Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.council.19880324Continued MeetnQ___ Aspen Citv Council March 24, 1988 Mayor Stirling called the meeting to order at 5:05 p.m. with Councilmembers Fallin, Gassman and Tuite present. Council rescheduled the work session with the Department of Highways for Tuesday, April 5 at 5:00 p.m. ORDINANCE #5, SERIES OF 1988 - Land Use Code Alan Richman, planning director, reminded Council here are some unresolved issues from previous meetings. Richman said Council talked about the quorum for Board of Adjustment, whether it should be 3 or 4 members, and why the Board's vote has to be a consensus of 4 votes. Richman told Council he has talked to the chairman of the Board of Adjustment who requested the quorum f or the Board be 3 members in order to hear any public input from noticed public hearings rather than have to put the meeting off. The Board would like to be able to do this type of business but not vote on the variances unless there are 4 or more members. Richman told Council the reason for the 4 person majority vote is that this is in the state statutes. However, Aspen is a home rule city and can change this. The chairman of the Board noted the Board grants variances to the zoning code, and it is their feeling when they grant a variance, it should be more than just a simple majority. Councilwoman Fallin pointed out Congress has different votes for different things and agreed this should stand at 4 concurring votes. Councilman Gassman said he does not like the idea of being able to meet without taking any action. Council decided the Board of Adjustment quorum and majority vote should both be 4. Richman reminded Council they did not come to a decision on the park impact fee and whether it should apply in commercial development. Richman said currently this applies to residential development and staff feels comfortable adding lodge development to the park impact fee. Richman said staff did not add commer- cial development because they did not feel this was a direct generator of new residents. When people are added, that is when the impact is assessed. Richman said the argument was raised that commercial development adds employees and that employee housing has the park impact fee waived; that employees live out of town but recreate in town, and there is an impact. Richman said when park impact fees are calculated, taxes that are paid are credited. Richman said the sixth penny is open space tax, which has been credited in evaluating the system. Richman said commercial development does provide a lot of the sixth penny, and charging a park impact fee would be double dipping. Richman said he feels the commercial park impact fee would be a difficult one to sustain. Richman recommended the fee be kept on residential and lodge. 1 Continued Meetin4 AsAen Citv Council March 24, 1988 Councilwoman Fallin said commercial development is not paying the sixth penny tax, they are collecting it. For collecting this fee, the commercial development is given the vendor's fee. Councilwoman Fallin said she does not see this as double dipping. Councilwoman Fallin said when people rent a room in a lodge, they are paying taxes. Councilwoman Fallin said commercial develop- ment is not providing open space in the downtown area. Mayor Stirling said he feels commercial development does generate new residents and is in favor of including them in the park impact fee. Councilman Tuite said he is in favor of including commer- cial development in these fee as they generate need for employee housing. Commercial development is causing an impact on the park system. Richman said he will add this to the ordinance. Richman said the first issue in article 7 is one parcel of land covered by two zone districts. Richman said the current language causes difficulty and the issue comes up repeatedly. Richman said one case is when the two zones are very different, like commercial and residential zones. Richman said the proposed rules are if someone wants to do residential, they can only develop on the land zoned residential. The amount of development should only be based on land that allows the use. Richman said open space and setbacks would include the whole parcel. This also gives property owners the opportunity to apply f or rezoning of the entire parcel. City Manager Bob Anderson said the Little Nell parcel overlaps two zones and the SPA goes on to two zones. A development proposal was allowed which overlapped the two zones, which would not be allowed under these new rules. Richman said during t he process for Little Nell, staff said the hotel should be on the CC zone, the FAR and density should be based on the land area in the zone in which it is a permitted use. Richman said this regula- tion is to make this issue clear. Richman said another situation is when land is zoned R-6 and R-15 and a property owner wants to build residential. Richman said if both sides conform, they can build under either regulation. Richman said if one side if non- conforming, the applicant only gets to develop to the require- ments of the conforming side. Richman said if both sides of the parcel were non-conforming in size, an applicant would have to use the lower density. Councilman Gassman said he feels an applicant should use the lower density in every case or request a rezoning. Anderson said his inclination would be to go with whatever the larger portion of the parcel is. Councilman Tuite said if these regulations go with the lesser density, is this taking away development rights from a property owner. City Attorney Taddune said ambiguities in the present code will be cleared up with this re-write. That developers may loose some rights will be a fall out of this clarification 2 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council March 24. 