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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19941018 ~~ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION OCTOBER 18. 1994 Chairman Bruce Kerr called meeting to order at 4:30 P.M. Answering roll call were steve Beuttow, Robert Blaich, Tim Mooney, Sara Garton, Roger Hunt, Jasmine Tygre and Bruce Kerr. Marta Chaikovska was excused. COMMISSIONER COMMENTS Jasmine: It has to ative and I found this book in the Library called The New Urbanism. do with planned communities. It is interesting, inform- very easy to read for anyone who might be interested. Tim asked regarding Ordinance #53. Leslie: We all struggled together and what we wound up with was beefing up the purpose section of the Residential Zone District and then we created a definition of long term residential in the code. We had many, many meetings with P&Z and Council about that. Tim: One of the most questionable aspects of this debate is how it is going to be enforced. It basically isn't being enforced across the board, but selectively. Leslie: We have enforced it once on complaints. We have had one person that we have worked with and it has gone very well. Bruce: I just want to remind staff that we have never seen the resolution for David Brown. STAFF COMMENTS Leslie: West end traffic study is to be taken off agenda for today. MOTION Roger: I move to table action on Independence Place SPA Desig- nation and Conceptual SPA plan to date certain of February 7, 1995. Tim seconded the motion. Jasmine: I don't feel comfortable with doing this until I really understand what the remifications are. Bruce: I don't see that we gain nor lose anything by tabling to this date. If the election goes a certain way, it may go away altogether. Sara: I agree with Jasmine. I don't like continuing things. I don't like vested rights that they keep extending. Things changed in 2 years. And they are about to change again. And have PZM10.18.94 Jasmine: I am just afraid we are locking ourselves into something. Maybe we are not. But I don't know that. And until I know that I don't really want to vote in favor of doing this. Everyone then voted in favor of the motion except Jasmine and Sara. Kim: November meeting schedule will be the 1st and the 22nd. The Overlay meeting will be on the 29th. Leslie: We are trying to find a Tuesday for a meeting with the joint P&Zs on RO and AH. We are not real sure on this one. Kim: I have a site plan that was given to me by Jim Iglehart for the Nathanson residence on ute Avenue. Jim is the contractor for this project and he brought to my attention the condition of approval which requires no disturbance outside of the building envelope. No construction activity does not work for the reason that the outside walls of the structure are within inches of the building envelope. I can't just release permits with the knowledge that the conditions of approval would be violated. Those being that he intends to use a bulldozer outside the building envelope to do backfilling. And also to construct the sewer line. Bruce: I am not prepared to just willy-nilly, by looking at some plan passed around in the comment section of our meeting, to waive the condition of approval of an 8040 Greenline Review. I think if he wants to come back and amend--and it is sort of onerous to have to come back and go through the government process. But if he wants to come back and amend his 8040 Greenline approval and show us that this is perfectly alright I would look at it then. But I am not prepared to just give some reason to say "Yes, go ahead and do what you want to do". The rest of the P&Z agreed that they were not willing to waive this condition that has already been approved on the basis of a simple blue line plan. Staff is instructed to expedite the applicant onto the next agenda and they are to supply more information. PUBLIC COMMENTS There were none. MINUTES OCTOBER 4. 1994 Sara: I move to approve minutes of October 4, 1994. Bob seconded the motion with all in favor. 2 PZM10.18.94 KNFO CONDITIONAL USE REVIEW SATELLITE DISH Bruce reopened the public hearing. Kim: For those of you who were at the site today we saw where Sunny has proposed to change the rotation of the dishes. One is in the southwestern corner of the parking lot in a dead corner and one is indicated to be to the southeast of the parking space pointing toward Aspen Mountain. And it also will not encroach on any parking spaces. One of the neighbors was there and Sunny has talked with other neighbors and everyone has indicated this is an appropriate solution. Sunny: The dish you saw is one we managed to scrape up for demon- strative purposes only rather than build some kind of mockup. We will stand by our original proposal to paint it a color that is acceptable to the commission. Bruce asked for public comment. ?: We appreciate all your efforts to accommodate our views. There were no further public comments and Bruce closed the public portion of the hearing. MOTION Robert: I move for approval of the conditional Use for the two approximate 2.8 meter satellite for KNFO Radio located at 225 North Mill Street with the conditions recommended and amended in the Planning Office memo dated October 4, 1994. (attached in record) That is that the dishes shall be painted to minimize the visual effect and the color to be worked out with the Planning Office. Jasmine seconded the motion with all in favor except Roger who abstained. CONDOMINIUMIZATION TEXT AMENDMENT Bruce opened the public portion of the hearing. Kim: Made presentation as attached in record. Jasmine: I thought you couldn't condominiumize land. sunny: There is the new Common Ownership Act that was passed by 3 PZM10.18.94 the legislature a while back to clean up the condominiumization procedure. It