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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19920317 xU ~ t' , RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING , ZONING COMMISSION MARCH 17. 1992 Chairlady Jasmine Tygre called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll call were Tim Mooney, David Brown, Sara Garton, Bruce Kerr, Richard Compton and Jasmine Tygre. Roger Hunt was excused. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Bruce inquired as to when Commission may get the alternate member. It is being advertised again. STAFF COMMENTS Kim: Williams Ranch will be added to the agenda for April 21. Diane: city Council is going to have a topic of discussion on April 6 which is going to focus on transportation. The meeting will start at 5:00. If any of you could come it would be great. '\, , Bruce: Where do we stand on the ice rink situation? Diane: We are having a meeting on Thursday with Mr. Koch and the Design Workshop and the city itself on Wagner Park. I really don't know and can I t answer right now where it stands. There is a possibility that the ice rink will be eliminated from Savannah's proposal and they contribute toward an endowment for Wagner Park. You may see that back. I also hear from City Council that they want to see a larger ice rink. David: Aspen Chamber Resort Association has a program called Leadership Aspen. If any members of the Board or Staff are interested let me know. I highly recommend this. I think it is a real good program. It gives you an overview of the community and different programs in the community from legal to transportation. Leslie: On the April 7 meeting Subdivision 8040 Greenline Review. go to the site. I have scheduled the Moses I think it is helpful that we It was decided to have a formal site visit at 4:00 for this. PUBLIC COMMENT There was no public comment. MINUTES JANUARY 7. 1992 JULY 2. 1991 David: I move we approve the minutes of January 7, 1992 and July 2, 1991. Richard seconded the motion with all in favor. OLD LIBRARY TEXT AMENDMENT Jasmine opened the public hearing. MOTION Bruce made a motion to table this item and continue this hearing to date certain of March 31, 1992. Sara seconded the motion with all in favor. BERGER REZONING Jasmine opened the public hearing. Kim submitted affidavit of public posting. (attached in record) She then made presentation as attached in record. David: Are there any proposals for this project other than rezoning? Scott Harper representative for applicant: None whatsoever. It's a 1,000sqft I-bedroom cabin of some historical significance to the Aspen community and the owner/applicant intends to leave it just the way it is. Richard: Is he going to apply for historic designation? Harper: Yes, if it is annexed. In fact we have already made the application for historic designation. Jasmine: Is there any significant difference between the R-15 County zoning and our R-15 City zoning? Kim: No. It is pretty close. The basic intent is to keep it in the single family or low density configuration. Richard: I think it makes sense to go forward with this. It is surrounded on 3 sides by the City. It is on the City side of Castle Creek and it is one of these parcels that ought to be a part of the City. Jasmine then asked for public comment. ,- Paul Murray: I live at 814 West Bleeker. We and a few other people even though it is customary and accepted to do a rezoning before something is annexed I think there is another issue and it is kind of a thinly disguised issue along with the annexing and rezoning or anything with this piece of property and involves the direct route of the Hwy 82 into Aspen. I personally feel that it is unusual in this case that this piece of property be considered for rezoning before it is annexed before the city council has done their political necessity such as public hearing and actually voting on annexing. This particular piece of property being shoved through for a rezoning before annexation is completed. I think the point is there is another issue here and it is Hwy 82 and the direct alignment which bothers a considerable amount of people in the west end that have considered the direct route of 82 as a real positive thing. Tim Paddock: I live in the Aspen Villa Townhomes which is adjacent to this property. I support the revision to the R-15 based on the fact that it should be included as part of the city. You should just follow the normal course of events which is P&Z does the zoning and then the annexation. There should be no reason for you to be altering the normal course of events. Burdick Hewer: I live at 814 West Bleeker. I would oppose the rezoning something that still is not a part of the city. I also question the fact that a possible historic house which is 46 years old. I feel you have to annex it before this Board can do it even though it may be legal. It just sounds as though it is coming through the back door. Bob Velasio: I live at 814 West Bleeker. We feel that the whole scenario that we are seeing unfold is to annex and declare a piece of property historical and stop the highway that has been voted on by the citizens of Aspen and approved. We think it is a very, very sensitive issue to do this before the council does the annexation. Bob Shelfros: I live at 814 West Bleeker. I certainly agree with what is going on. It is kind of a block around 82 by the back door without the coming up again for a vote by the people in the town. ~arper: I know there are a number of people concerned about that l.ssue. Annexation and rezoning to the City of Aspen has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the highway goes through there. The only thing that might affect it at all is historic designation and that might be the proper time for these other concerns to be addressed. Jasmine: I think what our concern is as a Board what we are saying that if in fact this is annexed into the City it would be __ appropriate for it to be zoned R-15. We are not saying that it should or shouldn't be annexed into the city. We are just saying '- that if it is annexed R-15 which is the zoning that it now has in the County would be appropriate in the City as well with the same type of density. The decision about the annexation and certainly about the historic designation is not within the purview of this particular Board. /' " She then closed the public portion of the hearing. Richard: You have made my comments. David: When this goes before various groups for historic designation would it come back to us? Kim: Yes it would. And then that is a public hearing. Paul Murray: Is there a percentage of time that this is the normal procedure where you rezone before you annex? Does this always happen? Diane: It is outlined in the State Statutes as being a permissible procedure. Murray: I realize it is permissible. I was asking is it a normal procedure. I have been lead to believe that it has not been a normal procedure to do this. Diane: The rules of the game are not any different for this application as any others. Jasmine: This has been done several times before and it is up to the applicant. It is not that unusual a procedure. Sara: I also want to reassure the pUblic--there is nothing subversive going on or collusion here. I think that if this straight shot happens which was voted on we would all rather see it within City limits too than having the County deal directly with the highway. There is nothing like avoiding the straight shot going on. I promise you. Bruce: I want to state right out in the open that I am in favor of the straight shot. And if I had any reason to believe this was something that was going to affect that, I would be voting against it. But in this case we are not creating any kind of quantitive interest that is increasing the interest of the land owner but basically changing from the County to the City. So I don't see any problem with this. David: My only concern as far as a negative impact goes is if the straight shot does occur the change in zoning may increase the value of the property and therefore increase the cost of condemnation to the community whether that occurs at the city, County or State level. Richard: At least 3/4 of this property is river bank in which case slope production would come into play. Is that more stringent in the county? Or is it the same? Kim: I think in terms of single family or duplex development slope production wouldn't come into play at all in the city. Richard: In that case I would support David's argument. Kim: Mr. Berger is requesting a PUD overlay at this time. So PUD slope reduction only comes in with a PUD overlay. MOTION Bruce: I move to recommend approval of rezoning the Berger parcel to R-15 Moderate Density Residential contingent upon Council's approval for annexation of the site into the city. Richard seconded the motion with all in favor. KRAUT REZONING AND TEXT AMENDMENT REZONING Jasmine opened the public hearing. Leslie presented the notification of public noticing. in record. (attached ..,..~ You reviewed this application on December 17 and tabled the rezoning application in light of a work session with the city council to discuss city Council's goals for rezoning this property and their ideas for different uses for this property. You also directed staff to meet with the neighborhood and discuss with them their issues on this parcel. You met with City Council on Feb 4 and 10 to discuss this property. The message that staff received from both those work sessions was to proceed with the rezoning application but you wanted staff to pursue a text amendment to the Affordable Housing zone district legislation. That gives you the ability to review multiple use project on the site. Staff met with several of the neighbors on March 5th. Summarization attached in record. After further review of the application and in light of the pending text amendment to the AH zone district, staff continues to recommend approval of rezoning this site from Office to Affordable Housing. Staff is continuing to pursue with a variety of City depts and City council a multiple use on this site. The broad picture scenario would be a below grade parking structure with first floor commercial and second or third floor Affordable Housing. "~"- Our code does not require a development application to be considered at the same time of rezoning the parcel. staff recommends approval based upon the findings that rezoning this property to Affordable Housing is consistent with the goals of the City to provide scatter-site affordable housing throughout the City and within walking distance of the downtown. This rezoning and potential development would address changes that have occurred within the neighborhood--primarily a significant loss in the numbers of affordable housing. Rezoning the parcel is consistent with the 1973 Aspen Area Comprehensive Plan and the multi-use project is consistent with the various elements of the plan. The transportation element which identified this site as one of the primary true sites for a parking garage. The draft 1992 Aspen Area Community Plan has identified this site for all three--below grade parking, affordable housing and to carry forward our neighborhood commercial concept and to hopefully tie this parcel in with the superblock idea which includes the Bell Mountain, the Buckhorn and City Market. At our March 5th meeting with the neighbors I indicated to them that if I had received letters from them by the time my memo went out I would include them in the memo. I did get one letter in time from Rita Rasmussen. (Attached in record) Leslie then presented 7 letters which were all read into the record by Jasmine. These were from Michael L. Spalding, President Coates, Reid & Waldron, Jean Rayner Bawm, Steven and Elissa Solzman, Fred Martell, Bill Carr, Linda Waag, Robert Bar. All of these letters are from people who live across the street from this site and all stated objections to this development. (all attached in record) Jasmine: The zoning to Affordable Housing will allow the construction of employee units. It would not allow the commercial uses as currently planned in AH zoning. Leslie: Or a parking garage. Jasmine: So the first step in this would only allow for if the rezoning is approved by the Commission at this point and then forward to council, that would only allow for the housing element only of this project which we think may, in fact, eventually be a mixed-use project. The mixed-use aspect of it would be considered in step 2 which is the text amendment. So right now we are just talking about the affordable housing aspect of it as far as the rezoning is concerned. Bruce: Shouldn't the text amendment precede the rezoning so that the zoning we pass is the zone that is the AH as it has been proposed. Leslie: No, it doesn't. What the text amendment does it gives the ability to use the AH zone for multi use. AH, as you know, is purely affordable housing. If you were to recommend approval to city Council of rezoning this property to AH and then we had some '"",.",- A"'" problems and some changes and more discussion of items on the text amendment, the rezoning of the Kraut property will go forward. They are connected but they are separate. .