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ASPEN PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES APRIL 2. 2007
Ruth opened the Special Planning & Zoning meeting at 5:40 pm. Commissioners
LJ Erspamer, David Guthrie, Brian Speck, John Rowland and Ruth Kruger were
present. Dylan Johns and Steve Skadron were excused. Council members present
were Torre, JE DeVilbiss, Jack Johnson, Jasmine Tygre and Helen Klanderud.
Helen Klanderud excused herself at 6:15; Jack Johnson at 7:10; Brian Speck and
Jasmine Tygre at 7:15. Staff in attendance: Chris Bendon, Jessica Garrow,
Jennifer Phelan, Community Development; Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk.
CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING (03/27/07):
CODE AMENDMENTS MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL. LODGING.
COMMERCIAL and MISCELLANEOUS
Ruth Kruger opened the continued public hearing on Code Amendments. Chris
Bendon stated that notice had been previously provided.
Chris Bendon stated there was concern for the density and residential in the
downtown and the Council settled on a 2,000 square foot limitation in the
commercial zone. Bendon said outside of the downtown town site the property
sizes were more random and the density might not be the same. The amount of net
livable area in a lodge building that had a standard rule of thumb, 50% of the gross
area was actual rental space in a building from the hotel designing and planning
document.
Bendon provided a schedule for the upcoming meetings on April 4th with HPC for
Commercial Design Standards.
Public Comments:
1. Stan Clauson requested the consideration by P&Z and Council to increase
the 2,000 square foot maximum unit size to 2,500 square feet. Clauson submitted a
letter into the record.
2. Ted Guy said that mixed use was thrown into 2 different neighborhoods; on
Main Street the ratio was 1 to 1 for commercial to residential. Guy said that you
want to keep the residential elements on Main Street.
Torre asked for Ted's comments to be addressed.
John Rowland asked what 2,000 square feet looked like; how many bedrooms.
Rowland requested the Stage 3 floor plan for the 3 bedroom free-market unit for
the livability. Rowland said the 2,000 square foot limitation may not always work.
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ASPEN PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES APRIL 2. 2007
Erspamer asked about the reduction in FAR in the mixed use. Bendon stated that
Jennifer will pull some plans on the Jerome professional building.
Kruger asked to look at each zone district for the cap of 2,000 square feet because
she did not support the same 2,000 square feet in every zone district. Bendon
asked if Ruth supported a sliding scale for zone districts. Kruger replied yes.
Torre said that he was going to make the same request as P&Z and help him
understand more about the program. Bendon responded that in the downtown it
was more important to break up into smaller units and in more outlying areas could
relax the schedule.
Bendon said that the affordable housing would be included in the net livable space
in lodging (page 4) and there was a height restriction at 28 feet. Kruger asked if
there were lodges that were at that height limit. Bendon replied the Annabelle,
Christiana, and Lenado. The St. Regis was in the mid 60s and the Little Nell at 45
feet.
Bendon said that P&Z should make their recommendations clear to City Council.
Guthrie said that he was not clear on what the lodge rooms would look like.
Rowland agreed with David on what the lodge rooms would look like. Guthrie
said the incentives don't seem to be incentives.
Torre said the community was asking for more lodge rooms and the trade offs were
how do we get more by an incentive program only available to some kinds of
projects where the lodge room benefits are weighed against the mass and density
so there was a compromise. Torre said that a 200 square foot hotel room may not
work for a family but we were missing the accommodations for the younger guest.
Torre said that was what Council was asking P&Z to do make it clear. Torre said
looking around the room there were 2 concerned citizens and a lot of people in the
industry of building, investment or real estate. Torre said these changes were
based not just on business aspects but community aspects. Guthrie stated that was
the point a blended community affect. Kruger said that Council asked P&Z to
make decisions without seeing a model. Jasmine Tygre said that P&Z wanted to
make recommendations to Council that reflect their true opinions but what Council
was trying to say to P&Z was that P&Z opinions may not be same opinions that
Council has but that doesn't mean that Council does not want to hear them.
Erspamer said that he would like to attract a broader demographic.
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ASPEN PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES APRIL 2. 2007
Public Comments:
1. Ted Guy said that he did a quick sketch and a 300 square foot lodge room
could not accommodate 2 queen size beds.
