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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.boa.19860529 CITY OF ASPEN BOARD OF ADJUSTNENT MAY 29, 1986 CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS 4:00 P.N. A G E N D A I. CALL TO ORDER II. NEW BUSINESS Case #86-12 / Aspen Grove Assoc. III. ADJOURNMENT LAVAGNINO Property is located in the zoning district. Section 24-5 .10 (2) ; the aggregate sign area permitted along any one street shall not exceed one square foot of sign area for each three feet of lot line frontage occupied or projected from the building in which the principal use is conduted. Applicant appears to be requesting to overturn the zoning officers interpr- etation of the sign code. Now Rick would you like to make a statement to TADDUNE I would like to know if the applicant has a problem with me and the conflict with this or anyone in this here and would you mind telling why or any one in the audience or the board for that matter. One of the principles we are the owners of the building , it is an apartment of mine A pratner of yours and a business friend ship anlother business friendship Frank Woods. LAVAGNINO Does anyone have any objection to Rick Head serving on this board to here this case. TADDUNE Do you feel you can sit impartial to the application; do you have any business interest in the subject? LAVAGNINO Do you have any objection Paul? TADDUNE No I have no Objection I can ' t see that there is an actual conflict except for a LAVAGNINO Did you want to tell about your wife' s interest in this as being relevent, Does she have an interest in the porposal? HEAD No. I think we are aware of that. O.K. SCHIFFER We took the time and out of the structure it doesn 't seems to me that it is a conflict. LAVAGNINO Would you please identify yourself for the record Schiffer Yes, my name is Spensor Schiffer and I 'm an attorney, and I represent Aspen Coal Associates, with me is Melenda Pierson. I 'll have you know also a representative of the applicant. LAVAGNINO Do you care to expand on Do you have an affidavit of 1 the posting? SCHIFFER Yes, I do. As a matter of fact we've got the sign with us as well SCHIFFER Bill Drueding has an appraisal pamphlet that tells exactly what you need to do and about the requirements, at least in his mind it is that way. Let him present that to you. SCHIFFER O.K. I might add that we have satisified all the other criteria for your juridiction to appeal this file within key 60 daysof the decision or determination by the Bill Drueding officer charged with the administration of the city inforcement of the design code. His decisions was made on April 8 , at an HPC meeting and we feel this was filed on April 24 which of course is within the 60 day request time period. As you can see, the posting notice was made in accordiance to the requirements of the section we have submitted in the affidavit, and we've got the sign here with us. In addition, to which written notice was mailed to all property owners within 300 feet of the subject property in acordance section 2-22c2. Would you like me to procceed with the explanation of the appeal. LAVAGNINO Sure. SCHIFFER Basically, the appeal before you is two fold. The first part is the request for you to review the determination of Bill Drueding, which was made as I mention at a HPC meeting regrading the applicants request to put awnings or valances up and I 'm not sure which they should be called for the sake of this meeting, but I' ll call them a valance. A valance on the second floor of the Aspen Groove Building which would be a continuous canapee type valance going from one end, around the court yard to the other , just on the second floor . It was purposed that in front of each store on the second floor there would be the stores name printed in neat letters in white on green valance. At the HPC meeting the LAVAGNINO We are not to clear as, is this an appendage to the awning, is that what your valance is? SCHIFFER No, the valance and the awning would actually be canipee shaped round with the drop, I believe six inches, LAVAGNINO And on this six inches which this sign would appear? SCHIFFER That is right. In the front of each store, and this would be continuously all around here, and then in front of each store there would be printed in this area the name of the store. LAVAGNINO I see. 2 SCHIFFER The HPC approved the installation of the awning or valance of the first store and insidentally they discussed a continuous type valance similar in design except for the extent that the awning would be trangluar in shape rather than around canapee shape . On the first floor and in the course of the approval and just prior to the approval Bill Drueding, mentioned that he was concerned that we intend to put lettering on the valance that it was a sign question and that indeed in his interuptation that his view would be contrary to the divisions of the sign code and was with me to come before you and give bearin- gs . And that ' s why we ' re here. It is our position that his interpretation of that section of the sign code which he feels applies in case is incorrect and so we would ask you to review that in first part and if you agree with us that his interputation - was- incorrect -then I don' t think- we need- to go- arty- farther, if- however, you agree that his interputation is correct and this would come within the preview of that section of the sign code then we would ask for a variance and requirments so that we could go ahead and as requested letter or have lettering acried to that valance as requested. Now before I do begin what I would like to do is hand out to you a photo copy of that section of the sign code which is in question. It is a little bit easier to read because it was enlarged by a HEAD So did you intend to remove the lettering and signs on the windows of each of the shops. SCHIFFER No. HEAD So this is in addition too. SCHIFFER Yes, this would be in addition to that. LAVAGNINO Let 's hold the questions please till he finishes his presentation till so we all have a chance to ask them. SCHIFFER What one of the reasons I feel that way is because at least my interputation on this section of the code and directing your attention to subsection 2-245 .10. I ask you to read along with me. The agrigates sign area permitted along any one street shall not exceed one square foot of sign area for each three feet of lot line frontage occupied by or projected from the building to in which the prinicple use in conducted. This reduces fronting line allies shuts computes there fronting ??????? By considering the alley as the front lot line frontage in no case shall the agrigate sign area for anyone use on anyone frontage exceed 20 square feet. Now, I read that section to mean that, if you have signs along the street it' s regulated by that section and compute the lot line frontage and determines whether or not the sign falls within the requirements or doesn't. The awnings or valance if you will is on the interior court yard it has extentions on either ends east and west end which could presumably be determined to 3 be on the fronting of the street, but the rest of them are not they are in the court yard. And so conversally if you had signs which were not along the street, I submit that they are not regular that this code was never design to regulate signs in a court yard. And if you read this way it is simple and straight forward and it doesn't give you an interputation problem. With all do respect to Bill Drueding, who does this on a regular daliy bases and has been doing it for a long time, I think that what he has done is, he has tried to take a portion of the code that falls short of what the city would prehaps like to see. And he has broadened the interputation and expaned the application to areas were it wasn't intended to expand too and then when you do that this section -becomes, at least to me and other people who have discussed it, incapable of reasonable interpretation. You have it neboulous and ambiguous it' s difficult to determine what it is, street frontage, lot line frontage, and how do you compute it. So again I think this was designed to deal with sign along a public right away, along the street, along the allies, indeed I think the city has every reason to want to and to attempt approp- erate regulated signs that are on the streets and allies, again conversally I don't think the city has any interest in regulating signs in court yards whether or not they are fully open, or fully enclosed the logical extension of this interpretation would be that in an fully enclosed court yard the city would have the right to regulate the sign and I think that is clearly wrong. Any way, simply stated I think that it is clear that we disagree with this interpertation and therefore do not feel that the purposed lettering on the valances comes within imperview of this section and that is the determination of the building inspector from which we are appearing is wrong. The code is being rewritten, I understand that it' s got some way to go before it' s presented to council and the ordinance formed and I think again with all do respect to the building inspector I heard difficult job in introm he is doing his best to administer and interperupt a section that is difficult to administer and interprute the way he is try to do it that is expanding. I don't want to put words in his mouth and I think if you will permit me to I would like to ask him some questions which would help to focus your intensions on some of those issues that need to be focused on. SCHIFFER Bill if you would you SCHIFFER It' s been years since I 've appeared before the board of adustments and I frankly don' t know how formal the meetings are. If thats the way it's done and it' s proper to do it fine I hadn't intended to. TADDUNE You want it to be soren SCHIFFER N0, I hadn't intended to and I believe that I tell the truth whether I'm soren or not 4 LAVAGNINO It' s on the record, anyway. SCHIFFER O.R. if you would Bill would you give us your interprt- ation of section 245 .10 which would repore to regulate the purposed lettering on the awnings in this case. DRUEDING It ' s interpretation is how it has been applied in tradition. SCHIFFER Well, I want to know in this particular case how it is interpreted so that he feel' s that it regulates, what we feel dosen't regulate. TADDUNE Well, I think the comberson of that question is the fact that there are other properties that are similar, in a sence that a person could obserb a sign that is one fourth in the postion to irritate the interior court yard, but it is obserbable -from the street. And Bill would tell you better to answer your question. There have been similar situations were the city (administrative services) has interpreted the code with regard to that situation. SCHIFFER Fine. DRUEDING First let me back up, if any of you can see from the public rightaway a sign. The court yards, interior, you can see a sign and this code and what Mr Dreuding is saying is in a normal street which is 300 ft. long, so they wanted no more than 100 square foot of sign along this street, that was the max that they figured and they had certain sizes so to me this is saying that if you have depending on your frontage, on your front O.k. you have the right to that much signage. This particular building here has 92 knots devided by 3 . SCHIFFER Itis more than three lots. DRUEDING Say it is 4 , o.k. if it were 120 divided by 3 it would be 40 square foot of sign permitted along that frontage at all. And I ' ll tell that ' s probably double if not more than prmitted. So in interpreting this code I 've had to take the people in the front having the street frontage on the lower levels as having the right to have signs. Schiffer Let me ask you this. Is it your interpretation that sign area permitted along any one street would include not only the stores that actually front on the street, but the stores that are set back and face the street? DRUEDING Yes, if they' re set back there the ones that have there frontage just like you. SCHIFFER Could I use this board. 5 LAVAGNINO Sure. SCHIFFER This will maybe, so I can understand myself a little better. O.K. thats the building with one phisode along a street and there are stores all along here, that' s oviously along the street now if this building were futher than fronting all along the street, was had a court yard like this, do these stores front on the street? DRUEDING These stores front on the street. These do not. SCHIFFER These do not. DRUEDING So, right, so this has got 90 feet will side from here to here. So this is thrity, and you got thrity here and you got thiry here. It is very simple. It fronts the street. And they got the lot line frontage. SCHIFFER O.K. Now in calculating lot line frontage which is not the same question I just asked. What I just asked was that the first part of the question is, is a store fronting on a street and therefore if it has a sign it would be in the perview of the sign code. Now I 'm asking you whether or not, let me rephase that, How do you now measure lot line frontage? DRUEDING This is what, the front? It is pretty involved. SCHIFFER Do you measure it, this is included in lot line, this is included in lot line, and this is included in lot line frontage. DRUEDING That's it. Right. that ' s what is fronting that lot line. It doesn' t say on the lot line, it says fronts the lot line. SCHIFFER O.K. is this included? DRUEDING NO. SCHIFFER O.K. and this is not included? DRUEDING NO SCHIFFER So any stores that had signs on these interrior court yards facing in would not come with in the curview of the sign code. DRUEDING No, they just have a right to a sign. Because the rights have been taken out by the people of the frontage. If this can be seen from, if that sign that promotes the interest can be seen from the public right of way it is a sign. SCHIFFER O.K. now lets take it a little further. Now supposing that the buildings just being built and there are no signs at all now how do you determine which of the stores can and can not have 6 signs? DRUEDING The way this should have been done. TADDUNE Wait a second. SCHIFFER I'm not interested in hering what should have been done TADDUNE Is the building in singal ownership? That ' s being constructed SCHIFFER I'm not sure that makes any difference, but let ' s say yes it is in singal ownership. DRUEDING It certainly does. SCHIFFER ya Ya DRUEDING The landlord that should have come in and SCHIFFER No, I 'm saying starting with a hypothetical situation that I ' m giving you is a new building being constructed. And there are no signs in fact there are no stores. Now they are renting the space out to perspective store owners and they want to be able to tell the store owners whether or not they can have signs. DRUEDING Then they say, measure your lot line frontage and then devide it by three and that would tell you how much signage you can have. . SCHIFFER So that these stores could have signs. DRUEDING No. SCHIFFER Just DRUEDING No,no LAVAGNINO Bill if they aloted if the owner distributed, the allowed signage for all of that area he could have allow a certain signage for that interior court and take it away from some of the frontage stores. DRUEDING O.K. but LAVAGNINO I think that' s what he' s asking. DRUEDING That's possible, but what happens is, that has happened historically and I haven' t seen where it hasn' t happened yet. 7 LAVAGNINO And these are hypothetical situations SCHIFFER That is right strictly hypothetical DRUEDING That could happen. SCHIFFER Now we are dealing with one a story building. What if they double and have a two store building. Would it make any difference? In other words is the lot line frontage doubled? DRUEDING Now I see what he is saying, There is so much signage allowed on this thing, whatever, right, But what happens is it is taken up right away here by the people in the front. and that will over sign so the second level dosen't have a chance for signs, and there is not one building in the, and you guys show me someplace in here that isn' t that way. SCHIFFER Now, lets say here's SCHIFFER Would you say something for clarification so the record is recorded. Is what you are saying Bill that the amount of sign that is allowed, is a function of the length of the frontage on the street, DRUEDING Right, Yes TADDUNE And DRUEDING For the total building. TADDUNE For the total building whether it is one store interior, court yard, three stories , five stories or whatever. DRUEDING Yep SCHIFFER O.K. so that your interpretation of this section of the code is such that reguardless if the building was one storie or five stories it would have the same lot line frontage and therefore it would be allowed to have the same sign square footage. DRUEDING My interpretation has been that there are always to many signs there. you can have 30 square foot of sign basically you should be able to put it were you want to. But hold on, but what has happened individual stores owners have come in and they, and these are the first renters, or the first ones that ask for signs and that' s why you give the signs to them. Because the landlords don ' t get it together and they tell everybody they can have a sign, and they can't do that. And this is were we have had a problem so I've said these people have priority rights, these people on the first leval because they are usually in it first. 