- Bruce: But any text amendments we pass would apply not only to the Kraut rezoning, assuming it is rezoned, but to anything else that we have already rezoned or consider in the future to rezone to AH. Leslie: Anything in the future, yes. But you have not rezoned any property AH--for example West Hopkins is in a residential zone district. Bruce: So this text amendment would affect that property. Leslie: No. The multi-use language in the text amendment is only for those zone districts that are currently commercial or office zoned. So any future AH proposals that were within the downtown core or along Main Street--any commercial or office zone districts could apply. Bruce: What are the advantages or disadvantages, if any, to the City or the Housing Authority to rezone from 0 to AH? We are talking about 5ft in height by special review. We are talking about the ability to have commercial development without going through GMQS and we are talking about the ability to have a parking garage. -" Leslie: Well, that is the text amendment. Bruce: But that is the advantages of AH over O. Leslie: No. Rezoning to AH gives you the ability by special review to go up to maximum height of 30ft. Already in our zoning code all affordable housing, parking required for affordable housing is done by special review. AH does not give you an advantage over the currently Office zoned district in parking. AH gives us the ability--gives someone the incentive to build free market commercial space or residential space without having to go through Growth Management. And AH is the only legislation in our zoning code that allows us to do that. Bruce: But there is nothing to preclude this applicant or any other applicant from coming in and building an affordable housing on a site that is zoned Office. Leslie: Right. Richard: Staff, concerning the present zone there. If it were developed by a private developer and the City hadn't bought it, as Office what are the traffic and parking impacts relative to affordable housing? Can you give any kind of indication of that saying that if yea many square feet of office space how many--what kind of parking would there be required. .~- - Leslie: The person would have to compete for growth management- -go through the competition. So we have a level of control over site design if there is a competition. Parking requirement is 3 spaces per 1,000sqft of net leasable which the P&Z Commission may reduce to 1 and 1/2 spaces per thousand square feet of net leasable provided the applicant pays the cash- in-lieu which is $15,000 per space. The affordable housing implications in the growth management basically we get--they are required to provide at least 50% of their employees generated with affordable housing. So 50% of the employees generated by the net leasable and it is about 3 and 1/2 employees per 1,000sqft. City Council has the ability to take whatever option the applicant puts forward. The code gives the P&Z the ability to special review the parking requirements for the on-site affordable housing within the growth management compilations. And the height in the Office zone district is 25ft. That would be Office proposal. Richard: So it makes sense to me that affordable housing is a better deal for the neighborhood than an office building in terms of traffic generated. Jasmine: Or number of parking spaces needed. Leslie: And the Office zone district does not give you the ability to--you can do a commercial parking lot--parking structure in the Office zone. Jasmine: But I think that it is important that if this was developed as a commercial project for office space what would be the impact of the parking circulation as opposed to a residential development. Jasmine then opened the hearing for public comment. Michael Spalding, Coates, Reid and Waldron: Our office is across the street. I have to tell you I was a little surprised at Leslie's statement to the Planning commission that they recommend this without giving any comment or recommending it for or with these reservations or based on the input we have gotten which should address these factors. I was surprised that it was just a simple "we recommend it. We have listened to what the neighbors have said at the neighborhood meetings and read these letters, but we don't really care". So my feeling on this is it doesn't really matter what I say or anybody else says at this meeting because the City and their planning for it has already made up their minds that this is what is going to happen. So this is definitely the way I feel. And just watching the heads nodding and the comments that were coming "'-.... -,- from around this meeting when the letters were being read has shown me that people here have made up their minds and I think that is not the proper procedure to go through. And I would hope that this really didn't happen around me and that this public hearing is to be open for positive and negative comments and that these comments will be taken into consideration by this Commission. My feeling is not that. I have not ever gotten noticed of any of the meetings. Through some networking and through my friendship with Leslie I have found out about the meetings. She has been nice enough to call me and remind me. It makes one feel suspicious when the closest neighbors don't get noticed of public hearings and neighborhood meetings. I under9stand the title company was employed to do this but why didn't somebody check their work and make sure that all the people that have been writing Leslie and asking Planning staff to include us in these notices--why couldn't that have been done before and why couldn't we have received this notice over these past several weeks. I guess the overriding comment is the cost of the project is going to be pretty doggone high if, as Richard suggests, that the benefit to having the AH zoning here because it will replace some parking and really mitigate the situation best and that might very well be. But that would put the project I think into a pretty extreme cost for 25 studios and I-bedrooms if you are going to have a floor of parking, commercial and I presume a couple of floors of residential housing. And I wonder if the City and the Planning commission really wants to recommend this plan because it is more than just a rezoning request. There is a plan behind it and there is a desire behind it by the City to have a certain project there. So we are really looking at--you should really be looking at I think the change to affordable housing but with a plan in mind and that plan may be the city's responsibility as far as approving for the cost. But I think that should be taken into consideration by somebody along the line and not have this project just slam dunked through because we have decided we need more employee housing and therefore it is going to go through no matter what the cost, no matter what the implications are. Martell, 702 East Hyman: I agree with Mickey and I was surprised there was no reaction by Leslie. We had a meeting for a couple of hours 2 weeks ago. And it is like all that didn't mean a thing. Leslie told us to have the letter there by the 12th. All the letters were delivered by the 12th. And the reactions--"Well, OK great". I felt the same way as Mickey. That everybody sitting around waiting for the letters to be read into the record and let's get on with it knowing that this is going to go through. I don't see the need for all of this affordable housing at this time. There are vacancies allover the place in affordable ~. housing. To spend this kind of bucks to put affordable housing in mid-town Manhattan is what you are talking about. You could be doing it out at the elementary school where you already own the property. You have foundation there. I don't know what the numbers would work out but certainly you could get more for your dollar than you are going to get where you are. A lot of discussion was done about the parking. The parking is a problem there. Most of the day it is a one-lane street. Nobody seems to care about that. Nobody seems to care about anything but affordable housing. Look at what it is costing the City already for affordable housing. Everything you do goes over budget. This is definitely going to go over budget considering the track record. What you plan to spend per year to subsidize has been astronomical. You have had to double and triple your subsidies and it is just more and more of the taxpayers money being paid out when it is not necessary. All of a sudden city Council decided a few years ago to get into the affordable housing business. "Let's put some affordable housing here. Great idea. Let's spend a million one." Now you can be up into 5 and 6 million dollars. Where do the numbers justify having employee housing so that people can walk to their job? Nowhere else in the world are people concerned with having to walk to their job. Everyone drives anyhow. That is why there is so much traffic congestion. You have employee housing by the hospital with busing. Everybody still drives into town. It just seems to me it is unnecessary that employee housing has to be within walking distance of their job when it is just not done anywhere else. You have enough employee housing. If you want to put more, why don't you spend the money where you can get 3 times the amount of employee housing for the same dollars and not disrupt a neighborhood. And I am not so sure about the parking with an office situation. Whether it does or doesn't impact the area as much. That is another discussion. You said you are not even discussing that at this time. Jasmine: At this portion of the hearing we are discussing the affordable housing because the mixed project would not be allowable without the text amendments which are the second part of this. So right now we are talking about only the affordable housing element. Martell: It just seems to me you are putting the cart before the horse. If you are going to build commercial, it is going to cost you this amount. This is how much we think we can get out of the commercial space. This is how much it is going to cost us and this is how much we are going to have to subsidize. This is what we project to subsidize for employee housing. This is how much it is going to cost us for the interest and everything on the underground parking. And it was discussed at the meeting with the owners of the Buckhorn and the other lodge also. And they were talking about the parking that is necessary for City Market's planned move. They - - were talking about putting parking under the Buckhorn, under the Bell Mountain Lodge and the Kraut property and the alleys and the streets. I haven't heard a thing here about that. It is just like it never existed--like the discussion never happened. And they were talking at that meeting--intelligent people--about "This might be the answer to the parking problem that we have in downtown Aspen". And that hasn't come up at all. It is just like "Hey, let's get this affordable housing through and that's it". steven Ables, 803 East Hyman: I am new to the area. I would like to know if the Council has taken the 5 and 1/2 million dollar budget and had other choices that they were going to spend 5 and 1/2 million dollars for affordable housing in other areas and make comparisons as to what that amount of money spent on this project would be to what 5 and 1/2 million dollars would be spent on other projects where the land is already owned by the city. Has there been a comparison made if you are going to spend this amount of money for this site as to what 5 and 1/2 million dollars would do with other sites. Jasmine: I don't think that has been done necessarily in that regard. other sites have been considered. This is not the only affordable housing project that is being considered. But it is part of an overall community plan and it is not necessarily one or the other. Leslie: In addition, 2 years ago the City council conducted survey of most of the other parcels in the city. And came to a conclusion which parcel they would purchase and they purchased 4 parcels and this is one of those parcels they purchased. Abels: Have the others been acted upon yet? Leslie: Yes. We are in the process of putting together the project receipt notes, approvals at the end of North Hopkins st where the road ends. It is a property the same size. It has been through the entire review process. There was zoning and the subdivision review process that has been approved. Bruce: The public is asking some very good questions. But they are questions that this body is not prepared to answer or to deal with. You are asking questions about political expediency and budget considerations and those are not our concerns. We have standards A through H from the memo that determine whether we are able to rezone something based upon those standards. And if this site meets those criteria then we rezone it. If we determine that it doesn't meet anyone of those criteria we can turn down the rezoning. But the political expediency of whether this is a good site or whether the City council spent too much money, those are outside of what we are able to make judgements on. .