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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.council.20010227Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Mayor Richards called to order the continued meeting at 5:00 p.m. with Councilmembers Hershey, McCabe, Markalunas and Paulson present. ORDINANCE #10, SERIES OF 2001 - Historic Preservation Strategy Julie Ann Woods, community development department, said the intent of this ordinance is to allow staff to work with HPC, the public and the consultant to come up with more clear criteria for evaluating properties to be placed on or taken off the inventory. Ms. Woods said this will allow time to develop code amendment and incentives. Councilman Markalunas questioned the need for an emergency ordinance. Councilman Markalunas said there are no HPC representatives. If this deals with the HPC process, Council should have some input from HPC members. Ms. Woods said the emergency ordinance status is a recommendation from the city attorney to allow the HPC to go into hearings this week. Mayor Richards reminded Council they held a work session with HPC and the new consultant and this was the recommended course. This will give staff time from reviewing caseload request for delisting from the inventory. John Worcester, city attorney, said staff's concern is that they would be spending all their time dealing with appeals when they do not have the right standards as to what should be on the inventory and what should not. Worcester said that is why he suggested this be an emergency ordinance. Councilman Markalunas said he would like to hear from some HPC members before he votes on this. Mayor Richards opened the public hearing. There were no comments. Mayor Richards closed the public hearing. Councilman McCabe moved to table Ordinance #10, Series of 2001, to the end of the meeting; seconded by Councilman Paulson. All in favor, motion carried. Councilman McCabe moved to continue the meeting to 6:30 p.m.; seconded by Councilman Markalunas. All in favor, motion carried. Council reconvened at 6:45 p.m. with Councilmembers McCabe, Paulson, Markalunas, and Hershey present. 1 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 ORDINANCE #6, SERIES OF 2001 - Conceptual and Final PUD Iselin Park Joyce Ohlson, community development department, told Council the growth management commission recommended approval that Council exempt this project as an essential public facility. The GM Commission attached conditions to that recommendation. Ms. Ohlson presented a revised Ordinance #6 including those conditions agreed upon with the County Commissioners in section 3. Staff presented written answers to the questions from last night's meeting and a pro forma of expenditures and operating costs. Ed Sadler, asset manager, noted that adequacy of parking was raised by a number of people. Staff feels the parking is adequate for 90% of the time. Staff feels enforcement will help promote mass transit. Sadler said Tiehack is available during the day only for public parking to access public lands. Sadler said evening parking at Tiehack would necessitate changes to the PUD. Sadler said the main use for the Tiehack parking will be for ballfield and soccer games. These are not lit fields and games will not take place at night. Mayor Richards suggested that the city put into the intergovernmental agreement that the school will not be able to take their parking away from the city's use without replacement. Sadler said moving the Maroon Creek road pedestrian bridge was brought up. Staff wants the bridge to be at the closest place to the school. Originally the bridge was located farther down the road towards the roundabout; the city's consultant recommended it be moved up to eliminate taking shortcuts across Maroon Creek. The bridge also directs traffic to the front of the building; it gives better line of sight. Sadler said the lighting for safety for the pedestrian bridge will come with approval of the project. Sadler said paid parking is an option to consider by Council. Councilman Markalunas asked how much the increased enforcement for the area will cost. Mayor Richards said additional police protection was taken into account when the city annexed Aspen Highlands. Councilman Markalunas said if the city is going to enter into an IGA with the school and county, there has to be some funding for this enforcement. Tim Ware, parking department, said until it is determined how many entities are part of the IGA, costs are unknown. Randy Ready, assistant city 2 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 manager, said when cars are ticketed and towed, this will pay for itself. The desire is to have the degree of non-compliance of parking regulations go down with enforcement. Councilman Markalunas said public transport should be convenient and inexpensive and private transport should be expensive and inconvenient. Steve Barwick, city manager, pointed out the agreement states that the "city shall be responsible for all parking enforcement issues that are associated with the newly developed Iselin recreational facility". Barwick stated the city is not responsible for the parking problems on the entire road. Sadler said calling this a "pool/ice" facility or a "recreation" facility is a matter of semantics. Sadler told Council this has been a long public process, starting