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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19740108 r" RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves fORM '0 C.F.HOECKEL6.B.&l,CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 I do it. BRYAN JOHNSON Is there any reason why this decision can't be made at the special meeting on the 10th, I think,.... DONNA BAER Well, the 10th is Thursday. BRYAN JOHNSON We can't call a special meeting for it? BRUCE GILLIS To make a decision. BRYAN JOHNSON Yes. DONNA BAER A decision can't be made at a study session. JIM MORAN I wonder if maybe, then, the thing to get off high center here and get moving is, we've been furnished with some recommendations from the Planning Office, and perhaps, at this particular meeting, we could, if under your procedural rules we have the right to respond to those, that perhaps we could best serve ourselves by responding to the Planning Office recom- mendations and then considering, as I think we would be inclined to do, to extend the time for decision vo- luntarily to some point beyond your study session since you do feel that your study session is going to enable you to clarify your thinking with respect to the ex- isting mixed residential district. If that's going to shed some light on it, why, I would recommend to my client that, to get the benefit of that input. BRUCE GILLIS I think we need the benefit of that input, too. DONNA BAER Well, there's a problem. The prepared recommendation is not based on this plan. So, in other words, there might be another one, depending upon the considerations that are involved. So, you know, if we want to treat this as the recommendation based on the original pre- sentation, not on this plan, then we should separate that concept tonight. JIM MORAN You mean that you've got some recommendations under the existing plan and after the study session on the new plan, you might have some new recommendations. DONNA BAER Well, if you have some new input, you know, based on that. JACK JENKINS Is there any reason why at the study session that since I'm sure that you'll be there Jim? JIM MORAN When is it? JACK JENKINS Thursday. BRYAN JOHNSON Day after tomorrow. JACK JENKINS Could we accomplish the same thing at that study ses- sion that any further discussion here would accomplish? You've told him something, I mean, you must have given them something, that I'm not aware of. I don't know what it was. DONNA BAER We gave our recommendations to Chuck last week because -4- ,-"-,.-",,,.. ....~_.__.._.-...-,..-...._.." ~-,~.--_.~~,~~------,.- ,--., --" RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves fORM5G C.F.HOECHLB.B.&L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 we felt the applicant should have a chance to review them. SPENCE SCHIFFER Do you have a list of those recommendations for us to see? DONNA BAER Yes. We actually could, I believe, hold a special meeting on Thursday and then go into study session. Is that right, Sandy? What about the notification re- quirement? SANDRA STULLER Is this to have a study session and then to have a special meeting afterwards? DONNA BAER But what's the notification requirement? SANDRA STULLER 24 hours. DONNA BAER (. Is that by mail or will this service notification? SANDRA STULLER They could deliver those to DONNA BAER Well, then you can do that, right? BRUCE GILLIS I'd feel more comfortable not holding it allan one day. Not having a special meeting and then a study session. I'd like to have some time after to sleep on it. JACK JENKINS I don't have any argument with that. JIM MORAN You know, I think our position would be that if you re- commend rezoning, or if you recommend revisions to the '73 land use plan, that those aspects of your deliber- ations have absolutely no affect whatsoever on the pending application. But insofar as wrestling with those problems gives you some insight into what defi- nition of mixed residential is, that that might be of some value to you. Have I made myself clear on that? Okay. I don't think you can rezone this land and have it affect the pending application. I don't think you can change the '73 land use plan which are guides and recommendations in making your decision, and have it retroactively affect this application. I think if you, maybe you can do the same thing or close to the same thing under the guise of clarifying your understanding of mixed residential, if you so choose, but insofar as you can clarify your understanding of what mixed resi- dential meant at the time we applied, then that in- formation may assist you in deciding on this applica- tion. DONNA BAER What was the decision? Are we deciding tonight? SPENCE SCHIFFER I'm still not clear. Are you saying that you're wil- ling to withdraw it or temporarily extend the time for making a decision pending the, uh, after we have the study session, or is that contingent on something else? JIM MORAN No. I think I would recommend it, but I want to be clear that you can't rezone this project out and you can't land use amend it out. But, insofar as you might acquire some clarification of what mixed residential -5- -_...__._''''''---~..__. ~, " , RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORMlO C.F.HOE:CKELB.B.&L,CQ. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 was when you put it in the land use plan originally, that might be ,valuable. I think we'd be willing to postpone if it results in some such clarification. So, we've had these planning, I didn't realize that the Commission hadn't had these conditions and we'd prepared sort of an idea to respond to them, and then earlier in the day, why the new proposal came to our attention, so that's why DONNA BAER We, as a policy, present this to the P & Z on the night of the meeting and we try to get it to the applicant in advance. SPENCE SCHIFFER When did he get this? DONNA BAER Thursday? Friday? SPENCE SCHIFFER Last week? Why couldn't we get them at the same time? DONNA BAER Well, it has been the policy, we've discussed this over a period of time, that you're less prejudiced by our recommendation if you receive it at the hearing rather than in advance. SPENCE SCHIFFER How can we possibly have time to read it and study it and understand what you're saying? DONNA BAER Well, if you want a full presentation, I'd like to go through it, or would you like to postpone this until the 10th? Of course, the policy can be changed. This has been our custom and it's usually worked well, that you don't get prejudiced brain-washed in advance of the meeting. But let me, I think we should clarify something. In other words, you would like a decision postponed until Thursday, January.... END OF TAPE JIM MORAN ...seven days, whatever, to the next regular meeting. I don't know how they'll react, but, as I understand it, certainly Mr. Schiffer feels that the study ses- sion is going to help him, if I understand his comment, is going to help him understand what this mixed resi- dential animal we're trying to grab by the neck is. CHUCK VIDAL May I ask a question? It appeared to me that you're maybe talking about two study sessions. One, where you're going to analyze this projected zoning change, then I think Jack was inferring that you might also be interested in a study session with the applicant re- lating to this application, to go over these aspects of it, before, he indicated he wanted more , wanted to get down to the full presentation, so to speak, of how we're addressing ourselves to this thing again or what clarification relative to these points. And I'm ask- ing is that what you're talking about? Is a study session with us to relate to these problems on the 6th or on the lOth as opposed to doing it now? SPENCE SHIFFER That's not how I understood it. going to be one study session to but I like that recommendation. I thought there was study that new plan JACK JENKINS I don't have any argument with that. That wasn't what -6- ---"---""~...,;-- .'""""',-...-'......_..-......,---'--...~..'"..-.. ,--., " RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 50 C.F.HDECKELB.B.&L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & zoning January 8, 1974 I said, but in effect that CHUCK VIDAL It sounded like what you were aSking for more input from our side that you were asking for a participation. JACK JENKINS I want you to be aware what this is and I want to be aware what this is before we make any kind of decision, before I do. BRUCE GILLIS Jack and Spence, how about, we've got lots of time, why don't we go through this thing tonight and then we'll hold a special meeting after the study session Thursday? SPENCE SCHIFFER Okay. I'd like to make a request also that the City Attorney is here and I've been advised to refrain from jumping to legal conclusions here. I wonder if she could inform us as to whether or not what Jim said is true. Is the rezoning going to have any affect on this pending application? SANDRA STULLER Whether or not a rezoning has an affect on anyone ves- ted rights in a land use is a matter of common law, and I, you know, every factual situation that makes that determination, I can't even begin to, you know, give an opinion on that. The general rule is that no one receives vested interest in a permit until it is is- sued and it's relied on. SPENCE SCHIFFER Well, if I could impose on you, Sandy, or I don't know if I'm out of order by asking this, but, by Thursday at our study session, would you be able to give us something concrete on that particular point so we know really what we're talking about, whether or not this zoning is, in fact, going to affect these pending ap- plications. SANDRA STULLER All right. I can deal with some hypotheticals with you. It's all a question of timing, I think- which events follow which and how they fall into place. SPENCE SCHIFFER I think that's going to be important for us to know and our considerations in part are going to have to be based on that. You know, if it's going to have no af- fect, then why consider it. BRUCE GILLIS So, Sandy, you'll be here Thursday, too, with us? SANDRA STULLER Thursday? Yes. BRUCE GILLIS Does that meet with your approval? CHUCK VIDAL Are we saying that we're going to, in essence, kind of have a study session here between us where we're going to react to those points right now? DONNA BAER Then will the applicant withdraw for a period after the 10th or until the lOth or we ought to clarify that because the regulation requires that we make a decision by the lOth unless the record shows that you want to, that you are willing to withdraw for ten days, two weeks .... CHUCK VIDAL I think that we'd probably like to, we don't know -7- --------r-------.----------.- -. /--, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 51 C.F.HOECKEL6.B.IlL.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 whether we want to or not, I mean, we don't want to proceed with this Commission at this point in time, and tell you that at the end of the discussion period. DONNA BAER Okay, fine, but we do want to set that date before this meeting is over. JIM MORAN Uh, with respect to the point raised by Mr. Schiffer, I could give you our ideas on it. It comes out of Denver on the Denver-Buick case, where the Court said it follows that any person who applied for a building permit prior to November 7, 1956, which was the criti- cal date of the passage of the zoning ordinance amend- ment in that case, was entitled to have his application considered under the only zoning law in force at that time and that law was the zoning ordinance of 1925 as amended, and do you want the site to that, Spence? SPENCE SCHIFFER I'd like to say yes, but I'm afraid to. JIM MORAN Justice Sutton's concurring opinion, which I think is important says, "It seems to me that only in the rar- est of instances could a zoning authority be justified under the police power in denying a permit under exis- ting law, while a new ordinance or an amendment to an existing ordinance is being drafted and adopted", so I think that's our position and there's a recent case that does the same thing, Dillon against the City of Boulder in the Court of Appeals with respect to ap- proval or denial under an existing PUD ordinance where that PUD ordinance was amended during the pendency of the proceedings, and the Supreme Court says we're only going to consider it under the repealed ordinance. BRUCE GILLIS Sandy, do you want to comment on that? SANDRA STULLER I don't care to engage in dialogue at this time. BRUCE GILLIS So, Donna, do you want to go through this? DONNA BAER Yes, just briefly. We have recommended approval of this application. Let me repeat that this was done a week or so ago, with the following modifications which include four major points. It has been the Planning Office's position from the outset of Ordinance #19, that mixed -residential should provide for a permanent housing. This was the reason it was designated, one of the reasons it was desig- nated mixed residential rather than accommodation-rec- reation, which it had been previously. And for this reason, then, a basic interpretation of the use in that area, we are recommending that deeds of sale be coven- anted to restrict rental leases to no less than six months. We are recommending that the development be phased. The first season to twelve units. We are recommending that the additional height discussed in the presenta- tion is desirable and that P & Z should recommend this to the Board of Adjustment for their approval at the time a variance is requested. Number three, we are recommending that no provision for -8- --~-,,~,",~~_..