8 SCHIFFER So people on the first level have a priority right as far as having signs. DRUEDING I haven't seen it yet were they haven' t been the first ones in. SCHIFFER Now, lets that this. TADDU NE You say they have a priority right because they have taken up the full extent and there is nothing left over for the other ocuppants of the building. DRUEDING That's what I mean. TADDUNE But, than if they would not take it up then there would be signage space available to the other occupants SCHIFFERBut, this is your interpretation based apond the code as it is presently writen. DRUEDING Based upon the code as presently written and historical , what I've seen out there and what's been going on out there. SCHIFFER Now you've been around for a long time, is this code written with the concept in mind deal with the kinds of situations we've got now.For example: Two story buildings with court yards. DRUEDING Absolutely not, that' s why it is being rewriten, that' s why you are before this board, that' s why this board takes the time to listen to this. As far as I'm concerned the code was written for one level like Hyman Street Mall were you had stores along street that were only one story, no interior malls, no second storie rooms. SCHIFFER And no court yards. No court yards. SCHIFFER So just finally then, I 've got a two story building here sitting on three lots, its got 90 feet of street frontage, right, It dosen' t have 180 because it is two stories. It has 90 . Even though there maybe stores on the second floor. DRUEDING It says they can be three feet per one foot of lot line frontage for the entire street, they didn't mean, I'm sure they didn 't mean if you had, they meant just one level, right DRUEDING A hundred square foot a side along hyman street mall is alot of signage, SCHIFFER O.K. But in this instant you would take the 90 feet of 9 frontage and divide it by three, right and you could then persumably have 10 square feet of signs along the street for this entirer building, DRUEDING Say it again SCHIFFER 30 , I'm sorry what did I say DRUEDING 10. SCHIFFER It is 30 PATERSON It doesn' t matter how you divide it up, whether it is five stories or one storie it the law SCHIFFER That' s the point I 'm tring to make. DRUEDING We got that, but the thing is you already over signed. So you are all ready in the wrong because the building has to many signs. SCHIFFER I have'nt got a building. LAVAGNINO We are aware of what you've been discussing. SCHIFFER I 'm sure you have. I 'm sure this has come about before. I have never had this before with you so I, so that why I 'm just takeing it through, and it seems very tedeous. I 'm sorry if it is time consumming. LAVAGNINO That' s alright, that's why we are here. SCHIFFER I 've got some photographs here. Let me just hand you this first one, which is marked number 1 on the back so that when it goes into the record book we will know which one we are talking about and if you identify that. And would you Identify that photograph please, DRUEDING I don't know the name of this building. HEAD It's the PIERSON 601 tower SCHIFFER is there an address on the back? DRUEDING 601 E. Towers SCHIFFER Now, that is a two story building, is it not. and it ' s got onings on the first and second floors with signs on both. DRUEDING Yes. 10 SCHIFFER Is that regulated by the sign code. DRUEDING Yes. SCHIFFER That is regulated by the sign code. DRUEDING There is not one permit for any of that. SCHIFFER Not one permitt DRUEDING Not one permitt for that signage LAVAGNINO What are you talking about. SCHIFFER Let me get to it. You see your interpretation, based upon your interpretation this section of the code though, it would seem to me that second storie stores can not have signs. DRUEDING No, that' S not what I 'm saying. What I 'm saying is SCHIFFER Let me then ask you this DRUEDING I have never had to judge this because I 've never came me for a permitt that was there before the starting of my position, so I've never, whether he serched and there is only so much I can do and there are many illegal signs in town and that' s just another sample of it. SCHIFFER Is that an expample of an illegal sign? DRUEDING Absolutely, there is no permitt as far as I know. Otherwise I can' t judge anything without it. So burn the applic- tation? SCHIFFER In other words if he had the required amount of square footage, frontage and he met all the criteria for the amount of signage he was allowed and he distributed that on the second floor he would be allowed to do that. DRUEDING Yes. LAVAGNINO Does that answer part of my qustion? SCHIFFER Yes that answers the question. LAVAGNINO He dosen' t know that he doesn't have any information as to whether those requirements were met in that particular photograph because the permit was never issued for that, its illegal it was never calculated. So therefore, I mean if some, I assume that some citizens made a complaint that he would have to go to either, take it down or go through the proccess. 11 TADDU NE Wait, what I think Bill said is that it inidated his appointment. He is the zoning enforcement officer so he's never really looked in to that. Whether it is illegal or not it is something that depended on facts and whether it had been reviewed whether a variance had been attended. There are several elements that it would be, that I think would be unwise speculatation. LAVAGNINO Alright, SCHIFFER One other point about this section of the code, is it would seem to me that if this section was written with the intension of dealing only with buildings that had one story. That the calculations would appear to be at least fair with respect to one sort of building and that is, that if the calcula- tions are applied to signs that face along a street and you calculate street frontage you come up with some fairly reasonable, as applied to those on the street. DRUEDING This is what the code says that on a 100 square foot of sign worth 300 feet of. But the council want or any one else will want then they may have second now they still need not one sign but to me I don't no what the council when this code was written will want. I don' t know whether they will want more signage on the second levels, or interior. They may just still want one square foot per feet. DRUEDING I don't know. DRUEDING I think they would care. LAVAGNINO I think your second point now and your still on whether the building suspector made the determination that was correct in interpruting the code. Now it seems like your flowing to another area were you intending to do that or are you finished with this aspect. SCHIFFER Not just yet, no I'm still having a problem with this and what I want to try and point out if not through what he is saying because it would begin to see how nebulous and difficult this is in terms of interperting this code in relation to whats going on today. But that if in fact you attempt to apply the calultions in away which does not deal with the, what I think is the proper interpretation of the stores actully fronting on the street, then you have a problem in terms of fairness that is if you have a two story building obviously you divide the municpal signage in half . LAVAGNINO Not necessarily. The code does not address it that' s why you are here for us to say that there is, for us to say or determine there is an injustice here, that possibly the code does 12 not address this. But it doesn' t relieve the building inspector of that responsiblity to interperate the code as it is presented to him. And its your asking us to make a determination on that. I assume right? SCHIFFER Right. LAVAGNINO Now it seems like you ' ve left that area and your talking about the unfairness of that. And that seems to get into another area that you can address to us were we could provide relief possibly for you. SCHIFFER 0.K. - - - - - -. WHITAKER Could I make a comment? There is nothing I find in the sign code that says this applies only to one story buildings. SCHIFFER No, that is right. And it is strickly a matter of Bill' s interpretation. WHITAKER No, it is strickly a matter of allowing so many square feet of sign for so many square feet of street frontage. Regardless of whether there is one story, basement, or two stories. SCHIFFER That' s Right. WHITAKER And also you did not quote under definition section 24-5.1 subparagraph 8 which very clearly states that any devise stuck to or sign which is visable form the public right of way is considered. SCHIFFER That' s Right WHITAKER Ya. So that applies to those side pieces that don' t actually front on the streeet. SCHIFFER That' s Right. But when is it the definitional section which I didn't think we had a problem with, with the others and the application of this section having to do with commerical as opposed to residental in a sence, and in 24.510 as far as I can see the only provision which seems to be applicable according to Bill Drueding is subsection 2. Which determines the agragate sign area permitted along any one street. And I, my point is simple to reiterate that we are talking about signs that are not along the street for example the signs that are on the sides of the court yard. They don't front on the street. And are they, or are they not visable from the public right of way. You know, what I'm saying is that when you get into the interpretation of this section which does not only deal with stores and signs fronting along the street, then you complicate the interpretation and then, I don' t know what it means any more. And you have a difficult time in determining what it means and that' s why some of you people have got, 13 LAVAGNINO Well, you know when this code was writen there were no second story problems they were all on the first floor. and I think it is a error of ommission and that because of that ommission doesn't mean that the intent of the code was not to allow the uncontrolled signs and areas not mentioned in the code. I mean if you want to take to its obsinity then you could say because were not addressing the court yard way, not put a big banner on the roof. I, I mean that ' s not the intent of the code or to control those areas and because they don't address it that why you are before us. And I think that is what we want to hear from you. More than making a determination on whether the building inspector is, or we can do that too if you want. LAVAGNINO O.K. Fancis. WHITAKER One point I would like to clearify. I think that you have a feeling that's stories that do not front on the street do not have a right to a sign. I. that' s not my interpretation of it at all they can be divided up with the accurate number of square feet can only be so much. There is nothing that prohibits a sign form those buildings or from those shops that don't have street frontage. Not that I can find. SHIFFER That' s not my interpretation, I'm sorry if I confused you at the time I thought that was Bill ' s interpretation based upon what he said in the HPC meeting and reading from the minutes, He says "The Code is currently written, the second floor is not allowed to have signage. " WHITAKER Were is that? SCHIFFER That' s the Board of Appeals, I'm sorry that' s the HPC. DRUEDING That is a comment I may have made, but to be more specific. That building I should have said has all the signage, with over signage on the lower level that the second level is not permitted to have any signage. LAVAGNINO O.K. is that out of context. DRUEDING No, it is not out of context, it' s just that I got lazy. Instead of. PATERSON IN other words, when there are no signs on the ground level you could put all the signs on the second floor. Is that not correct. DRUEDING Yea. So I just, he quoted me correctly I stated it incorrectly, I was just being lazy at that time. SCHIFFER I think I know how you feel about this interpretation 14 of the applicablity of that section and we will wait until we are finished to actually tell me what it is, but I will move on and assuming that you feel that he has interpreted it correctly to apply to this insident. I still feel that in this particular instance there are all the criteria of which any one of which I think you could hinder how in terms of finding that it would be permisable to vary the requirements of the code to permitt what we are asking for. In the first place in these special conditions and circumstances do not result from the actions of the out come It will result rather from what I consider to be obsolete perhaps arcaic provision and a code which Bill has stated was written at a time which the counsil and people drafting it probably did not conflict that we would have this kind of development and particu- larly I think it was real dedeal with the Hyman street mall and the sign of all the malls. And to apply that section of the code in this particular instance would involve the constrants would be unfair and unreasonable. And number 2 special circumstances applied at the subject property that do not apply similarly to other properties in the same vacinity of the zone. And that is because simply we do have a two story building in a zone in which we have got retail shops on the second story and the second story is set back from the street and if we were to include the second story from having signs because of this particular code we would be, I think unfair, unreasonable, and therefore the interpretation given an arbirtary and perhaps contrious as it relates to those stores the granting of the variance in assential to the enjoyment of this substantial property right enjoyed by other properties in the same vacenity and zone but do not deny the subject property because of the special conditions and exoridinary circumstances. There are in fact many other buildings that do enjoy a right to have signs and awnings with signs on the second store. I without taking the time to ask Bill Drueding to look at each one of these and distinguish them formally from this specific instance I'm glad LAVAGNINO Are you saying you that you are not enjoying right now there are no signs on the second floor. SCHIFFER There are signs on the second floor. LAVAGNINO