before the bond issue. There was a feasibility study done in preparation for the bond issue. There have been small fundraising meetings, neighborhood meetings, P&Z meetings and Council meetings. Sadler said an issue brought up last night was the number of lifeguards required. The state requirement is 1 lifeguard for 50 swimmers. The pool staff uses a ratio of 1:25. Staff plans on having 4 to 7 guards on duty. Sadler said these employee figures were given to the housing authority in figuring out affordable housing mitigation. Sadler reminded Council staff visited various facilities to see what works best, what sells best, what people enjoy, what people would do differently. Sadler said this facility is confined by money and by space. Staff feels this will please the majority of the people. Sadler said there are 275 lockers planned for the pool in addition to the family changing room. Sadler said staff has given Council letters from CHSSA, US Swimming and other parties. There are no set requirements. Staff feels there is adequate space around the pool for the type of meets that would be held here. There is a 1 meter diving board; there will not be high diving. Councilman Markalunas said he was disappointed to learn it is not practical to take energy from the ice making and apply it to heating the pool. Paul Anseeuw, Keen Engineering the city's mechanical consultant, told Council his firm is one of the leaders in sustainable design. Anseeuw said they have had a number of discussions with CORE on what is appropriate for this project. Anseeuw said some green issues in this building did not 3 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 come out immediately. One green initiative incorporated in the design is the high efficiency condensing boilers, which will get the efficiency of a natural gas boiler up to 95%. This will save 169 tons per year of CO2 reductions. Anseeuw said there are variable speed drives in the changing rooms to optimize changing air. This will have a 2.3 year payback High efficiency motors have been incorporated. Anseeuw said the micro turbine is a way of creating green power, taking the waste heat off the micro turbine so that it is reused by the boiler hearing system. Anseeuw said they included an ozone system for the air and water quality. Another benefit is that the humidity and temperature can be controlled. Anseeuw said the waste heat off the compressors will be used as snowmelting and will also be used to heat the under slab and to pre-heat water tanks. Anseeuw said his company analyzed heat recovery in the pool and when used with dry air in this area and the power source in this area, a refrigerated heat recovery system does save energy, does have a payback; however, it does not reduce the greenhouse gas emissions so it has not been included. Anseeuw said they are still discussing with CORE including solar in this facility. Mayor Richards asked what it could cost to take advantage of solar capture. Anseeuw said there is not a payback, but as a statement of green design and good power, this is being investigated. Councilman Paulson asked the possibility of including some of these solar things this far into the process. Anseeuw said there are some possibilities but the cost will have to be looked at. Councilman Paulson said if this facility is not paying for itself in the future and the Council has to go to the electorate to approve a tax increase or has to pass a rate increase, it will be an injustice to populace. Councilman Paulson said energy costs will only keep going up. Councilman Paulson said he has a checklist from LEAD on how sustainable design one's building is. Councilman Paulson said he would like this building rated by this checklist. Councilman Paulson said he would like future projects be scored and meet a minimum requirement on this LEAD checklist. Anseeuw said this is a good tool as a guide; however, one needs to apply green building standards prior to starting a project. Anseeuw noted this building is very green for the type of structure it is. 4 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Councilman McCabe said the city is doing a study to see how sustainable design can be integrated into the building codes. Stephen Kanipe, building official, told Council this does exist for the affordable housing projects. Anseeuw pointed out the city of Seattle adopted a guideline that all new civic buildings would target silver standard on the LEAD checklist. Councilman Paulson said there is no renewable energy in this building. Councilman Paulson suggested any money saved with green in this building be earmarked to purchase future renewable energy, like wind power or hydro, so the city can keep increasing their use of renewable energy. Anseeuw said some of the initiatives in the building with an X payback, that money be reinvested in renewable energy. Mayor Richards said this concept is too vague right now. This should be up to future Councils. Mayor Richards said money saved should be invested in the building to add energy saving items to the building. Mayor Richards asked if there were items taken out of this plan that would give significant energy savings in the building and that are not too late to add back in. Anseeuw said two examples are solar panels and refrigerated heat recovery plant. Anseeuw told Council solar panels in today's market will