----~--,,----,,",,",,~~,._.,~._-,-- r- ;r--, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FOR!llIO C.F.HOECKELB.B.ltL.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 private automobiles be made on the site and that access to the site be limited to emergency and delivery ve- hicles only. This is based on the same kind of rea- soning that we presented to you on the Stevens-Ginn building. Number one that the decision toward a pedes- trian-public transit oriented mode has been made by the committee embodied in Ordinance #19, so that every project which is reasonably, and this one is ideally located, to de-emphasize the automobile, promote ped- estrian use and it should be, well, enforced by our recommendations. It has been stressed that this loca- tion is no more than 9 or ten minutes from central Aspen and closer to some central areas, including the proposed transit system. Secondly, we are supporting this recommendation based on the air pollution report that we've received from pitkin County air quality study, that we must, in fact, reduce the volume of air pollution currently existing in the center and the periphera and, therefore, we cannot, we cannot approve of any additional increment of automobile creating air pollution and auto, through auto emmission, in that area. The fourth modification or condition we are recommen- ding is that fireplaces should not be constructed in the units, again based on the air pollution, sub- stantiated by the Pitkin County Air Quality report. NOw, again, I've qualified that condition, you will notice, in that there's some discussion. Chuck, him- self has pointed out that he doesn't agree with the State findings, and if in fact the State is willing to amend its findings, we also will waive that condition. There's a little note at the bottom, concerning pro- perty exchanges, right-of-ways, trails and other pro- posals that should be considered under subdivision and if you remember, they were rather extensive, and the Council and the land exchanges. BRUCE GILLIS Jim, I'm sure you have a reply to these, or JIM MORAN Yes, we'll try to be as brief as possible. With respect to the recommendation of the six month covenant, we fear, again, that the Planning Office is treating the Land Use Plan as a zoning ordinance or the equivalent of a zoning ordinance, which it is not. It is, to use the word of the plan or Ordinance #19, these descriptive words are from those documents: a guide, a general design for future land use. It contains recommendations, so, what we have with the Planning Of- fice here is an interpretation of a recommendation, and I think I'm correct in saying, as I've said before, that the sway of the Commission's ability to decide on a question of this nature ranges from the existing zoning, which is in effect, to and throught the recom- mendations contained in the '73 Land Use Plan. We feel that the material which we've presented in the main hearing shows that this area has the characteris- tic of mixed tourist accommodations and residential; that the economic impact of tourist accommodations is not harmful to the City, but in fact, represents a net -9- ~~".............~--, ___."-.,"'_..._.....__.v...._'''''__'_,.,.....,.__'~.,,_''''~....,.,._,."~-_--, -- . RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM" C.F.HOECKELB.B.&L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 economic benefit. And, we feel that with respect to this particular site, surrounded as it is by existing condominium developments, that a permanent resident designation would amount to spot zoning. We also think that the covenant that is suggested has some very great deficiencies. In the first place, we question whether it is enforceable. In the second place, if it's applied only to new projects, it's uni- formity of application comes into serious question, if within the mixed residential zone and proposed zoning changes, this particular covenant were placed on all existing structures in the zone, why, there would be some uniformity to it, but as it is, there is not. And, again, we feel that the covenant itself is a re- striction on the use of property, which is not justi- fied by any health, welfare or public morals situation that exists in the City. This relates to the unifor- mity argument, because if it is required to preserve the health, safety and welfare of this community, then it's required throughout the district, not just on in- dividual projects. So, we think that on the base of our first presentation that the Commission has the necessary information to approve the project as contemplated without this con- dition if.. If the Commission is undecided about the efficacy of such a covenant, we would be willing, if we were allowed to, to preserve this issue and go for- ward if the project were approved, revisiting this particular aspect of it as more information is genera- ted on both its efficacy and its legality. With respect to the second proposed condition, if the commission sees a benefit to the City in phasing this project, we would be willing to do it. What I assume we have here is approval of the project as it stands, 36 unit project, but a phasing of it with 12 units next year, and we'd certainly like the 24 the year af- ter that, we are uncertain as to what benefits the City would derive from phasing because, I think that certainly we would derive an economic benefit and the City would derive a less disruption type benefit if the project were completed in one building season, rather than coming back with the machinery, the pound- ing, the hammering, two seasons in a row, and I think that what we'd like to hear is why phasing is a bene- ficial thing to the City? If it is, as I say, we're certainly willing to do it. with respect to the parking aspect of it, I understand the goals, and the applicant understands the goals to de-emphasize the automobile. But I think as a solu- tion to today's problem, the elimination of on-sight parking, has it's justification in what I conceive to be some rather bizarre reasoning, and that is that you solve the existing problem by compounding it until it gets unbearable. You've got to have some place to put these cars, unless, as I say, on a uniformity basis, you're able to exclude them from the City as a whole. We would certainly be amenable to a condition that says that we think we've taken care of the cars, we've put them underground, which is a hell of a lot better than -10- ~........___;~~...--._' . _.~"._~"~'~M' r- ", RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FOR~ \0 C. r. 1l0ECKEL B. B. lit L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 letting them pile up on ute Avenue because there will be cars coming to and from this project, and if there's no on-sight parking, they will resort to off-sight par- king, and that's Ute Avenue, Waters Street, and wher- ever they can find a place to put an automobile in - headfirst, tailfirst or sideways. We would be amen- able, at such time as the transportation plans and the de-emphasis of the automobile progresses in the City to eliminate the surface parking and, if it gets to that, change the basement to a huge ping-pong arena and we'd love to have no cars there, too, but we think that today's Aspen, it is just unconscionable to fur- ther burden the public streets in the City when here's an applicant who's willing to give you l~ times the required on-site parking to say don't put any in at all. We think that that would be a little irrespon- sible. On a strictly legal aspect there, I point out that the zoning code still requires a developer or a builder to provide on-site parking, and I'm not sure legally, that this Commission could do away with that requirement under the zoning code. The Stroud case has been decided at the District Court level, to be sure, the City Attorney informs me that the execution of that decision has been stayed so we still have an on-site parking requirement in our zoning code. With respect to the fireplaces, as Donna has mentioned, we do think that the Weiner report has some falacies in it. The, primarily the consumption of wood and the number of condominium units that, excuse me, that that report involves. We've prepared, since this particular aspect of it requires comparison in numbers, we've prepared a short written summary of it, which will get us into the exercise we all enjoyed so much with Dr. Crouch about this times that equals the other thing. I'm sure that everyone has, if they didn't have before, has received one of these mini-calculators for Christ- mas present so that you could have a lot of fun seeing if it works. Do you expand done. have copies of that, Rick, or do you want to on the fireplace question more than I have That's been your... RICK FARRELL Since the fireplace issue has a quantitative aspect to it, I've drawn us a table here of the problem, basi- cally, and show you what we found to be the data and also showed you what Weiner used in his calculations, and then multiplied those out in weiner's equations and compared the two so that you can see that the small, what may appear to be small errors, really compound and become a very significant. All of this data has been obtained from conversations with Mr. Weiner and from a letter that was sent to Herb regarding this question of the validity of the data. I guess, let me take you through the table first. These are the perameters that go into the equation that figure out how much pollution is put into the air per year. The most critical one is the cords burnt, obviously. Weiner used four. I called upon the Aspen Alps mana- gement, Aspen Square, Crestwood Condominiums and the -11- """"""'~"~""-'.-"~'" .__..;.,.~~._-, r- .-'" RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1 00 Leaves fORllSI C.f.HOECKElB.B.Ill.CQ. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 person who buys the firewood for Mason & Morse House- care, the total number of units that that essentially units is over 600, so we have a real statistically significant number, and it varies from .75 to 1 at Aspen Square, to a higher number which is almost 1.5 at Aspen Alps. CHUCK VIDAL That's cords per year per unit. RICK FARRELL Right. Now, four cords per year is a really a pile of wood. I think I may have found where the error came about in the letter to Herb Weiner says that he visited a lodge and they burned three cords a year and he spoke with some condominium managements and they said they burned four. Maybe it was four per entire complex, if it was a small one, rather than one each. The next perameter is how much does a cord of wood weigh. Once I got involved and started checking this out, I looked into that also and checked all the He claims it weighs 3,250 pounds, which is 1.625 tons, and my research said it was one ton and that was the result of phone conversations with wood dealers who buy wood by the ton and sell it by the cord. That is not a very significant error com- pared to some of the other things. In the letter to Herb, because Herb had brought up these questions with Mr. Weiner, he says that we arrived at a total of 1,324 condominium units in Aspen, but felt that was way undercount of the number of condominiums and he actually says, "I would be willing to adjust my calculations only if the same individuals who provided the information about the number of cords burned can also provide a more accu- rate number of condominium units actually in exist- ence." And then he goes on to explain that he didn't have a lot of help and he only did this study in six days or. The Chamber of Commerce has finished an in- dependent study and there are 962 condominiums in As- pen, not 1,324. Weiner assumed that 80% of the con- dominiums have fireplaces. BRUCE GILLIS Stacy, do you have other information? STACY STANDLEY Yeah. That's the number of condominiums that are a- vailable for rental. It has nothing to do with the total number of condominiums or those that are owned or occupied, or those that are used for permanent res- idents. It's the only ones that are available, and based on a Snowmass's comparable figures, that's a- bout 1/3 understated, so that means that his figures are..... . RICK FARRELL Once again, that's only 25% error and the total er- ror of these compounding things is 715% so that's not significant either. The other figures are just em- mission factors. The big one is four cords a year versus 1.25. Well, to not bore you with the mathe- matics I'd go through and plug these different num- bers in the equations and show that there's a 715% difference between what we've found and what he found, maybe we should adjust that upwards a little in light of what Stacy has brought up. -12- -. - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 c. F. HO~CKEl B. B. I.l L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 I guess there's, that's quantitative numbers, and