So that you are enjoying that right, right now. SCHIFFER That's right, but I'm saying that to limit or perclude the owners of stores on the second floor or the owners in the building to construct an awnig with signage on the front of the awning, indicating that the store is there is unfair. LAVAGNINO Would you be willing to take the signs down this time if you had that right? SCHIFFER Well LAVAGNINO You need the criteria even if you were on the first 15 floor. SCHIFFER Yes, I, I well, well I'm saying yes that I would deal with that problem. I can ' t speak now for the owners without consulting with them, but I can tell you that their interest is in creating a new formiding of the design estedically to the building and that if it would help and if that would be a requir- ement they will in fact then go the the individual store owners and say to the store owner would you perfere to have your sign on an awning or would you perfere to have your sign on glass. And you can have a choise. And I think that's a reasonable suggestion which I will pass on, but what I am saying if you take a look at this building and then you compare it with many of the other buildings such as the building at 408 South Hunter I know it as the Fry By Night Building, and you take a look at that, its got signs on the first floor, sign on the windows on the second floor which you can ' t see, awnings or valances with a noting on it. There is the Ajax Mountain building which is a very similar situation and they got signs in the windows, on the front, hanging from the front, I HEAD There are abuses all over town. SCHIFFER Well Rick, I think it is jermain in a sence that if there are other building which have the same or similar situations and your committed by commision or other wise to have these signs then it is unfair arbitray and descriminate to prohit this particular building then HEAD Then you are coming before for an application SCHIFFER Exactly right this building is doing it the proper way they are coming before you and asking that and LAVAGNINO And we appreciate it HEAD We do appreciate that SCHIFFER In the proper situation and that they should not be penalized and descrimated against because they are doing that. WHITAKER I ' m note one line here in your text. And I think you' re working on the wrong premise because it says sence just by reason of the fact that they happen to be on the second floor they are secluded from having any signs. That is not the fact. Then that is not correct. SCHIFFER- -You are right. In fact -that- statement was made as part of the application to the response to what Bill Drueding has said at the HPC meeting and in subsequint conversations with him I understood him to interprete that section of the Code which is in question to state that you can not have signs if you are on the 16 second floor and so benail through the questioning I 'm happy to get him to elaborate and explain why it is that way. LAVAGNINO Well, It' s funny because your initial arguement is that, that is wrong that interpretation was wrong and then you used that arguement as that you are percluded from it. First of all, you say that you don' t agree with him that that is the interpretation and then you say that you are percluded and that cancels that out. SCHIFFER No, no what I 'm saying is that I don' t think that that section of the code would apply to the stores on the second story that did not front on the street. And then I 'm saying however if you disagree and you feel that he is right and it does apply then in any event it is inherently decrimatory. WHITAKER See I have no way of knowing from these pictures those are the accurate signage on those, correct or incorrect. And that's an important point, the fact that some of them are down basement level, some are second floor that has nothing to do with it. It is the number of square feet for the lot line frontage. You have created or your owners have created a very difficult situation. Not only with two stories, but with the court yard in there they have created an awful amount of store frontage . Compared to the if the store was right across ninty feet long. You would probably at least double the amount of store frontage there and everybody wants signs but you can not increase the street frontage. SCHIFFER Yes, however, this is a unique situation, Fancise and it's not. The sign code did not address that problem. WHITAKER I know. LAVAGNINO We can' t blame them for building a new building with a court yard and then say well you don' t have 90 foot frontage therefore you have a problem. WHITAKER The Landlord has divided it up. So you are allowed 30 square feet per sign. See. The landlord have devided it up equally among all shops and everybody can have a sign. Whether it is purchased or facing the street or facing the court yard. But that has apparently not been done. PIERSON Mr. Chairman just to change the package a little bit here. I had a question in all these request there is no mention of the size of the actual lettering that you are purposing for the awnings. I think that is something that you should include. LAVAGNINO But it is also the signs that they have up too. which must be counted into the square footage. The matality of all the signs of what you want as far as the barrings on the second floor. 17 ? I don' t know if you have that. SCHIFFER Well we do have that. WHITAKER I was going to ask I have that written down. How many square feet of sign would be on the purposed valances? SCHIFFER 35 .68 square feet. Malinda did the caculations. PIERSON That is assuming that the lettering on the valances is similar in size to that of the exsisiting Aspen Rod and Gun Pole. That faces on the street, it is the exsisting green valance on that building. LAVAGNINO Are we using the whole valance as a PIERSON No, no just useing the amount of area that the lettering would take. LAVAGNINO Now Bill how do you, you don't caculate that, right. DRUEDING Yes, I do. PIERSON Yes, the boundry of the letters. AUSTIN The boundry of the letters or the boundry of the board which the letter is on? DRUEDING We are just going the have to do alot of interpretatio- n. And I don't take the whole valance I take the boundry of the lettering. I feel I give people a break on that situation. LAVAGNINO So on the on a sign that extends from a building you do the same thing? DRUEDING No, they are held very definete geometric. Here's why that came about because you have something called waltering. And I just don ' t feel that there, you have a big blue or whatever awning and a valance or I could say that is a geometric thing. LAVAGNINO That is what I'm asking? DRUEDING But I didn't feel that was fair. In liue of that I just go back LAVAGNINO I just want to know what method you are using? and make sure that we are consistant. So that when we have the cases before us that we are measuring the same thing all the time. DRUEDING Just the letters. 18 WHITAKER I have a question. Is that how you calculated your 35.8 square feet was it boundry of the actual letters not the valance. PIERSON Right, and the toll means of the exsisting shops were, maybe some of the shops won't want there entire v erba ge on it that they have now. Like the optromisist let see whats that call John's optical Shop or something. Possiably they are not going to want the entire name on it. And that' s just supposing that they would. WHITAKER Do you know how many square feet is allowed according to this section of the code. How many front feet frontage do you have? SCHIFFER Well, I did some rough calculations. And I didn' t do very well when I did them like that. I hope I did them better this time.Taking the lot line frontage I get 137 .5 linear feet, which divided by 3 would five you 45 .83 square feet. DRUEDING How much signage do you have on the lower level? How much signage do you have in the building exsisting? DRUEDING All together it is 50 square feet around. And this is 35 minuse 85 square feet. LAVAGNINO See we don' t know kind of barrings, Because we don' t have a base to go on. We don't know how much you are over now. SCHIFFER But we do have it, we could calculate it, but the point is that I think that when you begin to use these calculations, at least I have a very difficult time doing calculations because I don't know, at least now I know what those interpretations of lot line frontage is. I frankly am still not convenced that is the approperate way to calculated lot line frontage sence the ordinance was written in a time when we did not have multi storied buildings and court yards. So is it fair to use thos types of calculations when LAVAGNINO We might agree with you that it is not fair, but still we have to know how much variance we are going to give you if we give you one. And we have to know even if, suppose it is four times the amount of your square f000tage and you real only need twice sence it is two stores. We don' t want to give it back. Or should we give you an unfair advantage too. We want to be fair, but we don' t want to give you more than you are, that we feel you are intitled too. And we are not going to know that unless we know the total square footage of what you are using know in terms of signs on that whole building. WHITAKER May I elaborate on that a little bit. 19 SCHIFFER Sure. WHITAKER This to me is like the question that comes in when somebody wants to ask what is to there foot print on the block. We need to know what the lot size is and what percentage they are allowed, how much they have and how much they are aking for. And you don ' t have that fort. We have to know. We need the sign footage on the building now. SCHIFFER We do have it. WHITAKER Oh, You do have it. SCHIFFER Yes. SCHIFFER I was trying to stump them. Actually I, I you know It I was trying to bet the question, Frankly because it I think it is DRUEDING That' s fine if you don't want to answer it. AUSTIN Signage on this valance, could you put the valance up. SCHIFFER The valance could go up AUSTIN The valance is no problem. So it is just strickly whether you can get the signage. SCHIFFER That is right. And I , the store owners want the valances because they want to get that that advertising that can be seen. AUSTIN Are they willing to give up there other signage? Have you even discussed that? SCHIFFER I can' t speak for them. I don' t know? I know I have AUSTIN So if they came to us and said that they want you know they want a certain size on their door and the valance you know,but if PATERSON We can make a condition. SCHIFFER Yes, I was going to suggest that, if that is how you feel then I would suggest that you condition of that. The store may have a sign on the valance provided that it then does not have a sign on the glass. AUSTIN Or a limited sign on the glass. LAVAGNINO An informational sign so that people walking by will say. 20 AUSTIN Yea, because when you are under the valance you can't see. LAVAGINIO But that would be very small. LAVAGNINO Not advertising to the public out front, but advertising only to repeat informational to people on the second floor looking around. PATERSON And what size LAVAG NINO We would decide that. DRUEDING I just hope that when you do your calculations of the exsitent signage that is there you read this definition of a sign. SHCIFFER Yes, I have read it. DRUEDING Because there is a lot of SCHIFFER Well , heres an example. There is one store that I don't want to mention the name of this store right now, because there is some , that I'm lead to belief is going to vacate. And it has got a large sign. That sign may come down, but if we include that sign in our calculations it is going to distort it and to the extent that it distortes it and then give you the impression that we are way over when we may not be. It is. PATERSON It is obvious that if we do consider granting a variance there will be conditions. And when we make those conditions it is rude to whatever, is on the glass or whatever extra signage is on for on a store that might be vacated. So it really doesn' t help us very much if we go to grant a variance and make conditions on it to know what the world is dancing too, people need to know. Because we can make a condition that we will grant a certain valance sign on the condition that the other signs are only informational like we were thinking about. LAVAG NINO Are you talking about the total building now. Or just the second floor. PATERSON I'm talking about the total building. AUSTIN The total building. MANN I would like to say that I think this is the opportunity that we have wished for in other cases, were the total building was being considered instead of just one and part. PATERSON And this may be a chance for the City Council to go over and look at the sitivation and try to make the new ordinance to read to something that is paletable for the city of Aspen. 21 LAVAGNINO I feel like we are making legilation. No rough draft on the SO MANY PEOPLE SPEAKING THAT I CAN'T CATCH WHAT IS BEING SAID. DRUEDING There will be a report before City Council within two weeks or at least three and it will be the draft that they will be looking at. PATERSON Maybe they need a little guidance. MANN Yes. MANN I think what we need is guidance. LAVAGNINO Well I think that Bill knows our, and he -sort- of -is our leason at council and DRUEDING The word got done with second stories and interior malls, and down stairs. They have all been address, but I can' t tell them what to do either. It is just a sujestion. But when it does get to council and something is done you might want to go to the hearings and contribute them. You will see what is being looked at. WHITAKER Mr. Schiffer are you also familuar with section 24-5 .6 sign measurement and the calculating of the areas of. SCHIFFER Yes, Sir and we are DRUEDING When the word got done with it second stories, interior malls, the down stairs of they have all been addressed. But I can' t tell them what to do either. I just have sugestions. If you guys have. But when it does get to council and something is done you might want to go to some hearings and contribute then. And see what is being looked at. WHITAKER Mr. Chairman, Mr. Schiffer are you also fimiluar with section 24-5 .6 sign measurement and calculating the areas of? SCHIFFER Yes sir. And we are on petition. PIERSON If you have border we count from out side border to outside border, if you didn' t have border we count from out side lettering to outside lettering. LAVAGNINO There are also some window displays which are also considered as signs. PIERSON Yes. 22 DRUEDING Decals, so many things are considered as signs. I don't you are going to come up with as a fee, but I'd have to work on it. PIERSON Yes, I have the figures. The only thing we did not count in this or on this informational oversight is as I open and close signs that are hung on the inside of windows you know that sort of stuff. American Express. DRUEDING That is suppose to be counted. American Express is counted right here. PIERSON You count generic signs. DRUEDING Extended features of regional or national indication of a pool selbis. Thats the. Then the decals and signs identified as distinted of features and regional and national indication of pool selbis. HEAD I have a question. Are all the signs, all the letters on the valances going to be of uniform size? SCHIFFER Yes. LAVAGNINO And the type of lettering. HEAD And what happens if for some ungodly reason we could figure out a formula to developing the proper amount of signage you are allowed for that building. And applied that to all the valances and you have a dozen shops in there and just say hypothetically that each shop's name was five letters long. What happens when that store changes hands and the new shop is fifteen letters long? How do you deal