never have a life cycle payback; energy is too cheap. Solar power for a building like this is a 25-year payback. Sadler said because of the orientation of the building, the solar value is diminished. Anseeuw said a refrigerated heat recovery system for the pool was not implemented. That is putting a cooling coil in the return air from the pool building, takes the moist air out. It's a very efficient cycle. There is a life cycle payback. The capital cost is $90,000 and the payback is 6 to 7 years; however, the electricity even at 1 kilowatt compared to doing the same thing with the efficient boiler shows in the greenhouse gas analysis that there was no advantage. This would have saved energy and saved some reduction in operating costs but it is not improving sustainable or green design. Bossart told Council Anseeuw put together a list of items for staff to analyze with CORE, looking for the most efficient ways to accomplish the goals of the project. Bossart said one thing CORE recommended is daylighting in the ice rink and in the pool. The costs for this are $80,000. Bossart said there are no skylights that can survive long under freeze/thaw situations. This also is negative in putting sunlight on the ice surface, which means the system has to work harder to keep the ice surface. Bossart said staff elected 5 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 to skate under lights. Mayor Richards agreed this project is full of trade offs on what works well and what is not worth the investment. Bossart noted a recreation center is one of the hardest buildings to make energy efficient. Councilman Paulson asked if the janitor is working all night, will this affect the neighbors. Bossart said the city's lighting consultants, Rising Sun, can light a work area so that the lighting cannot be seen from outside. Councilman Paulson asked how physical therapy will work in the pool. Tim Anderson, recreation director, said the city will be able to schedule physical therapy. The therapists want to be able to work with the city on specific types of water therapy. Councilman Paulson asked the time line for the outside pools. Mayor Richards noted there is no money for the outside pools. The city has used general fund extra contributions to this project through 2002. Mayor Richards said this is a decision for future Councils and whether they want to use general funds for the swimming pool. Sadler said this is built to deal with outdoor pool expansion; the space is there, it is stubbed in. Councilman Paulson asked if the glass is triple pane. Bossart said this glass is insulated low E value, cold coated, light tint, and controlled spectrum glass. Councilman Markalunas asked about the impact of the tower on the view up towards Pyramid Peak. Councilman Markalunas asked if there is a drawing of the tower with the mountains in the background. Mayor Richards said the height of the tower and the additional 10 feet of distance on the lap pool deck are two outstanding issues Council needs to discuss. Mayor Richards re-opened the public hearing. Toni Kronberg said the perception is that she has been against the project. Ms. Kronberg said she is not against the project and wants to see it built to meet the needs of the community. Ms. Kronberg said she has 25 years of swim teaching experience in Aspen. Ms. Kronberg said the only pool she is requesting is a warm water pool with a deep end, which has not been addressed. Ms. Kronberg stated that kind of pool will make this facility succeed. Ms. Kronberg said the warm water pool will only be 4 feet deep. Ms. Kronberg said adults need a deep warm water pool. Ms. Kronberg said the project has been pulled together except for deep water. 6 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Larry Slater asked what happens at this facility in the event of a power failure at this facility. Mayor Richards said there are emergency backup lights. Slater asked if the elevator goes all the way to the storage room below the ice. Mayor Richards said it only goes to where people need to get; it is 3 levels. Slater said he is very concerned about the energy efficiency of the building. Slater showed the view that will be eliminated by the tower. Ms. Kronberg said there has never been a high school swim team and this is being designed for a high school team. Ms. Kronberg said she wants to preserve the right of the team that has already used the pool, and the Ordinance should be changed to say Colorado swimming. Ms. Kronberg said if a feasibility study had been done, a deep end in the warm water pool would be included. Ms. Kronberg encouraged Council to vote for this. Mayor Richards closed the public One outstanding issue is the pool deck, the resolution states this will be changed to a minimum of 10 feet. Mayor Richards said this is beyond what is needed. Mayor Richards recommended staying with the current design that meets the current high school meet standards. Bossart said the regulations between CHSSA and NCAA and US Swimming are almost identical. Bossart told Council there is 8 feet on the end of the pools from water to the wall and 10 feet on one side and 12 feet on the other. Councilman Paulson asked why there is a concern about 10 feet. Ms. Ohlson said at the P&Z public hearing there was testimony indicating from a practical perspective there is a stacking of swimmers and P&Z recommended