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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.boa.19880407 wPBBP,QF ADJUSTMENT 2ND EAPRAKUN90.1HABERS 4:00 I^ ROLL CALL H. MINUTES June A8, 1087 III^ NEW BUSINESS Cxse TU9-3 / x & W Procortn � {7ony Mazza ano Frank w000s } IV^ ADJOURNMENT CJ t�. RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT APRIL 7, 1988 Chairman Remo Lavagnino called meeting to order at 4: 00pm. Answering roll call were Remo Lavagnino, Anne Austin, Rick Head, Charlie Paterson, Ron Erickson and Josephine Mann. Francis Whitaker was excused. MINUTES JUNE 18, 1987 Rick made a motion to approve minutes of June 18, 1987 . Ron seconded the motion with all in favor. CASE #88-3 M & W PROPERTIES TONY MAZZA AND FRANK WOODS Remo read into record request for variance. (attached in record) Doug Graybeal, Architect: Presented affidavit of posting and pictures of posting. Rick: Asked to be excused from hearing this case because of personal reasons. Remo granted request. Doug presented a site plan, a model and a set of work drawings. Ord. #54 requests that any dwelling unit which can be accessed from an alley or from a private road entered at the rear of the dwelling unit should only be excluded from FAR calculation as it is only located on the alley or at the rear of the building. We started design of the Spring Street Townhouses and construction documents in the Fall of 1987. When we were 90% complete with our working drawings before Ord 54 was accepted. Because of this we feel we have a project hardship that is both timing. It would cause us to re-design. It would cause a financial burden on both the ownership--the architects and myself personally. With this ordinance we feel we have met the intent and the purpose of this ordinance and I would like to go into a fuller explanation of how our design proceeded and what we feel the intent of the code was. At the outset of our design it was decided to utilize our primary front to Spring Street. We have a corner lot which is a unique BAMMAZZA He then showed pictures demonstrating the location of the garage in regard to neighbors. The intent was to provide unobstructed green space and we feel we have absolutely maximized. The second intent of the code is to look into garages at the rear of the property. We perceive this as the rear of the property. We have a unique situation. We have a corner lot. In my conversations with Alan Richman and Bill Drueding we talked about the problem and it was decided to bring it to you folks. Alan had said "You have a corner lot. It is a unique situation which we have not thought about. The code is poorly written" . That is why we are in front of you folks. The final intent of the code is to keep buildings from excessive building mass by limiting the FAR. This lot is allowed 4, 500sgft of building FAR with an additional 1, 000sgft of garage for a total of 5, 500sgft that could be on this lot if it was fully maximized. Our project including the garage has 5,480sgft so we are effectively 420sgft under the FAR. Remo: Say that again. Doug: Our total FAR for the project including the garage if 5, 080sgft. (these are the figures he gave. This is a difference of 400sgft from what he just said. ) Ron: What is it that you are asking for? Doug: I am asking for 310-- Ron: No. What is the total of the project? Doug: The project including the garages is 5, 080sgft of FAR. The total allowed including garages is 5,500. Remo: There is nothing in all my calculations that I arrived at that figure at all. Doug: The FAR that the law allows is 4,500sgft. It is a duplex lot. You are allowed for the garages 500sgft if you meet the code requirements per garage--2 garages is 1, 000sgft. That plus the 4,500 is the 5, 500 maximum project FAR. Remo: Well, you are exempt from those so they are not considered. You are allowed up to that but they are not part of 3 BAMMAZZA your FAR because they are exempt from it if they come off the alley. Doug: The alley or the rear of the building. Remo: No. Just the alley. Doug: The last sentence--"For any dwelling unit which can be accessed from an alley or from a private road entering at the rear of the dwelling-- Remo: Private road--entering from the rear of the unit. You - don't-have a private road at the rear- of the unit -- -- - Doug: Let me finish. The garage shall be only excluded if located on the alley or at the rear of the unit. Remo: Yea. If it is accessed from a private road. And yours is not accessed from a private road. It is accessed from Hopkins Street. Drueding: From an alley. Remo: Or from the alley. I still want to know how you get to the 5, 080ft. Doug: I have 2 garages at 310sgft. So if you take the 620sgft from that the number is 4,-- Remo: 90. 390. You take 620? Drueding: What he is doing he is taking this 4 , 500-- Remo: Max-- Drueding: OK. Then he subtracted for each garage is 310 so he is subtracting 620 and he is down to 4,460 for his FAR-- Remo: No. It is less than that if you take 620 off. 4, 500-- Drueding: No. No. From 5, 080. Doug: It is 4, 460sgft is where our building is. Not counting the garages. Drueding: We have 4,500sgft of FAR that he is permitted. Then exempt he is adding 600--310 a side to that. Remo: Yea. That is 4, 500 plus 620. 