with the calculations then? SCHIFFER That is a problem and I think that it is HEAD It is a nightmare. SCHIFFER The problem is inherened in the misdemenor ordenance and it's not going to get any better until the ordenance is readapted. LAVAGNINO That is something for you to consider. That' s why I asked you whether they had the background they won' t have any problem, they would have to figure into that size. TADDUNE Well if you had smaller letters. HEAD Then it wouldn ' t be uniform and then you have big ones and small ones, AUSTIN Yes, but when you look at what there is from these 23 pitures the ones that are uniform compared to the ones that aren't, there is just saying here that we felt that the uniform ones are better looking and I know that we are not suppose to look at stetistics but it is a consideration, here. AUSTIN Yes, if this is within a certain size, the Ajax Mountain Building would fit all the lettering with in a certain size. And the lettering is not all idenical but it is the back ground that ties it in. DRU EDING But that was worked out with the building Department when they built that with the signage, but what happens is the people who, he does the sign for, but then they put there own sign in the window anyway. So you got two, you just can't keep up with it. AUSTIN Heres another one similar in situation and then look at this.Even though that is not the case. These two here are junk. This is just. LAVAG NINO This is interesting because these to kinds repeat themselves. They have the exact thing on the door. AUSTIN Yes, oh yes. The problem is thought that if the sign is on the awning then the person standing under the awning can't see the sign so he needs another connection. SCHIFFER I have one other question. I still result in confusion about the court yard awning. And that is if stories faceing East and West in the court yard were not included in caluclating lot line frontage and yet they are included in terms of allowing or not allowing then to have signs, in the overall calcualation. It seems to me to be unfair. LAVAG VINO Not if they distribute the total amount that they are allowed. SCHIFFER But if you can' t, if it is a court yard facing East and West it is not fronting a street why then should it be with in the same contraints of the store facing the street? LAVAGNINO If you have a sign that extends out on a hanger it is seen from the public streets. And identifies that there is that building or business on the court yard. WHITAKER I happen to be on the City Council a number of years ago. Quite a few years ago, and I believe I helped draw up the first sign ordinance and the idea is for periferation of signs without some type of regulation. And I wish I had a post card from New Zealand were I was, You couldn' t see the buildings for the signs. That's the basic purpose and just because you have more store frontage than you have street frontage. If you fallow 24 that, if the City follows that all the way through then we have many many more problems then most of us think or thought of at the time would be approperiate to the City. SCHIFFER I agree, but I think there needs to be a formula were you take into account no just what is on the street, but that which is above the street level and what is in a court yard and what can or can' t be seen. WHITAKER I agree. HEAD The problem is further exasperated by the fact, That lets say you could come up with a formula as to how much square footage a building was allowed you divided that among the exsisting store owners and then the landlord decides to take one of those nice green spaces and turn it into three more shops as they have done in that building. That means that they are going to have to take every sign that people have spent money there and shrink them down to accomodate those three more store fronts. ? Right. SCHIFFER I think it is a nightmare, and I think that one of the reasons is because of the way that it is working and in the mean time what are people to do and what are you to do? L AVAGNINO That is why we are here. SCHIFFER May I be prejudm puous enough to offer you a suggestion a figure PIERSON I think why we are having additional problems with the signage in the court yard is because of the requi rment for open space. The building has and allows for the open space so that is why we have a court yard and the more open space we are requiring the more court yard you are going to have on the building the more the shape of the frontage is going to vary. ? It is going to get even more so. LAVAGNINO Well it is the second story that is giving us a problems the other way would be just the East, West things that we would have to take into account. PIERSON The lower level exsisting is 41 .5 which fits in with the required signage the upper level exsisting as it is now is 52. WHITAKER How much? PIERSON 52. WHITAKER 52 . 25 LAVAGNINO So you are saying that upper store is enjoying more then the lower stores and PIERSON For a good reason because basically the ability of seeing the upper levels are more difficult than the stores that enjoy the frontage. LAVAGNINO But, they pay less rent I am assuming. DRUEDING With this vaerance you are talking 120 square feet of sign. LAVAGNINO Well the only thing we don't know is how much signage is coming down or how much this new signage is going to replace. Suppose the new signage is less than 52 . HEAD No one is going to take down a thousand dollar sign that was stensiled on there store front to have an awning sign. LAVAGNINO Well we will give them the variance on the conditions that we might impose on and they can do whatever they want with it. PATERSON In other words are you saying that some stores might just put up the awning with out a sign on the front. And keep whatever they had on the glass. Then you are going to have some on the awning and some on the glass. LAVAGNINO I am not saying anything. That could be a result of the this condition. They might not want to get rid of there old signage. LAVAGNINO Is what we are hearing from Rick, right is that. HEAD Yes, Sir. LAVAGNINO Well that' s up to them. HEAD That is the landlords problem and the attendants problem. LAVAGNINO Our conditions will eliminate those signs possabley if we allow them the awning. WHITAKER I don' t know whether you are aware of it but you are already doubled your allowed signage. PIERSON Well I think the owner has considered that the first level and second story retail shops have ???? and really was not aware that they were double, more of that each level had the allowable signage. O.K. I think that this is the way that the current owners see the delima Is that the first level is in 26 compliance the second level is a couple square feet over, but the signs come that each level was in compliance with the sign code. and now what we are finding out is that only the first level was allowed certain amount of signage. LAVAG NINO 35.8 is that it or 45 .8 . AUSTIN 45 .8. WHITAKER And they have 93 .8 . PIERSON Because they have 41 and 50 a 52 on the second level. DRUEDING That is exsisting, and you are asking for a variance of 35 more. LAVAGNINO I don' t know if that is true. I would think that they would, I don't know how the board feels , but it seems to me that we are trying to eliminate unnecessary signage up there and try to be more uniform by this and therefore we may be eliminating some exsisting signage and that the total net will be less than the 52 . DRUEDUING Well that would be fine if we clean it up. But what we need is this is the third variance in this building I know that. And this is, The applicant has asked me to look at the associates, I guess that means all the attendants of theat building, right. O.K. Then why can' t you all get together, do a, show us what you are going to be doing, which ones you are going to take down. And then is you are over your allowable then you have a variance, because see what is going to happen is. SCHIFFER The landlord has put a lot of money into renivating the building and then they ran into the problem of people on the first level coming individually to the city to get approvals for awnings. And awning with signs. And to stop this and keep up with the uniform so go to the HPC and get approval to put up one uniform valance on the second floor and if that works then we will do one on the first floor. There interest is to make the building uniform and more estedicallt pleasing and that' s in there best interested to do so. So they started the HPC and then they run into a problem in terms of the indiviadual signs. I mean this was never frankly conemployed inically. Or maybe they would have gone to all the tenants although you know it is difficult to deal with a bunch of diffent tenants in the building. And if you sign a lease you may or may not be able to get them to agree to anything. So that all we are asking for is something that we think will improve and enhance the look of the building. And I think that we have a techniqual problem in terms of the lettering on the valances and that we got to deal with that and stop getting into all the other things. What we should have done or could of done . Or what you could have done or the City could have done. What other people should have done with respect to 27 their buildings and there problems we will not get any place. I'm just suggesting specifically that we grant the variance to allow us to install the valance with letters for those stores which would then reduce or remove the signage on the individual store to something that would be nominal in size and scope and/or to leave that on therefore not have the signage on the awning or valance infront of your store. LAVAGNINO Did you calculate what the new signage might be? WHITAKER On the Valance 35.8 , just on the valance. PATERSON 35 .68. WHITATKER Was it 35.68? LAVAGNINO I think they need the informaitonal signage also. That dosen't include those decals. PIERSON Like I said there was only one little decal that was not included and that was one of those American Express decal and I think that DRUEDING Do you do those glass things outside? PIERSON Which glass things? Oh, Yes that are attached to the building? DRUEDING Right. PIERSON Yes. DRUEDING Plus all the dirctary things they have. LAVAGNINO Is there anyone else on the Board who has a question to ask? Is there anyone in the audiance who would like to comment now. CALAHANE Yes. I reperensent LAVAGNINO Please Identify yourself. CALHANE My name is Robert O'Calhane I represent the Chauteau of Aspen Condominium Association. And recently we had a board of records meeting and they had requested my precence here. They are very concerned about the variance and granting of, with exceptions and conditions based on exsisting code ordinance that when you strat making conditions and exceptions the surrounding properties they just feel that this is something that either the code be changed or you no they are just concerned about it So 28 LAVAGNINO Well you have heard the discussion between the applicant and the board. How do you feel about it? CALHANE Well I think it would be to difficult to make a condition that they either have the awning and the Lettering it is up to the individual owners. I think it is not going to be uniform that way and if you start putting different conditions into the exsisting code or ordinance you are going to have other properties trying to do the same thing. And it is going to turn out to I think you need a clearly defined. LAVAGNINO I wish we had that or they wouldn't be before us. CALHANE I know but I mean know how are you going to continue doing this and were are you going to draw the line. PATERSON You should clarify with him what the Board of Adjustment does that each case is an individual. CALHANE I know this is a special case, but it is. PATERSON It dose not necessarily change the ordinance as you were saying. You were saying by use making allowances would change things all around town and that is not correct. That is a false statement because we are looking at one case at a time. LAVAGNINO It is not a presidence as a case, it is unique to this particular problem and situation and that is why we are addressing the, other people may have a different problem which we would address differently. CALHANE I was basically here because they are concerned about it. That this may affect other properties wanting similar types of situations and I know it is a speical case. LAVAGNINO Are there other questions or comments from the back? No comments? Anyone. WHITAKER I have one question. WHITAKER Do you have any insurance that any of the people that have signs now which are already in access of the allowed footage would be willing to take those signs down. LAVAGNINO Alright if we grant such a variance there would have to be a condition that they would. WHITAKER Mr. Chairman we have granted variances conditional on things that never took place. LAVAGNINO That is an inforcement problem. Not part of our jurisdiction. 29 DRUEDING Well it is an enforcement problem that stuff is up there because they don' t have time to enforce it. There are illegal signs there and if I had time they would be in court I would be taken. I don't have time to be in court. I don' t have time to inforce. LAVAGNINO But we are talking about conditions this board has imposed and I think it is incumbent upon you that when we make a decision that at least that be directed toward your attention rather than someone. DRUEDING Wait a minute it would be directed toward my attention, but I am telling you realistically it is a condition I will be unable to do because I don' t have time. LAVAGNINO Even if there. Or what if a citizen complaines about something. DRUEDING I move I put out the fires that is what I do. I take care of the immediate things. You don't understand we have- only zoning and First man officer in this city. LAVAGNINO Yes, I understand that I understand your problem, Bill. I am saying what is the purpose of our granting a variance or even dening one, especially denying them one, suppose we deny this variance and they put up the sign. DRUEDING Wait a minute the thing is the magnatude of the sign problem in this particular building to straighten it out that is a lot of work if you make that condition that I straighten that building out now they make sure all the signs are legal that is a lot of work, a lot of work. If you would have a guy who is going to build a garage you give him a set back variance that is easy I can take care of that. I look at the plans, I can inforce that. This is something different. LAVAGNINO Well I still don' t know what you are telling me, You' re saying if we deny the varianc and they put the awning up what are you going to do. PATERSON You can' t red tag it. LAVAGNINO What are you going to do if the awnings go up are you telling me your not going to do anything. DRUEDING Now wait no if the signs start on there then I 'm going, when something like this is brought to my attention it and they are denied and they start putting those signs up on those awnings they will go to court. But if you give them the variance with the condition that the other signs be taken down that are illegal I don't know that I would get around to making sure that they 30 take down all the illegal signs. LAVAGNINO But isn't the work the same amount. I mean whether you got to tell they are doing something illegal they would be doing it both ways, right. Either condition is illegal whether they put up signs illegally or they do not adhere to the conditions of the variance. DRUEDING Right, but there is 36 square foot of sign only as valances, but I know I can handle. But to go back and try get all the signs now that are illegal that is alot of work because they are going to end up in court