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HomeMy WebLinkAboutcoa.lu.ca.Definition of Commercial Bakery.1978 .. - tFf- e6. ~ 1""\. MEMORANDUM TO: FROM: RE: Aspen City Council Richard Grice and Karen Smith, Planning Office Definition of Commercial Bakery January 4, 1978 DATE: The presence of the high volume and high traffic Trueman Center adjacent to the S/C/I zone has resulted in a dramatic increase in the pressure for "up-grading" in the S/C/I Zone district. Requests abound for quasi service/commercial uses because it is apparent that the lower Mill Street area will soon emerge as a high traffic area and therefore an attractive one for retail operation. The S/C/I zone was created as a haven for those uses which do not require high traffic for survival. The low rents which have historically been charged in the Mill Street Venture building ($7.50 per square foot) are a function of the same low traffic. Annual rental rents per square foot in the Commercial Core are commonly in the $l8 to $20 range. The pressure which is being imposed upon the S/C/I zone is a very natural trend in the free market, known as the pressure to up-grade toward the "highest and best use". In a town such as Aspen with a growth rate of l.5% surrounded by a County zoned agriculture-forestry with large lot zoning, it is absolutely imperative that we maintain our zoning code and its zone district boundaries. If we do not maintain our zone boundaries with a clear set of standards, we can expect the less competitive service/ commercial/industrial uses which are the backbone of the community to be pushed out of town by spiraling rents. This trend towards "highest and best use" needs to be recognized as a growth pressure. The Growth Management Plan has as one of its goals, balance between new businesses, population, housing, community facilities, and skiing. If, in the administrative process, we were to eliminate any major segment of our economy, then our balanced population would not have its balanced demands satisfied. In the Growth Management Policy Plan on page 46, the City recognized that allowing unlimited commercial activity was inconsistent with the goal to preserve the 3.47% County-wide growth rate. Therefore, the goal of limiting commercial expansion to 24,384 square feet was limited to two districts (CC and C-l). If this code amendment is approved, it will represent an expansion of commercial space not controlled by the GMP and another step in the trend toward the elimination of Service/Commercial/Industrial uses. In a community without growth controls the up-grading trend toward "highest and best use" results in the constant expansion of those cities in circles outward. In an attempt to get away from high traffic areas the service/commercial/industrial type uses move to the fringe of the city. That is not an option these uses have in Aspen. If the area in which they are located up-grades, their only choice is to cease to exist. In order to avoid a backlash which would be devastating to growth management and to those quality of life-style goals which were identified by this community years ago, we need to be extremely careful to make our zoning work. A population with unsatisfied demands is an extreme growth pressure. The definition of Commercial Bakery as it exists in the Aspen Municipal Code today, makes a careful distinction of the perameters of commercial bakeries. The distinction of course prohibits retail dispensing of baked goods. It was initiated through a special code amendment in November, 1975, permitting only non-retail commercial bakeries in the S/C/I zone district. The amendment was prompted by a request by George Sells to locate a commercial bakery in the building adjacent to the Rio Grande property. The consensus of P and Z opinion was that this use was appropriate and consistent with other uses if it was non-retail and that the code should be amended to permit it. The particular condition prohibiting retail sales is more logical for commercial bakery uses in that bakeries are more easily converted to high volume retail trade. People are likely to stop by to pick up some deserts if the location is at all convenient. The location of the Mill Street Venture building adjacent to the Trueman Center has already resulted in a lot of traffic in the area. In the event this definition is changed, we can expect rental rates in the Mill Street Venture building to increase to the $ll per square foot rate currently charged in the Trueman Center. This is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Although Mr. Sells' request had been for a use that was 95% wholesale and 5% retail, Bill Kane argued that the area was inappropriate to handle the traffic generated by the commercial-retail uses. ,-. ~ Since the adoption of the restrictive definition for commercial bakeries, other applications for retail dispensing of baked goods in the S/C/I zone have been administratively denied. Tom Dunlop tells me that in October of 1977 a company called Matilda's Hot Bread Company of Georgia requested permission to manufacture bread products in the S/C/I zone and to sell those products on premises. The building inspector denied them a business license under those conditions. Subsequently, the owners of the business acquired additional space in the Brand Building in the Commercial Core and planned to do their retailing out of that location. This involved a departure from the guidelines of their franchise in that bread products could not be transferred from the S/C/I zone to the Brand Building without first being placed in plastic bags. So, this company required space in two locations as a result of the administration of the zone by the building inspector. The P and Z recently turned down a request to permit a limited food service/ coffee shop in the S/C/I zone on the grounds that it would foster erosion of the zone. They were concerned that use of this coffee shop could not realistically be limited to the employees who worked on premises but would result, once again, in increasing traffic into the zone. As you know, the scope of the S/C/I zone in terms of total land area is very confined. There is a pocket of S/C/I zoning behind the Concept 600 building and the only other locations are the Andrews property at the base of Mill Street and then across from the Andrews property in the location of the Aspen Metro Sanitation District plant and the Mill Street Venture. The S/C/I zone was originally conceived to be a larger zone than it is today. The City has already appropriated the Rio Grande property for other purposes and has acquired the Aspen One property which further reduces the availability of industrial sites. The Aspen One acquisition already has the Rlanning Office searching for a replacement site for the lumberyard. The end result wi 11 most likely be the rezoning of additional County land to I (Industrial). If the S/C/I zone is allowed to be continually eroded, we will expect that this Council will, in the next few years, be faced with the necessity of rezoning additional land to SIC/I. We feel it makes more sense to maintain the zone district boundaries as they stand today than to give in to the pressure to upgrade. The proposed new definition now comes to Council for second and final reading. We recommend that Council not adopt the new definition. The current prohibition on over-the-counter baked goods sales is appropriate, whether the baked goods are the individual cheese danish or the whole chocolate rum tort, as offered by Le Cuisinier. It is the intrusion of this type of retail activity which will deteriorate the S/C/I and outcompete the uncompetitive service commercial and industrial uses. Le Cuisinier is permitted in the S/C/I today; in fact, they have secured all building permits and business license approvals, provided they comply with the current definition. Their retail end should be conducted in those zones where it is currently allowed (Commercial Core and Neighborhood Commercial) as. they were advised when they first applied for a business license. There is a new bakery going into the Trueman Center so the public's demand for baked goods in that area will be satisfied. We suggest that if Le Cuisinier feels that they need and must have a commercial outlet, they go into one of the zones where it is an a 11 owed use and open up a retail outl et in much the same way as Delice Bakery has done. Delice, as you know, conducts its wholesale/manufacturing operation in the Airport Business Center and has its retail outlet in town. The situation works fine for Delice as retail sales are prohibited in the Airport Business Center and manufacture is prohibited in the Commercial Core. The proponents of this code amendment point to retail stores in the zone and suggest that the visible erosion is just cause to encourage further erosion. In actuality, those uses in the zone which currently exist were approved under limited parameters with the understanding that retail sales of over-the-counter goods woul d be limited to "mi nor, i nci dentaq sa 1 es II . Clayton did not approve these businesses as retail stores with incidental manufacture and repair but rather the other way around. The boundary line ,""""" r, . drawn by the code between retail stores and the wholesale/service/manufacture type business is ambiguous to the point that Clayton feels the code to be unenforceable. The code amendment is at best premature and should be preceded by a careful redefinition of the S/C/I zone.