4 BAMMAZZA Drueding: Yea. Less 40. Remo: What's a less 40? Drueding: Because he is not building exactly to 4,500. He is building-- Remo: Wait a minute then. Are these drawings correct? Is this part of the record? Doug: I must explain that my number here does--Bill Drueding and- I met on that. We have a change in the deck which actually that number should be 4,450. Remo: This is what we go by. And you don't say anything in your letter. There is no way that I can arrive at 5, 080 of you are telling me that your FAR allowable is 4 ,500 and on the sheet it says actual 4, 500. So we assume through the information that we got that you have reached your maximum. Then you give us figures in here that don't correspond. So what is the total FAR now? Doug: If I may enter into the record what we have--the building itself where it says 4, 500 is actually 4,460. That is the building without the garage. Drueding: Their figure is not confirmed by the Building Dept. Remo: They are not confirmed. I thought you said you went over this with Bill. Drueding: We were discussing the difference in what was here. We were trying to get this paragraph straight. Doug: Bill and I did meet on how the interpretation of the FAR was and went through all the decks and everything. We found that we have one deck that did not meet code. (He mumbled something more here) Drueding: If it comes down to a building permit when we do our calculations which we don't do right away and he is more than 4, 460 or is more than 4, 500 then he has a problem. He is going to not ask for a variance but basically take it out of that building somewhere. Doug: Which we are willing to do. Remo: Well, we are not here for that. We are assuming that you have met all of the criteria and we are also assuming that 5 BAMMAZZA everything on these pages that we are looking at is correct except now for this change that you have just mentioned and you are submitting as what you believe is the actual FAR. Doug: So effectively 2 garages--each are 310sgft and what we are asking for is a variance to allow us to access the one garage off Hopkins Street which is 310sgft to allow us to be exempt and 310sgft for that garage plus our garages are garages are smaller than the 500. We feel that is a community benefit there. We are below the FAR. We do not intend to max it out. We feel we have provided a community benefit by leaving half of one end of this building as a front which if you go up around Aspen in the same zoning district across the street or across the town, people on corner lots have oriented to the front which we feel is a strong benefit to the town that you give them this green space in this orientation. We have preserved the Blue Spruce trees which helps declare it as the side. We feel that this is the perceived rear of the building. We have moved an existing curb cut off of the busy street over to the side street. We feel we have a special situation where we have a corner lot. I fully understand the intent of the code which is to get the building mass of the garages on to the rear side and as a corner lot we do have 2 potential frontages and 2 potential rear lots and we have used what we feel is the most effective front and rear. Remo: Basically what you have said here is what you have written to us in a letter which we have all read. And I would like to go through as a clarification some of the things that you said here so that I understand better. First you said the new relocation which was reviewed and approved by City Engineer Jay Hammond and that was just for the purposes of what? That it was illegal use of a curb cut or-- Doug: No. I had a discussion with Jay about putting the curb cut in in this location because I was concerned about meeting all the criteria of drainage and sidewalks and everything else. I explained to Jay that we have an existing curb cut that we would relocate. He thought that was great because this was a busy street and he had no problems with it. he made a couple of recommendations on the drainage so that it is drained into the gutter then we need to take care of the rest of it within our garage which we have done. And Jay was quite happy that we were getting rid of this because that is such a busy street. Remo: Then you really confused my in this 3rd paragraph here. You say to further maximize the green space, the project was set back further to the west than required. How do you set further 6 BAMMAZZA to the west? And then a green space to the east for City side of the project. Doug: I am sorry. I have east and west-- Remo: You see it is very confusing when you are reading this to determine what, in effect, you are talking about. Doug: Our required setback line is actually right in here. Remo: You are telling us that it is a benefit to the City but to what--how would it have benefited you to place the structure forward? It wouldn't have benefited you either, would it? To have placed the structure anyplace else other than where it is. I mean you have a lot of green space behind but for what purpose? You have that duplex behind you and it is really just logical to put it where you are saying. Doug: It benefits everybody because it gives you a lot of green space here. You are not putting it here which--the perception from the City, people walking down the street--there is a lot of green here. You can perceive just a little bit here. I am saying we have got a 100ft and have got an additional depth. If we had oriented the other