that certainly is the basic assumption that went into his model, and that's what he, he used a model rather than an empirical measuring device to determine these dif- ferent pollutants. The basic assumptions are shakey, so I think you have to look at the problem and look at the assumptions and maybe talk with Mr. Weiner and come up with your own conclusions. But there's some sort of qualitative aspects of fire- place pollution versus other types that I think are very important, and that is, you know, we agree the primary source of pollution is motor vehicles, there's no doubt about that. I think one of the problems in the Weiner report is that it does not put fireplaces in the proper perspective relative to the other pol- lutants, which are mainly due to transportation em- missions. And, uh, I think that taking a section out of Dr. Crouch's analysis here is really relative, uh relevant, and just the decline in air pollution in tons per year, it will result, by the Automobile Clean Air Act, which is forcing various mechanical changes on cars, will result by 1985, and 1985 is chosen be- cause that's when it's assumed that the cars with the new pollution equipment would be 100% in the popula- tion. That decline, comparing 10,000 cars today, which is approximately City and ~unty population of auto- mobiles, that decline today to 1985 on an annual basis is 11,958 tons per year, that's of emmissions in the air. If, per somehow, someone had the power to ban all fire- place use in the City and County today, only 344 tons of pollutants would be eliminated. So when you dis- cuss eliminating fireplaces for just one new project with 36 units, you're impacting the air pollution pro- blem in such an insignificant way that it is really not a realizable policy. It's a pallative, maybe political move, it's not really doing anything about air pollution in the City and County of Aspen. Another aspect is, wood burning does not produce car- bon monoxide, which is the most lethal pollution. Fur- ther more wood burning generates no hydrocarbon em- missions, and I think we'd all agree the smell of wood smoke that does permeate the valley occassionally is not all that unpleasant and it's not a noxious pol- lutant that is driving people out of town or affecting the health, safety, welfare of the residents. I guess that's basically the, what we found about that report and, uh, we feel that attacking the fireplace, especi- ally here at the margin for the new units, is really not a policy that is of any benefit to the community. JIM MORAN Uh, if I might conclude, then, obviously what we would like is approval without conditions. We feel that the Commission has sufficient information to deal with the viability and desirability, certainly of conditions number two, the phasing aspect, if you think that's valuable we've said we'll do it. We'd like to hear why it's a good thing. Condition, proposed condition number three, the on- site parking is required by present zoning. It also -13- - """". RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1 00 Leaves ~ORM 5a C. F. HOECKEL B. B. II: L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 seems to me to be a little bit self-contradictory with- in the scope of these recommendations to say on the one hand that these units should be for permanent resi- dents and on the other hand that there should not be anyon-site parking. I think that those are inconsis- tent in view of prior Commission proceedings that I've been at where members of the Commission vociferously indicated that any permanent project, resident pro- ject ought to have a hell of a lot more parking than tourist accommodation projects. The same thing we think is true, that you have enough information to deal with the fireplace condition, pro- posed condition. I might only add that, in addition to creating, preserving the character of the ski re- sort with the hearth, there may be some sound reasons for providing a fireplace, simply as an alternate source of heat in this town if we really are looking at minus 20 days like we had recently and the pos- sibility of that in itself creating interruptable gas service in times of peak demand. This doesn't leave the City without an alternative, you know, because if it really is a problem, again, uniformity would dictate that perhaps Aspen will see the day when it has to adopt air quality regulations of the same type that are in California, depending upon climactic conditions, climatic conditions, not climac- tic, that there'd be a Code 9 day when you couldn't burn ether in your gas tank nor fireplace wood. It seems that condition number one relates really direc- tly to the problem that has been wrestled with by the Commission with respect to this and other projects in the mixed residential area since you've had it, and , that is, what is the permissable use and what is the proper way to insure that recommended uses are the ones that occur in this area and, as I say, we'd cer- tainly be willing to go along with an approval that would, accept an approval that reserves that question or imposes it as a tentative condition with the pri- velege on our part to revisit that particular problem, the six month covenant problem with you as we wend our rapid way through the Ordinance #19 and subdivision re- view procedures. Do you want to add anything, Rick? CHUCK VIDAL I don't think so unless we want to address ourselves to comments that they may have regarding parking or any of these other issues. JIM MORAN We'd be interested to continue discourse with you on any of these points. DONNA BAER Okay, shall we start from four and work back up? I'll concede you on the fireplaces. If you can pursuade the State to amend their findings, you know, I don't like those particulates and noxious things, either, and ad- ding them up. I believe that it is the, that the Com- mission shouldn't have to decide those things. The State now is acting as their expert advisor and should they, and they might very possibly be pursuaded on the basis of your figures, that this project is an insignificant addition. I won't accept the fact that it is an alternative to heat because if we're really concerned about the energy, of course, second homes -14- r- --- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORMSG C.F.HOECKElB.B./iL.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January S, 1974 wouldn't be the way to conserve energy, but, I'll go on the fireplaces.... JIM MORAN Are you going to eliminate the high school kids' Christmas Tree bonfire, Donna? DONNA BAER Does that make energy? RICK FARRELL Well, I'm confused why one has to convince the State because they were just acting as a consultant to the City to provide this information. Really, it's the City that has to enact any ordinances or act on this project or ban fireplace use, not the State. DONNA BAER That's right. But the State said, on the basis of our findings we recommend a moratorium on fireplaces. You know, this makes it, the Commission flying in the face of that saying "pooh pooh", you know.... RICK FARRELL I guess the problem I have is that any analyst doesn't want to admit an error, so the natural, natural ten- dency for them not to, uh, to want to accept the data. DONNA BAER Okay, I'll accept that, but then you must admit.... RICK FARRELL I would like to suggest that the Planning Office do the same thing that I did and make the same phone calls and collect the data. You know, it's a simple equation. It's just multiplicative, it's not calculus. You just take the air quality study. If you find that people really burn four, then you know the answer. If you find people really burn 1 or 1.25, then you know the answer. It's not a matter of personally confronting Weiner and forcing him to change his answer. BRUCE GILLIS The only comment I have is that you're not talking a- bout just one unit, you're talking about all the two hundred and some odd units down at that end of the town. DONNA BAER That's right. CHUCK VIDAL If you address yourself to it in a design sense, in other words, if you come up and say that, you know, you always seem to react to extremes, where you're saying, okay, we'll eliminate fireplaces from any new construction. You can, what we've tried to present is, we don't think the problem is as significant, re- lating to fireplaces as it is to automobiles, no matter whether you're talking 36 units or, it's relative. You're talking a thousand units or what, the fireplace problem is not as significant as the automobile pro- blem. Number two, it can be addressed in a design sense. You can actually stop burning at certain periods of time if you have a pollution problem from fireplaces. Number three, you can address yourself to reduce the amount of fireplace burning in a design sense in the fireplaces themselves. If you take a firebox that takes logs that are three feet long and you put S logs in there versus one that takes them that are IS" you get the same affect from an aesthetic, visual as- -15- - ,.." RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1 00 Leaves FORM'~ C. F. HOECKEL B. B. lit L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January S, 1974 pect as you do with the large one, but your emmission and the amount that you're actually burning you could reduce by some 40% by just reducing the size of fire- boxes, and I guess what we're saying is we don't think that there should be such a drastic accommodation of that by eliminating fireplaces completely when, in of itself, it is not a significant pollutant. It's the most visual, and that's why people are the most con- cerned about it, but it is not the most noxious, it is not, as Rick said, the most lethal. It really isn't where your problem is. It is the most visual, and we're just saying that you're over-reacting to that part of the element. Whether you're talking 36 units or a thousand units, it's relative to the total pol- lution problem, and that he has treated it equal to automobiles in his dissertation would, in fact, if you look at his numbers and the tonage that's represented, it is a fairly insignificant number, and we think that there are certain areas where you can't, you know, over-react. DONNA BAER Except, as Bruce points out, you know, it isn't a ques- tion of 12 or 36 fireplaces, it's a question of 200 some. I'm sure that all of those units, I'm sure have fireplaces in the area. CHUCK VIDAL I'm saying, consider, consider it from all the units that you may build, whether it be 5 or a thousand, that you're really addressing yourself to a problem, you know, that is insignificant in your total emmis- sions, and it's a very drastic. DONNA BAER I think that this is something that can't be worked out, but I also won't dismiss it as inconsequential, on the basis of this report. BRUCE GILLIS Pat, did you have a question? PAT MADDALONE Yes, I had a comment, if you don't mind the interup- tion. I think what you're talking about is a solu- tion and for the justification of the solution you have to have moratorium on all fireplaces. A new fireplace is no more hazardous than one that has been in use for ten years, so if you're really talking a- bout a solution, it has to be in the nature of, I think, of burning days when it's appropriate to burn in your fireplace... DONNA BAER Well, that opens the legal question. It's like a non- conforming use. They're allowed to continue on, but you don't let any more, or it may be. I mean, you know, RICK FARRELL I think what she's bringing up is the equity question or the uniformity question. PAT MADDALONE Well, even if this is a matter of measuring the pol- lution in the air, it's permanent residents and tour- ist residents, you know.... BRUCE GILLIS Spencer, did you have a comment? SPENCE SCHIFFER Did I? I thought I did. Oh yeah, would you be wil- ling to reduce the number of fireplaces in the project? -16- .- -. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves fORII\\G C.F.1l0ECKELB.B.ftl,CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January S, 1974 You're talking about a compromise. CHUCK VIDAL I guess what we'd rather do is say that a fireplace constitutes X amount of emissions. Out of this pro- ject you have to reduce that emmission by some per cent, and that we can address ourselves in a design sense, whether we don't reduce the number of fire- places, but we reduce the actual emission from the fireplace in size. That type of thing, that's right. It's not as drastic. Whether you think you're doing any good at all by saying, you know, one of the points we're making is if you reduce all the fireplace burn- ing in the City of Aspen, you know, it's a drop in the bucket, because fireplace burning is not really your air pollutant problem. You know, it's an ele- ment of it, but we'd be willing to address ourselves to what you think the problem is. SPENCE SCHIFFER But if it is a problem, you recognize that it is a problem, so then it's something to be dealt with. One way or another you have to deal with it. You can't tell people to take their fireplaces out of their houses. CHUCK VIDAL But what we have already eliminated, without being re- quired, we've eliminated all smokers and trash burning and the only thing we're left with is the fireplace, and we're willing to address ourselves to that if you'll give us some guidelines as to how much we want to reduce that amount to. BRUCE GILLIS Does anybody know, is the supply of firewood finite or indefinite? RICK FARRELL Well, I, from talking to these different people through well, while I was trying to gather this data I dis- cussed the general economics of firewood industry, and because of new forest service policies, the firewood supply is drastically reduced, which has driven the price up many, many times and it looks as though that will continue, and, of course, when the price goes up, less is used, and I think it probably has to get pret- ty high before it really affects the elasticity, but still it's really hard to get firewood this year is the basic conclusion. BRUCE GILLIS And it's going to get worse. RICK FARRELL They used to allow, just clear cutting of forests and let it lay down on the ground for a year and then you come up and cut it into firewood, and that policy is no longer allowed by the forest service. BRUCE GILLIS But if we didn't allow cutting, we might be helping a- nother community, probably, from having their forests ripped out. RICK FARRELL Well, that's not... I agree with that policy, but if I say... it will impact the fireplace emissions in that less firewood will be available in future years, as a result of that. BRUCE GILLIS And again, multiplying this out by 200 it almost seems ridiculous to even allow the fireplaces based on that -17- ,- """ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1 00 Leaves FORM 10 C.F.HOECKELB.B.81L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 theory. RICK FARRELL I don't follow that, exactly. BRUCE GILLIS Well, if there's going to be less supply and it's har- der to get just for your 36 units, and, you know, we allow fireplaces in all the units that are before us now, you know, at some point you aren't going to be able to use the fireplaces because of lack of wood. RICK FARRELL No, it just means the prices are going to go up and people are going to be using less. Because wood will cost a dollar a log, it already does cost a dollar a log if you buy the pressed log, and you know, I think a governing body shouldn't decide that fireplaces aren't something that shouldn't be in people's homes, the economy should decide that it's too expensive. If it goes up too high, you can put three papier mache logs and a red light in your fireplace. JIM MORAN Well, anyway, go on, Donna. BRUCE GILLIS Yes, let's go on from that to the parking, cause that's a contentious one, and I'll argue that all night. I'm up for that. DONNA BAER I think that we cannot argue, and no one has argued, including Mr. Crouch's report, didn't dispute the fi- gures on auto emissions. Now, the situation we have now is that we have auto emissions at 88% above mini- mum State standards. Weiner predicts an 84% reduction by Federal new car programs, if, in fact, that will continue on, which leaves a deficit of 29%, which has to be corrected through direct restraints on the automobile. Now, Mr. Crouch argued in his report on this applica- tion that it would be an insignificant addition, but nevertheless, it's an addition, and it doesn't seem to me that you talk about additions at all when you already have a deficit. I mean, if you had X amount to go before you reached a polluted condition, then you might say you could consider it. Under the cir- cumstances, I don't think you can. Secondly, we're arguing, and will be, in this area, the business and nearby, that as long as you provide for the automobile, as long as it is competing with public transit, you'll never get transit, and you'll never get a pedestrian-oriented town. Now, we've tried it the other way all of these years and it hasn't wor- ked, and this is why we're saying that in order to do what we want to do, we've got to be able to manage par- king allover. That is, high turnover parking on the streets, public parking at intercept locations, at the Trueman property, at the airport, but on-site par- king is not controllable by the City, so that you never will resolve the kinds of problems that we've very clearly seen demonstrated in Aspen. If you do permit these on-site parking, in fact the report has recommended that you don't, well, that's because of air quality, and again, I'm talking about the actual -18- " ~"",,,~,,,.,~~'~""- -.~~ "..-,~~,~".".,~ " I'" -. "~_." RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM'~ C. F. HOECK EL B. B. & L. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 use of the automobile. When there is, at these ideal locations, we will consistently recommend that you do not provide for private automobiles on the sites. Furthermore, let me add, how many bedrooms do the units have? RICK FARRELL A mix of two and three. DONNA BAER Okay. If they're tourist uses, well, again, of course, again, they might be private. Let's say that they're permanent residents. Let's say that they're permanent residents, for the sake of argument. Okay, then our argument would be that, in fact, there aren't enough on site. In other words, it's a partial solution to a problem. CHUCK VIDAL Well, I guess, again, we're talking about very dra- matic positions here, Donna, in that we think that there's a definite difference between residential par- king, whether it be tourist, permanent or anything, than commercial parking, and I'm in concurrence with the elimination, because at each trip, there's an ori- gin and a destination. When you're talking about e- liminating parking in the commercial core area, you're talking about eliminating it at the destination end of it, of a particular trip. You're making it in- convenient to use the car by not having parking at a place like this, you don't eliminate this group of people from owning cars, or from having cars anywhere, so I don't think you eliminate the pollution, neces- sarily. If it is convenient for them to walk to town because it is inconvenient for them to park in town, they are still going to do that. We don't know what the relationship should be to parking, and we're ag- reeable that when that relationship is resolved, that we will bring our parking down to that, but, I guess, we can't see where it is a practical solution to eli- minate parking from a residential use 100%, because those people are going to have a car and, you know, we have analyzed in our analysis that every condo- minium project, on the average, has a certain percen- tage of permanent residents in it END OF TAPE CHUCK VIDAL .... I don't think the goal is ridiculous, I think this device is ridiculous. DONNA BAER We feel it's a very weak tool. We've said this all along. It's the only one we have available to us now, however, 36 tourist units creates that many more em- ployees and they're not provided for either, I mean you know, you've got a situation here that we don't feel is improved by enlarging the tourist use area that was, in our opinion, and that's the Planning Of- fice opinion, was restricted to the now existing AR. But nobody has come to us and said, "What would it take to put employee housing units on there?", because we could address ourselves to that problem. It would take more than 36 units, and that's something you have the ability to deal with because you're talking, and CHUCK VIDAL -19- ,.....,.,.........'_.......~"-.< ~ -. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FOllM \~ C. F. 1l0ECKEL 6. 8. II: L. CD. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 it may become clear that it shouldn't be put on that site because those are areas where land costs are high to where the density that you have to put on certain of these areas is so high that you can't get the cost per unit down to enough for that kind of housing and you should be talking about other areas. SPENCE SCHIFFER Yes, but I'm just saying, given this project, you know, how could we help to use this project to help the pro- blem out? You know, I agree that it may not be feas- ible because if you've got, you know, a $90,000 unit and you've got to rent it for six months - two or three bedrooms, who's going to be able to afford to pay the monthly rent anyway? It's not going to be a lot. CHUCK VIDAL That's right. You're not solving the problem by that. That's the position we take. As I say, we're not in conflict with that goal. We're sure in conflict with the method that is trying to be utilized to get that, and we, we feel we can address ourselves to that goal as developers, and positively with the City and create housing, if they'll look at their whole cards and what they have the ability to deal with, and if that is density, then it's transportation systems. BRUCE GILLIS Stace? STACY STANDLEY I was just going to say, Chuck, when we had lunch the other day, you and I talked about this idea of giving density bonus for employee housing, based on the fact that you've got a contingency plan of 44 units that would be employee housing. It sounds as though you're addressing exactly the thing that you and I agreed was a logical way of approaching this. CHUCK VIDAL That's right. But we're not sure, you know, this isn't high enough density. RICK FARRELL It's not employee housing, either. It's an apartment that we would own and we would rent short term, long term, and the rent is exceedingly high because of the nature of the site and our cost basis. CHUCK VIDAL Employee housing can be put on that site at, there is a density that makes it, you know, you establish a number that you think per square foot or per unit, that is reasonable for people to pay. Take this particular site, then there is a density that satisfies that num- ber. Now, I think what you will conclude is that may- be the density is unacceptable on this site, the den- sity you have to get is unacceptable on this site to reach that number. You may not. If it is acceptable, then you put it into the viable terms, where if you're willing to give that density on this site, it's viable for us to build those units on that site. But there are trade-offs. You're talking about more than 46 units, and you really start crowding, you know, that site. In other areas, there are other locations where you're not talking about as high a density because your land cost is less. STACY STANDLEY The problem is that all the sites that are available are being brought in as condominium, second-family homes. -20- .""" - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 C.F.HOECKHa.B.1.l L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 CHUCK VIDAL That's right because all the sites that are being brought in now are not sites where the land costs are more amicable to that type of thing. They're what we call tourist-oriented sites, and let me make this position clear from our point of view - we did not go buy a site and try to, try to mold the land use because we own the property there. We happened to agree with the land use, and that's why we bought the site. Do you understand the, the difference be- tween those two, in terms of, we didn't try to buy a site way down here and try to make it tourist-oriented. We tried to buy property that we thought was already tourist-oriented by it's characteristics, and if we were going to, if it was our aim right now, to create employee housing as a developer, we wouldn't be buying property along the foot of the mountain and in those locations. We would be buying property somewhere else and coming to you and saying "We want the density here, we want the accommodations of the transit sys- tem - we can make it happen". In this location, it wouldn't be there, if that was our goal, and that may become our goal if, in fact, we feel, you know, that it's an economically viable pursuit with the City. You know, because it becomes economically viable, to say, well, alright, let's, let's look into that, let's look into that employee housing question because we think we can get a piece of property at a low enough land base, we think we can work with density, and with transportation and we can create it, because it makes as much sense or more sense than doing that and having them keep telling you, you know, you gotta make a sow's ear out of a silk purse so to speak. BILL DUNAWAY I'd like to ask a question. There is a project next to this that was approved before Ordinance #19 con- sideration. I was wondering how many acres and what the density per acre in that is? Immediately to the east of this? HERB BARTEL The Gant? It's five acres and, and was 150 units and then I think reduced to 143, so... BRUCE GILLIS Isn't that 28 per acre? HERB BARTEL Five acres, 143 units. BILL DUNAWAY Okay, and how many units per acre is this? DONNA BAER 71,000 square feet, 36 units. CHUCK VIDAL We've reduced it 25%. Instead of, under the old zon- ing, which the Gant came around for, we were entitled to 47 units and we're asking for, well, our application says 36. BILL DUNAWAY Well, how do they compare, that's what I was just asking? DONNA BAER Well, the Gant's maximum, or almost, close to maximum. Seven under, say, and their, they could have built 47, is that right, and they're asking for 36. BRUCE GILLIS How many units per acre are you talking about? -21- "'" RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 50 C.F.HOECKELB.B.lll L. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 DONNA BAER Well, you've got 71,000 square feet... RICK FARRELL 22'> per acre. CHUCK VIDAL But that's, you know, that's, I guess our position on Ordinance #19 and the covenant is a lot broader than that site. In other words, we think there are special characteristics relative to that site, but we also have a very strong position, you know, regardless of that site, in that area in terms of, of the goal and that that's a device to accomplish it. And, you know, and myself that way, myself and, for an awful long time. SPENCE SCHIFFER I realize that it's weak, too, and, however, if that is the only thing available to help solve the problem, I would be in favor of it, you know. My attitude is that there are a lot of courses of ac- tion available to the City and the Planning and Zon- ing Board to accomplish that. If they're going to use devices like six months covenants and creating mixed residential zones, there are better ways of im- plementing the same type of things that are in, what I call incentive zoning, of accomplishing that. I mean, if, in fact, you had no alternatives and that was the only thing you had to consider, then that's right, but, but, you've got lots of other ways of enacting zoning regulations and incentive type of zoning to create that thing that's better than this adversary type of thing, you know, you must, because you're going contrary to the economics of the situation instead of getting parallel and getting with the eco- nomics of the situation. CHUCK VIDAL JACK JENKINS What you're saying, in essence, means that we should in affect, zone for the price of the land. CHUCK VIDAL I think you can give incentives. JACK JENKINS Well, no, is , does that agree with what you're saying? CHUCK VIDAL Well, yes and no, because I think you, like you do a PUD. You can give incentives across the board, you know, no matter where people are, in creating these type of things. Zoning incentives, transportation... JACK JENKINS Really, the net effect of what you're saying is that we would be, in effect, requested to zone for the price of the land. CHUCK VIDAL No. No. And the reason I don't say that, Jack, is be- cause the price of the land is a result of certain other things that exist, and you're zoning for chara- cteristics of the land, of which price also is a func- tion, and that is, land located close to town, close to the mountain... JACK JENKINS Chuck, the reason you can't put low cost housing on it is because of the cost of the land almost only. There isn't any other real reason, because... CHUCK VIDAL The land is high-priced because of those other charac- teristics. -22- ..~~_....__._---~.~'""..,~".__.."-,".-".. ,.... ........ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 5~ C. F. H OECKEL B. B. II l. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 JACK JENKINS I know, but I mean the reason you can't put some other thing on that land is because of the cost of it. CHUCK VIDAL Yeah, I would say that, uh, you might.... JACK JENKINS I'm not saying that it's bad, I'm just saying that's the reason.... RICK FARRELL At a given density. CHUCK VIDAL I'm not sure that I'd agree with that, because if that price, if that land, if I had the choice of that land versus another piece of land at the same price and it was low then I'm not sure I'd opt, ever, to put em- ployee housing there versus the other piece of land, because I don't think it's appropriate there, where as I might think it's appropriate somewhere else, be- cause that is assuming that, that, that you still, you know, you have another appropriate use for that land, if in fact, all you're going to have is employee housing, and you're not going to have any tourist accommodations, to where, you know, you're looking at that as an alternative completely, that it doesn't matter. But the fact is, you have to allocate where the best place is to have tourist accommodations if you're in a tourist accommodation economy, which you are, and where the best place is to have, uh, employee housing, and or mix them to some degree. Now, in .... JACK JENKINS It still comes back to what you can put on as control- led by the price of the land. CHUCK VIDAL To some degree. I wouldn't, as I just said, if the price was equal and the price was low, I don't think I'd put employee housing at that site, regardless of the price, because I don't think it's appropriate there. RICK FARRELL Well, Stacy asked a question of why has every applica- tion that's come in here, uh, been for a tourist use. I think I have an answer to that in economic terms. The word that's out is that density is going down and we responded to that and that's the feeling of the com- munity. No developer is going to put money at risk through options, planning, and that type of cost to come in front of you under Ordinance #19 and propose twice the density that was under AR-l for employee housing. Now, if you made a public policy that we really want employee housing, and we will deal with density and try to make this happen with developers, they'd be lining up to come in here and show you their plans. BRUCE GILLIS There is a public policy isn't there, Stacy? RICK FARRELL But you've never stated that you would deal with sity, and that's the question. You had a public icy that permanent housing should be encouraged. you should say is that we will consider awarding sity bonuses and they'll line up. den- pol- What den- STACY STANDLEY On the contrary, nobody has offered that as an option. -23- """ - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 C. F. HOECKEl B. B. & L. C~. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 They're still coming in based on the idea that they have that the highest and best use for the land in Aspen is for tourist accommodations, and, Chuck, one thing that you said, last summer and myself and Clayton and Dave Ellis and Russ toured with a checklist all of the available land sites in Aspen and ranked them. And this area, where you're deal- ing with, including where Fritz has got land, got the highest rating of any piece of land we looked at in terms of it's viability for employee housing. Sub- sequent to that, I went and talked to Fritz about try- ing to tie up some of his land for employee housing, so you're perception may be one thing, but on the other hand from a planning conception, where we try to look and try to address the issue of where should housing go based on perameters and guidelines provided by var- ious other research, such as the Rutgers Institute on Housing, indicates that you should go with scattered size, it should be contiguous to open space and parks, which this property is, as well as being pedestrian- oriented to the work area, which it also is, so it does have a lot of merit for employee housing. And perhaps, based on the idea that it is in an area that as of tonight, which may have changed the whole ballgame, that is that the Planning Office has recom- mended down-zoning the rest of the contiguous land to single family, which I'll ask the Council for a Reso- lution supporting that at the public hearing, obvious- ly, that perhaps coming in with a high density employee program would be appropriate there, I don't know be- cause I don't know the feelings of Herb or Donna or the P & Z, but it is beside two parks and a cemetary and a greenbelt and in the area of the river and there are some other areas around there - the Little Nell Condominiums are basically totally permanent housing, as is the Manor House, which means that the only in- fringement is the Gant, which would be a non-conform- ing use, and the Alps which is eight years of history. CHUCK VIDAL I guess the one thing that, relative to that analysis, is that these areas that you were drawing comparables from where they identified employee housing type of areas, their alternatives were not other types of housing, as we have here. You know, they were and industrial, if you're looking at a community that is non-tourist oriented, where you don't have tourists. I think the fact that you've got tourists, probably as an alternative. You know, if you analyze, also, Stacy, the best location for tourist housing, I think you would come up with a justification for that site as strong. STACY STANDLEY Well, you're right, because we precluded tourist hous- ing as an option because of the gross inbalance that now exists between tourist accommodations, tourist utilization and mountain capacity, therefore, saying the tourist housing is, in fact, not viable in Aspen, it should therefore be precluded from our land use position. CHUCK VIDAL But what is absent in that is the fact that Jack was addressing himself to, is you do have land price, and you have, as the City, has the ability to create 10- -24- - - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 C. F. ~OECJ\EL B. a. e. L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 cation where it doesn't exist presently for, let's say, employee accommodations. You can make it convenient by running your shuttle bus through there every 15 minutes even though today it isn't convenient because they have to walk. You see, you have the ability to go to areas where land price is low because those things don't exist at this point and make them exist, and that's where you can really, uh, that's where the private dollar invesment and the public people can work together and do that, where you try to force a- gainst the economic conditions that already exist, that are presently there, you know, it's an adversary role, is what you end up with, and you don't, you know, you're not utilizing your most important assets, which I don't consider necessarily the dollar. You know, you can really play that game without costing a lot for the public sector in creating these things and working with, you know, you get two or three people and maybe they would be interested in building that, if you could create an economically viable package and say, alright, what does it take, where does it take it to happen, and really go through that process, as every developer does that in his own sense relative to these other aspects. There's been some that's missing, and that's his concurrence that, you know that he just doesn't have to come in before the Staff and be saddled with the existing regulation and now he's saying, you know, they're going to push me into that and they're not really accomplishing their goal. BRUCE GILLIS Jack? .i I've listened to I don't know how many of these re- quests for condominiums that have come in, and, again, that's all we hear, it seems like. Cause nothing else comes in except an occasional Church, but, I feel that the overriding reason for this and the overpowering reason is the fact that cash flow in the creation and the sale of a condominium is so desirable, as opposed to the other investment possibilities, that the only thing people think of first is that, and that's pos- sibly the reason, one of the main reasons that that's all we get, and if you can tell me that that isn't really a valid reason, then I'm willing to listen, but I, myself, after listening to as many as I've heard, I see one thing happening. I see a nice building go up, beautiful architecture. I see it sold. The pro- fit comes out immediately, and you wash your hands of the thing and it's all done, as opposed to the situ- ations which do create rental housing and do create housing that are sold as R-6 - it's a different ball- game and that's why primarily we don't consider an apartment house, because of the management problems and the time it takes to get your investment back and all the other things, that's the last thing anybody wants to do when they can put up a condominium, sell it, get their money out, it belongs to somebody else and the problem is over, the profit is out, it's all done and finished. JACK JENKINS CHUCK VIDAL Jack, you're right. RICK FARRELL That's true, at density that's set the way it is. -25- -. /''' RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 1 00 Leaves FORM 10 C.F.HOECKELB.B.Itl.CD. Regular Meeting Aspen planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 JACK JENKINS No, don't compound it with more. That's the only point I was making to try to answer why, I feel, that we just - condominium, condominium, condominium, con- dominium, right on down the line. CHUCK VIDAL You oversimplify it, Jack. If you, by using density and these other elements, you can create the other... Now wait, now wait, Chuck, I'm not arguing, I'm only making a statement which says that the overriding rea- son is cash flow. JACK JENKINS Sure, it's economic, and we say you can affect the eco- nomics of a, uh, of your long term housing if you want to. YOu're not affecting it now by this kind of cov- enant, but you can affect it by your policies. You have the ability to affect the economics of it. CHUCK VIDAL RICK FARRELL You know, I guess we didn't have the courage to come in here with a high rise on this site for employee housing, is what it comes down to, and if that is something the Commission wants to consider, and it could be a condominium. Condominium does not mean tourist. It could be a condominium that sells for $20,000, because of the density, like the married student housing that I lived in at school that's a minimal unit. We could create that there, but we felt that the resulting traffic congestion and all of the other things, esthetic things of putting a high- rise, we have a view corridor that probably would pre- vent a high density being put on that site. And all of those factors brought us to condominiums. Now if some of those constraints are released, we'll, uh, build employee housing and, uh, operate it, but I don't think that the density would be acceptable. PAT MADDALONE If you'll pardon me for interupting the Clarendon project for just a minute, I'd like to answer Mr. Jenkins' accusations. JACK JENKINS What? Accusations? PAT MADDALONE other than quick cash flow. JACK JENKINS Did you really, did you use the word accusation? PAT MADDALONE Yes, I did. JACK JENKINS Oh. PAT MADDALONE You said the only applications that you had reviewed were condominium, quick cash flow, get in, get out, right? We brought a project in, the Benedict-Larkin project, a few weeks ago, and we didn't get any par- ticular great amount of encouragement for having sub- sidized eighteen apartments that would have been a- vailable for people, and we were going to covenant on it, so I don't think that all of us can continue to redraw until we get it right, you know? BRUCE GILLIS Is there any indication or wish of the Board right now? It's twenty of eight. SPENCE SCHIFFER We've just opened a pandora's Box here, haven't we? -26- .."