- I appreciate your questions and concerns about all of those things but that is not what this body is commissioned to do. We are to make decisions based on zoning. Mickey, let me respond a little bit to your suggestion that we are not open minded about this application. I can assure you that I for one have not reached a decision yet about how I am going to decide this. And I suspect that my fellow Commission members also have that same feeling. So it may be a slam-dunk in some other body but it is not a slam-dunk, I don't think, in the Planning & Zoning commission. Michael Horn, Coates Reid & Waldron: I just wondered if you were aware that there has been an increase in vacancies in the private sector and as well with the Housing Authority which now has deficit due to income that did not come in this year. I work with CR&W as a long term rental manager and I work in housing. I have been doing it for 20 years. And the trends that I see both commercial and residential is there is a definite increase in vacancies. So I don't know why everybody is in such a hurry to run over there and build housing. I think we are going to have a change in this community and it is quite definite by the statistics that we see now. What we ought to see first of all really is there now today a need and are we anticipating something that really isn't going to be there. Look at your own Housing Authority statistics and see their increase in vacancies and that has got to indicate to you that there is a change now taking place. Barbara Martell: I don't think anybody thought about what about the merchants and they have no place to park and they pull in our driveways and they triple park. Is anybody thinking about the people that service right now? They need a place to park. Where are they going to park when you do this development? Jody Edwards, representing 700 E Hyman Ave Condo Assoc: First I am very concerned about the fact that we don't really have a plan yet. We are talking about several different alternatives. But we don't have a specific plan. I am afraid about how this applies to the review criteria. We can't know whether the project is going to be compatible with the neighborhood and existing uses and character. And we can't know what traffic, parking and other impacts are going to be until we know what the plan is. Is it going to be parking structure or not? Is it going to include commercial or not? All of those have different impacts on the traffic, on parking and other aspects regarding the neighborhood. So I don't think we can say with any certainty that it satisfies the review criteria. And specifically with respect to the change in condition criteria. The only condition I heard is that the income level of the purchasers of the homes in the neighborhood has dramatically increased. That has to do with the price of residences and more with the real estate market and Aspen's international popularity than anything else. I don't think that /~"''' the type of changed condition contemplated by the Land Use Code can justify rezoning. - Dave Tolen, Pitkin County Housing Authority: I want to clear up a misconception because I have heard it from a number of different places including the newspapers. I understand it is true that the private rental market has seen a vacancy increase in the past year. It is not true that the long-term deed restricted rental housing managed by the Authority or by private owners has seen any increase in vacancy rates here in the past 2 years. In fact it has held steady at around 1 to 2% which is significantly lower than what is considered to be a healthy vacancy rate to make housing available. Where we have seen a problem in a deficit is in a specific seasonal project where rental income is projected for certain months of seasonal use. But in no case that I know of in any of the privately owned or publicly owned rental property is there an increase in vacancy right now. George Vicenzi, adjoining property: I guess what we are doing now is really considering the factors of the affordable housing. And you have to look at the criteria whether it should be rezoned or not. I think for this Board which is the most important is the compatibility with the existing neighborhood. The neighborhood is not a place where employees live. Right now the neighborhood is basically lodges and commercial offices and residential condominiums. If you rezone this you are going to change the nature of the neighborhood by putting in employee housing. I know what kind of impacts employee housing has. Your projections of so many cars per unit is usually inaccurate because most people have guests that are staying for 2 or 3 weeks or a month at a time or a lot of times for the whole winter which aren't officially registered and are just crashing. I think your projection of autos is way below what will actually happen which means guests and extra cars will be parking in the neighborhood. The proposed 89 parking spaces I don't think will cover what the employees will actually generate. The other compatibility is that the traffic in the neighborhood. And this is a major criteria. A major problem in all of Aspen is parking and traffic. Right now it is at a critical stage. If you put in something of this magnitude, it will make it worse. So I can't see how you can possibly say this is compatible to the neighborhood that already has a traffic problem. If you really look at the big picture here the point of what would the private sector do if they were to develop it--what would they provide? What you are doing is paying--the city is paying for employee housing that would be obtained free if a private developer had done this project--had done some office space or light commercial use. They would have to provide the parking and they would have to provide the employee housing at their expense. '~",'- '- with this plan the City is paying for employee housing that would ordinarily be provided by the developer. And it seems in the budgetary problems that that is really not a very fiscally responsible thing to do if for us to build employee housing that would be built by a developer anyway. This is something all the neighbors have worked on. This large parking plan using that block underneath Bell Mountain Lodge and the Buckhorn and City Market the streets and alleys. This affords the city probably a one-time opportunity to tie in all of these properties together and do something that can really be beneficial to the whole community. This, I think, should be considered before you rezone it because this is a one-time shot. And I think if you don't do it now it will never happen again. So that is very important and I think it is really short sighted for us to say "OK, let's push forward with this affordable housing zone" with a piece of property that really is not compatible. Another criteria is is the neighborhood changed. Well it has. This property is 2 blocks from probably one of the most sought after spots on the planet. And that is the Gondola. The Gondola is a really prime piece of property. Everybody wants to be as close as they can. So to put employee housing in 2 blocks from this prime spot on the planet would seem ludicrous. It seems it would have much better uses. The City itself, since it owns the property, should consider building an office space for itself. That is where they need office space is in downtown Aspen. You can put employee housing a block or 2 away from the prime downtown part of Aspen. I think this should be something that should seriously be considered is what is the best use for the City besides just affordable housing. I think city office space would be a good consideration. There might be a lot of other possibilities that could be put there that would be better uses for the City. If the City neglects this they are going to have to go out and pay the private sector for prime office space when they could be building it cheaper on this piece of property. I think for now it should stay the way it is. It now has a parking lot which I think the city can get more income from. If they maximize the income from the parking now it would buy a little bit of time to consider other possibilities on this parcel. But as far as the criteria go I think this project is totally not compatible for the existing neighbors. If you look at all the uses around it is totally different. To put high intensity of employees right in the center of this commercial area is not fair to employees. It is just not a nice place to live. Jean: There is a lot of land around Aspen and it's wall-to-wall distance. Why are you so intent on building on this tiny piece of ~ land which must be 4 times as big as this room? I want to know someone who can give us an answer. PLEASE. Parking underneath is feasible. You can throw a tennis ball twice as far as that piece of land. And you are so intent on building. Why? We need to know from someone who can tell us. And nobody gives us any answers. We really want to know what is happening and why. Jasmine. We will go through all of these things later on, Jean. ?: The other day I was coming down the Gondola. I look upon this area where you are planning this housing project. And there is no greenery in this whole area of town. I can understand why you want to build on the west side. It is far away. There is plenty of space out there. It is not nearly as developed as this area. Our area in this town is very dense. There are tons and tons of cars. Federal Express and UPS park outside on the streets all day long. The air quality which I am amazed--I have been here for 24 years- -has always been great but with all the exhaust fumes, I am asthmatic, and you are just packing in more cars into a little tiny area. I don't understand the concept of giving commercial space at this count, adding more to taxes, so the retail space in the rest of the town goes up and of course more people to other areas. I don't understand the logical thinking of any more taxes to the community, of ruining the air quality by packing in this housing project with a lot of cars. I have never seen a financial report on this. How do you expect to pay for it? Are we going to get taxed more? At the last meeting that I opened my mouth, everybody said "Well the transfer taxes". But I really don't understand how you can afford to make the studio apartment available for 300 bucks for 20 to 25 units for transient people or people here a year or two years. Are they going to be able to afford this area? Of course they want to work and live in town. I can understand. But so many cars. Are you going to outlaw cars from this area? Plus nobody can have a car that rents here. I don't hear a logical thing from the Planning & Zoning Committee to alleviate the congestion, to alleviate the smell-the stink that we have put in this area that you want to increase in this area. Richard: I heard a few new thoughts from the public that has some positive potential. It seems to me there is a question--should this be a park? Should this be green space or should it be developed. And I haven't heard that one before. And the one that George brought up--the possibility of the city selling it from one department to another and putting it's own offices there. So I think that there is a time when we go on that that should be considered. But the whole purpose of the text amendment that will be discussed later is to increase the options and flexibility on this property and see what is best for the public and for the neighborhood. So I hope it will fulfil that intent. '-,,- As to some of the other issues that have been raised. I used to live in that neighborhood until I was evicted from a nice little cottage to make way for those lovely Graystones a block east of this site. And that historically has been a lot of local long term employees living in that neighborhood. My sense is that if this project is built that is what will be there. People who will rent those apartments will hang onto them as long as they can or until they start a family and need larger space which means going outside of town essentially. In terms of traffic our whole community plan is to get as many people located, yes within walking distance, unlike the cities that are floating themselves to death. Their cars will sit there most of the time. They will use them to get out of town when they want to get out of town. That will actually reduce the number of people looking for parking places in the area. That is the intent. If someone can prove that this doesn't work then we need to look again at everything the city is trying to do through this Commission, throughout the Aspen Area Community Plan and every commission and project that is focusing on these issues. comparing this project to a new commercial project that we are housing current employees, not generating the demand for more employees. That is the difference between this project and a commercial project which would create new employees and have to house some of them. Sara: I wanted to help you out a little bit on the background. First of all this Commission is semi-judicial board which means we cannot sit and cheer and applaud when we hear letters or comments from you any more than a judge can. So we are listening to those letters and we are hearing everything you are saying. And we are considering them. But the way a meeting is run, we can't interrupt each other or say "Right on" and all that kind of thing. We are really trying to consider it all. I think this may be about our 5th meeting on this project. Of course we know all about the Bell Mountain Lodge and that whole project and what is proposed there. I don't think any of us want to see just employee affordable housing go into that wonderful piece of property there. The mixed use makes so much sense and that is why we have been haggling over this rezoning for so long. If the parking structure goes in, we have talked about how we can break through to join into this project with the Bell Mountain Lodge-all of that. The area-the Aspen Community Plan that has been in the works for 2 years--I don't know how many of you living on Hyman have served on any of those neighborhood boards. But there have been neighborhood caucuses for all of you to put your input on all of these issues we are talking about. There is something like 4 to 600 people in the community who have participated in this and really are working hard on it. .