2. Toni Kronberg said that they need to look at what is built and what was left
was very little. Kronberg said that she was trying to solve the affordable housing
problem.
Bendon said the Commercial Zoning and C1 had a range of heights. Bendon said
the SCI zone district had a fabric store uses and design studios grandfathered in;
when a use is removed it cannot be put back. The difficulty with a cap was that it
was the right of the tenant and not a right of the land owner. Design Studios would
be recognized as an existing use. Bendon said they were trying to clean up the
uses of what SCI should really be.
Public Comments:
1. Bill Lipsey, architect, said that that not doing too much to SCI at this time
would be advisable to work on more.
2. Stan Clauson submitted a letter into the record regarding design studios in
the SCI Zone.
3. Janet Garwood owns property in the SCI Zone District and requested the
SCI be left out ofthe code amendment revisions because this was the zone where
creativity can begin.
4. Al Beyer, architect, said that he owns a space in the SCI Zone; he asked
what would be accomplished by taking on the SCI District. Beyer said this was a
good part of Aspen the messy vitality. Beyer said that grandfathering wasn't what
they were after. Kruger said that no one wants to devalue the group of people in
the professional offices but why would these offices be any more protected than
other professional offices.
5. Suzanne Reid, architect, said that she appreciated the desires to clean up the
SCI Zone but wanted the SCI separated out from the Commercial Zones.
6. Peter Fornell said that the heights for the zone districts show the developers
how to get all that they can have in that zone district; he suggested an average on
the heights of one project, which may put more creativity into a project.
7. Toni Kronberg agreed that SCI needs special care, extra time and protection.
Kronberg said that protection of view planes and height was important.
Jasmine Tygre said that she could write a history ofthe SCI Zone District.
Brian Speck agreed to add the Design Studio.
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ASPEN PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES APRIL 2. 2007
John Rowland said that moving professional offices from the SCI would be
detrimental to the city. Rowland said there was no place for young offices to open;
he had to go to Denver to open his architecture office with his wife and partner.
LJ Erspamer agreed with John and residential services should be required for that
area.
David Guthrie said that the SCI was like an incubator for new small businesses and
agreed with what everybody said about it.
Ruth Kruger stated that the SCI Zone was far too important to try to pare down;
she suggested pulling the SCI off ofthe Resolution and Ordinance and work on it
after the moratorium was finished. Kruger said that she thought that P&Z should
look at the big picture for the SCI Zone and they did not have time for that now.
MOTION: John Rowland moved to continue the meeting to 7:30; seconded by
Brian Speck. All infavor, APPROVED.
Chris Bendon said that the Growth Management portions were found on pages 30
and 31; Growth Management in the past had a scoring system. Bendon said that
the goal was to have the best Growth Management system there was; prioritizing
the best projects for the year. The competition would be for free market residential
allotments and commercial square footage allotments; those were limited to the
year that they were applied for if one ofthose elements were in the project.
Bendon said in # 17 there were 2 application dates for the year; the first date when
everything was available and the second date was for the remaining.
Bendon said that #16 contained projects that were "small deals" that P&Z sees
quite a bit of and these should not have to compete against the big projects.
Bendon suggested two types ofP&Z reviews so that the "little deals" did not have
to wait in line behind the big projects. Bendon said that a large project with no
free market residential component would not compete for anything.
Bendon said #9 replaced the exact replacement provision. There were 2 provisions
for replacing a free market development; either the project replaces 100% of the
units as resident occupied units (from free market to resident occupied); there was
a 50% option where the developer would be required to replace half ofthe original
development as Category 4 housing and mitigate according to standard
specifications.
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ASPEN PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MEETING
MINUTES APRIL 2. 2007
Bendon said #18 was changed for scoring by competitive projects with 2 criteria:
work force housing and energy conservation; they could use LEED specifications.
John Rowland asked for the definition of a full demo; was it scrape and replace.
No public comments.
Bendon reviewed the tentative dates for continued code amendment hearings.
MOTION: David Guthrie moved to continue the public hearing to April 9th;
seconded by John Rowland. All infavor, APPROVED.
Adjourned at 7:30.
ackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk
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