with a lot of them. Because they are not going to want to take down the signs they paid a lot of money for. WHITAKER I'm concerned about this because the way I see it there are a large number of shops where the accurate signage is double what is allowed. Does that mean we are going to require everyone to cut the size of there individual sign in half. LAVAGNINO We haven' t determined anything yet. This board hasn' t even come to a decision yet. WHITAKER Otherwise I think it is an impossable problem to reduce that by saying how can you tell which signs are illegal? If the total is over the accurate and everybody wants a sign for there shop. I don't see how you can get half the people to take there signs down or every one to reduce there signs to half of what it is now. You think that is possible? SCHIFFER Well, I think it is possible, we have got what we got right now the only way to change that is voluntarily by the individual store owner coming in and changing it or by the city taking a position that the sign of our illegal acquiring the store owner and or building conform. And I can tell you that there will be a problem which will be much, much exasterbated by reason of effect that the store is subject to various interpretaiton like we heard today. And it is going to just result in unnecessary legalisation. I think the only resolution to the problem is the redrafting of the documents. That is the only resolution mis read which caused a problem, and I 'm saying that in the intrume the only way to deal with it fairly is to grant the variances and to impose conditions. LAVAGNINO Well I tell you Francis the only thing that might make it is that a probabley a great cost to them would be that, I would like to grant them this, there has got to be some justice involved here to grant that some variance or condition that isn't addressed in the ordiance and that the only thing that would bring it back to realality is that when a new ordiance comes into play but they need the conditions of that ordiance so that if the awnings are not apart of the meeting code at the time it is adapted that they 31 will have to come down or they will have to make code, what ever it is. And that might lesson the impact at least it is temporary solution and I think it would be a great cost to them they are the ones that are going to take the chance. If it does not meet code then they will have to rearrange it. WHITAKER If the code is coming to concil soon I think it would be better if we were to wait and see what the code permitts. LAVAGNINO That is not going to be adapted in two weeks. That is going to be another year. DRUEDING The council , I feel will move very quickly,but this will be a draft pointing out the problems not rewriting the code. Council has got to decide what is going to be written in the code with public hearings. So it is going to take some time. I don' t know how much time,but shouldn' t be. LAVAGNINO If there is any indication from when they first applied of this problem, to the time that they have acted on it, I mean it has been at least two years hasn' t it since we drew letters. SCHIFFER In response to Mr. Whitaker' s last point there is an abatant provision for not conforming the signs not presently in the code and I would expect that as a matter of law that the city would be required to have some abatement of not conforming signs, a provision to the new code. So that if in fact any of these signs do not comply they will have to abaten course with these positions DRUEDING Well yea but you would be conforming though with a variance that does not make it not conforming now. Because if they give you a variance, unless you condition it because that variance is permanent, unless they condition it. WHITAKER You calculated the area of the signs do you know how many signs there are involved in that area. PIERSON On the lower level? Lower level is one, two, three, four, five, six,seven,eight. WHITAKER Eight signs. And on the upper level. PIERSON On the upper level there are one, two, three, four, five. LAVAGNINO Are you saying that each owner has only one sign? Or are you saying these are signs or are they. PIERSON These are businesses. HEAD You got generic signs , you got 32 WHITAKER We want to know the number of signs. LAVAGNINO I had that once and I still have that sheet of paper but it is not here. WHITAKER Well there are thirteen owners then. A possiblity with each having two signs. Anyone fimilar with the building would you say there are two signs for each owner. PIERSON Yes, and some of them vary from very very small to pedas this big so obivously some of the Rocky Mountain Fudge Factory which is a larger sign. Yea two I would say. WHITAKER Probably twenty-six signs. Well you see the avatment of a nonconforming sign if there is one shop on one piece of property is one thing,but if you would have twenty-six signs thats going to be a tough one. WHITAKER Well you think everyone would be willing to take down one of there signs and reduce it to the proper size or would you want to wait and see what the council does to work out a solution to this problem. We have been trying to get that done f or two years. SCHIFFER I know, as a matter of fact, I served on the commercial Core and Lodgeing Commission for about nine monthes and we worked on it the problem and we couldn ' t get very far with it and I don't know were it is now in the committee. WHITAKER The sign committee that was appointed simply did nothing so we pushed back into the hands of the council and there is highly a draft. SCHIFFER And I also add in just by the way of information because you have asked me several times if I am aware of, I served on the Zoning Code Task Force Committee and that was one of the recomin- dations we made to the council speciafically that they deal with the same code as quickly and as expeditously as possible. And you know better than any of us how that works. And all I can say in answering your question is no we are not willing to wait and see what the council does hoping we will do something once we get it and two I am afraid I can' t speculate as to what each individual store owner might be willing to do. WHITAKER Mr. Drueding said that the oppion will be before the council two weeks did you say DRUEDING It will be presented whether it will be on the agenda I am not sure. It is either the next one or the following agenda two weeks form the month they will have something in there packet to look at. 33 LAVAGNINO That does not mean that it is going to come up. DRUEDING But it addresses the problem gives them some suggestions. WHITAKER I just hope that we can get some of these problems before the council, and I will be gald to go to the council and if I can help and work out a fair solution. LAVAGNINO There is also a verbatement probition you were talking about. You know we did have signs that we did have to get rid of earlier in Aspens History and they were neon signs. And those signs didn' t come down right away there was a grandfather claus put in were they wanted to advertise there put into the sign over a period of years and years had gone by before they finally got rid of those signs and yet there was alot of opposition and I have a feeling that that is going to happen now. They have got all this money into even illegal signs they still have this and it is a fight and if we can ' t inforce the signs now what is going to happen when they all start coming to City Council Chambers, they need ten more years on there sign that are up already. So therefore if they are reluctant to give things that might be out side of the relm of a new ordinance unless we have that provision built into our variance. LAVAGNINO So with that will there be no further questions? You still want us to come up with, any, may be denied or do you feel like you want to wait till the City Council , or do you want us to make a decision at this time? SCHIFFER Yes LAVAGNINO O.K. Would you read this please. This is a letter we received. MANN May 23rd On behalf of Art McGill 289 long Harmony Road Bernard building and acting as his agent I have no abjection to the above reference variance request thankyou for your notification. LAVAGNINO With that I will close the public portion of the meeting and see what we come up with.Who wants to start with comment? Anybody? HEAD We have got to find a solution. LAVAGNINO We are either going to grant this variance or not HEAD I would like to say I am very much in favor of these uniform awnings and I would love to see everyone in that building have an awning with there sign on it. On the awning, but realistically I don't think that is ever going to happen in that building. 34 LAVAGNINO What if we grant them if that is what you would like to see. HEAD No my thought is that until we get some direction from a new sign code I think that we are just fooling with, expanding a problem that is already a problem and I wouldn ' t be infavor of granting this variance at this time. LAVAGNINO Do you think the applicant is justified in asking for some relief from that strick appearance from that code. HEAD No I don' t. LAVAGNINO You don't? HEAD No, no what so ever. MANN I would like to say first of all that I think that the building inspector had no choice, but to stick with his rulings that he has made all along. That signage is limited to the related to the number of frontage feet on the building. We are certainly aware of the lack in the zoning code and we have had a lot of disicusion about it. So that is were are problem comes from and we have discussed that it does not make any provisions for second floors it makes no provision for interior malls so we all have a real problem because of that. I would like to put this on the line of atleast the most we can do is stick the literal wording of the code which would allow 45 of signage because of the frontage of that building. So that would be the least 45 feet total. We have been asked with this other end of this line to allow for the signs of those valances which would total 35 feet in addition what is already there which is almost a 100 feet so those of us which we are working I would like it if we had the poraugrative to say that because the zoning code does not provide for second stories that we could just go ahead and allow that the first floor be allowed 45 feet and the second floor 45 feet. Now that is ninty feet. Now that is what would please me the most. If we were to do that. LAVAGNINO But they have an aguragate of 93 .5 feet right now. MANN I know it is a terrible problem. LAVAGNINO If they took three feet off you would allow them this? MANN I think we have to toss this in a basket. I hope that somebody says to the City Council that part of this problem comes because store owners don ' t have any knowledge about the sign code. There needs to be some type of information. HEAD I would be happy to calculate the store frontage as if it were on the street. I would be happy with that. 35 LAVAGNINO Of the second floor? HEAD Of the seconds floors wherever they are with in a horseshoe I don't care Each store front should be allowed a certain amount of square footage, based on there particular frontage. LAVAGNINO Without any regaurd to street frontage. HEAD That way that would be fair to everybody. That way when they took one store as they did with the Winerstub and cut it into three more stores. Well in affect if they had the awning they would be doing that. MANN But no more than ninty feet. HEAD I am against further exacbating a probelm that I presently is occurant violation. Well the awnings they have, they can put up those awnings they just can't put there lettering until we can figure out how much lettering they are allowed to have. What happens if a store changes its name. Form three letters to sixteen letters and that is going to change the whole calculation. And I think it should be based on the store front, but we can't write that code now. MANN But the trouble with that to me is that it throughs this wholeness problem in the Bill flap. I would like to see the store owner the owner of the building, not the store owner, the owner of the building have to take responsibility for all that. He knows that this building is allowed ninty feet of signage, he and his he can tell each renter when they sign the lease, you are allowed this much signage. HEAD Yes, but in reality that is very difficult. Because when he is asking top dollars for that rent he is not also tell them what they can do. AUSTIN But he should be telling them. It is hard to go back on someone who has already done it. DRUEDING There are very few store building owners that are not aware of the code. But they don' t want to deal with it. They don' t want too. I can' t say what they want to do about it they have not come to me (very few of them) to address the problem and try to get everything within their building uniform or leginament. LAVAGNINO Wally Burk was before us on this building and was well aware of what he is allowed. I mean he has never told us, HEAD I can see that you are trying to push f or the awnings and allowing the lessy the right to either have his signage on the window or on the awning. 36 LAVAGNINO No, I didn' t say that. HEAD I think that will look terrible because half will be on the awning and half on the window. LAVAGNINO No, No that is not what I am saying at all I haven' t gotten to what I would purpose, but what I am thinking of is that all signage comes-off from- up there and that just the awning signs and an informational sign on the door, small sign on the door, and that is it. If they don ' t want to do it that is there problem we have given them relief of what they want with the conditions that we impose on them. That is simple to me and I can live with that plus it is less than what they got already up there. They are talking about 30 pound and we are talking about 52 up there. HEAD Do you think all those tenantes will do that? LAVAGNINO It doesn't matter if they do it. If they don't do it they don' t get the variance. HEAD But that will never happen. LAVAGNINO But Joe did I get the drift that you were not in favor of or you were with. I mean you seem to be empolying that I know the problem but I don' t know if I want to give you releif or not. MANN I would like to give them relief, but I just have doubts about how that would work and that is your answer Rick. LAVAGNINO I guess what I want is kind of a straw vote as to which way you are leaning. MANN Well I_ think, I think it, really _it is important_ for_ us to do some kind of relief today, because I want the City Council to know that we are restled with these kind of things and we want them to do good job when they start in on this. LAVAGNINO Alright, Francis. WHITAKER Well Mr. Chairman what really disturbed me was the fact that this is comparitively new constructed building and somehow there is twice the allowed signage on there. I am concerned that we are not even strickly inf orcing the code in this case. And that really bothers me that so many people can put up illegal signs and I certainly would not agree to a variance when someone has already has doubled what they are allowed. And that is the most discouraging thing to me. I grant you that the sign code needs to be changed. It may be that the bases for being not the street frontage but the actual amount of store frontage there is. I don' t know. But certainly if that building has twise what 37 it is allowed under the code I see no grounds for granting the variance. I really can't see it we deal with these same things in land use and if someone comes in and has an illegal building and they want a variance to extend it out further we seldom grant it because they are already in violation. Now this biulding is already in violation