a little more space be appropriate. Councilmembers all favored removing #13; condition #14 requires consistency with CHSSA and will remain in the ordinance. The next issue is the height of the tower. Mayor Richards suggested keeping the current design. The tower is a symbol of pride in the building. The city should not try and make all the public buildings invisible. Councilman McCabe said a lower tower would be less space to heat and to cool, less finished material would be needed. Councilman McCabe said there is a trade off in the energy required as the tower space is useful from heating and cooling aspects of the building. Anseeuw said more skin is more heat loss; however, the strategy of the high tower space is that there is no cooling, no fans. The building is entirely naturally ventilated, squishing the height is 7 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 going in the wrong direction for a green piece of the building. Anseeuw noted a trade off in projects without mechanical refrigeration is the transfer of money from mechanical ductwork and refrigeration to building shape and volume. Councilman Paulson asked about this in the winter as the chimney will take all the heat out of the building. Anseeuw said the strategy will be to reverse the stratified heat that rises and bring it to the lower level with circulating fans. Councilman Paulson asked if this was a private development with this amount of glass in a commercial building, how would a developer be allowed to mitigate the extra glass. Kanipe said it is not just the amount of glass. Staff looks at the entire function of the building and use DOE's standards for commercial energy use. Councilman Hershey agreed this building needs a presence and given that the tower is also functional, he leans toward the 58 feet height. Councilman McCabe agreed based on staff input and the research. Mayor Richards said she feels the daylighting of this structure is very important. Councilmembers Hershey, McCabe, Markalunas and Mayor Richards favor the tower as designed; Councilman Paulson opposed. Mayor Richards said a condition should be added to direct staff to continue to work with CORE, to look for energy efficiency throughout the building, particularly the solar power gains versus cost, make this a thorough investigation including taking the request for the REMP funds to the CORE board, letting them weigh that against other areas where they might be able to spend the funds for a greater bang for the buck, or what it would cost the city to do out of general funds, bring those costs back to Council in a timely fashion as the foundational work is being done and there still would be the ability to add solar onto the roof, and that it is Council's direction as a whole to continue to vigorously pursue what other additional measures can be put into this. Council agreed with this statement. Mayor Richards said the last is the is depth or redesign of a warm water pool with a deep end. Mayor Richards said she has heard from a lot of people on this project. The facility cannot be all things to all people. There are therapy pools at other facilities in the community. The city is not trying to duplicate the existing facilities. Mayor Richards said she is not in favor of redesigning the pool. Many people took part in this design and representatives of the swim community have endorsed this plan. 8 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Councilman McCabe said his original position was that this should be 100% recreation pool with no lap pools. Councilman McCabe supports the design as presented. Councilman Markalunas said 4 feet seems a little shallow; however, he defers to pool experts. Councilman Markalunas said he will go with the design as presented. Jackie Broughton told Council she feels the 4 foot depth meets the needs of the community. Ms. Broughton said a greater depth is difficult for therapy and if there is too much depth behind the water, it is hard to walk against. Ms. Broughton said she feels the proposal will be great for everyone. Councilman Hershey said he is not a pool expert and supports the project as presented by staff. Councilman Paulson supports the project although he would have like the diving off to the side. Councilman Paulson said there are space considerations that not everything everyone wants can fit. Councilman Paulson said his concern is that this project is something the city can look back on with pride. Ms. Ohlson told Council the GM Commission had a resolution with conditions. The different conditions are (1) a biannual parking review is conducted. Staff feels this is a good idea and the parking review should be conducted at the 2 and 4 year points Council agreed to add this condition. Mayor Richards asked if Council needs to adopt all the conditions the GM Commission adopted. Worcester said no, their resolution is a recommendation to Council, who can adopt all or none of the conditions. Sadler pointed out there is a GM Commission condition stating if the approval was not passed in total, they rescind their approval. Worcester said the GM Commission made a recommendation of approval with certain conditions. Council can accept or reject one, all or none of the recommendations. Mayor Richards said she does not want the city to agree to overkill measures. Worcester suggested #10 read, "the applicant will implement applicable and reasonable parking and transportation management strategies outlined in the Charlier report". Councilman McCabe said Council cannot anticipate problems that may arise, that they cannot solve quickly but could solve in the long term. Council agreed with that language. 