allows you to condominiumize land. You can take a piece of vacant land and subdivide it but essentially the two condominiumized interests provided there is a common element. That is what we did on the Central Bank. We didn't condominiumize the structures at all. We simply condominiumized the land underneath the structures such that part of the building set on one condominium element and the other building set on the other condominium element and they owned a piece of land between the two as a limited common interest. Has the City Attorney reviewed the ability to impose additional regulations on top of the state statute regarding the condominiumization of land to impose such requirements that come out on subdivision like nonconformities, etc. Kim: We are not imposing additional requirements above and beyond the process. As far as condominiumization we could say "You have to do affordable housing". That would be something different than what the subdivision allows for. I think subdivision is pretty clear in its attempt to provide logical, reasonable division of land. And it specifically states "Not to create non-conformities". Leslie: There are criteria under subdivision that earlier we had all decided there are certain processes that don't have to follow all that criteria and it is really simple and easy and so we will just exempt it from full subdivision process. We are now not exempting this. Just by the change of ownership in a duplex home we are putting all of these cash-in-lieu fees, 6 month deed restriction, housing and all this and just a change of ownership. And KIOWA--you can't do that if you are not also doing that to everybody else. Kim: This still allows for simple condominiumization of air space and/or typical common ownership of the majority of the portion of the land area itself to be processed as the Planning Director sign- off. It gives staff the ability to say "Whoa, this appears to be subdivision and so therefore let's treat it as such for review purposes". MOTION Roger: I move to recommend to City Council to approve an amendment to Section 24-7-1007 of the Aspen Municipal Code requiring condominiumization of land to be a two-step subdivision process as recommended by the Planning Office. Jasmine seconded the motion. 4 PZM10.18.94 Kim: We could preface a statement to Council that if we find that there could potentially a non-conformity being created, and we have done this recently in a lot split case, the Zoning Board of Adjustment has the power to act on and grant variances to non- conformities. So a condition of the subdivision of approval such as we are talking about the zoning Board of Adjustment could waive or grant a variance to whatever difficulty might be encountered. Sara: What is the abuse potential? Why are you so in favor of this? Roger: I can see where through the condominium process it is the capability of coming up with a non-conforming parcel that someone is on and buildings don't last forever and by creating that non- conformity you have in effect imbedded in perpetuity their right to continue that non-conformity. If that is going to be done, it should be done through the subdivision process is my point. Bruce: I am going to vote against this primarily because I don't understand it. It has been stated by all of us that we want to streamline the code--simplify the code. And I am not sure that I understand what condominiumization of the land really means. I don't know that we have a definition in the code for that. Maybe there is a cleaner way to deal with closing this gap. Maybe the way to do it is in the subdivision regulations you specify that a condominiumization of land shall be subject to subdivision regu- lations rather than sort of in the back door of the condominium- ization regs where you then throw them back into subdivision regs. Leslie: Wouldn't that achieve the same thing? Bruce: Well, it might. It just seems to me we are not simplifying the code. Leslie: until we had to deal with Central Bank and Kim had to say "wait a minute. We are creating an entire new parcel with no parking and share trash enclosure areas and there is nothing we can do about it". And they say we are condominiumizing the land. They were subdividing the land. But when we eliminated the condominium section there was nothing in the code that say "You cannot condominiumize land". We didn't have the ability to say "You are really doing a subdivision. You have to go through the whole subdivision". There is no flexibility Under our current condominium regulation there is absolutely no flexibility on staff's part to impose anything to say we disagree or agree with your condominiumization. You file a plat. That's it. 5 PZM10.18.94 We had to take condominiumization out of the code. And whether this condominiumization of land or this loophole that we are calling it was part of taking that section out of the code or is part of a whole new set of property rights that people think they have under KIOWA I am not sure. But it was flagged early on by both Jed and then John Worcester that this is a loophole in here and let's just say that condominiumization has to go through subdivision process. And it is the way we treat all other division of land in the city. We are not imposing an individual burden on the division of land. Bruce asked for public comment. There was none and he closed the public portion of the hearing. Everyone then voted in favor of the motion except Bruce. CREEKTREE SUBDIVISION/PUD AMENDMENT Mary Lackner, Planning: Made presentation as attached in record. Sunny Vann, Representative for applicant: This is a good example of when an older project gets caught up in our newer regulations. This was developed as a PUD. At the time it was developed the entire site area was used for purposes of