Yes. The lynch mob will be there too. Welton: We have seen the tip of the iceberg. Welton to the public: Our consideration on the 80% and the overscaled structures has been concentrated on the R-6 and I still think as I did a year ago that some sort of incentive above FAR for things like R-15 zoning might be appropriate. Baker: The next step is to come back to you with this Infill program and folding the FAR concerns into that. been working with them. They have got dynamite ideas. it is pretty exciting. Cottage I have I think Bruce: What is going to happen to the buy-down thing? Baker: That is an option that we are using with Council right now and it is clearly an oversight on my part as to why that is not an option in here for single family and duplex. That should be a conditional option and I can add that to the body of the resolution that goes to Council if that is your direction. 28 PZM12.12.89 MOTION Welton: I would entertain a motion to approve Resolution #16-89 as amended tonight with the cover letter as discussed to council to incorporate the issues that because of unreasonably short time limitations from staff, we were not able to fully come to resolution on. Roger: I so move. Jasmine seconded the motion. Roger: Addi tionally, is there a way of addressing this deed restriction in the form of defining it as primary residence. Baker: I am going to need some professional assistance in that. I know what the public here said tonight is true. I don't know specifically about resident occupied units but I know on the Centennial units or the Hunter creek--specifically Hunter Creek and Smuggler Run--were 2 areas that had very difficult time finding financing with less than 20% down. When I bought in Centennial, I only paid 5% down. I don't know why that happened but I know that there are certain periods of time where lenders are reluctant to lend on deed restricted units. Theoretically we are going to start working with lending institutions to create mortgage pools for affordable housing. Welton: I think it is a real valid point that has been brought up that the term "deed restricted" sends up red flags to lenders. Everyone voted in favor of the motion except Michael and Bruce. Meeting was adjourned. Time was 29