9 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Barwick pointed out #6, section 3, 2B, "city shall either reach an agreement with the county for the cost of maintaining Maroon Creek road or annexing Maroon Creek road". Barwick said Council is not intending to maintain or to annex all of Maroon Creek road from the roundabout up to Maroon Bells. Barwick said this should be the section of Maroon creek road from the roundabout to Iselin. Council agreed to "between the roundabout and Iselin park parking lot". Worcester said he represented to the GM Committee that Council agreed to this. Councilman McCabe asked what standard will be used. Worcester said this will be negotiated with the county. Mayor Richards suggested the southernmost boundary of Iselin park. Randy Ready, assistant city manager pointed out this leaves Council the options of annexing or negotiating on maintenance. Mayor Richards suggested this go to the end of the city property, the boundary at the tennis courts. Ready said he was trying to cover the boundary of the impact, cars will be turning into the parking lot. Council agreed to southernmost boundary of Iselin Park. Councilman Hershey said in the future this will be one of the greatest legacies of this Council. Councilman Hershey moved to adopt Ordinance #6, Series of 2001, as reflected by the amendments above, on second reading; seconded by Mayor Richards. Councilman Markalunas said auto congestion will be a problem and will have to be dealt with. The city needs to implement a plan with an IGA. Councilman McCabe said he is glad the city found money to study the feasibility of adding ice to this facility and that the private sector has been working with the city on this facility. The youth center has also been included in this facility. Mayor Richards thanked Jackie Broughton and L.J. Erspamer for their help on this project over the years. Mayor Richards said this will be a fantastic facility, a place of joy. Roll call vote; Councilmembers Markalunas, yes; McCabe, yes; Paulson, yes; Hershey, yes; Mayor Richards, yes. Motion carried. 10 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 ORDINANCE #10, SERIES OF 2001 - Historic Preservation Strategy Councilman Hershey said staff spoke to Suzannah Reid, Gilbert Sanchez, Susan Dodington and Melanie Roschko who said they supported this ordinance. Staff could not reach Jeffrey Halferty, Rally Dupps. Lisa Markalunas is present at this meeting. Mayor Richards opened the public hearing. John Worcester, city attorney, reminded Council the land use code deals with the inventory. This ordinance suspends the operation of that section; any actions to put people on the inventory or take people off the inventory is suspended for six months. The purpose of this action is to allow staff to try and come up with standards, procedures, and incentives and to look at the entire historic inventory section of the code. The reason for the emergency ordinance is if this went through the normal channels, people would get into the appeals process and staff and Council would be dealing with the appeals rather than the larger issues. Mayor Richards said she thought the consensus from Council's meeting with HPC and the consultant was to take time to refine the code and give the HPC more strength and more objective criteria and understanding of the community support. Lisa Markalunas said she does not disagree with Ordinance #10 but does disagree with the emergency ordinance process. Ms. Markalunas said no one on the HPC was aware this would be adopted in two nights. Ms. Markalunas said HPC has asked to speed up the process on some things and has always been told they need to stick to the process. Ms. Markalunas noted HPC has taken a lot of pressure for procedural things. Worcester told Council staff has notified all 17 applicants who are waiting to get off the inventory. Ms. Markalunas said she does not have a problem with Council passing this ordinance; however, she wanted to express displeasure at the process. Councilman McCabe said Council should not do this to HPC again. Mayor Richards suggested a letter of explanation and apology to the HPC members go out as soon as possible. Mayor Richards closed the public hearing. Councilman Markalunas moved to adopt Ordinance #10, Series of 2001, on second reading; seconded by Councilman McCabe. Roll call vote; 11 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 Councilmembers Hershey, yes; McCabe, yes; Paulson, yes; Markalunas, yes; Mayor Richards, yes. Motion carried Councilman Markalunas moved to adjourn at 9:10 p.m.; seconded by Councilman Hershey. All in favor, motion carried. Kathryn S. Koch, City Clerk 12 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council February 27, 2001 ORDINANCE #10, SERIES OF 2001 - Historic Preservation Strategy ....... 1 ORDINANCE #6, SERIES OF 2001 - Conceptual and Final PUD Iselin Park ................................ ................................ ................................ ............. 2 ORDINANCE #10, SERIES OF 2001 - Historic Preservation Strategy ...... 11 13