of the sign code. Very clearly by the facts that the applicants have produced The variance for the awning I think would be grantful, but not when they are already double what the code says. LAVAGNINO They are trying to reduce that in my purposal. WHITAKER I asked the applicant if he had any indication that any of the people would be willing to take down there signs. LAVAGNINO That is there problem. If they don't do it they don't get the variance. WHITAKER I am against granting a variance unless the signage on the building is reduced to what is permitted under the code. And now one more point I really think that it would be better if we denied this and the applicants did what we have asked other applicants to do. Go to the City Council and tell them get the sign code going because we have a problem. Rather than us granting a variance and putting people to an expense and putting another burden on the building inspector so that if the signs on this building or any other building does meet sign code he has the problem of inf orceing the signcode he has not been able to enforce the sign ordiance on this building now. If he had there would not be ninty-three point eight square feet of signs on it. LAVAGNINO Francis that is our problem. This is, those others that are doing it don't even come before us. Don' t you think because they are coming before us to at least tell people out there that we are, they are going to say people who come before us applicants that come before us aren' t getting the variance anyway and those that haven't come are out there doing illeagally and enforcment arm is can' t do anything about it in either case. It seems to me that we are confronted with some. TADDUNE I just have to say you know if we are aware if the City my office, and the building department are made aware that there are violations on the code we ask people to account for them. And if there is a violation we ask and require that those people come incompliance. Now some examples have been submitted to you and I am sure that after this meeting you are going to look into those examples. LAVAGNINO But wait a minute now I was talking to Bill and saying if we modified their request for a variance with conditions he is telling me he is alone and he has difficult to go to each individual thing to see if they came into compliance. And my argument to 38 him was that either why can' t he focus on at least the decisions that this board has made. That with conditions that those conditions be met as opposed to someone who just goes ahead and does it on there own. And he said that he is the only one he can' t, it is a burden on him to pursue that. TADDUNE But the point I want to make as the City Attorney is that as far as I know there are people who are doing it on there own who are not being held accountable for and if you are aware of people who are not complying with the sign code or any other zoning violation bring that to our attention and what we will do is make inforcement uniform by asking those other people to come into compliance or at least looking into whether or not there is some reason why they shouldn' t be in compliance. L AVAGNINO Then why can't we modify the request and still have the building inspector see that the applicant meets those requir- ements. TADDUNE I don' t know why you can' t I mean his response but I do know we were at this sight and we were reviewing a sign it was an interior sign, it was observable from the street, a neon sign we had a meeting on it we spent over an hour and a half on it. On that sign and another sign. So any way it can be inforced and I think it is a statment and if they are in violation they should be brought to the attention of my office and be inforced and inf orm them. LAVAGNINO I want to here from Bill. DRUEDING I didn't indicate that all the work I do, the sign code they go up and down so fast I can' t get to them fast enough there are a lot I can't get to. When I get a complaint or I see one going up I definetly do something. But every six monthes new signs go up and I can't get to them. I see them I do it we try to enforce the code, but I don' t know how many businesses are in this town. I just can't get to them all. WHITAKER Paul the figures that have come out I find are very interesting. According to the ordinance they are allowed 45 .8 square feet. They have 93 .8 square feet. There are 13 shops with approzimately 26 signs. How do you know which ones are illegal and which ones are not. TADDUNE Well you know we required a sign to come down at that location a year and a half ago when the Wienerstub was moving. So as far as I am concerned I don' t go around with a calculator and a ruler and start computing the square footage of all the signs out there. But I do know at this particular sight there have been two occations that we have had inforcement procedures. One had to do with the Wienerstub and the other had to do with an interior sign that was floresent. 39 SCHIFFER Mr. Chairman LAVAGNINO We are still closed. SCHIFFER But there is a debate going back and forth and it is in those inizations levels that my client can not be defended. LAVAGNINO You will be able to defend them. I will open up the public meeting after we have stopped here. WHITAKER I will just close and say that I think that the applicant should come before us with clean hands and ask us for a variance. And with double there allowed signage I don' t think that is the case. LANAG NINO Do we have anymore, Anne? AUSTIN Well I agree with a lot of the things that Rick said I feel that the ground floor is allowed 45 feet. Since the second floor is not hold it sorry but they are allowed, But when the code was written the intent was that it was a ground floor. WHITAKER NO MANN NO WHITAKER There were two story buildings at this time. AUSTIN Not with shops. LANAGNINO Not with shops. AUSTIN At the time the code was written they felt that they were dealing with one story and that they were going to allow them the equivilant for this building 45 square feet. I would be in favor since it is a two story building with stores on both levels I would be in favor of giving them 90 square feet of signage. I would like to see the awnings and the uniformity of it. I think if we could make them, if we could word it so that they could have the awnings with the signage of whatever and bring down the other signs to comply, in other words give them double what they are allowed now. Half on the awnings and half on there windows. Something like that I would go for that. But I think that they could be allowed more signage then what the code allows them because the code does not address enough area for them in the court yard and up there. WHITAKER They already have more signage than they are allowed. LAVAGNINO Right they do. 40 AUSTIN I know, but they want to put it on the anwings so what I am saying is take it off your windows and put it on the awnings. Still leaving them some leway to have it on the windows too. But in the Landlord is the one who is going to have to resolve that with tenantes. LAVAG NINO And also that they might need a code or whatever it is at the time of its inactment. AUSTIN Yes. PATERSON Mr. Chairman I agree with Anne whole hartly and one reason I do agree with this because I would like to see a solution to this problem and for us to handle it and not keep putting it off to somebody else. And what I see right now is if we deny this variance as purposed by Francis we would end up with a violation of 93 .5 square feet that they have right now. Which is not a solution and they have know reason to take it down unless we go to each shop and take them to court. Or we take the landlord to court. I would like to see a solution and I think it is a fair solution because again we have two stories and a court yard and I feel these jobs do have some right to have signage and if we don't do that we might end up 93 .5 square feet which are illegal right now which will stay there, until hell freezes over, as far as I'm concerned. And we won't have a solution. And I am in favor of coming up with a solution and I think this is an econim- iable and good solution and maybe it can serve as a modle or prototype of what we need to be doing in the City of Aspen.To solve this problem and they can at least look at something. And I would make a conditional of course, like Anne says, that they have small signage on the glass, that they take down they if they have huge letters on the glass now they got to come off. LAVAGNINO Well we have to define what that small sign is. PATERSON Well we can do that in the code of square footage. That should be included. And they can pick it out. If they, I'm not saying allowing 90 square feet on the awning, I'm saying allow a total of 90 square feet which includes the small signage on the glass. LAVAG NINO You don' t mean 90 square feet for the whole building. PATERSON The whole building 45 square down stairs, 45 upstairs. LAVAG NINO You are trying to met their criteria, for the AUSTIN yes PATERSON Now if they had a long sign on the awning especial on the awning maybe they would chose not to put anything on the glass and if they have a short sign on the awning maybe they would 41 chose to put a little longer sign on the glass. AUSTIN I think the landlord is the one that has to go in there and say: o.k. guys here is what we have, we have 90 square feet to deal with we are putting these awnings up we are going to alcate according to your square footage or whatever he wants to do. HEAD But what happens in three weeks when the ordiance comes out and it has some other type of calculation. After they have done all this they have to tear all their awnings out. Why don' t they wait f or the ordiance to come out. LAVAGNINO They don' t want to wait for it. They don' t want to wait. They don't have to do this. HEAD How do they know the square footage of both letterings is not going to be excess of what they already got now? LAVAGNINO It can' t be, because that is what HEAD What if some guy can't squeeze his whole name in, on one awning, If all the letters are going to be uniform . LAVAGNINO We are not dealing with that probelm. HEAD Do you relize you are penalizing people with a smaller name. AUSTIN NO, the letters HEAD If the lettering is uniform the guy with the smaller name LAVAGNINO They still have to make code as far as the hights of letters and things of that nature. AUSTIN We didn't say that the letters should be uniform. PATERSON I didn' t say that, I said they should have 90 square feet total allowed for the entire building. How they divy it up that is there business. LAVAGNINO Yes, but I would like to see the awnings. AUSTIN Yes I would too. LAVAGNINO What we are doing, if you just say that, were just allowing them exactly what they have now and making it legal. That is what you are saying. Because they, 90 , telling them they can take 3 1/2 feet off it is o.k. You can do whatever you want. I don' t think we should allow that. AUSTIN No, we are saying use the awnings and in other words half 42 of it the square footage on the awnings. However they have to divide it pretty honestly. PATERSON I would say 70% on the awnings and 30% on the glass or something like that. AUSTIN But they are only showing 35% on the awnings now. For what they want. LAVAGNINO That is all we should allow them. We should use that 35. PATERSON For the awning? AUSTIN But what Rick is saying, I see as a problem too. You get a new business that comes in that has twise as long of a name. That is why they have to be allowed to we will give them a total of 90 . 45 on the awnings, 45 on the buildings and if they are smart they will keep it under that till allow for the person that comes in with a long name latter on. You know, that is the most they can put on. They could come up with some type of formula that allows for that flecuation in size, on one building. PATERSON It wouldn' t pay for them to have different sized signs on the awnings. They want to have uniformity. LAVAGNINO The request before us is just for the second story awning not for bottom floor awning. Are we imposing that they put an awning on the ground floor maybe? So we have a total of 45 upstairs and 45 downstairs. But we are directing them that the upstairs have awnings. PATERSON Fine if that is what they are asking for let them put it upstairs. LAVAGNINO We are also saying that that is a condition of granting this variance. Or not to do anything. So why are we, all they want is for us to say is what they got is o.k. PATERSON Now they need to show us a drawing and they said they were going_ to put awnings up. - LAVAGNINO Yes, but you are not making that a condition. Thats why I asked you. PATERSON That is right, lets do it as a condition. I want to come up with a solution and I don' t feel prefectly flexable. I want to see something that is better than ones AUSTIN My understanding is that they are putting awnings upstairs and down stairs they are asking for signage on the up stairs awnings. That there. Just make it a maxium of 90 square 43 feet on the whole building. Half on the awnings and half on the windows. PATERSON Half up stairs and half down stairs. MANN Yes, I think that is very important, because we are reconizing by doing that, this is a two story building and that the present sign code does not make any provision for signage in a two . PATERSON And a court yard LAVAGNINO We have a lot of problems with this. What if someone took up the whole upper story with a restruant. HEAD That means they could do a sign HEAD - They would have- a- 45 square -foot sign. Which -is- probably o.k. You know they have a big enough space. AUSTIN 20 square feet. LAVAGNINO Individually. AUSTIN 20 square feet. LAVAGNINO Individually. They could have a series of those. Alright, couldn't they. DRUEDING I don' t want use to be 20 square feet. AUSTIN For one use. LAVAGNINO For one use. LAVAGNINO Even though one use covers 90 a foot of frontage. DRUEDING They could have 90 foot frontage total for one use would be 20 feet. PATERSON That is alright that soloves my problem. LAVAGNINO O.K. I would like to open the public meeting now. SCHIFFER For the record I would like to reirterate that it is our view and I want to reacerte that our client is not in violation of the sign code, as writen. And these aligations of violations are based upon the interpretation instead of giving to that section of the code. And I think that you answer to your own question when you talk about or ask the question why are there so many code violations, that you consider to be violations and that is exactly what I am pointing out. The reason is because people do not understand what this means I am a lawyer and I don' t 44 understand what this means. And I will ask if I have the opport- unity now I would like Paul Taddunes the City Attorney to tell me and to tell you at the same time what this means. I'm what, when you say, the agrigate sign area permitted along any one street shall not exceed one square foot of sign area for each three feet of lot line frontage occupied by or projected from the building within the principle use within which the principle use is conducted. What does that mean. TADDUNE I interperate that the same way the building inspector does. It is point to point that the amount of sign and square footage is a function of lot line. And whether or not there is a courtyard or a configuration of the building or if it is two stores or five stores it merely not a fact of the code known presently. LAVAGININO Now that you have an answer do you want us to make a determination as to which one is correct. SCHIFFER No, I just want ask a follow up question. And that is that, let me ask you what is lot line frontage then? TADDUNE Lot line is point to point. I think what you are doing is you are constroling a court yard that snakes around on the inside to be street frontage when in effect the street frontage is the lot line frontage. SCHIFFER On the contray that makes my point. And that is this that if the store is in a court yard that does not front on the street it is not regulated. And if it is regulated then it should be inclulded in the calculations of lot line frontage. DRUEDING We haven' t addressed that. SCHIFFER Well that is aposterous, because you got a sign code that is nonsensicale with the, my view more arbritary could be susceptable to more arbritary enforcement then what we have now. SCHIFFER And you don' t think this is arbritary enforcement we are a board charged with reviewing the administration of the zoning code can not determine the number of square footage that available. TADDUNE No, No, No, No, the reason is because you are in your configuration which has created your problem. you have decided to configure your building in such away that creates the ambiance, the exposure, and because of the fact you have done that voluntarily you want. LAVAGNINO That is not intirely true. They came under a 25% open space requirement. 