calculating allowable density for the single family and the two duplexes. That is the regulations that were in place in 1978. And that is the regu- lations that are in effect today. The code says if you do a PUD and you give a park or common open space to someone they don't penalize you from a density perspective for giving that space. You use the whole site, divide the total area by the number of dwelling units and come up with an average lot area. When this was built there were no FAR regulations in the city. The plat did contain a notation about the size of the buildings. It didn't say floor area because there was no definition. But it did have a limitation. What we are aSking for is to recommend approval on the amendment to the PUD itself. And that amendment is to remove this one line. since there was no FAR limitation when this was built it didn't matter that these were two separate parcels. Creektree owns this parcel. Each land owner has an undivided interest in this parking area. But because of the way our code is set up today this line means that they can't use this portion of their property for their FAR for their units. The units are about 2,300sf at the moment. This amendment would allow them to go to something like about 2,760. We have said that even though there might be additional FAR available once we go 6 PZM10.18.94 through this calculation we will limit it to the amount we have requested. Those additions will occur within the existing footprint. The majority of the square footage that would be added to each unit would occur in the existing garage. There is more than adequate parking on site. One of the unit owners has already received permission to enclose his garage to have some additional living space in the building. The election by any of the other owners to enclose their garage would have no adverse effect on parking. They would simply give up a covered space for an exterior space. So all this does is provide a way to allow them to utilize the allowable FAR that they would be entitled to if this project were to come through today. The only distinction is we are putting a limitation on what that allowable FAR will be. We are saying it is only going to be a maximum of 500sf and it can only occur within the existing footprint of the building. The applicant in question is asking to enclose a deck. He has already enclosed his garage so he has used 400 and some odd square feet of his 500 feet. What we are asking for--the deck is approximately 110sf. The resulting FAR if each unit owner were to expand given the amount that we are asking for, the total FAR on this site would .29. So we are not talking about substantial increases. We are not talking about monster homes here. We are not talking about cutting down stuff next to a river. The guy simply wants to enclose his deck to accommodate the expanding needs of his family. The issues the last time we talked about this we were talking about these being single family vs duplexes. We have set down with the Planning Office. We have come up with a process which we believe is currently provided for in the code. It doesn't require any unusual interpretations on behalf of the staff, the Planning Office or the Planning & zoning commission or the city council. All we are asking you to do is recommend approval to amend the PUD to consolidate the two parcels which are presently owned by the Creektree Condominiums. And also to grant Stream Margin Review for Mr. Beckwith's request to enclose his deck. The way we set up the application is that each other owner, should they elect in the future to take advantage of this FAR, would come in for their own stream Margin Review and you would make a determination at the time as to whether there were any adverse impacts associated with what they wanted to do. This will project. clean up an awkward situation for this particular It will establish what the allowable FARs are so that 7 PZM10.18.94 each time someone comes in and wishes to remodel there will be some kind of control and some kind of record as to what is permitted and what is not on this particular site. Sara: In the original presentation you were talking about them as detached single family homes. And now you are going with duplex. Sunny: The way we got there was on a recommendation from the Planning Office. That was the way it was suggested. That is the way we did it. subsequently they decided they didn't want to do it that way. So now we are treating them as being duplexes. In reality it is a multi-family project with two detached structures on it. If you were to build those two there today it would be four units clustered in two structures and a multi-family parcel. We would try to zone it multi-family. The FAR would be 1 to 1. This is .29. Steve: How many parking places are in that area? Sunny: There are more than one per bedroom. Mary: Staff has asked that the Fisherman's Easement that currently exists be redefined and use language that is more up to date with what we are using now to allow for fisherman's access within 5 feet of the medium high water line. They have not heard back from the applicant on this. Sunny: I guess I missed that one. The only place that we could get it since the only land we own is right here--this little piece right here. Mary: seeing that we are doing the whole subdivision as a PUD amendment we are going to have to look at where it crosses all lots. Sunny: You can't ask me to go tell this guy to renegotiate his fishing easement. Mary: It is an amendment of the whole subdivision-- Sunny: This is the only thing I am amending. I am not amending anybody else's property lines or anything else. Don't throw up another roadblock here for me. You got a Fisherman's Easement that was granted over the terms and requirements in effect at the time this was subdivided. If you don't like the language where it crosses our property, I think I could probably get you a new Fisherman's Easement. But you can't tell me that I have got to go negotiate for the City a revised Fisherman's Easement with the owner of Lot #1. 