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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19800701 < """,<~,,","_...~,.~..._-~."."'-----'-' -'.'-<'"P~-~' RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM ~~ C. F. H OEC~ E~ O. B. II l. C J. Special Meeting Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission July I, 1980 The Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission held a special meeting on July I, 1980, at 5:00 P.M., in the City Council Chambers. Members present were Olof Hedstrom, Joan Klar, Roger Hunt,Lee Pardee, and Welton Anderson. Also present were Joe Wells and Karen Smith of the Planning Office and City Attorney, Ron Stock and Gary Ross of the Pitkin County Law Enforcement group. Law Enforcement Facili ty Joe Wells introduced the special meeting to consider a Conceptual level application by the County on the pro- posed Law Enforcement Center, which is proposed on the aden property, which the site behind the Mill and Main Building. This site was originally purchased for this purpose several years ago and a few months ago the City Council agreed to initiate the necessary rezoning request, which the land is presently zoned office and will have to be rezoned public in order to accommodate this central governmental facility, but that zoning would not be applied unless the County receives the conceptual and final appro- vals of P & Z and Councilor the Council alone. The public zone is an unusual zone in that it does discribe the per- mitted uses but it does not establish the area and bulk requirements. These are to be established through an SPA procedure and the County has agreed to process two appli- cations rather than prepare a single application and ex- tend the necessary money to develope final architectural drawings and agreed to a two step process being a concep- tual level hearings before both P & Z and Council and if approvals are gained at Council of the conceptual plan then they would prepare final plans for consideration by P & Z and Council. We included in the packets several recommendations, including one of your own, and you have the previous resolution, which was passed on a different kind of an application, in which the County was pursuing a land at that time, as well as the Rio Grande Task Force recommendation, asking for a part in the process of deter- mining the appropriate site for the Law Enforcement build- ing through planning process that is now underway. The concern of the Planning Office has been that the County would sell the aden site for construction of an office building then try to gain approval of a Law Enforcement facility on County owned land immediately behind the Court house and therefore we are giving our reluctant approval to this application, since the implications of loosing this site altogether, we think are more severe than simply proceeding with this building on this site. Lee Pardee questioned whether the citizens of Aspen are also members of Pitkin County? Don't they have the best interest of the voters in heart? Gary Ross of Pitkin County commented that the reasons why the County is proceeding as it is, for one is the fact that it cost them about $30,000 a month in inflation cost every month this building is delayed. The original start of this building was to be April of this year and have already lost a full 12 months and are looking at about $350,000 in inflated cost already. Joe Wells commented that the Planning Office recommended in their memo, that in order to minimize the preemption of options on the balance of the site, we would like to incourage shifting 'the building as far to the West as possible. As the model indicates, the building is very large, and we would like for the shifting and reducing of -2- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves f OFlM ~I C. F. HOrcKE~ B. B. & ~. eJ. Special Meeting Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission July 1, 1980 the footprint of the building to be incouraged even if it requires applying standards from the CC Zone. The access problem could cause traffic on Mill Street with public access down the alleyway and emergency access across from Bleeker St. and within 300 ft. from the busiest intersec- tion in town and on a 7% grade, we question whether this will be a workable solution. Joan Klar questioned whether we have to have a jail in Pitkin County? Joe stated that he did not think we have a constitutional requirement to have a jail in pitkin County but, it has been suggested that a regional facility in Garfield County would serve both Garfield and Pitkin Counties, would be a better solution. Gary Ross stated part of the problem with having a regional facility is transferring prisoners to Garfield County now and the cost exceeds the cost of paying for your own facility. We now have 5 ceils in the present jail and the average daily population is seven and in the new facility there will be 21 ceils. Olof Hedstrom commented that the impression that he gets is that the recommendation for approval is reluctantly granted under threat of more disadvantagious action. Joe Wells commented that the County's argument is that they have a constitutional requirement and they have to move on with it and the longer they are delayed, makes it more possible they will sell the aden site simply to finance the building. Lee Pardee questioned what the statis is with the Rio Grande Task Force? Joan Klar commented that they are sim- ulating information from groups in town that might have information together by the end of summer for recommenda- tion. Next question by Lee is, how is the County going to finance the construction? Gary Ross commented that they are looking at a Bond Issue