- That parcel was not designated by the Council and the P&Z to be affordable housing. The community said "We want affordable housing there. We don't want it ghettoized. We don't want everybody on buses every day. We want different kinds of groups of employees in different areas". The oldest cities in Europe have employees downtown still. This community always did. Up above Sardy's. Up above the Paragon. It is wonderful. It keeps the community viable. If you want to keep it rural, I am afraid you have selected your home in the wrong area. Density should be in a commercial area. The hill towns of Italy are packed--crammed in. But then you can go out into the fields of Tuscani. We can go out into Hunter Creek and up Aspen Mountain. We want density here. We don't want it sprawled allover our valley. David: As before, I find myself agreeing to a great deal with everything that has been said by the neighbors in a lot of the comments. I also want to assure you that as a part of our packet there is a summary of the comments from the meeting of March 5th that addresses everything from the impacts to the sale cost, the need, very specific land uses. It is a very extensive memo. I encourage you to read it to satisfy that we have heard you. My office is adjacent to this. I agree to a lot of what has been said. without being redundant I want to mention that as far as a mixed use goes on this site I think the 1975 Masterplan targeted this site as being a major parking garage because of the proximity to the core. Then subsequently the most recent community plan that the whole community has been working on for a couple of years has also targeted this site to be mixed use, parking. The Housing Committee has targeted this as a potential site for housing. This is not a rubber stamp committee. We tabled this the first time it came to us listening very closely to a lot of things a lot of you have said. And have had several meetings including joint meetings with Council since then. I encourage you if you have any considerations--if you have political concerns, financial concerns, it is not in our purview although we are certainly interested just as you are with the financial implications and tax consequences of these projects. I would encourage you all to go to City Council meetings, take it up with your Council people, call them at home, call them at the office, meet with them at Council meetings if you have serious concerns in that regard. I also encourage you to go to the Housing Authority Board meetings and perhaps get onto their agenda. The intent I think of putting mixed use projects that include more housing than would otherwise be required--this is where I disagree with you, George--I think even on a 60-40 split, this is more housing than would otherwise have been thrown in had there been just a GMQS application--significantly more. And that it's potentially the environmental impacts subsequent to having more housing on this site than less are very great. It will potentially '.- reduce pollution, reduce commuting, reduce traffic, reduce parking problems. But that is one of the reasons why I think most of the members of this committee have encouraged the Council to consider a mixed use plan on this site. To help mitigate some of the parking concerns: My clients have trouble finding parking. My staff has trouble finding parking. I have trouble finding parking. If it is such a bad smelling neighborhood I don't think you all would have chosen to live there. I think housing above retail or offices is desireable and compatible with this neighborhood. There is housing above Nature's Storehouse. Catiecorner to this project there is housing across the street. There is housing on 2 sides. And so it is not absolutely incompatible with the adjacent uses. I do personally however favor a mixed use project with a significant parking garage. I think a mixed use proj ect on this si te would be absolutely fantastic. It is a very desireable site. In our meetings with council I have suggested there are better more affordable sites further away. Council listened. And as part of following up on the community Planning process they have seen to purchase this site and continue to go forward with developing this site. We are not deciding whether or not to move forward. If one of you were to decide to buy a lot several blocks away and offer to trade, that is something I wouldn't be surprised if council and the Housing Authority wouldn't be willing to talk about. But again that is not part of our purview--cutting deals. We are not here to cut a deal like that. The realities of putting a mixed use project on like you are talking about with a significant parking garage--I have been shopping for developers for that type of project for a couple of years now. Several members of council know it's tough to put a venture like that together in today's world financial climate. It is very difficult to get construction funding for any type of a speculative project--anything greater than a single family home. It has a lot to do with the S&L crises and RTC and the overbuilding in the commercial sector of the 80's throughout the nation. So one of our goals I think by trying to put in the mixed use potential to the AH zone is so that if the City does go forward with development of this project that it will help alleviate some of the shortages that are there in the Office sector as well as affordable housing. So I am inclined to support this application. But I do have serious reservations. I share your concerns about parking and traffic and noise. But I think this is an improvement and a lessening of impacts--not increasing of impacts. Bruce: I still have a problem with a rezoning application without the project application. So I still have that problem despite work sessions with council. Number one I am not opposed to affordable housing on this site. It is clear to me that affordable housing can be built on this site whether or not it is Office zoning or Affordable Housing zoning. Number two. The number of concerns and obj ections expressed by the neighbors specific kinds of concerns more than they are zoning kinds of concerns. However my personal conclusion is that based on criteria c, D, and E and I can quickly state what those are. C is neighborhood characteristics, compatibility. D is traffic generation and road safety. and E is demands on public facilities. I haven't been convinced that those 3 conditions have been satisfied to compel me to vote in favor of the rezoning to AH. Tim: I, too, have not made up my mind. It is not written in stone as to what I think should be there. I am in favor I think of concentrating on as much affordable housing in that area as we can if we decide to put affordable housing there and make it as dense and functional as possible. I think major parking structure has to be incorporated with it. And I hope whatever is designed there can be blended into the super-block idea. ,"'I'~- I am optimistic that there are boards like this and that there are people in the city who can solve the problems that you are all afraid of. And just to have fear stop us because we don't know what it is going to look like--we don't know what it is going to be, we don't want to go any further. I am more optimistic than that. I think if we, on the one hand, go ahead with the AH zoning that will put us on the track to start solving these problems and start confronting what should really be there. I do remember a lot of employee housing and various kinds of employee places around that neighborhood. Original Curve and next door to Mr. Abrahms house on that same side of the block there is an apartment complex that has a lot of employees in it. So scattered around in that area you can see what it is going to look like. Directly on that opposite corner is a fairly dense complex of small apartments where long term locals live. I think that there are quite a few things in the area that are similar to what you are going to see on that block if there is affordable housing there. The commercial aspects of it are very gray for me. I like to see commercial go to the Airport Business Center or even down to Clark's Market. I don't really think that neighborhood commercial is necessary there. I appreciate all of your input and it is helping me to try to decide but for the most part I am not afraid of solving those problems. I am optimistic that we can make everybody happy there. ..'p'..,....... - Jasmine: Although there are certainly certain areas of disagreement among the members of the Commission in terms of this project--one element that I think the comes very clearly through in everybody's comments which is the parking garage--the underground parking garage is an essential component of any development on this parcel. What happens with the Buckhorn Lodge and the Bell Mountain Lodge ideally would help tie in with the idea of having a major intercept type underground parking lot in that section of town which has been part of the transportation plans and land use plans and wouldn't it be a nice state for many, many years. I think that the reason that I would be in favor of using the AH zoning rather than maintain the Office would be mostly to give us the opportunity to include the parking feature. I think that is essential. I have the same reservations as Tim does about the Neighborhood Commercial which would be actually technically part of the text amendment. But I agree with them that zoning it AH will give us the opportunity to explore possibilities other than a strictly commercial development which will cause additional congestion and additional traffic problems for the neighborhood and not solve them in the way that a mixed-use project which I personally see as some housing and lots of parking. But without doing that we don't have that option. I think that it would be helpful to the people who are opposed to this project to consider what would happen if another Coates, Reid and Waldron building went in there. I think you would find that that would have much worse impacts on your neighborhood. A lot of the parking problems that have to do with that neighborhood have to do with some of the commercial uses which in the olden days weren't required to provide enough parking for their particular uses. And that is why some of the overflow is occurring in your residential neighborhood. We have an opportunity to solve this problem. Or at least mitigate it to a great extent. And it seems to me that although I have some questions about some of the items that will be coming in a site specific plan that the AH zone gives us the best opportunity to move forward to site specific plan which you will all then also have an opportunity to comment on. But we have an opportunity to do some good stuff here. And I think it would be foolish of us not to take this opportunity. .,..........., Leslie then read into the record comments from Roger Hunt who was out of town at the time of this meeting: He is basically looking at that we have to look to the future in that Independence Pass is never going to be closed year around so we have to consider below grade parking on this site. It is a primary intercept lot site. He is encouraging consideration of below grade parking combined with other integrated uses on this site. He talked about the fact that they had looked at other intercept lot sites further out of town to intercept some of the Independence traffic. The problem with that was that they always had to then service by shuttle or other transit services. - His primary focus is coming from a transportation point of view and he considers this one of the key parcels. And if the city cannot- -if we can't get the city to consider this parcel for parking, how on earth can we expect a private sector person to come forward with a parking solution near this parcel. He is not talking a 4 story parking structure but something that can be integrated to this super-block idea with the Bell Mountain, the Buckhorn and city Market. He is firmly in favor of rezoning the property provided there are provisions for allowing a parking structure that can be integrated. He has no problem with the concept of rezoning to AH. His problem is that in several work sessions that city council seemed to be backing mumble Jasmine: is very parking? Am I correct in assuming that everybody on the Commission much in favor of including some kind of underground Richard: I haven't come to a