1988 process. Richman suggested a combination of using the less dense parcel unless 75 percent of the land is zoned more densely. Council requested staff work on the language and bring it back to the next meeting. Richman said the next item is the thought of waiving open space in the CC zone in exchange f or cash-in-lieu. The second portion of this is cash-in-lieu for parking. Richman reminded Council they have discussed the open space earlier and Council was split on their preference. Richman said if the opportunity is provided to waive open space in the CC, the P & Z will waive it and the city will not be getting any open space. Richman said there also is a concern f or historic properties and keeping the store fronts on the street. Mayor Stirling said previously buildings provided open space in a lower atrium type setting, which is not a benefit to the public. Richman reminded Council the definition of open space has been improved to state it cannot be nor more than 2 feet below for 4 feet above grade. Richman said staff came up with guidelines f or waiving the open space. Councilman Gassman said it is worth a try. The previous open space has not worked terrifically. Councilman Tuite said he feels strongly about the open space requirement. Mayor Stirling said he agrees that everyone is required to come to the sidewalk, except on corners. All people are required to make a contribu- tion to cash-in-lieu. The corner lots would be given some credit for their cash-in-lieu. Councilwoman Fallin said she would like to go with the discretionary approach. Councilman Gassman and Mayor Stirling would like to go with building to the sidewalk and cash-in-lieu, Councilman Tuite would like the open space required with no alternative. Richman said he will bring this back at the first meeting in April. Richman said the parking-in-lieu is the next issue and it was brought up that 510,000 per space is out of date. The number should be 515,000 per space. Richman said the consultants feels that 515,000 is a reasonable number. Anderson said this figure does not include the land costs. Mayor Stirling suggested that "this cost to be adjusted every other year" should be included in the regulations. Councilman Gassman asked why this number is not related to T-bills or maker value. Richman said it is best when doing an impact fee to have the applicant on notice in advance of what that value is. The consultant did support having an update of the cost periodically. Richman said that is not included in the code and he will add reevaluation every two years. Richman said the applicant has to be given the opportunity to build the parking on-site, if they can do it more cheaply. This option will be presented to the P & Z. 3 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council March 24, 1988 Richman told Council P & Z would like to address the opportunity for sub-grade day parking as a conditional use in hotels. The applicant for the Aspen Mountain Lodge has proposed the design of the parking spaces be tandem parking; each space would be a double space with a valet. Mayor Stirling said he is not thrilled about the tandem parking proposal. Mayor Stirling said a problem with a condition to require valet parking is who is going to monitor this condition. Councilman Gassman said the city cannot design land use regulations based on a specific kind of operation. Richman said with parking as a conditional use, people will start using and depending on this parking and will have an additional traffic draw in the area of the hotel. Council indicated they are not in favor of valet parking. Richman said the next issue is an inconsistency in two sections of the code regarding historic incentives. Richman said one is codified in the non-conforming section 9-3 and allows a historic landmark to be extended into side, rear and front yards. This section talks specifically about R-6 and R-15 zone district. The section also refers to section 7-601 (d) , which gives the HPC the standards to review the extensions. The language in the latter section does not refer to any zone district. Richman said in the historic incentives ordinance, the city looked at residential zone districts only. Richman said the issues is whether Council would be interested in looking at extension of historic landmarks in zones other than R-6 and R-15. Richman said this has come up because of an application in the 0, office zone. Richman told Council this section grants HPC authority to grant extensions for the first time; however, it only grants this authority in the R-6 and R-15 zones. Mayor Stirling said Council was giving land use incentives in order to preserve property. Mayor Stirling said wherever historic properties are, they ought to have these incentives. Councilwoman Fallin agreed this was to apply to all historic landmarks. Councilman Gassman agreed it should not be limited to just two zones. Richman said when the ordinance came up, the city was looking at the residential zones specifically. Mayor Stirling said his intention is that it should apply to all historic landmarks and historic districts. Councilman Gassman said he did not sense any reference to a specific zone. Richman said there have been suggestions to the SPA and PUD language since Council reviewed the code. Richman said one change is to allow 3 percent to the structure. Another change is any change which "substantially" increases trip generation may be allowed. There is new language which makes the staff look at SPA and PUD amendments cumulatively, which is a good addition. 