for this November Election. Gary Ross introduced the model and explanation of the pro- posal for the new Law Enforcement Facility. The current jail has been partially condemned and the maximum length of a-stay for any person is 30 days, with women, juveniles or any such as that get sent to Glenwood Springs, which is being overcrowded. The physical restraints imposed by the fact that the jail is currently about a 27 ft. square steel cage in the basement of the courthouse and makes it impossible to renovate and bring it up to the standards of a jail and the new Colorado standards make it where you can not construct a new jail facility that is attached to any building that is not type 1 or type 2 fireresistant construction, which the Courthouse in not a rated building, therefore a building can not be attached. The current space the Pitking County Sherriff's and the City of Aspen Police Departments are using, are totally inadequate and studies are being done to determine whether there would be a manpower savings enough to actually fund the building to pay the debt service on the building by combining the two departments. The size of the building is designed to accommodate the combined departments and is presently at 24,000 sq.ft. The Pitkin County Planning Committee was formed to exam six different sites, four on . ,."._----,"'<''''-''......_'"'.'''~,;_.~..._----=-.- ~....~-...~.~,.._,-- -3- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves fORM ~~ C, f. HOECKEL B. B. & l. C~. Special Meeting Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission July 1, 1980 County land and two on Rio Grande property. The aden site is not a part of the Rio Grande property. This is the only site that would work in both internally and externally \in the minds of the Police and Sherriff Departments and the jail planning committee. The solar potential and the vehicular access to Mill Street are deemed essential. The occupied space is designed for 19,570 sq.ft an~ 5,400 sq.ft. of covered parking. The covered parking is/to accommodate emergency vehicles, police cars and sh~rriff cars and mountain rescue vehicles. The 11 spaces ~f on site parking or basically for public, five of which would be for the Driver Licenses Department and two for handi- capped. The impound lot is still in question until the Police Department chooses where they will be located. Olof Hedstrom wanted to clarify where the commission is now in the questions of the size and function and this commission should except the idea and concept and address ourselves to the land use planning functional area at that site and related zoning/planning matters. Roger Hunt commented that he has no problem with the Mill Street cut, if, if for emergency vehicles with a controlled light at Mill St., further because of the traffic problems on Mill St., the controlled signal should include the signal at Mill and Main St. in order to stop Main St. for the emergency egress onto to Main St. Then as for the circulation in the alley and Galena St., there would be considerable additional traffic flow and exiting onto Mill St., and this should be reversed to One Way in the oposite direction and improve the Galena St. access. There seems to be a problem in financing for the building and there will be problems selling the Bond Issue with this large of a facility because, what about the space in the County Courthouse and questions such as these make me question the whole size of the project proposed. Lee Pardee questioned the projected cost for the entire project. Gary Ross answered that as programed now, it is 3 million dollars and the commissioners are looking to where cuts could be made, such as with the DA's Office. In the next three months, we will be designing this fur- ther and going through the approval process and heading towards what we have to supply in the way of final pro- posal to be presented to both P & Z and Council. Lee questioned the fact that there are so many unknowns to how the large amounts of spaces are actually needed. This is critical and we are being asked to make a decision and we have a task force made up of citizens of Pitkin County to come up with a recommendation on one of the most im- portant properties left of open space and are being hustled through and then with out the bond issue and without the proper approvals not completely gone through and possibly a recommendation from our commission stating that the Rio Grande should hurry along due to the deadline because the County has a law enforcement that has to be built but that we would appreciate that this be done as soon as possible. Roger Hunt stated that this site is satisfactory as any other site. Welton Anderson commented that we are having a hustling problem with this governmental property and is probably the best site except for the alley egress and access on Mill Stree problem. Joan Klar commented that other sites might be better and possibly behind the Court- -4- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves fORIII\1 C.f.HOEC~EL8.B.&~.CJ. Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission July 01, 1980 Special Meeting Condominiumization Policy-Repeal house with less jail ceils might be more satisfactory. Olof Hedstrom summarized the understanding and position is at this point; the County Commissioners made decisions in respect to the need and size and the location and utilized the capable committee for that purpose leaves us without the responsiblity to or even appropriate to intrude on those decisions, but only can question these decisions. Joe stated the Planning and zoning Commission is recon- sidering a conceptual application for what the Planning Office considers to be an SPA procedure assumming that the Public Zoning will be applied and normally requires a detailed application for having the applicant to except phased applications and the County has chosen to follow. The Planning Office proposes to have a structure created of all the uses instead of a postage stamp effect and a lose of valuable land. Non the less, because of the Counties insistance to proceed with the developement, we are offering our reluctant support to this project. Roger Hunt commented that he would like to see the building lowered in the property due to the size and the visual impact could make substancial improvement. Roger moved to recommend conceptual approval of the County Law Enforce- ment Facility as presented with the comments of this board included in a final draft resolution to be written by the Planning Department which will include; concern of the increase of the office space, further study concerning the circulation problem of the alleyway and Mill Street access without proper control and to include the recom- mendation from the Rio Grande Task Force. Joan Klar seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Welton Anderson, Joan Klar, Roger Hunt and Olof Hedstrom voted aye; Lee Pardee voted nay. Motion carried 4 to 1. Karen Smith of the Planning Office ommented that she and Gideon Kaufman have been working on the condominiumization question and in March, we had made a recommendation to consider a quota system for allowing condominiumization but controlling the rate rather than the repeal of dis- placement reviews. There is an importance in reviewing condominiumization that it was brought out more clearly by the work on the housing task force and should not re- ject it although be it there were some problems with the current code. The serious problems with the current code are that it is inequitable in rewarding those who have gouged there tenants with high rent and penalizing those who have been fair over a period of time. Then the cur- rent process has deed restricted perhaps a third of the units that have had a long term rental history. Then condominiumization reduces the rental supply and rental supply is the hardest thing to replace. We can not build low income rental projects and it is better to utilize the existing supply we have because we can not replace them. Then condominiumization is likely to result in displace- ment of low and moderate income households. The current controls we have even if we attach deed restrictions, re- sults in a five year restriction only. We all agree that there are some reak health and safety problems in the con- dominiumization process. Some of the alternatives are; 1. Tenant protection - allow 160 days for relocation and one approach is to require condominiumizer's to pay relo- cation assistance payments to those they are displacing. _.<- -5- - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 C.f.HorC~ElO.B.lll.e,). Special Meeting Aspen Planning and Zoning Commission July 01, 1980 2. Six month leases - can maintain a long term rental supply. 3. Health and Safety aspect of condominiumization and the basic codes must be met for approval to be granted. 4. Retain Section 20-22 (c) and (d) which is the dis- placement review and vote according to rental history. 5. Repeal Section 20-22, maintain the six month minimum lease, maintain the tenant protection provisions that we had, but to delete the rental history review and any deed restrictions attached to the condominiumized units. 6. Retain Section 20-22, but to apply it to structures that are over a certain size being that the majority of duplexes are either not in the rental supply now or the elements of our rental supply is not that significant in amounts. 7. The approach used in Vail and in California communities is that when the vacancy rate goes below a certain level between 3 and 5%, that condominiumizations are simply suspended, and may not be applicable to our community. 8. Given that we have a limited rental supply, perhaps phasing based on percentage of rental inventory. 9. A Rental Preservation Overlay Zone, and not deal with the problem through condominiumization, could be applied to all but the Lodge Zone and to projects that are greater than a certain number in size, such as five dwelling units. All projects in the Aspen Metro for rental comprize about 62% of the rental supply. This would apply to rental projects of a long term rental history. with a more streamline approach we could take condominiumization re- views and could become a matter of Planning and Health and Safety reviews, through the Engineering Department and the Building Department, which would effect the deal- ing with a more direct issue. Gideon Kaufman pointed out there is a real question that condominiumization reduces rental ability and needs to understand better how a Rental Preservation Overlay would effect the rental control. Roger Hunt felt there might be a possiblity of relating the allowable condominiumizations to the vacancy rate and have within that system a type of review system that allows condominiumizations if is not in the community benefit category. Lee Pardee commented that he would be in favor of exploring further the Overlay with a clear determination of what happens to the existing and non-existing condominiumized units? What ever we do we should adopt something that is supportable in the courts ,and to maintain our rental pool. Karen Smith commented that she felt further ahead in her understanding of the needs of the proposal and would bring this concept back again. Perry Harvey moved to adjourn the meeting. Lee Pardee seconded the motion, all in favor. Meeting adjourned at 7:15 P.M. ~~~ Sandi Meredith, Deputy City Clerk 3