conclusion on that. That is not something I wouldn't preclude. I just wonder if it becomes another auto incentive or whether it is actually solving a problem. And of course the money involved. We think affordable apartments are expensive. Look at parking spaces--especially underground ones. So I am not sold on it but I haven't ruled it out either. Jean: I really feel you did a great job with the new parking garage that is behind the Library. Is that full every day? Diane: For the past 3 months it has been full almost every day. There is constant movement of cars in and out but it has been the highest it has ever been. Jean: I don't think anybody here is disagreeing with parking underground. I don't hear it. There is also a large field behind the parking garage. What is that field used for? And can that not be a rather larger AH development? I still say and I stick to my point that this parcel of land is too small to do what you want to do with it. Go and do it a block away because there is a huge field there. Jasmine: That is a playing field. Leslie: The Rio Grande playing field was bought with transportation money to originally be the receiver site for the terminus of the down valley rail. Because the rail mayor may not happen we have the entire Rugby Association on our back about that we may lose the playing field to rail. And there has been an overwhelming concern that no housing be put down on these parcels down here unless they are integrated with some other use. Brad: One thing that came up at a meeting we had with Leslie that has not been mentioned is the City building this affordable housing for the employees of the Ritz Carlton? I think everybody should think that out. They don't have enough employee housing. They lost contracts that they had and where are they going to house their employees? That was a question that came up at the meeting we had. In other words the Ritz Carlton is going to have hundreds and hundreds of employees and will not have housing. Jasmine: No. They are required to provide housing for a certain percentage. They won't get an occupancy permit until they do that. Diane: They have within their PUD agreement a very specific requirement as to how many employees they have to mitigate and they have also listed the different areas where they are going to have to provide mitigation for that. They will not receive a certificate of occupancy October 1st this year for the hotel unless they meet the requirements--their employee mitigation. And I have heard rumors that contracts have fallen through. Whether they substitute that with a comparable place to house their employees--I haven't seen anything on that yet. But they will not get their CO unless they meet their employee requirements. So you should not feel that the Ritz Carlton is not going to meet their obligations required in their agreement because they are. I can assure you of that. Horn: The Ritz Carlton has contacted me to try to place some of their very beginning management employees. The very beginning of what is going to be their employees. They have contacted me and have no housing. So that is the first 3 or 4 new employees there and they don't have housing. I have a request from them already for housing. Diane: They are mitigating 60% of their employees. So they have X amount of employees. They have to provide mitigation for 60%. Martel: Richard, I wonder if you have a personal vendetta here because you were evicted from your place X amount of years ago when they built our area. This is the second time I have hear you say the same thing that you were evicted from that very lot where our townhouses are. Richard: It wasn't where you are. It was a block away. Fred: A block away. I haven't heard anything that you have said that really--other than you being evicted--and that we need employee housing right in mid-town. Other than that I haven't heard you say anything. And then to hear you talk about that you are not so sure that underground parking would be a good idea blows me away. Everyone in this room all agree that underground parking is a necessity. Where are you going to put them? So you say "I have been evicted and therefore we need employee housing right where I was evicted or a block away and we don't need underground parking" . -' Sara, you were talking about the employee housing mixing with the commercial. That is very nice and you used the Paragon as an example. And that is nice. It is an historic building and you have employees living upstairs. It is nice. But that is not what is being spoken about here. We are speaking about giving a variance of an additional 5ft. We are talking here of 25 employee units. We are not talking a couple of apartments. We are talking of a massive project on this small lot. You were saying "Well, then you bought the wrong property". When we bought our property this was not zoned AH. What it was zoned for, we took our shot with. That is what we bought. That is what was put in front of us--not affordable housing which is what is being discussed now. That is what our big objection is to this whole thing. We all realize that progress takes place and there will be something there the same as our townhouses are where Nature's Storehouse was. But why not keep it in what the area is- -not affordable housing. And, Tim, along the same line we do have an idea. You say we don't have any idea what is going to be there. But we do have an idea. You are going to put affordable housing there and we see a number of affordable housing developments in the area and that is not what we feel should be on that particular lot. vicenzi: We have been going back and forth. We all know what the issues are here. I still think affordable housing is incompatible because the city really has to--all your arguments are this will alleviate traffic. This will be a positive thing. And I agree with that in theory. But let's get down to reality. Are you going to restrict who you rent these places to so that they do in fact work in town so they walk to town? What if the people work out in Snowmass? Or work out at the Airport Business Center? Or out of town. What if they rent these places? Half of the cars are driving in and out. You have that aspect of it to consider. What about as part of this saying--this parking idea is a really good idea. Let's look at it. What about saying maybe we should have a whole plan that purchases the underground rights that if Bell Mountain Lodge, the Buckhorn, the City Market to see when and if we do a parking structure here that we can do a nice comprehensive plan. We have the rights but we don't lose them because the Bell Mountain Lodge or these other properties are developed and some developer says "I don't want you breaking into my building". These are things that haven't been really thought out. When you come in and you are tripling and doubling the density that has a lot of impact. And we are saying OK the community, maybe we should take some of them, but are we really getting the benefits? Do we have safeguards that in fact the Ritz is going to provide 60% of their housing? Well, what about the other 40%? How do we know that we aren't going to have half of the Ritz's other 40% living there? So we are basically subsidizing those. We don't know that. There are a lot of concerns here. .- You are also saying you want to do the next step a mixed use. So now you are going to have commercial and you will be generating more employees for that mixed use commercial down on the ground floor. So, in fact, the City is developing the property, creating more demand for employees and building employee housing. A lot of this stuff I think you have to look at the big picture. And I don't think this Board has really addressed all of these problems. And I think you are rushing into zoning this AH. I think you really should study the alternatives on this lot. Jasmine: I want to point out one thing. Affordable housing can be developed under Office zoning which the parcel is now. Anybody who bought this parcel relying on Office zoning should have been made aware that there was a possibility as a permitted use under the city Codes to develop this parcel as Affordable Housing. We can develop it as affordable housing without rezoning it. The rezoning is what is going to allow us to put in the underground parking. George: It will increase the density, right? Leslie: The floor area is the same. "-,-- Jasmine: All I am trying to say is that the employee housing portion of this project will go through as long as the City decides to commit the money to it regardless of what we zone it tonight. Zoning it to AH makes it possible to put in the underground parking. The decision of whether it is going to go ahead financially as employee housing is a Council decision-not ours. But employee housing will be on that parcel one way or the other if City Council decides to allocate the money for it. We are trying to create a project that will mitigate some of the impacts of it's own development plus some development in that area. That is basically what the difference between the Office zone which it now is and the Affordable Housing Zone which is what it is going to become. "i"~""'~'" Martel: Except you are adding additional height and you are adding additional commercial. Bob: Under the Affordable Housing clause is there a possibility on this thing to restrict the number of cars? We are talking about a lot that is 60 cars. The whole area is packed, packed, packed, packed with cars. And you are adding 30 rental units there. I don't understand--why can't these people who are getting in town housing not have cars? Tolen: There is 2 difficulties in restricting the number of cars residents can own. First of all realistically we may say to people in their leases "You are not permitted to have more than one car". The enforceability of that is nearly impossible. Secondly it is probably considered discriminatory to impose restrictions on one residential development that aren't imposed on other residential .,~- developments in the area. So restricting the number of cars that these people can own or drive because they are employees in the city is considered inequitable if we are not restricting the number of cars that people can drive around who don't work in the city. David: Along that line former city Council member Bill Tuite who is now a County commissioner has for a long time favored just that sort of a rule. If you want to make it known to your City Council people, your County Commissioners and members of the Housing Authority Board that you would like to see that sort of rule implemented, I encourage you to contact those people. I agree with David, it is probably not easily enforceable but as a practical matter finding parking places downtown is difficult. Those people hopefully who live there will either be walking to work or not be using their car to a great extent. Jody: I just wanted to try and clarify what I know about the public notice issue. I was informed before the first public hearingavid that several of the neighbors did not receive any public notice including some who did not show up at that public hearing. And so if memory serves I objected on the record that proper notice had not been made. If I didn't then, I object now. Subsequently I contacted Leslie and Dave and was able to obtain a copy of the list for this year. To the best of my knowledge everybody is on that list. But I haven't gone out and done my own independent title survey of who owns all the property within 300ft. Diane: I talked to the City Attorney about this. And Dave has essentially certified that everyone on that list and Jody has reviewed that list that everyone within 300ft has been notified of that. And I don't see any reason why that would create a problem at this point. That is part of the record right now. Jed also added that you are a recommending body. If there were 1 or 2 names left off that list inadvertently that that would have to be cured prior to the public hearing before City Council but he felt confident that this has been submitted and certified and made part of the record that it is probably fairly accurate. And if there are any that have been omitted that you are aware of you need to let us know. Jasmine: We have a staff recommendation that pertains specifically to the rezoning of Lots E, F, G, H and I from Office to Affordable Housing. The criteria for those rezoning are addressed in the Planning Office memo. I know that Bruce has some reservations about whether in fact the particular parcel does, in fact, fulfil the criteria expressed in the memo. We do have to deal with these criteria and perhaps someone could propose a motion and then we could go over the criteria. MOTION Richard: I recommend approval of the rezoning of Lots E, F, G, H and I Block 105 of the Aspen Townsite known as the Kraut Property to amend the official zone map from Office to Affordable Housing. David seconded the motion. Bruce: As strange as it may seem I think of 2 other projects that cause me to think what I do about this proj ect. One is the Snowmelt facility down on the Rio Grande. And the Meadows. The thing that happened on both of those things--on the Snowmelt facility we have tried repeatedly to send the message to Council that we don't think that is the proper