45 LAVAGNINO By setting it back you are creating a side now that might have a store or something. WHITAKER The space requirement does not determine the configuation of the building. LAVAGNINO Well to some extent it does. DRUEDING If he has committed 45 square feet of sign he could, and 13 stores. Each store could have there own one sign at least 3 square feet. DRUEDING But then what is the maxium sign. SCHIFFER I beg your pardon. You are determining lot line frontage based upon what? Visability from street? DRUEDING No frontage. SCHIFFER Frontage? o.k. TADDUNE From this point A to point B. SCHIFFER For the record now. Assume that point A is north point B is the south. So then from point on a parallel (would be point A) which I will call point Al , to point A2 , which goes east and west verses north and south. Does that count or not count? DRUEDING No that does not count. SCHIFFER That does not count in calcultating footage? Street line frontage? DRUEDING Lot line frontage. SCHIFFER However you are saying that a store that has a sign in that area comes within the proview of the code and is regulated. HEAD NO DRUEDING Yes. Because if it can be seen from, now listen. HEAD If it is a code they have no right to have a sign. DRUEDING If it can be seen from the public it is regulated. LAVAGNINO No it is how it is divided up. SCHIFFER The point is and I just want to finish with this is. Mr. Whitaker brought up am I filmiluar with section which defines a sign Yes I am. A sign is defined as something that is 46 visable from the public right of way. Fine. What next which sings are regulated in this area. Look at 25, 245 .102, signs are regulated based upon lot line frontage. Signs are regulated based upon their frontage on the street. If the sign is not on a street then it is not regulated. LAVAG NINO Allies too. SCHIFFER Allies too. Now I am saying that if you say that there the sign that is not on the street is regulated and yet the frontage of the store is now calculated and lot line frontage that is inherently discriminaltory and your interpretation which takes that point of view is conprious and arbritary. And if you are going to do that I'm saying you are creating a problem for everyone. That is why we can' t even get the same interpretation from the City Attorney that we get from the building inspector. I think it is unfair of you to chacaterise this or any other building that may be in violation. TADDUNE I just don' t think you listen. SCHIFFER I listen very clearly. I don't think you understand. TADDUNE It seems like you are confused. The point has been made over and over that the amount of signage is a function of your lot line frontage. SCHIFFER And I am asking you to define lot line frontage. TADDUNE Point A to point B. Straight line SCHIFFER So Al and A2 are not lot line frontage. LAVAGNINO That is right SCHIFFER Fine. Then I am saying on the other hand though you are going to include that in calculations determining how much signage I can have but at the same time you are telling me that a store that goes in point Al from Al to A2 facing east west is regulated by this prediction. TADDUNE Are any signs being regulated. DRUEDING Any sign that is hanging in the public right of way. SCHIFFER O.R. lets, o.k. just bare with me one second o.k. now for the record I am taking this north south line and just want to extend it approximately 2/3 of the way across so we leave a little opening. o.k. I have a sign in here is that sign regulated. 47 Is that a sign that is regulated? TADDUNE Well you got this stick drawing there and you are talking about a sign I don' t know what you are talking about, frankly it is unfair. I mean the fact is that I am saying this is the way the building is built. SCHIFFER Is that unfair. I am saying this is the way the building is built your telling me if it is a sign that can be seen from the public right of way, it is regulated. Now I am asking you can it be seen hear. Can it be seen hear. TADDUNE You are taking the postion of the interior signs that flash, neon signs, that they are regulated because they are observable from the public right of way and therefore they are regulated within the sign code. Now that is an archetual interp- retation. SCHIFFER You are changing the subject because you can' t answer that question. TADDUNE No, I can' t answer the question because you are hypothe- tical. And the fact is I'll say it for the fifth time that the frontage that is involved is lot line frontage, the amount of signage that you have for the entire site is a function of that. It is a simple formula. Every sign is regulated. SCHIFFER If you have a two story building is lot line frontage capulated only on the first floor or whether it TADDUNE Not whether it is ten stores or a hundred stories. The code. LAVAG NINO That defeats the purpose if they can' t see it form the street then it does not serve the purpose of advertising what ever the business is, so it doesn' t include them to address that because you are not it is not being seen from the street. SCHIFFER That is what I am saying, some of our stores have signs that can not be seen from the street and pubic right of way, therefore they shouldn' t be regulated. The City has no interest in regulating those signs. DRUEDING Mill Street Station if I can see from the public right of way it is a sign. In Mill Street Station if you look down you see some of them. Alright but when I go back to the Village Pantry if I can't see it from the public right of way not the private property, I can' t regulate it. SCHIFFER Now from what point on the public right of way. 48 DRUEDING From any point. SCHIFFER From any point? DRUEDING From any point. SCHIFFER Is that for a six foot person or a four foot person. TADDUNE There is a reasonable understanding. DRUEDING I certainly can understand because I could see it and he couldn't probably. SCHIFFER That is right. Which I think it is o.k. PATERSON What would happen if this was an archade. And you had stores all the way through it and the archade went for a 1/4 of a mile I don' t care how long. What would you say about signs inside of that? DRUEDING Mill Street Station is another prime example. PATERSON How would you define that we will have that some day. TADDUNE Well, that is why we are discussing it so maybe we can come up with a practical problem. I don't think the law is that unclear. The way that we resolved it in a contecual way is that in an archade situation maybe a bush or tree is postioned so that it is abscure from the public right of way and then on the interior there is as much signage that can be tolerated by the property owner thinks is permisable. PATERSON Would you say the North and Nell building was a case like that were they got closed doors and they could. TADDUNE Inside that is an interior situation. DRUEDING You have to be on private property to see those. HEAD So they could have a sign as big as all as all outdoors. TADDUNE That would be a factor infact we got involved in one situation were we were concerned about the height of the adverage person, whether it was clearly observbable from the public right of way. We also looked into the situation were the door open and closed. The law has to be applied reasonably so we tried to apply it reasonably. In this situation most of the signs are visable from the public right of way. We take the position that it is a sign that is regulated by the code how much signage is permisable is a function of the distance from point A to point B on lot line frontage. That is very clear standards. Lot line frontage. 49 SCHIFFER You got to show me somewhere in the code were lot line frontage is defined. TADDUNE Well, you know it is like the frontage. SCHIFFER That is right. ? What do you want them to define it as. SCHIFFER I am asking you if that appears in the code like that. PATERSON Your back side is not the same as your front side. SCHIFFER What if you have a two story building and the second store is set back, or if you had a two story building and the first story is set back. What is your lot line frontage? SCHIFFER Frontage implies that part of the building front in the streets. A building in U shape like the Aspen Grove maybe lot line frontage is just those pieces that front on the street. SCHIFFER My whole point about this is that when you begin to interprete it as applying to other than just stores on the street that is when you run into problems. And my whole exersise here was to point out that. The ordinance is clear but only when applied to stores on the street. When we start appling it to stores not on the street we have a problem. LAVAGNINO We have not addressed that particular situation. But lot line frontage from point A to point B is very clear in my mind any way. And what you are saying is that there are certain aspects that don' t address the configurattion of the building. But that doesn't take away from the definition. TADDUNE Especially it makes some good policy efforts. I think the City Council is going to have to consider. TADDUNE I don' t know how you have decided the first aspect of the request that he has put before you, but you were having some discussion of how to resolve it as a practising matter, prehaps if the applicant would participate in our discussion and if the employers incline to give them some consideration for whatever reason, if the criteras would maybe, that is how discussion holds. LAVAGNINO Yes, I think you got off onto a tangent that we were not even complaining about or discussing here. trying to give you 45 square feet of usage up on the second floor. I think that is what you wanted and more then you wanted. I don't know. But our discussion was how were we going to modify that. That is all. It never was on 50 SCHIFFER But you understand of course that I represent a client and that I in doing my job need to be sure that the record accuratly reflects what we were trying to get across. I felt that it was important to clarify some points were you were taking the position which may or may not look or have looked on the record as thought I had suceeded to that position i.e. that we were in maintain that we are not in violation. LAVAGINO So you want us to make a determination. SCHIFFER We want you to make a determination. Yes my client is far far away right now. I am unable to make a determiation for him except to the extent that he gave me some lattitude. And I can tell you that from his point of view that an exceptable solution would be to admit the signage on those portions that have been wanting a valance over hanging stores were those stores would be willing to either reduce or remove the signs of the store front and give each store the opportunity whether or not they want to have their sign on the valance or on the store front. And that he can then go to each one of them be3cause he has got at this point the leverage with any tenant who signed the lease to force them to do anything. LAVAGNINO I thought part was to gain uniformity? But if you are allowing each store owner to make his choice you are loosing that uniformity. SCHIFFER Idealy what we would like to have you do is to say yes you have, we would agree that the interpretation is wrong you can go ahead and put up valance with the lettering on it. Or the alternative that we will grant you a variance to put up the valance with the requested lettering. But what I here you saying is that you want so insurance that if that is the case that store owners would be willing to remove their signs or at least reduce them in size and I can't give you that insurance because I don' t represent those stores. LAVAGNINO Well we can only give you a variance that we think is equitable to the property and then you do what you want with that. WHITAKER I have one question. Do you have any athourity to talk to the individual store owners and present them, not everything necesserally everything be uniform, but present the problem and see if they would be willing if you were granted the permission to put up the awnings that they would all of them be willing to reduce their present signage? SCHIFFER I can' t say that I have that authority. Now I could attempt to obtain that authority and to do this. WHITAKER Would you like us to table this for another two weeks? 51 SCHIFFER Well, in terms of the timing it is going to be somewhat of a problem because as I have mentioned the managing partner is out of town and he had an order for the awning to be built and installed an they are just waiting to find out what to do with the signage. So a two week delay would be limbo not knowing how you are going to come back in two weeks is going to be a real problem for him because then that sets that back another period of time. So I. TADDUNE Is there a shorter period. -WHITAKER Yes. LAVAGNINO It is as long as he gets information actually. WHITAKER What would be a reasonable time for you to come in with an answer for that. SCHIFFER I suppose I could certainly do it when I leave. If you would like to reconvene for a week I would be more then happy to attempt to do that. WHITAKER I move to table this case. HEAD I second it. WHITAKER To the 1st day of June KIM To June 5 , WHITAKER to the 5th of June at 4: 00. LAVAGNINO I have a second. I guess is there any discussion. I don' t know if that is allowed in this table, but. O.K. All in favor say aye ALL MEMBERS Aye NONE Opposed. LAVAGNINO I won' t be here then. KIM Ann won' t be here. Ron will not be back. You won' t be here. That is not a Qurum. AUSTIN We might have a problem. HEAD I am the only one that is going to be here. WHITAKER I' ll be here. 52 KIM Remo you will or will not LAVAGNINO I won' t. KIM That is just Charlie and Francis. HEAD I'll be here KIM And Rick. AUSTIN And I am questionable. WHITAKER What about -Ron -Eirkison KIM He will not be here. WHITAKER There is a possiblity that there might only be four. It takes four to vote to grant a variance. And it would be your opption to how to you want to vote. PATERSON We need to know who won't be here. So we can make. Remo won' t be here. AUSTIN And I am questionable. SCHIFFER I guess that is a problem. Will you be back the week after, or are you gone for two weeks. LAVAGNINO I will be back KIM There is a case schedualled for June 12th. AUSTIN I' ll be here the rest of the summer. LAVAGNINO When will Ron be back? KIM Ron will be back on the 12th. He won' t be able to come to the meeting of the 12th. His plane doesn't arrive in Aspen until after 4: 00 . But that was the only indicated person that I had that would be out on the 12th other then Anne. PATERSON We have a problem with that, if we don' t have a quorm well we only have four members. I think that is going to be a problem. Should we go back into session. ? NO PATERSON For that one question is it so important that you' re question that you caused to aye? WHITAKER Yes, because I feel this is the jist of what you have been talking about. 