~..".~---,--.;.._..._-- ",- -. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM!O C.F.HOECKELB.B.l!. L. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 JIM MORAN Yeah, you have, and, you know, the point that's been made and the point that permeates all these meetings, City and County, is a pronouncement like the Mayor has indicated. We're in favor of a certain type of thing. You have to go further than that and, and sur- round it with either incentives or other regulations that make it something that can happen, because as long as you tell people, come in with something that pleases us, and that we're for, there's no way that can be done. If you say that you get, you know, uh, you want to develope low cost housing and the Com- mission will look with favor on an application that has 60 units in it as long as the units can be rented at such and such a price, and make low cost housing, which has available, you know, under Federal program, 90% financing, great tax write-off, benefits and so forth. But you can't do that on a twelve unit building. DONNA BAER Jim, we've had those again and again and we say what kind of guarantees are you going to give us on the rent, they say we'll have to let the market set it. Now, I'm not arguing with you, but you can't put the oness entirely on this Commission, cause this has re- peatedly been our experience. JACK JENKINS The other thing that happened on the, on the building that the people came in with downtown that eventually ended up as a hotel, was a completely different ap- proach. They came in with something and they came back with something else. Everything they came back with was looked at with favor, and they made a lot of changes and they came to an agreement between us on something that wasn't exactly what they started out with and completely different than they hoped they could build. CHUCK VIDAL Then they were tabled for 90 days. JACK JENKINS They backed out for the reasons that,... that they had their original agreement. CHUCK VIDAL But under #19, I contend, and I may be off base in making this statement, that it was not specifically spelled out that you accomplish the goals under #19 in mixed residentials, mixed residential by this covenant alone. It was, in essence, uh, a guideline to where, I feel, that P & Z had the flexibility to in essence allow greater density in certain areas to occur, to accomplish this. Now, what they've happened, they have a myopia going right down to an interpreta- tion that this is the only way they could make it happen. SPENCE SCHIFFER That's the problem, that there are no firm policies and we haven't communicated with the public as to what we would favor. I don't even think we know. CHUCK VIDAL That's right. Or that you would be in favor of saying we'll increase denisty, because that is contrary to some other goals where they're trying to chop every- thing in half. SPENCE SCHIFFER They're general problems that we're going to have to deal with as soon as we possibly can. We've, you know, -27- _~..,....".._,.,o~~ "^', RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM 10 C.F.HOECKELB.e.!l.l.Co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 we've made a commitment to do that, but, with respect to your project, what are we going to do now? I don't know. Obviously, there's an area here that we're try- ing to explore that we might be able to work something out. How are we going to do it? We have this pro- cedural problem where we have to make a decision by the lOth. CHUCK VIDAL I guess what Jim has alluded to, is that we agree that this particular problem, number one, as it's on that thing, is a, is a problem you have to wrestle with and we, we don't know, and we've addressed our presentation, you know, exaggerated, gone overboard, relative to 36 units, to try to address ourselves to that problem, to bring that problem up, to get people to think about that problem. What we would like to do is, you know, we don't want to quit at this point in time and say "Fine, we didn't make it", so we would like, we would consider proceeding or getting some kind of conditional approval leaving that question open. Because we don't think it's resolved. SPENCE SCHIFFER You would not want to withdraw pending a resolution within a certain period of time of this, or, or... CHUCK VIDAL I guess the problem we have with that, Spencer, is the last time we were here, Jim was very specific in try- ing to say what course of action are we going to take to resolve that point, and that they said we'd like everyone to wait ninety days so we can really get a handle on that. So what has happened is you haven't got a handle on it, but you've got some other legis- lation coming in right quick, you see, saying we're going to down zone you. SPENCE SCHIFFER Well, that was the thing, you know, we still haven't defined mixed residential. CHUCK VIDAL That's right. So our propensity to wait another 90 days for another piece of legislation to be developed... SPENCE SCHIFFER No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just saying about exploring the possibility of low-cost housing on this particular site. CHUCK VIDAL We've just got a little burned relative to, you know, waiting without some kind of precise, you know, the committment was made, "Yeah, we're going to define what mixed residential and wrestle with this problem, and everybody hold out there for a while while we wres- tle with it and we'll come back and try to work with you on this thing", and then what happens is, have they come out and said "Here's the way we're going to define it, here's how we're going to wrestle with it". No, they come out and say, "We're going to axe them, we need to move quickly on this thing if we're going to axe them, enact some legislation that is going to re- move the problem", you see. RICK FARRELL If we withdraw, I guess, we're afraid that we'll be R-6. BILL DUNAWAY Could I ask a question on this? -28- - - -, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FOR'" 10 C. F. HO~CKEL B. B. B. L. CD. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 BRUCE GILLIS Sure, Bill. BILL DUNAWAY Just point blank, under the proposed zoning, how many units per acre do you advocate for this multi-family district? HERB BARTEL BILL DUNAWAY HERB BARTEL BILL DUNAWAY HERB BARTEL BILL DUNAWAY HERB BARTEL RICK FARRELL SPENCE SCHIFFER HERB BARTEL Ten on the duplex density concept. Ten units per acre. This was multi-family on your map? That's correct. So how many units? Ten. Ten per acre? On the duplex concept. Isn't R-6, 6,000 square foot per unit, which would not mean ten? Three per unit for a duplex. No. The land use in the R-6 that, that John and I are working on, is 6,000 square feet for a single famil) resident, 9,000 square feet for a duplex. CHUCK VIDAL That would put this to, I think Herb has said, 16 units. HERB BARTEL Yes. Approximately. PAT MADDALONE What would the R-15 be? Just straight out 15,000 squarE feet per unit? HERB BARTEL That is correct. PAT MADDALONE Are duplexes allowed or not? BRUCE GILLIS Would the desire of the Board be to direct these people to come back with something which might have a greater density but employee housing, maintaining view planes and things like that? DONNA BAER They didn't want to, isn't that correct? RICK FARRELL Well, I don't think, I think we can determine right now that that's probably unacceptable to the neighbors and everything else because it would have to be a high- rise structure... CHUCK VIDAL We could tell you that 46 units don't do it and you can, if you want to look at this permit to see what 46 units will do, uh, and then, if you want us to proceed to tell you how many units it would take to get where you can rent a unit at $250 per month, or something like that... . BRUCE GILLIS I'm just asking the Board's feelings here. SPENCE SCHIFFER Well, I think we ought to take a look at that and find out how many units it would take to do that, and if it's feasible. Can you do it? -29- ~ /~, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM '0 C.F.HOECKELB.B.!l.L.CD. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 CHUCK VIDAL We can present the, you know, we can present the eco- nomics of this situation, and, to maybe help you un- derstand that there's a limit that really occurs when you're working with absolutes that don't bend. Could you do this Thursday night? BRUCE GILLIS CHUCK VIDAL Sure, I think we could do this by Thursday night. See, another thing that you're looking at that you do not understand, I think you understand, but I'm not sure you do, and this has been brought up before and it isn't really the Board's problem, but it works a- gainst creating low cost housing. Let's just take a site that, here's an example. Let's say you've got a $400,000 land cost, and you're working with an applicant and you take a year to re- solve the density. You have added $40,000 to that land cost. You're looking at $4,000 a month. That land cost is going up, his carrying cost, so his feasibility of being able to create low cost housing, everything is working against that, by this type of operation. JACK JENKINS I think we ought to be careful about talking about how necessary or extremely important low cost housing is, even if it were, by some stretch of the imagination availabl. I mean, I'm sure, everything that's built can be rented, at any price you have it on the market for almost. So the whole subject becomes almost aca- demic. Unless we feel some moral justification for obligation for creating something at a given price, whether the need exists or not, it'll be filled any- way. And if you double the price it will be filled. And if you triple the price on low cost housing, it's still going to be filled, so... CHUCK VIDAL But I'm talking about rent controlled housing, Jack. I think it can be created with the proper incentives, if you want to put, if that's what you're trying to solve. If in fact, you think there's that... JACK JENKINS No, what I'm saying is I don't know that that.... I think what you're saying is there's such an exces- sive demand that anything that's put on the market would be sucked up. RICK FARRELL JACK JENKINS That's the problem in Aspen. That's the reason that we have a problem is that anything we build, you can rent. Anything you put up for sale, you can sell. And the top is up in the mists somewhere. I don't even know where it is, so that the problem is not trying to create low cost housing, it's trying to con- trol the population in the valley, is the reality ob- jective, not to create a particular brand of housing at a particular price. That isn't, that doesn't, as far as I'm concerned, that's not the major problem. CHUCK VIDAL Then this covenant doesn't relate to your problem. JACK JENKINS I'm not even sold on it. BILL DUNAWAY Chuck, either way, I would agree with Jack. Unless -30- '" ,.------;_..,,-----^--.~._-,..,,-;.......,.""_.,.-._..'.~...,,"~"~~--_.._-'.-, ~.'.... RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM't C.F.HOECK!:LB.B.ftL.