direction, we definitely would have pulled out here because we were trying to get the view that other direction. We definitely would have pulled this all the way up to that setback line. Remo: Your so-called second intent is really what you say is to locate garages to the rear of the properties is really a reason for the real intent which is your 3rd. In other words the reason to locate garages to the rear of the property is to prevent excessive building max--in effect bulk. So the intent of locating garages to the rear is not an intent. That is the Ordinance and the reason for the ordinance is to diminish mass and not create bulk. And in effect your first intent is really a by-product of this ordinance--unobstructed green space. That is what we get from putting garages in the rear, lessening mass and bulk and we do create the effect of green space. In talking to Alan and Steve Burstein we talked about getting curb cuts off the streets to provide more parking. And then Alan came by and he said it is really none of those. It is bulk. We are trying to diminish bulk and it has to do with west end properties by putting garages right off right in the front and therefore diminishing the green space aspect of it. Doug: My understanding from them that that was also the intent that the bulk is one of the major elements. 7 BAMMAZZA Remo: One thing that really disturbed me a little bit was in the last 2 paragraphs. In both paragraphs you mention 3 times "We did not maximize our FAR" . These things prove to me that you did maximize your FAR. Doug: Each of our garages is 310sgft. Remo: Right. Doug: Exemptions allow you 500. Remo: Right. Doug: So each garage is 190sgft underneath what we potentially dig. So that is 380sgft underneath the potential. If we had designed this building with both accesses off of the alley, the bulk of this building could be 390sgft bigger. We designed this building with the owner's criteria of "I need X number of bedrooms the space and this is what I want" . So we are not trying to take advantage of the code, we are caught in a catch 22 because we have effectively completed our working drawings when the Ordinance was enacted. Remo: I know. Because you are using your old criteria as a basis for the hardship and then you used the new one for not accessing off the--you are using the new Ordinance 54 as a criteria for getting more FAR than you would be allowed. So you are playing both--I have a feeling Doug: I am not trying to play both sides. I would be happy to address it any way you want me to. Because Bill stopped us on the Ordinance 54--I had to address Ordinance 54. That is why I addressed it. Remo: That is right. And you also use the word re-design. Doug: That is part of my hardship. If for some reason I am not granted this variance my hardship is that a full set of working drawings I have to re-design my project. It is a tremendous burden. Ron: You mentioned that very early in the Fall you started the working drawings. What is early Fall? Doug: We started in September. Ron: When were these drawings complete? Doug: Those drawings were 90% complete the first of December. This Ordinance was not enacted on then. 8 BAMMAZZA Ron: They had a public session on it on October 6th. So that was like 2 weeks after you started. Bill just told me the application was submitted 2 weeks ago. What happened between December 1st and March 15th? Doug: There were a lot of things. We were pretty much finished. Our ownership decided not go at the time. Why put the money up front when the building permit is not coming until Spring. I had directions from them not to proceed. Ron: Isn't the Building Dept not always available for consultation? Doug: Yes. The other thing I would like to point out is it says "Coming off of alley" . I have come off the alley where I can. I was designed for 2 units this way. I have come off the alley where I can--one side. This side, I couldn't. Remo: I think you do have a unique situation on this corner lot that hasn't been addressed in the code and I believe that you have met the intent of the Ordinance by concealing the mass within the framework of an existing mass so that in effect I am not against this variance at all because I think it is left in our hands to really look at it in terms of the spirit of the Ordinance. Another thing comes up that is in the code that concerns that driveway and right next door is a 5 garage duplex? (Reading from Code) "There shall be a minimum 25 feet between any 2 curb cuts whether on one of more properties except common driveways may be used on adjoining properties. Distance between curb cuts will be such as to maximize the amount of on street parking and those curb cuts on those properties next door are very close and I don't know if 25ft beyond that. Doug: I did discuss this with Jay. Remo: Yes but he didn't see--if you showed him this plan, there is no way that he knows that there is a curb cut next door. So that is my only consideration to this. I don't have any more questions. Does anyone else on the panel? Drueding: I believe they didn't consider a corner lot. The intent of this is clearly that they don't want garages looking on the street whether it is a corner lot or not. It is clear to me that these garages both of them to come off the alley. Anne: I have a question of Bill. On this garages and carports zoning