site for snowmelt. The reverse sort of thing kind of happened with the Meadows where we kind of planned it--masterplanned it--and then there was so much comment from the body politic out there, the Council in effect took it out of our hands and said we are going to do the right thing with the Meadows and we are going to start from scratch. "._. Now those 2 seemingly weird thoughts lead me to believe that the message we ought to send to Council on this site is "OK guys, you bought it. You spent whatever you spent on it and you need to figure out what you are going to do with it and then when you get that all figured out and you get the public satisfied and everybody comes in together and they all agree like they did on the Meadows- -we had pretty much agreement among the community that yea this is the best compromise we can come up with--then I will be prepared to rezone the property to AH or Q or whatever Council works out as a masterplan for this site. But I think we are just kind of whistling in the wind at this point to rezone it to AH and just kind of take our chances on whatever Councilor somebody works out in the future. That is the reason I vote against it. Richard: Just to make this clear I would like to amend the motion to include that it meets the review criteria A through H as set forth in the Planning Dept memo. David amended his second to the motion. Roll call vote: Tim, yes, David, yes, Sara, yes, Richard, yes, Bruce, "No, based on the fact I find that it does not meet criteria C, D and E." Jasmine, yes. TEXT AMENDMENT Leslie: Basically the goal was to provide a free market commercial element within the AH zone district. And we started off with the premise that this would be an appropriate--that a multi- use project would be appropriate only in those zone districts that are currently zoned Commercial or Office. ,~. Jasmine: But you were talking about neighborhood type commercial or locally oriented type commercial--not just commercial, commercial. Leslie: Right. And that we tried to cover under the uses. Jasmine: I got confused about the goal. Is the goal to provide the neighborhood commercial or is the goal to offset the cost of the affordable housing or neither of the above. Leslie: The original goal of the AH zone district was to give a mechanism for the private sector to come in and do affordable housing. And to give them that incentive we gave them a free market residential element exempt from growth management. And the reason why it was a 70/30 split is because we typically in residential growth management we get 50/50 free market affordable. So we wanted to up it to a 70/30 split. Bruce: It just dawned on me that if you say the purpose for the AH was to give the private developer incentive to do these kinds of projects I am a little troubled by the fact that now it's already a done deal with what is approved AH. But we are not a private developer. '- Leslie: I understand that but the City also feels that if we are expecting people to do a substantial amount of affordable housing the zoning should reflect that and if the city is doing a substantial amount of affordable housing whether it is 100% or less because AH give the ability to do 100%--that the city also should be rezoning their own property to reflect the land uses that are on the parcel. ."",n.''''''' Bruce: Philosophically what is happening is that--I still think the City paid too much for that land. And so instead of paying the right amount and being able to build affordable housing under the o zone that we are now trying to force-fit because the price we paid for the land--get something on there where we can sort of get our money back--sort of get our investment back. I am troubled by that. Leslie: I think if you really compare how you could do 100% affordable housing--the Office vs AH it is not that different. It is the 5ft--there is a 5ft height limit difference. Bruce: But you see if a private developer had come in there and paid what the city paid for that land, and then needed a bail-out by changing the text and changing the zoning in order to do a deal- -do a project there, we would say "That is tough. You paid too much for the land. Take a hike, buddy. You made a bad deal so you are going to have to live with it". And I have a feeling, I think that is what the neighbors are really kind of trying to say is "You are doing something for yourselves that you wouldn't do for a private developer". And that is where J- I really have a problem. Leslie: A private developer could buy this lot and rezone it AH and do the exact same thing that the City is proposing. And the Billings property is a really good example of a project that in the beginning the City didn't bailout. They took everything that was applicable that they could use in the code and they pulled it all together and they were able to get substantial amount of density on that property including a rezoning of the property. Richard: I remember when the City first bought it, I was upset because they couldn't do anything but affordable housing. I thought that would be a great place for commercial ground floor, housing above. And that according to the existing rules it had to be all affordable housing. That was my feeling about it then. So that I feel that this change brings it into line with what I thought we should have been able to do with it then assuming that we can actually make the project fly with that kind of a mix. Jasmine: I guess my confusion is that the need for neighborhood commercial or for locally oriented commercial for whatever reason has been something that we have tried to grapple with in a lot of different areas. And it is a serious problem because I think it is really important for this kind of stuff to be preserved not just for locals but even tourists who ask you about places. "Whatever happened to the Village Pantry?" That was a place that locals used to go to even though tourists went there too. "How come the Weinerstube is way over here when it used to be over there?" That kind of stuff. And we have to provide that. But I think that there are more problems with the neighborhood commercial in terms of uses and rentals that to sort of include it in and already problematical area of affordable housing is really scary. Let's say the City owns this project. We decide that we are going to approve this. We are going to allow locally oriented commercial in the Kraut parcel. Well what Neighborhood commercial needs in order to succeed is lower rent. The reason those businesses aren't around is because they can't pay commercial core rents. And they are not going to be able to succeed over there regardless of the location if you are going to charge commercial core rents. So the City owns this project. The City can charge them whatever they want to for rent. So in effect you are subsidizing the rent. Leslie: That is one proposal. Jasmine: Well, maybe that is the right thing to do. And maybe it isn't. But everything has just gotten so tangled up. A private developer comes in. You say "OK, you can build this project. You can put in X number square feet of Neighborhood Commercial. He puts in Mezzaluna. What are your controls? How can you make him charge the kind of rent that will make it possible for a little shoe maker to be able to have that kind of space which is what we want. We don't want another Mezzaluna over there. But how can we do it without making the rent possible? If somebody else owns it we have no control over the rent. It is like all these things are all intertwined because of this particular parcel but the problems of Neighborhood Commercial I think go a lot beyond this. I think what you could have is a situation where you have a parking garage. You have employee housing and Mezzaluna. And I think that would be the worst. Leslie: A lot of people when they talk about how we are going to protect the local oriented business and how we are going to create space for local oriented businesses originally what people were talking about is "Well why don't we use our same deed restricted concept that we use with affordable housing. Why don't we use it with commercial space?" Margot was really pushing that. That was a real discussion point in the community plan stuff at the beginning. And people really backed off of that because they--as she said in the work session, "The minute I started talking about deed restricting commercial space my phone rang off the hook. No one yet that I have heard of or has given me an idea on how they can make that work". So one of the ways that we currently now are trying to protect the integrity of our NC-- NCI zone district is by the use. That is why staff was really opposed to allowing tables and chairs mumble We saw that as opening another door. Mezzaluna is in the C-1 zone district. And wasn't it Gideon who processed a code amendment to allow restaurants to be a conditional use in the C-1 zone district? Jasmine: Yes. Under. certain circumstances which were misrep- resented but we have no redress. Leslie: We don't allow restaurants in the NC zone district. And we don't allow them in the NCI zone district. That always becomes an enforcement issue. Believe me there are major problems with this. But it is not not doable. But I think there are some real stumbling blocks here and one of the thing we tried to do is given these goals to try and preserve our neighborhood commercial uses and create more space in town for them. We have talked a lot about how we want to tighten that up and then I took out those uses that are just not compatible with housing. Sara: This text amendment I think is an important thing to have happening to affordable housing in the commercial core. Never since we have been talking about the Kraut property did I really think that it could be everything to everybody. I want parking. I want some housing there. I am real questionable about business and putting any more at that end. I think it is very important that this happen to AH zones in the commercial core but I don't think it might apply to the Kraut property. - I am not worried everybody's money. at it. about paying for it. I know I am spending I don't think that is the way I want to look Bruce: The thing that concerns me is that--If Mike Lousich who once had a contract on that Kraut property, were coming in here as the applicant and was asking for text amendments to allow commercial in the AH zone, I dare say that we would be saying "No way, Buddy, get out of here. We have got enough commercial in this town. We want affordable housing and we want a parking garage". That is my point. I think we are manipulating it because we are the applicant. And I just don't think that is right. I don't think that is fair. And I think we subject ourselves to ridicule. Leslie: We offer free market residential element in the AH already. Do you think that making that available for commercially zoned areas is a bad idea? Bruce: No. I don't. I just think it is a bad idea to have the City be the first applicant and proposing the text amendments. I am not opposed to affordable housing. I am not opposed to disbursing it throughout the community. I am not opposed to it in the commercial core. I am in favor of all of those things. I just think we are really opening ourselves out to scrutiny when the city is the first applicant and is manipulating the code for this project to try to make this project work. That is my sense of what is going on. Tolen: The city as the applicant for this project proposed and still would propose a 100% affordable housing project with the parking required for that project and ____mumble. However we have heard back from the Planning & Zoning Commission that we need to be more flexible than that. And we have worked out a process for that flexibility. But from the applicant's point of view this project works as a housing project. In the sense of the feasibility of the project it's doability, it works as a housing project and we don't need this text amendment to make the project work. We need the text amendment in order to have a process for working out issues that you all brought to our attention that need to be resolved. Leslie: These are issues that have come up in the community plan. The real desire that came out of the community plan is to take the NC zoning and extend it's boundaries. David: The Growth Committee and several of the committees have specifically recommended to target this block for expansion into the NC zone including the Bell Mountain and the Buckhorn for use as neighborhood commercial, grocery store--a potential City Market expansion, intercept parking lot and perhaps upstairs offices and/or affordable housing. Bruce: So why do we rezone it to AH? ""'" Sara: Because we are listening. - Bruce: Because we are doing what Council is telling us to do. ...-."