8 PZM10.18.94 Mary: I would have to disagree. We are looking at a substantial amendment to the entire subdivision. And I think that needs to be rectified throughout the subdivision. Sunny: I can't do it. Leslie: amended. the plat. The plat is being amended and the PUD agreement is to be And at that point all parties are going to have to sign Sunny: We will have multiple signatures on the plat because we have multiple owners. Leslie: And it could be reflected on the plat so the people who know-- Sunny: But to make this a condition of approval is arm twisting and it is unrealistic. I am in here to simplify fix a problem on my own parcel. Just because you have an opportunity and have me in here--I think it is unconscionable to say "OK, we would also like to get a better deal than we cut 5 years ago over here on another part of the PUD. And we are going to hold your approval hostage till you go and get it!" Sara: So you are saying that the Board of the Eagle's Club and the private homeowner also has to sign off on this plat? Or will his lender have to sign off? Leslie: No. It is the other 2 property owners that are going to sign off acknowledging that they also realize that they are gaining additional FAR. Sunny: When this was originally done there was only one or two owners. So they signed the plat. The new plat--this has been conveyed out and this has been conveyed out. Arguably there are 4 ownerships here as well. So I suspect what will have to happen is that the revised plat would be signed by these owners. Mary: You are re-evaluating the subdivision in terms of lot area. So the applicant and the other parcels will be able to increase their floor area with development rights. Staff at this time thinks it is fair to go back and clean it up and get it the way we want it today. Bruce: That is not a condition of approval. Mary: But it was in the Comments section. Sunny: This has never come up. This is the first-- 9 PZM10.18.94 Sara: Staff, legally can we do this? Can we make this a condition of approval? Leslie: We have the Fisherman's Easements. It is just a matter of updating them. Sunny: Your current code says you can exact Fisherman's Easements in the context of subdivision. Whether or not you can go back and require someone as a condition of amending the plat, to renegotiate the easement is another question. I am not adverse to trying to solve the City's problem. I am upset about a continuing leverage, because I am in the process of trying to enclose a deck, to go back and fix everything that you don't like about this plat. That is what has me upset. Tim: The essence of the Fisherman's Easement is that the majority of the open space is a park. So there is plenty of fishing there. Jasmine: My problem with the PUD amendment has to do with the decks themselves which I know seems like a really minor point. I don't disapprove with the methods of calculation. But one of the reasons that we exempt decks is because decks are an architectural feature that tends to break up the massing of the building. Now if you look at your plans here and looking at the buildings themselves, the decks themselves are very small but what you have done is taken the building that has interesting triangulation and turned it into a great big box. And I think this is exactly what we don't want to see happen. Sunny: We have enclosed one deck. And everybody is going to come in on stream Margin Review and say "Can I enclose my deck?" Jasmine: My feeling is I don't want to encourage them to do that. And I don't really like the enclosing of decks to begin with because it is creating the kind of architecture that everybody in town is so up-in-arms about--these gigantic boxes. Admi ttedly these are not very large. The specific addition that you are talking about--it seems really petty--why am I making all this big a thing when you are just putting in a small enclosure of a deck? It just doesn't seem like that much. But what you are doing is boxing in the building. And this is what I object to. Sunny: You shouldn't penalize a land owner who has available FAR who ~s caught in the bind of our current regulations. Either he has allowable FAR or he doesn't. Our code doesn't force people to add decks and it doesn't force them to build boxes. That is a choice people make. 10 PZM10.18.94 Jasmine: What I am saying what was approved at the PUD was based on certain type of architecture. Sunny: We don't know that for a fact. In fact the architecture changed. In fact I know it is not true because the buildings that were shown on the plat were different than the buildings that were built. In fact there is correspondence in the file where after the project was approved the architect was changed, they reoriented the building and a complete new design came in. And it did not come back and go through any kind of architectural review. Jasmine: What I am saying is that you are the one who is asking for a change in the PUD. And what I am saying is that the change that you are proposing is contrary to what people in the community have expressed as their displeasure with box-type architecture. Sunny: My point is if I say we were going to enclose the garage, is the amendment acceptable because I will enclose the garage but it is not acceptable because I will enclose the deck. It is an amendment. And an amendment on it's face is simply to remove an existing line between 2 parcels which are owned by the same individuals. That is all the amendment is. Now as part of that if the result of that amendment