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 you can specifiy that the only people that can rent this are City employees or full-time employees, the more units you have, whether they're cheap or expen- sive, the more you're compounding the problem. Your people are coming in for the season or for a month or for a day, and they're renting these things, and so the more units you have, the more problem you have with pollution and everything else. The idea is to get the fewest amount of units you can, because you're kidding yourself by calling it employee housing. These are just seasonal skiiers coming in and they have the money to rent it, they have.... Unless you can say only City employees or only hospital employees or only school teachers can-Tent it, it's going to be rented by sea- sonal or weekly.... JACK JENKINS The McCullough property was built over here, and it didn't affect Aspen one bit. It's just all filled up and we need more. And the problem is that there's too much of it already, I think, and at the present rate of expansion we're going to exceed our capacity to put them anywhere, and some control of the rate of growth and a stopping point somewhere in time is what's cri- tical and the rest of this, I couldn't care less be- cause I don't think it solves the problem. I don't even identify the problem when we talk about more, more more of anything. RICK FARRELL I, I, can I, are you, can I interpret your remark? Are you saying there is not a permanent housing problem, basically. I may agree with you because there seems to be an excess work force, which would mean... JACK JENKINS That's the whole point. This McCullough property, which should have, should have created a very nice, not low cost, but a very nice housing area for the employees of Aspen needs, is not filled with those people. I don't know what the percentages are, but I've heard 25%-30% may be local employees that are required to operate our businesses and the rest of them are people that live here. CHUCK VIDAL And through our analysis, we've found that 10-15% of all your condominiums are occupied by permanent resi- dents. JACK JENKINS That may be fine. But my point, and it still has been and I'll continue to hassle it forever, is that when we build something that increases our problems, what- ever it is, I'd rather see it vacant land, and, of course, that's a dumb statement, but it's still what I'd rather see because if we put a building on it, I don't care how good the building is, I don't care what it does, it increases the problem in cars, and pol- lution and people and density and on ad infinitim. So the problem is very simple. I'm not interested in seeing more low cost housing of any kind go up, really, because this doesn't solve the problem for the employee of Aspen, you know, because he gets edged out by some- body that will pay more than he can, and then they put four in a bedroom and off you go, and it's more of the same problem. We're not addressing ourselves to the problem at all, I don't think. -31- -;....-""'"..-,-.--;..- .,.. ,... ...-,..,....",-......--. ,....., RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORiIl\O C.F,HOECKELB.B.8r L. co. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 BILL DUNAWAY Has anybody actually come up and asked, if the appli- cant is willing to reduce the density. Everybody seems to be beating around the bush about this density ques- tion. Has that actually come up? CHUCK VIDAL That was asked, and it was reduced from 47 to 36. BILL DUNAWAY No. This application was always 36, this Clarendon application. I'm talking about this Ordinance #19 ap- plication. mUCK VIDAL Well, I guess our approach to that, Bill, was, we knew we were going to be asked and so we addressed to where we felt like we could come to before we came in. We didn't come in and say "Here's 47, now knock us down, and maybe you'll only knock us to 40, and then we've made out." We came in with what we thought, you know, was a candid presentation saying this is where we are. We've addressed ourselves to it and we've gone to 36. We can't go to 35. We're not here to, you know, to bargain on that point, but we've addressed ourselves to it. We're not in at 47, which we felt like we were entitled to come in for, and, but, we've said, alright under the intent of #19, we knew that that's what they were trying to accomplish, and felt like we've addres- sed ourselves to it. We, you know, under the present, under the zoning that they're contemplating, you're talking about a taking or reduction of 75%. 50-75%, you know, in the R-15 zone from the old AR, that's a 75% reduction and we're probably talking about a 50-60% reduction in the R-6 zone. Now, that's pretty signi- ficant and again, we seem to really go to absolutes, dramatic things from one way to the other, and I, and I'm just not a proponent of that. I'm a proponent of the goals and trying to get there, you know, in a more graduant sense. BRUCE GILLIS Hey, Chuck, let's conclude this thing. I think that let's have two days to sleep on it, look at these recommendations from the Planning Office, and we'll have a resumption of the meeting on Thursday. You're talking about a study session and then a resum- ption of a meeting, so that we go through this other thing we're talking about? JACK JENKINS BRUCE GILLIS Right. RICK FARRELL Do you wish us to respond to the employee housing den- sity trade-off question in that meeting? BRYAN JOHNSON It would be interesting, yes, we'd like to have the information even though it may not affect you and your project. BRUCE GILLIS A good exercise for all of us. JACK JENKINS I still would like to have everybody keep in mind the fact that when we put up anything it's going to get used, and keep that in mind because no matter what you come up with, no matter how economic it might look like, it's going to get filled up, so that the more of it there is, the grosser the problem in all its as- pects. -32- _,.,...",H"..',~",_____-"_,,, -., RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM,t. C.F.HOECKEL8.B.IIL.(;O. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 JIM MORAN Well, you might address yourself to how willing the citizens of this community are to solve that problem by finding out how much, you know, there's one way you can, you can make a park land. BRYAN JOHNSON We're hoping that's a public hearing.... JIM MORAN And you can do that by asking the public, are they willing to bear the tax burden that it costs to buy park land. JACK JENKINS The longer we don't fact the problem, the longer we have meetings like this that go on forever and every meeting's the same, you know, and you and I have been in, what, two of them, or a week, but we end up with the same point and until we face the problems that are fundamental, it's on and on and on and on with the same thing. PAT MADDALONE Could I say one thing before I go home? I think one of the fundamental problems is going to be to really plan the whole area that's in your jurisdiction, and I'd like to have the Board's opinion about zoning block at a time. Is that really the way you're going to do it? JACK JENKINS I can answer that to an extent, and I'll tell you this, that what we're trying to do is to start rather than procrastinate on the things that must be faced and when we have a definitive thing, now whether it's by block or by area or by brown area or whatever it is, when we come up with a thing, which we should come up with out of this meeting we're going to have, then we're going to have a particular thing that we're talking about instead of a nebulous thing with a lot of, of very strong powers involved in #19 which almost give us carte blanc to say no, which is not an answer, really, and I think until we get started on rezoning, and I'm not talking about the unit, then we haven't done any- thing and we're going to try to start that, and that's beginning Thursday. PAT MADDALONE We need a sound planning concept to start in a corner and... . JACK JENKINS In lieu of starting in the whole thing in one night, we went ahead and started in a corner. BRUCE GILLIS You're pressuring us into making this kind of a deci- sion by coming in with these applications instead of letting us do everything and.... JACK JENKINS We're going to make a decision. SPENCE SCHIFFER But the problem is that we've got interim zoning, and we don't know what it is. JIM MORAN Well, I hope you're aware also of the fact that once you make a recommendation to the City Council on re- zoning that brings Ordinance #19 into affect which is a moratorium for a year on building permits, while the rezoning is being considered, so what I'm saying is, if you haven't been able to make any progress under Ordi- nance #19, one of the advantages of which so stated in -33- ____.v_~..~....~"'-""'"_"'..._~........__(_...-., ,~- ,,-, RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM" C. F. H~ECKEl B. B. I> LCD. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 the public meeting was that it would provide the in- put that would help you make a decision, and if you now use, as a means of solving your very difficult decision-making problem under #19, by zipping into the, well, we've got a lot of applications, let's consider rezoning, you bring into play Ordinance #19, and there you've got a year moratorium, and, you know, the na- tives will be getting restless. BILL DUNAWAY Yeah, but Jim, the natives are going to get restless when the whole town is full of automobiles and cars. The natives in this area, the neighbors, are very rest- less now, because there is a probject there and it has a terrific impact on that. Aspen has to slow down sometime and it certainly isn't slowing down with the applications that are here now. That's what makes the actual residents nervous is the excessive growth that's occurring and nobody has a way of controlling that. I know the Board doesn't. I don't. You don't. But sooner or later we have to do something about that or we have wall-to-wall building in this town, and no- body wants wall-to-wall building.... CHUCK VIDAL Bill, my basic answer to that is.... BILL DUNAWAY I'm not referring to your project at all. CHUCK VIDAL I' not even arguing about our project. My basic an- swer to that about the natives being restless is that zone was existent for eight years and they never got restless until someone put a shovel in the ground, and then they get restless, and that's hardly called due process. BILL DUNAWAY That's the problem with the people. JACK JENKINS Let me expand on what Bill is saying. Ideal, every day, with at least ten of the visitors that come to our town at the Highlands Ski School, and I don't know how close in contact all of you are with those people who come here, and they are as restless as the natives because everyone says, including the gentleman who bought a condominium in the Gant, "Wow, let's stop this thing". That's there thing. "1"11 ride the buses, I don't care. That's fine". So they have exactly the same feeling, that they don't have the idea that they want it wall-to-wall people. They want it somewhat in the area of where it is. Now we've said a dozen times, and we all realize, you can't stop it. I don't want to. That's impossible. Everybody who owns land has the right to some degree of use, but, there's nobody wants it to be changed it particularly from where it is. All right, Jack, but you've built every project that's on the Board that we saw earlier and you're right in what you said earlier. Every unit will be sold and everybody that buys a unit will say, "Let's stop it here~n JIM MORAN That's right. We come back, Jim, to what I've been saying for a long time. Everybody who owns land has got a right to use it. The thing we have to do is restrict that use so we don't compound the problem any JACK JENKINS -34 ,,- - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM". C.f.HOECKELB,a.ftL.Cn. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 more than is absolutely necessary to protect property rights, and at that point, my feeling is that's where the limit is. We can't take a man, if we don't buy his property, like you say, if we're not going to buy his land and make it a park, he has the right to use it, but the degree to which it's used, over the whole area is what the problem is. JIM MORAN One of the other problems is the difference between what the community must do in order to preserve its health and safety and welfare. Now that you can do by the police power which is what we are talking about here in zoning, but when you begin to talk about what we want to do to keep it a nice place for all of us - an esthetically pleasing city, then I say, and I think I'm right, you get over into the question of how much are the citizens of the community willing to pay for that privelege, when it isn't related to their health and safety. BRUCE GILLIS Let's continue the meeting on Thursday. Meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m. ,..,,"'-........ -. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM'~ C. F. HOECKEl 9. B. II LCD. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 Meeting was c.alled to order by Vice Chairman Bruce Gillis at 5: 40 p.m. with Chuck Vidal, Bryan Johnson, Jack Jenkins and Spence Schiffer. Also present City/County Planner Herb Bartel and Assistant Planners Donna Baer and John Stanford. Johnson made a motion to send a recommendation to City Council asking for a Resolution commending Jim Adams for the time and effort he has spent on the Commission during it's most difficult times. Motion seconded by Schiffer. All in favor, motion carried. OLD BUSINESS ViII of Aspen, Phase II Rehearing Gillis stated that there had been a decision to go through the procedure of a potential reversing of the vote on the Villa. Stated that a motion to that affect would have to be made by a member who had voted in fa- vor of the project the last time. Schiffer made a motion to re-hold the procedure, secon- ded by Jenkins. All in favor, motion carried. Attorney Jim Moran, representing Attorney Art Daily, was present and stated that he would like to preserve for Mr. Daily, at such time as the Commission does rehear the matter, the privilege of argument that rehearing is not appropriate or within the jurisdiction of the Commission. Would like to preserve the point for fur- ther argument that what the Commission has just done is erroneous and not within their jurisdiction. City Attorney Sandra Stuller stated that she had no objections to that proposal. Schiffer made a motion to hold the meeting for the re- hearing at the earliest possible date, seconded by John- son. All in favor, motion carried. Meeting date set for January 22nd. View Plane Memo Bartel 'stated that the Planning Office had written a memo on the View Plane preservation, and wanted the members to review that before the meeting of the 15th. Stated that a study session had been held, and they had the ordinance on the view preservation, and what it does specifically is provide for PUD options where the height limit as set by the view preservation is less than that allowed by the existing zoning. Grant-In-Aid Application - County Bartel stated that the County had made application for a grant-in-aid for open space for the land adjacent to the hospital, and stated that there was a letter con- cerning that for the Commission's consideration. Bartel stated that the Commission By-Laws would be in- cluded in the packet for the next meeting. Rezoning of Ute Avenue area Bartel stated that he and Stanford had worked on a plan and requested the Commission set a public hearing to consider a change in zoning from the area south of Waters and generally centered along ute Avenue. Bartel stated that the point that that raises is whether or not the Commission would like to review these items with the applicant or whether they would like to do the Mixed Residential part of the agenda first. Stated that he felt Vidal should have precedent in this matter. Bartel stated that he did not want to get into discus- ",' ~.--..,,-..._~.,,,,,,,,.-.,,,,"--,~..~,.~-,.,,,..~>..~~ FORM 10 C. F. ~OECKEL B. B. & L. CD. r- --~ RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves Regular Meeting January 8, 1974 ) Planning Office Report- Mixed Residential Land Use Category Aspen Planning & Zoning sion of the Clarendon project asking for Planning Of- fice comments when the Planning Office will be making the request of the Commission this evening to set a public hearing to change the zoning of the project. Schiffer questioned if the Commission must take action at this meeting on the Clarendon. Bartel stated that at this point, it was strictly pro- cedural, whether or not the Commission would rather go through the project first or whether they would like to hear the report from the Planning Office on Mixed Residential. Schiffer stated that he would like to hear the report first. Gillis stated that he, too, would like to hear the re- port first. Moran questioned if this report was to clarify the meaning of Mixed Residential, or if it was, in fact, a rezoning proposition. Bartel stated that the Planning Office would be asking the Commission to set a public hearing to consider re- zoning and to amend the Zoning Code in the Mixed Resi- dential area. Moran questioned Bartel if it was the Planning Office's contention that the proposed rezoning of that area with the present application in process has some affect on that present application. Bartel stated that it does. Stated that it was the re- finement of the plan in the Mixed-Residential area and the zone change that the Planning Office is requesting the Commission to set the public hearing for will have an affect on that application. Bartel stated that they were requesting the Commission to set a public hearing for a change in zoning to the area south of Waters Avenue and extending centering generally on ute Avenue. Stated that the legal des- criptions have been prepared by the Engineering Office and the map and legal notice is ready for publication. Request the meeting be on January 29th, 1974. Bartel also request the Commission call a study session this week to go throug~ the proposal in detail. Stanford zoning. the land submitted diagram of location of proposed re- Stated that the subcommittee had worked on use in that area. Stanford stated that they were proposing four resident- ial categories: (1) single family; (2) duplex; (3) three and four family; and (4) multi-family. Stanford pointed out the public areas indicated on the map and also designated a conservation area. The next illustration which Stanford submitted showed development trends in the study area. Stated that at -2- "'"' -"", RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FOR'" 10 C.f.HOECKELB.D.8:L.CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 present they have posted here 236 units proposed which have come through the Planning Office. Stanford stated that the plan was comprised of single- family, duplex, and three and four. Stated that it would be at the density of the present R-15 zoning. Stated the multi-family would be at the density of the present R-6 zone. Stanford further stated that the plan included a rural category, and designated that area on the map. Also proposing a new historic landmark designation which would be the Durant Mine. Further, have a proposed drainage easement which would handle water coming from the mountain, which instead of going through the town, it will be going into the Roaring Fork River. Plan also includes the trail system. Stanford stated that another factor that contributed to the development of this plan was a number of public ac- tions, including the Ute Cemetary Court Case and desig- nation of the Cemetary as an historic landmark, and the Parks & Recreation developments. Would be a general transition of densities from the core area out. Pointed out the view preservation corridor. Jenkins proposed Johnson. made a motion to set a public hearing for the rezoning for January 29, 1974, seconded by All in favor, motion carried. Concensus of the Commission was to have a study session on the proposed rezoning for Thursday, January 10th at 5:00 p.m. Moran questioned the use of the designations "rural" and "conservation" for zoning. CLARENDON CONDOMINIUMS Gillis pointed out to the Commission that this meeting was the deadline, and the Commission could approve, dis- approve or the applicant could withdraw from the con- ceptual stage pending further information. Attorney Jim Moran, representing the Clarendon, ques- tioned the Commission on what additional information they would require. Schiffer stated that he could see none. Moran stated that any rezoning that was accomplished could not affect the existing application. Stated that there is a pre-Ordinance #19 building permit appli- cation. Further stated that they had reduced there density had been reduced by 25% from the allowable den- sity in the AR-l zone. Ms. Baer stated that the recommendation was not based on this plan, that it was made prior to the full de- velopment of this plan. Concensus of the Commission was to continue the meet- ing after the study session on Thursday. Moran stated that they would voluntarily extend the time for the decision of the Commission to some point beyond -3- -- RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FORM ~I C. F. HOECK EL B. B. ll: L. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 CLARENDON CONDOMINIUMS BRUCE GILLIS Now, to get it straight in my mind, tonight we have to either decide to approve the conceptual presenta- tion of the Clarendon or disapprove or have them with- draw pending further information. Is that the way you see it? SPENCE SCHIFFER I'm sorry, Bruce, I didn't hear what you said. BRUCE GILLIS We have a choice of approving or disapproving or hop- ing that they might withdraw their application pend- ing our further study. SPENCE SCHIFFER Or conditional approval. JIM MORAN I think we'd like to know, in view of the presentation that's been made tonight to either rezone or clarify the existing land use plan. It would certainly be our feeling that any rezoning that's accomplished couldn't affect the existing application, and I wonder if you could tell us what information it is that you're going to weigh and that you want to assemble before, in or- der to make a more informed vote on this project. That has been, that was my puzzlement early in the game and it remains puzzling to me. Is there anything you want from the applicant. SPENCE SCHIFFER I personally can't see anything. I'm just looking at Ordinance #19 and the things that you've presented, understanding that Ordinance #19 applied and the land use plan applied, and under that I can't see any other information that we need as far as I'm concerned. JIM MORAN Well, I would regard the presentation that's just been made by the Planning Office not as a clarification of the Mixed Residential district in the land use plan, but a proposal to amend or change it to categories that are, at least with respect to this project, identifi- able under the current zoning code. BRUCE GILLIS Jack? JACK JENKINS I think what we're saying, in effect, is that the thing that we're all working on really, unless we try to dif- ferentiate a thing that shouldn't be there, like a stable or something that that can't go, that the rest of the thing we're talking about is density, in a nut- shell. And it would be, a simpler thing would seem to me to let us go through this exercise and come up with a thing that we're saying is going to be and then e- valuate the project in light of that rather than the other way around and saying in light of what we're thinking, aye or nay. Because we're getting to the point of saying in an area, rather than leaving it wide open for consideration under #19, we're saying this is how many and how much and where. JIM MORAN Well, I think that one of the points I'd have to raise with respect to that is that at time this application was filed the mixed residential criteria gave the Com- ,.",,~_....... - RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS 100 Leaves FO~M 51 C. F. ~OECKEL B. e. II: L. CO. Regular Meeting Aspen Planning & Zoning January 8, 1974 mission no authority to have any consideration about density in this particular area. That was a recent amendment to that particular category. Now, we ad- dressed ourselves to that proposition by coming in with a project that was about 3/4 of allowable density under the AR-l zone, so we addressed ourselves to that in the spirit of accomplishing some density changes even thought, at the time of this application was filed the Commission had no authority to, under Ordi- nance #19, to make any recommendations as to density. I might say that there is, in addition to the Ordinance #19 application, a pre-Ordinance #19 building permit application for 47 units on this property which, frank- ly, the applicant doesn't want to do because that's too high a density for this property. And so, I think we came in on that aspect of it, we think we addressed ourselves to density by reducing it and, if the Com- mission has any ideas.... Do I understand that the Com- mission is going to look at this plan and the Planning Office's proposing and hopefully from that come up with some density recommendations for this area? DONNA BAER I think the two aren't necessarily that closely con- nected and we've made a recommendation not based on this plan. It was made prior to the full development of this plan and I don't think it's at all irregular for the P & Z to have refined and defined for them what the Planning Office sees as the, as it's ultimate recommendation for the area. I don't think there's as close a connection as you're implying. JIM MORAN Well, I think that, you know, this leaves me wonder- ing what affect is study session that's coming up Thursday, what do you hope to learn from that about this project that will aid you in voting one way or another on it? SPENCE SCHIFFER 1 I don't hope to learn anything about this particular project. I hope to learn what they base those rec- ommendations on, to find out in general terms what they were based on, not looking at specific projects. JACK JENKINS We created a committee to look into the area and find out what we think should be done, a definitive answer to some of the things that we've sat here week after week after week and people come in and we say " we don't know, we don't know. We're still planning, we don't know yet." Now we're down to the point where we feel we have the information to make some decisions, and that's what we would hope to do. SPENCE SCHIFFER WEll, my problem is I still don't have a definition of mixed residential. We've still got all that other area that's still mixed residential, and it was my under- standing that we were going to have some more concrete definition at this point for the whole .... DONNA BAER You mean for the east and west and north and south mixed residential? SPENCE SCHIFFER Yeah, so we know what we're talking about when we're talking about mixed residential. -2- ....,...,.,.-..-. _""",~",,__~'~"<_T_'_"""""_'~"__~___M'_""V"_'C"'".,,~' '__""~'''''__'