....' - ",<' ~," - Tim: I can remember when Woods and Bazza had the Bell Mountain Lodge under contract. And they wanted to have it rezoned Office. And I think that was turned down and that dropped them out of their contract because what they wanted to do was to do another Mezzaluna Mall and put lodge rooms or apartments upstairs and they had a big plan for that. They wanted commercial on the street level and housing upstairs. So I don't know--if there is going to be backlash about it. They didn't think it was a good idea then but now that the City wants to do it, it's a good idea. Leslie: The commercial element in the AH zone district has been tossed around a lot--not just with the Kraut. Bruce: That procedurally. rezone. is one reason I asked the question early on about Might it not be better to amend the text before we Leslie: That question has been asked throughout the entire process. Are we rezoning without a development plan? Shouldn't we know what the text amendment is without a development plan? Shouldn't we know what the text amendment is without the re- zoning. David: I think we had a development plan before. I think Frank was very clear in our work session. The plan that we have seen is the development plan. And I think what some of us are encouraging Council to do is reconsider that development plan. And to re- design that development plan--there are ways to massage that plan to have that first level--that same structure could be rented out for office use or grocery store use and have housing above without tearing the building down and re-building it. We are trying to encourage Council to take that leap. Float some bonds, build a parking structure underneath it and if it is successful on half of the block maybe it will be designed so that when somebody assembles the rest of the block they can be incorporated. It is pie in the sky. It may never happen. I will put money in that it will never happen. But it is possible that it could happen and it won't happen unless the zoning takes place first. As long as the Bell Mountain is LP--it is going to be difficult. Bruce: The real long range need for that site and the Bell Mountain is an intercept lot or garage. It seems to me we are foreclosing our options by zoning it AH and rushing to get affordable housing built. Sure we need it. I don't believe that persons are saying we don't need it affordable housing. I think we do. But if we build it there it, in my mind, it forecloses ever having what we may really need there long term. Sara: The AH offers us that possibility to do the parking garage that Office does not. I would have a hard time accepting just housing there without that garage. I think that Frank Peters because he has set on 2 Councils now is almost throwing up his hands because he is saying affordable housing is all we have ever wanted there. The Council has said to us "Go ahead with the AH because that is a priority". That is what the community has asked us for. It was affordable housing first and then let's do the lot. Bruce: But they could have done affordable housing when it was zoned O. I am not opposed to the text amendments. Now that we have zoned it AH I think the right thing to do is to make the text amendment. But I am still opposed to the rezoning. Sara: But we couldn't have done the parking garage without AH. Bruce: Yes we could have. Leslie: Yes you could have. Parking garage is a conditional use in Office. Jasmine: Oh, then I misunderstood. Then I gave people the wrong information because that was what I thought. Sara: Yes. I misunderstood too. Leslie: A commercial parking garage would be considered net leasable. And you could not do a commercial. You could do a public parking garage exempt from Growth Management as essential public facility. Sara: Well, anyway we are doing what the Council asked us to do. Jasmine: I was under the impression that what with the AH zone was going to allow us to do was to allow a commercial parking garage which the 0 zone would not. Leslie: No. Office does allow the parking. What zoning to AH and with the text amendment it gives us the ability to consider exempt commercial space. Bruce: 5 more feet. Leslie: We could have gone below grade 5 feet and had a whole below grade housing with window wells and you still would have had the same number of units on there. The floor area in AH is 1.1 to 1. But with special review in Office you can go up to 1 to 1. And then under our review section of parking it says "All afford housing parking is done by special review". Bruce: Well, we have rezoned it now. So let's figure out what we are going to do now. Jody: My understanding was without this text amendment you can't do the parking garage--under AH. -. David: That's true. But an hour ago the parking garage could have gone under the Office zone. - , Bruce: Yes. We are worse off right now. Right? ".- Leslie: without the amendments, you are right. Jody: without the rezoning you could have done it as a commercial and you could have done 100% affordable housing if you wanted. Leslie: You couldn't have done the commercial, Jody, ___mumble___ Jody: Well, true. Sara: I think the Council wants to protect that parcel with AH in case another Council comes in, Jody, unlike Castle Ridge. David: Jody, I can only tell you having worked on both sides of the fence, it is just as hard either way. Leslie: What we were attempting to do is find a way to easily break out our percentage--our mix and the way we went with it is we went with the square footage because we couldn't do unit to unit. We went with square footage and we did not go with floor area because anything below grade doesn't count as floor area. So we went with the total square footage of the box excluding parking. Because if you have 3 stories of parking, there went your 40% which is what we are proposing. -- Growth Management you have to mitigate 60% of your employees. If someone were to build X square feet of net leasable, how many employee housing will we get generated out of that. And we feel comfortable that the 40/60% split of square footage. We are still getting more employee housing per 40% square footage of net leasable than you do from a Growth Management perspective. Bruce: What would have been their employee housing requirements for that commercial square footage. In other words they have got some housing requirements anyway any time you build commercial square footage. Is that part of this mix in housing that we are going to get anyway? Many people talking at the same time. Richard: So if they put in 6,000sqft of commercial space that's around 20 employees but then-- Leslie: But they only have to mitigate 60% of those 20 employees. Richard: So that is 12 and we are getting a whole lot more than that. If you have 9,000sqft of affordable housing. ~. Leslie: We were using rough numbers and using the parameters of this site as an example and our goal was in splitting out the commercial free market and the affordable housing is to make sure that we were getting more than we would have goten through Growth Management. Therefore the commercial element is mitigating it's -. employees and then some. Bruce: Yes, but if we built 100% affordable housing we wouldn't- Leslie: Yes. David: That is a mute point then. Sara: That is what Frank keeps bringing up. Many people talking at the same time. David: This gives the city the opportunity if the structure is designed in the sort of way where there is 3 levels starting at grade. Where the first level is at grade--or even if it is below grade, it gives the city the opportunity to take all those essential non-profits and arts groups, house them in the first floor of this structure, take the red brick school and do something else with it. Sell it. Put housing there. Put an ice rink there. Put a rec center there. I don't know what it could be. Bruce: Have you considered the consequences of mistakes? Sara: That's right. What could go wrong. Bruce: If there is some glitch in here--are we making some big mistake that we are going to pay for? Somebody else can come along and get an AH zone and do something that we never dreamed would happen? Leslie: There are 2 ways to answer that question. First for any free market commercial space that would be developed--when it came around for growth management and we had to figure out what the allocation is--that they develop 6, OOOsqft of commercial space which was originally zoned Office. What I envision is that when we figure out what the Growth Management allocation is for the Office zone district we would deduct that space out of the Office zone district--we wouldn't be getting double growth. That is what we do anyway with anything that is exempt from Growth Management. We take that out of the allocation available that year and so we have had growth but it is as if it went through Growth Management. The second answer is we struggled with the fact could someone build a project and have free market residential and free market commercial and deed restricted or affordable housing. Could they do an amalgamation on this? And we were thinking that if someone bought Kraut tomorrow zoned AH we put it out for bid and someone came in and still proposed a 70% deed restricted unit and 30% free market unit split, they could still do that. Bruce: The City could do that too, right? ~ Leslie: The City affordable housing. could do that. Someone could do a 100% Someone could do 70/30 unit split between free market and deed restricted. Somebody could do a 60/40sqft split between commercial and deed restricted. OR someone could probably interject free market housing in that. The way we try to cover that is that anything that is free market whether it is commercial or residential then comes out of your 40%. Bruce: So let's build a couple of million dollar penthouses on the top floor and pay for the whole thing. Leslie: Is that what you were thinking of by mistake--something we could get that we wouldn't want to get? Bruce: Yes. I am just wondering if there is something in this that we are not anticipating that some shrewd-- Richard: I thought of that before where the 70/30 you put the little boxes down on the ground for and then penthouses on top of it. Somebody could end up-- Leslie: Someone could do that right now. Richard: Yes, with the Office zone. Jody: The problem I have with this--everything seems to be keyed to the prior zone district. And you are rezoning the property. ,.. It is not Office anymore. It is AH. It is not commercial anymore. It is AH. What happens if 5 years down the road City council does ~ away with he commercial zone district and implements neighborhood commercial or whatever allover the place. You won't even have this criteria any more. This references the old criteria which aren't even on the books any more. I had a condominium project I was doing a few years ago which was buil t under the old ? which isn't on the books any more. And we had a lot of problems with what we could and couldn't do because of when it had been built and how the codes have been changed since then. This proposed text amendment references half the zone districts which could be changed at any time. Leslie: On several of the the whole amendment. , not the whole zone district, not Jody: It says in some cases the previous underlying zone shall guide assessment of payment in lieu of parking, ____etc. On page 2. What if that previous underlying zone doesn't exist any more? What if they have been changed in the interim. What do we do? ~'"",, Leslie: I agree. And one of the ways we talked about that that we thought we could deal with this on a more fluid basis is to have these kinds of zone districts have mandatory PUD. And PUD enables you to set the dimensional requirements. - Jody: Those are based on underlying zone district too. And if the underlying zone district is AH and this new AH references an old Office or whatever, that doesn't exist anymore-- Richard: Can you just slip the change in the Office or the Commercial zone in under the AH? Jody: In other words make this an overlay zone instead of a new zone. David: I would go for a deletion of that clause. Why not just delete that clause? It is not Office anymore. Bruce: You are trying to figure out where to take it out of quota. Leslie: So what quota do you take it out of? We don't have a quota for AH. And since our quota in the commercial core is dependent on the specific zone district that you are in--C-1 has a different allocation than NC. I was trying to link the 2 and say you have just rezoned from Office to AH. And now you are going to develop--there are certain aspects of your development proposal that to keep you compatible with the surrounding neighborhood, you would refer to the Office zoning district. My idea was that at the time of development that would set your side yard setback. -~--_. " Jody: But your rezoning doesn't always occur at the same time as the development. Whereas you are rezoning now, you may not get around to deciding what you are going to develop for another year or two. And who knows what happens in the interim. It looks to me like your minimum front yard, your minimum side yard, the off street requirements are all hooked to the prior zone district. -.. Leslie: And the Growth Management. Sara: Just from being on the Oversight Committee, isn't there a good chance that all the scoring and GMQS might disappear? Leslie: Yes. But if we revamp the whole scoring system it would affect every section of the code. We would have to go through every section of the code. Another thing that is coming out of the Community plan is the fact that maybe there are certain neighborhoods for example out by the hospital where we may want to encourage a small local oriented 7-11 or something like that. And if you had that kind of desire maybe