will allow us to build 500sf in my case 100sf because the garage has already been enclosed. And I could come in and ask to have a third story on it under Stream Margin and you would be subject to review and approval. What I have asked is to enclose one deck. Jasmine: Which is on the river. My concern with this project is that I don't want to be on record as allowing a boxification of something on the river. I believe that that is one of the things that Stream Margin Review takes into account. Sunny: This proposed enclosure complies with every single requirement that you have under Stream Margin Regulations. Taste. and box is not one of them. It is in the existing footprint. In fact it is eligible, we believe, for administrative approval. The Planning Office said the accumulative effect if all the decks were included would not meet the requirements for administrative review. But I am not looking for all the decks. I am looking for one deck. Mary: And the Planning Office position is if they are going to get a PUD amendment to expand their floor area, you will want to know where that floor area is going and then go ahead and approve or disapprove that Stream Margin Review. Sunny: I am not getting a PUD amendment to expand the floor area. I am getting a PUD amendment to change the lot line on my property. The end result, which we have disclosed to you, is an increase in 11 PZMI0.18.94 FAR for each homeowner of 500sf because one owner has a specific proposal for it and we applied for stream Margin Review. That specific proposal is to add 110sf on his deck because his garage is already enclosed. No one else has asked for any other approvals associated with this application. If you look at the stream Margin Review criteria, the enclosure of that deck clearly complies. Sara: The staff recommendation was that you give that possibility to everyone. Sunny: We are g~v~ng that possibility to everyone. They may well come ~n. And I don't think that it is a problem with someone who has 2,300sf down here at a .22 FAR to come in a say "I would like to go to .29". We have got one other identical to this one on the river side. The archi tecture is unobtrusive. It doesn't tear down trees. It doesn't go all the way to the ground. It doesn't have an adverse effect on the river from the Stream Margin perspective. What we are socially engineering here is that "I like decks. I want to keep it that way". And I don't think that is appropriate. Mary: On that approved plat each duplex structure has specific square footage as to what it's size is. That is also what is being amended. You are doing an amendment so those can increase. Sunny: By 500sf. per unit. It is very frustrating that it has gotten to the point where you can't enclose your deck. If this was in the river and trashing the river--fine, I can understand that. Doubling the size of the units. I would understand that. It has the consent of the other members of the condominiumization and the consent of the other members of the PUD. The FAR is that which would be permitted today under our PUD regulations. The only problem is we can't achieve what we are entitled to as long as that one line is there--that arbitrary line between the 2 parcels which we own. And we inherited that from the prior City Attorney who said "You can't count all of this for your FAR because it is 2 separate parcels". That was his opinion. And we said "OK go ahead and remove the line. We don't care. Go ahead and amend your application to remove it". We have been through two different processes trying to remove the line. And I am still here trying to amend it and we are saying "We still got a recommendation of approval". Nobody is say~ng we shouldn't be approved at the staff level but now you are saying "And by the way we want you to fix the Fisherman's Easement across the creek". Sara: But by amending the PUD, Sunny, you have increased the value 12 PZM10.18.94 of each of those units so much-- Sunny: What has that got to do with anything? What has the value got to do with anything? Sara: bigger. bigger. Well, because on the original PUD they couldn't go any Now by removing that line we are allowing them all to go Sunny: If it makes sense and it complies with the regulations, who cares? I have already limited it to 500sf. I have already said whatever it works out to be--that is all it is going to be is the 500. Leslie: I disagree with Sunny slightly in that this is a substan- tial amendment to the PUD. And as we have done in the past with PUDs we have tried to look at the overall effect of what the amendment is going to do to the entire project. sunny: It is hard for me to see where, other than a personal preference as to whether buildings are boxy or decks should be enclosed, our code is designed to preclude someone from doing this. It does not seem to me to be something of a magnitude or scope that warrants this level of brain damage. We can approve affordable housing next to the highway that looks like it came out of Iowa and beat some poor slob up over enclosing his deck. There has got to be some sense of proportion here and some sense of what we are doing with our regulations. MOTION Tim: I move to grant approval for the Creektree Subdivision PUD amendment to merge Lot #2 and #4. And to increase the floor area attributable to each lot that is in the subdivision. I further move to approve the Stream Margin Review for the duplex structures to expand within the existing footprint total of 2,000 square feet as illustrated in the site plan dated July 13, 1994 with the conditions noted in the Planning Office memorandum dated October 18, 1994. (attached in record) Bob seconded the motion. Everyone voted in favor of the motion except Jasmine and Steven. Meeting was adjourned. Time was 6:25 P.M. /j \ Janice 13