description for any dwelling unit which can be accessed 9 BAMMAZZA from an alley or from a private road. I don't understand what they are talking about as a private road. Private driveway? Through a property? Where does this affect anyone? We are talking about R-6. There are no private roads in the City. Drueding: It could be a subdivision created--1010 Ute, they are all private roads in there. Anne: But we are mainly talking about in the City. Drueding: That is in the City. Anne: So if you enter from the rear of the building. (Many people talking at the same time) Drueding: They are covering themselves. That is all. Charlie: I think it is very sensitive to the site for the building. Remo then asked if there was any public comment. There was none and he closed the public portion of the meeting. Charlie: I think the presentation showed clearly that it is the location of the garages and driveways are the best interest of both the client and the City. Ron: I think it is a fabulous design. If I were the owner of this project I would be very, very happy with it. I would not grant this variance however. The way I see it it is no hardship because there were 2 or 3 months where alternatives could have been brought to the attention of the developers and maybe something worked out whereby they wouldn't need a variance. I figure that we are the board of last award. That if you have exhausted all other opportunities then you come and see us and we try and redress what I consider a grievance. I do not see a grievance. I do not see a hardship. The Ordinance was passed in December and there were work sessions in September on those things. Remo: You don't' think it satisfies the intent of the code which is bulk. Don't you think that this is a nice clean unit--not having garages out front? Ron: I think it is an aesthetically very pleasing. Remo: Would you keep that in mind? 10 BAMMAZZA Ron: If we don't give him the variance the 310ft, then he could still keep the garage in the same place and reduce the max of the building. Remo: Well, we are designing now. Ron: I am not designing at all. All I am saying is you want to reduce bulk, have them make the building smaller. I think you are granting a variance without a hardship. Josephine: I can't agree with you because if you had to stick to the idea of both of the garages being here. That puts all of your living area up here. You are bossed by trees and here is your view down here. So somehow that doesn't suit me very well. Remo: Bill, does the alley--It is not considered curb cut, right? Several answered "No" . Remo: Only curb cut is on the street. Is there any kind of ordinance that says you have to be away from somebody else's property? Drueding: Nope. You can put a driveway right up to the property line. Ron: You can put a driveway right across somebody else's land. We found that out last time. MOTION Anne: I move that we grant this variance as requested. Charlie seconded the motion. Roll call vote: Ron, no, Charlie, yes, Josephine, yes, Anne, yes, Remo, yes. Variance granted. Meeting was adjourned. Time was 5: 35pm. Jan ce M. Carney, City D uty Clerk j, 11 NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING Case #88-3 M & W PROPERTIES BEFORE THE CITY OF ASPEN BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT TO ALL PROPERTY OWNERS AFFECTED BY THE REQUESTED ZONING OR USE VARIANCE DESCRIBED BELOW: Pursuant to the .Official Code of Aspen of June 25 , 1962, as amended , a public hearing will be held in the Council Room, City Hall, Aspen, Colorado, (or at such other place as the meeting may be then adjourned) to consider an application filed with the said Board of Adjustment requesting authority for variance from the provisions of the Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 24 , Official Code of Aspen. All persons affected by the proposed variance are invited to appear and state their views , protests or objections . If you cannot appear personally at such meeting , then you are urged to state your views by letter , particularly if you have objection to such variance , as. the Board of Adjustment will give serious consideration to the opinions of surrounding property owners and others affected in deciding whether to grant or deny the request for variance . The particulars of the hearing and of the requested variance are as follows: Date and Time of Meeting: Date: April 7 , 1988 Time 4 : 00 p.m. Second Floor Council Chambers Owner for Variance: A p p e l l a n t f o r Variance: _ Name: M & W Properties, (Tony Mazza and Frank Woods) Address: 205 S. Mill , Suite 301A Hagman Yaw Architects Aspen, Colorado 81611 Location or description of property: Location: Lots A & B, Block 104 , City of Aspen Variance Requested: Applicant is requesting a 310 sq ft variance for a proposed garage that does not access from the alley. Section 24-3 . 7 (e ) ( 3 ) Aspen Muni Code . Garages are excluded from floor area calculations up to 500 sq ft per unit. For any dwelling unit which can be accessed from an alley entering at the rear of the unit , the garage shall only be excluded from floor area calculations if it is located on the alley or at the rear of the unit . Will applicant be represented by counsel: Yes: No: X _ The City of Aspen Board of Adjustment 130 South Galena Street, Aspen, Colorado 81611 Remo Lavagnino , Chairman Jan Carney, Deputy City Clerk