4 Continued Meeting Aspen City Council March 24, 1988 Richman said there was language about rowhouses, single f amily houses that are clustered to the point of no setback. This language was left out of this code re-write. Richman asked Council if they would be willing to look at rowhouse development in some districts. Richman said this gives some design flexibil- ity in some properties that have other design constraints. Council said this was fine. Richman said the SPA plat language, PUD plat language and subdivision plat language are all inconsistent. The city attorney has asked that the language in all 3 be identical. Richman said another change is that all condominiumizations will be a one-step process under this code. Richman said standards have been created to give Council the opportunity to make decisions expeditiously. Richman brought up Aspen townsite lots and the provision of the Code that was enacted during growth management. The provision states if one owns several old Aspen townsite lots that one did not get an exemption for each 3,000 square foot lot. After this was written, staff spent a lot of time trying to determine what was meant by Aspen townsite lots. Richman said this provision specifically states and Aspen townsite lot was a lot that was on the original incorporation plat plus any other lot that has been taken in since that time that is non-conforming. If one owns two non-conforming lots in a subdivision, it is the same thing. If one owns two conforming lots in a subdivision, they do not merge. Richman said this section clarifies what a townsite lot is. Richman said the next approach deals with waiver of six month minimum lease restrictions. Council has been receiving requests to waive the six month minimum leases and has had no criteria to deal with these. Richman said if the structure is in the lodge zone, this seems to be acceptable. Richman said these requests are much more troublesome in the residential zone districts. Richman said there is criteria set up for the RMF, RR, CC, C-1 and office zone districts. In the R-6, R-15, R-15A, R-15B and R- 30 one cannot apply to waive the six monthly minimum lese restrictions. Councilwoman Fallin said the problem is that residential housing is being replaced by short term units. Richman said displacing tenants or residents could be added as a criteria. Council said this is a good suggestion to add to the criteria. Richman said the issue of if the deed restriction required when a residential unit is condominiumized was raised last summer. Richman said Council agreed that the net result of the condo- miniumization regulations is that landlords raise the rents 18 months in advance so they do not have a rental history to end up with a restricted unit. Richman said the new fee structure will 5 Continued Meetinct Aspen Citv Council March 24, 1988 apply to all new condominium applications unless the condominium- ization is of a structure that went through GMP and has provided employee housing for the community or the applicant willingly agrees to restrict the units to employees, to occupancy guide- lines, not sale and rental guidelines. Councilman Gassman said this is a good idea and gets rid of the rental history documents. Richman said the next issue has to do with lodge condominiumiza- tion. In the lodge condominiumization regulations, an owner can only occupy their unit two weeks in the year. The city can require a report by the condominium association demonstrating the way the unit has been used. Richman told Council the purpose of this is to make sure the units stay in the short term rental market. Richman said if an owner wants to come 3 times in a season, that is 3 short term uses and is not a problem. The units are staying in the market. Richman said this section states the units have to stay in the short term market. Richman suggested this title be changed to availability f or short term rental. Richman said the current code states when P & Z adopts a resolu- tion recommending a code amendment to Council, Council can debate that amendment for one year and no building permit can be issued contrary to the code amendment. P & Z feels 6 months is plenty of time for Council to debate an amendment. Council agreed. Mayor Stirling said P & Z would like to have more time to consider GMP applications and not have to score these the same night. Richman said this is not prohibited by the code, and would be an administration action he does not object to. Councilwoman Fallin said as a former P & Z member, she would agreed with this change. Councilman Gassman agreed. Richman told Council the GMP procedure has been taken out of the concep- tual and put in the preliminary stage. Richman said by the time P & Z gets to scoring, they will be more familiar with the projects. Councilman Tuite moved to adjourn at 7:20 p.m.; seconded by Councilwoman Fallin. All in favor, motion carried. Kathryn ~~ Koch, City Clerk 6