53 PATERSON But we might be able to make a condition in such a way, that that question doesn' t matter, whether they are willing to do it or not. I mean we give them the condition we say we grant you if you do this period. AUSTIN And if they won' t do it then they can' t have it. PATERSON And I think that it would be better for us to all vote on this since we have all been in on this discussion. For us to have three member and to put it off or four members possibly we won' t have four members. I won' t like to. WHITAKER We have gotten to the point were we have gotten ourselves into trouble by granting variances with conditions and I think that we have come to the point were we insist the conditions are met first or we do not grant. LAVAG NINO Yae we can do that all, the signs up stairs has to come off before the awnings go up. Well we haven' t even gotten a motion yet, so we are still in discussion as to what we are even going to grant. We don't know what we are going to grant. PATERSON First I think we should withdraw the motion that we have a meeting next week. HEAD I' ll second that. ? O.K. All in favor that the motion be withdrawn signify by saying aye. EVERYONE Aye. NONE Opposed. LAVAGNINO So we are back in section on case 86-12 . PATERSON I'm sorry that we have to do this. LAVAG NINO Now who is going to run after Paul. WHITAKER Could you possibly bar those two weeks. KIM The staff won' t be here. WHITAKER Ron won't be back? LAVAG NINO He will be back on that day, but his plane won' t be here in time. PATERSON And he wasn' t in on this discussion so he won' t know. 54 LAVAGNINO We won' t have a quorm. WHITAKER We will have a quorem. AUSTIN No, I might not be here. LAVAGNINO We will only have three people here TADDUNE On that one day, one the next day. LAVAGNINO And the following week even we are having problems getting four people here. TADDUNE Can you do it on a Monday or Tuesday or Friday. LAVAGNINO I don't know. I am leaving Monday. AUSTIN I am leaving the 8th or 7th. Whenever we get packed. PATERSON If we make a discision to grant the variance we can put certain conditions on there which they have to adhere to and if they don't adhere to them they don't have a variance. It is like the army it is up to them then, the ball is in their court rather then us to try to find out this information. Is he willing to go to all the clients and say are you willing to do this and this. We can make a condition. LAVAGNINO Yes we don' t even have to know whether he does that or not. AUSTIN He still doesn' t know whether he is going to get it. if he gets everyones permission either. TADDUNE This is what I am thinking, you might be a futel motion on your part if you are applying a motion that is not exceptable to the applicant. LAVAGNINO It doesn't matter. HEAD What are the conditions that you are refering to. Give me a suggestion. PATERSON One of the conditions was that we were going to ask you to take the signs down on the glass or what ever is there now, exsisting and then adjust that to a certain condition that we are going to have, now what is the condition. We have said 45 square feet upstairs and 45 square feet down stairs and maybe we could come up with a sign-for -the glass that can be- included into -that- ninty total square feet. HEADD You said you would give them the poragrative as to whether they want there sign on the awning or whether it will remain on the 55 window. LAVAGNINO That is right, I disagree with Charlie I think we have to have more control then that. PATERSON That is good I don' t disagree with you. LAVAGNINO I think all the awning should go up on all of the businesses upstairs. And the sign could be on the valance of all those building I mean stores and that they should have a specified informational sign on the door that this is the store that has some coralation between the awning, valance, and the door of the business that we are talking about. That is all. TADDUNE Some of the stores on the second floor are not obserbable from the street. Therefor those signs would not be regulated. Now I know LAVAGNINO There are? TADDUNE Well aren't there? LAVAGNINO On the awning? TADDUNE They' re on the window. LAVAGNINO Oh, because of the bar or the balacany railing. The railing. Are you kidding. You think so. form the public right of way. ? Yes from the public right of way. LAVAGNINO You may not see some of the decals but. AUSTIN I see a problem in that a lot of these stores have logos and if they got a gold decal on there window they are not going to want to scrap that off and then be told they can put it up again. LAVAGNINO Well, they don't have to take it down if that is what they are going to use as an informational sign. AUSTIN You said that they would start by taking everything down first. LAVAGNINO Yes, that is right, unless that is an informational type sign. Then they can keep it up. Yes everything has to come down AUSTIN I don' t think that we can say that there informational sign is going to be a certain size in lettering because they want to use there logos. 56 LAVAGINO They can use their logo in the space provide that we direct them to as far as size goes. And they are going to use there logo to determine that it has got to be this big or a certain square footage or inches even. It does not have to be very big. It is not for the people out on the street, it is for people who are walking on the balcany that is all. But the other sign will be on the valance and actually I don' t care what the size is as long as we have a specified variance of the valance it is 10 inches. The valance is 10 inches? Do we know how deep the variance is. PIERSON Yes we do. The valances are nine inches deep. LAVAGNINO Nine inches deep so we don't have to worry about them PIERSON But the lettering is obviously not that tall. LAVAGNINO No, I know that is why I'm saying we were concerned that it knocked all the out. I thought they put on the variance. PATERSON Have you already designed the sizing of the lettering. PIERSON We have inicially speculated when we were doing the anouncement that was required of using the Aspen Rod and Gun Shop and that lettering is seems to be tall but once it, I think it got it' s backings inside the court yard and on the second floor it is all going to be a medial medium size. PATERSON Is it 5 inches. PIERSON It is 5 inches. LAVAGNINO You want to make 5 inches conditional. PATERSON I would say 5-6 . I would give them a little leway and then the valance can go on the WHITAKER You have three shops. You take 36 and 45 is 90 square feet that is a 3 square foot sign on each of the 3 those shops. PATERSON There are 5 shops upstairs. WHITAKER Oh 5 shops well that would be. PATERSON Well you got 45 square feet and 5 shops so they got a total of 9 square feet each. WHITAKER No but they are taking up 36 square feet worth of valances. 57 PATERSON So they got 10 spuare feet left for WHITAKER No, that is nine square feet. For 5 shops. Divide 9 by 5 that would be LAVAGNINO That is an informational sign just for people walking by so they can say this is the place. that is all. We have to determine what that size should be an informational sign. Are we going to alot them whatever that. We have to detemine something. PATERSON Well lets say five to six inches in what for the lettering on the awning. The height. WHITAKER Have you determined the height of the lettering on the awninings. PATERSON We just finished saying . I think between 5 and 6. AUSTIN Yes. PATERSON That is probably pretty fair. LAVAGNINO That is reasonable. WHITAKER six inches. PATERSON Up to six inches. Let say up to six inches. LAVAGNINO Now what about the informational sign? PATERSON As long as it does not exceed the 45 square feet that we have aloted and the total up stairs. LAVAGNINO And divided for each PATERSON And divided for each five stores. WHITAKER It is up to them. AUSTIN It is up to them how they divide it. They can't exceed that. Square footage. WHITAKER Now will all of this be conditional on confromitee with the new sign code. LAVAGNINO Oh yes, absolutely. If they think it is to much of an expense to take a chance then. Well they always have an opption to come back to work with us. PATERSON Yes, that is right. HEAD Wait until the sign code comes in then we'll. 58 PATERSON Lets go make a motion. MANN O.K. Lets do. LAVAGGNINO Lets make sure we have everything, you don' t want to attorney to make a revolution for us. My guess. KIM He had to leave maybe in five minutes I can reach him at his home. LAVAGNINO Well, it is o.k. because I think that we can do it. Just take down everything. MANN I think it is important that we begin our statement, our granting of this variance, with this kind of a statement. We support the findings of the building department, however because of the inefficences in the sign code we are granting. What we have been talking about . PATERSON 45 square feet of signage upstairs and allowing 45 square feet of signage downstairs. MANN That is right. And we PATERSON On the lower level? MANN And we are in, granting the use of signs on this new valance around there and that people who shop which us that square footage must reduce their window signs so that the total square footage on each floor is only 45 square feet. PATERSON And the lettering should not exceed 6 inches in height. LAVAGNINO Now I object to granting them 45 feet down stairs. They only have 41 .5 now and you are saying that we are going to give them AUSTIN That they are allowed . LAVAGNINO NO they are not allowed anything. 45 square feet upstairs and I don't want them to change anything downstairs. PATERSON Well what if they want to put awning down stairs? LAVAGNINO If they want to put awnings they have the requirement. But they are not asking us for that, right now. They are asking us for awnings on the second floor. PATERSON Don't forget you got H helps down stairs? PIERSON 13 down stairs. 59 AUSTIN 8 down and 5 up. MANN Well if you are going to put awnings down stairs maybe LAVAGNINO They are not requesting that are they. SNIFFER Well what has been happening is that the individual store owners have been coming in on the downstairs and that is why we took the action of the upstairs. The HPC wanted to take it all in one context and say what about doing the downstairs and we said in some point in time we might want to do the same thing to make it uniform. So that might very well come up again and if you want to apply that same critera that you are appling upstairs to downstairs I would suggest that you do it when you think it is approprate. MANN Until the awnings go up downstairs then we want the signage on the glass to be reduced. LAVAGNINO Well , that PATERSON The same limitations apply downstairs as we are requesting upstairs. LAVAGNINO Well then can they do it in part. Can they do upstairs separate from the down stairs and WHITAKER Why don ' t you simpily limit that to 45 square feet upstairs. Down stairs is no consideration. LAVAGNINO At this point. WHITAKER At this point. PATERSON Do they come in for seperate. MANN Yae, Yae That is alright. PATERSON Let' s solve the problem right now. MANN Yes, Yes PIERSON Does the 45 square feet upstairs include the informational signs on the doors or AUSTIN It includes all the signage. LAVAGNINO Decals and everything? PIERSON But again it can go any places, any part of the building. in the particular shop. It doesn' t include the informational 60 sign on the door. What revelance does that have? HEAD And all stores must comly. LAVAGNINO Oh yes, I think it all needs to be uniformal. I don't want to see holes in there. I thought that was in there. KIM Are you illiminating downstairs at this point. LAVAGNINO Yes, unha. WHITAKER You agree to amitt the downstairs so that issue is over. MANN yes, yes. AUSTIN So there is a total of 45 square feet upstairs to be used on the awning and on the doors and we all have to comply with the awning. LAVAGNINO On the awning you have limitations on the lettering style but not the length. We are not concerned about that. We hav'nt forgotten anything we are still here. MANN Those directing signs on the steps. LAVAGNINO NO, I am sure that is all figured out in the contract. We mentioned the display cases to as being, well again Bill Drueding said that he would have to varify her figures, so and anyway we are illiminating all of that right now, If they have fif ty two square feet up there now we are decreasing it to 45 basically, so and I think that we should make sure that this variance is contingient on there meeting all of those requirements that we. MANN And we also want to add that if the new sign code which we know is forth coming this year. Is Applicates any of WHITAKER They must meet the condition. We should also add that this should be varifed by an adoption of a resolution prepared by the City Attorney. That is what the motion is. PATERSON Maybe we should have this read back to us since we all PIERSON Could I make a point on that or not. I was wondering in fear of the shops on the second level if it is not going to be required to be on the door that way if they have an exsi sting sign on a window that is in complience we don' t have to have it scraped off and repainted on the door. LAVAGNINO If it meets the size that is aloted to them and PATERSON I don't think we want to say it has to be on the door. 61 MANN NO I agree. KIM Did you specify size of sign on door. MANN NO LAVAGNINO Well it is the remainder of the sign HEAD 9 square feet divided by 5 shops. LAVAGNINO Did we determine the amount of square footage on the signage of the valance? HEAD NO. HEAD No, you see one guy with a small name is going to have a bigger logo on his window. LAVAGNINO I can use it on the valance rather than on the PATERSON The sign is not to exceed 6 inches in height on the valance. LAVAGNINO Right. MANN And they said it was 35 feet. AUSTIN 35 feet just for the second floor. So that only gives you 10 square feet for on the doors? HEAD 9. LAVAGNINO Yes that is good. LAVAGNINO That is fine. AUSTIN And that is fine. LAVAGNINO Well I 'm saying make it a requirement that they use the 35 with WHITAKER that being assesable condition that you have 36 square feet on the awnings and 9 feet AUSTIN Wait lets not go 36 . Lets go 35. PATERSON 35. WHITAKER 35.68. AUSTIN Well lets go 35 after that 62 PATERSON 35 on the awning and 10 feet on the glass. WHITAKER Alright. AUSTIN That is 5 stores the have 2 square feet each to use. LAVAGNINO Plus the resolution to KIM to be varified by resolution by the City Attorney. Yes. LAVAGNINO And did you put that in form of a motion Joe. MANN yes LAVAGNINO And I have a second to that. PATERSON And I second. LAVAGNINO All in favor. LAVAGNINO I think you should take a role call vote. KIM o.k. Charlie PATERSON Aye KIM Ann AUSTIN AYE KIM Francis LAVAGNINO Wait a minute now. Ann does not vote. KIM Oh, I forgot. Francis WHITAKER Aye KIM Josephine MANN Aye KIM Rick HEAD Aye KIM REMO LAVAGNINO Aye. You have that and it will be in a form of a resolution prepared by the City Attorney. 63 SCHIFFER Thank you very much particularly for you patience and understanding Whitaker I hope you handle it, but we know it is a tough problem and . HEAD Move to adjourn AUSTIN I second that. SCHIFFER There is not one issue in this City that everybody has the same feel on the ballot. Not in the same degree, but HEAD I motion that we agrene. AUSTIN And I second. KIM And I got both of those. 64