this would probably fit into something like that out there. For example the Moore property, if it was ever annexed into the City and they could take advantage of AH this may be--but right now this is only being-- you know--so instead of trying to think about OK what is coming down at the community plan I thought I would just play it a little bit safe and only stick to our existing Commercial and Office zone district. ~..,,,,.,,,,- '- Richard: At the time of application maybe this is a PUD process. So we are going to have so much affordable housing, so much Commercial or Office in the project then in order to come out of the quotas whatever you are proposing to use it for rather than some underlying zoning that this is-- David: I would go so far this list. It doesn't inducement. as to proposing that we severely limit come out of anything as a further Sara: Create a whole new list just for this. David: I would cut this list back by 50% and it doesn't come out of anything. It doesn't come out of NC. It doesn't come out of Office. It doesn't come out of C-1, C-2. It is an inducement to encourage half a dozen uses. And if the owner so desires to do that sort of thing it is an inducement to create what is perceived as a community need. Leslie: So you basically want to treat it as an essential public facility. Why do you think you need that additional inducement? David: In trying to float a mixed use project on that block, one of the real difficulties is in trying to sell it to the private sector has been that under the assemblage--if someone tomorrow were to assemble the entire block, it would take 7 and 1/2 years of growth allotments in order to build a larger grocery store. Just a grocery store. Real difficult for somebody to sit on land and -- pay interest. In this community which is not considered pro- business it is not worth the risk. It is just not going to happen. Leslie: They do not have to compete. They don't need an allocation to be built. The point is that if they were built, when it comes time to asses the allocation for everybody else it comes out. Richard: These are at the head of the line. David: I am saying that why penalize somebody else in the NC. So if the Bell Mountain were to try to--If City Market were to try to expand and bridge across the street then it is longer than 7 and 1/2 years to get the allotments they need to do a serious expansion. Jasmine: We are talking about the super-block. The only parcel of that block that has been rezoned is the Kraut property. There has been no change of zoning on for the Bell Mountain Lodge or the Buckhorn and so this does not necessarily apply because there is no knowledge right now that there will be any reason why those would be zoned AH. We are talking about AH zoning and then we are sort of confusing it with the super-block. And I think we should try to keep those separate. David: As a planning body I think it is reasonable for us to look a little bit beyond-- Jasmine: But there is no reason to suppose that those would necessarily be zoned AH to begin with. And so all of this stuff that we are talking about which are specifically text amendments for AH zone would probably not have any application to those particular parcels unless they were automatically zoned AH. But they are not. Bruce: And they won't be unless the City buys the land. Jasmine: So that is a whole different ball game. Richard: If somebody assembled the whole block, put an AH zone on it would they then be able to push through the process faster than 7 and 1/2 years and get the grocery store. David: Yes. David: So this is relevant because it is therefore an inducement. Bruce: Leslie, what was the rational behind dropping the split from 70/30 to 60/40? Leslie: That was primarily because if you were looking at 3 story structure--anywhere else you are not going to get--the downtown commercial core you can go to 40ft. But we don't see 40ft any longer. So we were primarily talking a 3 story structure. Basically the way it breaks out is 33, 33, 33. We were looking to give somebody a whole first floor commercial and then as they went up to the second and third floor they had the ability to then wedding-cake as they went up because you do 40% and then you have your 60% on the upper 2 floors. Bruce: I remember when we did the 70/30 numbers they were just kind of pulled out of the air. Does it take 60/40 to make the deal work or will 70/30 work just as well. Are we giving away 10% there that we don't need to give away? Tolen: In most cases we are increasing the percentage instead of decreasing it because 60/40 mix based on square footage is in most cases more affordable housing than a 70/30 breakdown because in most cases the free market units are going to be larger in terms of square footage. CHANGES David: Delete stuff in bold before page 2. And then wherever that comes up throughout the ordinance be specific. Go with the AH setbacks and that sort of thing and delete references to other zones. Under B--permitted uses I see a loophole here. The way I read it I could develop 40% free market commercial, 40% free market housing and then anything that is left could go to affordable. - That is Band C under conditional uses that it could be phrased that 60% of the gross square footage and/or net leasable depending how you want to define it shall be deed restricted affordable housing. And the remaining 40% may be either or a combination of Commercial Office or free market residential or free market commercial. But not to exceed 40%. Then listening carefully to the comments of the neighbors and sharing their concerns about parking in the neighborhood I would encourage deleting any allowance for parking-in-lieu payments. All parking shall be mitigated on the site. It is not just this site, but anywhere that this is likely to apply. I think parking is potentially a problem. I would encourage us to consider deleting the acceptance of parking-in-lieu payments for this particular zone. Leslie: In our CC and our C-1 zone district someone can totally cash out of their parking. David: Right. Which doesn't help parking congestion downtown. Leslie: Right. But it is paying for our parking garage. Bruce: But as a practical reality in some cases it physically cannot be done. -''''-~ Leslie: And then the Office zone district you can reduce already currently, you can reduce to 1 and 1/2 spaces per thousand square feet of net leasable. But I am currently working on another code amendment to address the situation where you have a rezoning to Office and you can't provide the parking on site. So that is what this language reflects is the code amendment that I am working on right now. Then to pare down the list of uses, I would recommend deleting the following line items. Liquor store, barber shop, beauty shop, record store, TV sales and repair shop, video rental and sale shop, garden shop, and 16-maybe. Under 14 I would change it to non- profits offices. Otherwise it is Coates, Reid and Waldron and/or Coldwell Banker or another travel agency. And I just don't think the town needs specially subsidized space for those things. But it does need--and the only thing I would add to the list would be an underwear store for Margot. If we are going to give an inducement for someone to build essential commercial services I think those could be limited to drugstore and sundries. Where I think there is a substantial shortage currently and for the foreseeable future of the community. Drugstore, food store, shoe repair shop, laundromat, hardware store, parking garage, recreation, daycare center, satellite dish, dormitory. --- Leslie: And I would add seamstress to that. Sara: I see abuses for all of this. If you have a shoe repair shop, who is to prevent them from selling Bloomingbird's shoes and cowboy boots? It is just a way to get into this. They will turn around and also the fabric and sewing notions. There is a little girl on a sewing machine in the back corner that they are selling one-of-a-kind--. I really have trouble with neighborhood commercial. Who in the world is to say what is neighborhood commercial. David: If you are in the real estate business it is primarily dry cleaners, food, drugs, and laundry. It kind of stops there. Jasmine: I have a tremendous philosophical problem with the inclusion of neighborhood commercial because of the difficulty of policing it and the difficulty of getting what we want from it. And I understand that the community is very concerned about providing additional neighborhood commercial. Conditional uses that are not reviewable and enforceable are just a nightmare. And we haven't even seen what could happen. I just don't think we can put a text amendment in unless there is some kind of provision for very specific conditional use enforcement. otherwise we are opening up all kinds of really horrible problems and I just don't see that we can do this without creating commercial development without mitigation, taking it away from affordable housing and getting into a situation where we are subsidizing neighborhood commercial. And if we are going to do that I think we need to have something that is more tangible than this. I think this is something that is waiting to get totally out of control. I have this feeling because of what has happened in the past. I would feel more comfortable if the public had been involved and said they all miss the fact that neighborhood kind of businesses are not able to make in this town anymore. And so as a town we are willing to make some kind of a commitment to do something the way we voted bonds for employee housing or whatever to provide these neighborhood commercial services. I would feel more comfortable with that if there was some kind of feeling that everybody in the community really felt that way and was willing to make that kind of commitment. I think this is just something we have come up with. Again the local plans have but we don't know how representative that is of the population at large. And I think this is one area in which you might find a lot of opposition from people whose businesses aren't neighborhood commercial but who nonetheless make a living and live in this town whether they sell emeralds or nuts and bolts. Leslie: That was the argument against requiring commercial space be deed restricted. The people who were in their free market space were saying "I am working really hard to make a go at it and no one is giving me a break and now you are going to deed restrict and someone is going to get in and they are going to get a free ride". - r""="'~ Bruce: The same argument I made against affordable housing. That is that some of us scraped and somehow managed to buy into free market housing and if we flood the market with affordable housing it pulls down the value of free market housing. It is the same argument whether you are talking about commercial or residential. David: That is part of the reason I wanted to really pare the list down to a couple of the uses. So it is not competitive with the free market. Tolen: What you have right now is a zone district that permits free market residential which insofar as it serves a particular market doesn't get at any other policy objective. It is just the benefit you are permitting the developer who does 70% residential. with the zone amendment at worst, even if people abused the uses here to the fullest extent, what they would get--what the community would lose would be no different from what is permitted under the current zone district which is a certain proportion absolutely free market use. It would be nice if we could structure this zone amendment in such a way as to at least there is some chance that neighborhood commercial uses will be served rather than no chance at all. It seems like the zoning method as it is proposed is at least no worse in that sense than the current zone district and may be better with the uses restricted. David: I think the worst abuse of this the way we have talked about it would be a ___?___ an upscale version of that. Something a little glittzier a little more expensive but still a deli, food boutique with no seating. I think that would be the worst abuse. But ___?___ makes sandwiches and if I am working around the clock and scraping to get by, I love to be able to run downstairs and grab a sandwich or a salad--even at an inflated price. Jasmine: Maybe you are right. Maybe the restricted uses that can even apply might be the handle on that. Leslie: And that is the other reason why I wanted to make them conditional uses. There is no commercial uses that are an absolute permitted use. It is an enforcement issue but we see these people in here over and over again. And we made Silver City Grill come because Loretta had been allowed to abuse the situation. But Silver City Grill wasn't. And I thought we struck a really fair compromise. Sara: I definitely want an amendment to affordable housing in commercial core or I wouldn't have voted for that rezoning. Jasmine: I misinterpreted that entirely as well. Sara: We sure want to see this in May. .'" Jasmine: What I would like to do is continue the text amendment public hearing to date certain of April 21, 1992. "--. MOTION David: I so move. Richard seconded the motion with all in favor. Meeting was adjourned. Time was 8:15pm. ,. Janic Clerk