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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.council.19741216 Mayor Stacy Standley opened the public hearing on the proposed zoning code at 7:00 p.m. with Councilmembers Markalunas, Pedersen, Walls, and Breasted, City Manager Mahoney and City Attorney Stuller present. John Stanford I would like to give a short presentation on the rationale and the process of developing the new zoning code. Thereare three maps on the wall behind me. The first is a map before Ordinance #19 came in. The next map in the center is the ~zoning map as recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission which is presently in effect according to Ordinance ~45. This map adjacent to me here is the map to date including the recommended changes suggestions and considerations of Council is presently involved with and we'll get into this map later. Tonight's public hearing is basically on the map that is in the center, which is the P & Z ~ecommendation. For the record I would also like to submit a letter from Spence Schiffer, who is the chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission and submit this as a part of the record. The letter is dealing with the proposal that Council is considering regarding the parking situation. "Aspen City Council P. O. V Aspen, Colorado 81611 Ladies & Gentlemen: It is my understnading that in connection with the adoption of a new zoning code you are contemplating the deletion of all parking requirements for the CC and/or C1 districts. Since you already have the recommendations of the P & Z in that regard, it is obviously inappropriate for me to make further formal comment as a member of that commission; however, I would like to formally protest such action as a concerned citizen with some particular knowledge in this area. It is my firm beliefe that the following basic hypotheses are supported empirically and logically and should underlie any decision relative to parking. 1. The elimination of parking facilities will not eliminate the presence of the automobile; however, any new parking facilities, municipal or private, should be strategically located (e.g. periphery of core area, Rio Grande proper%y, Wagner Park) so that traffic patterns can be adequately controlled. 2. Vehicular traffic can be significantly reduced through a combination of adequate municipal parking facilities and a convenient and efficient transit system. 3. Mos~ of the traffic, and thus the need for additional parking facilities, in and around the downtown area is generated by the businesses in that area. 4. New traffic generating building on the periphery of the core area should be required to provide off-street parking since every new parking space necessitated by such building which is not provided by the private sector will have to ultimately be provided by the City. 5. The land available for municipal parking facilities and therefore the total number of spaces which can be provided, is limited. 6. The businesses which generate the need for parking and cannot, or are properly prohibited from, providing off-street parking (e.g. CC area) should help defray the cost of municipal parking facilities. We have heard much talk about intercept parking lots at the aiport, sophisticated transit systems, and underground municipal parking. All of these might ultimately solve our traffic and parking problems, but they are years away. In the interim I think that we have to take steps to Insure that adequate parking is provided at least with respect to every new building where the same is not in direct conflict with the Mall or where it will not increase traffic congestion. I believe that off-street parking on the fringe of the core fits in with circulation patterns and, therefore, will not increase traffic or congestion. Recently there has been much reference to the Vorhees Plan with respect to the location of off-street parking. It should be noted, however, that the Plan never addressed private off-street parking, but only the location of municipal facilities. Consequently, it should not serve as a basis for the elimination of parking require- ments on the fringe of the core area. With respect to the CC district, I do not think that you should eliminate the requirements unless and until you have a suitable means for requiring the businesses located therein to participate in the financing of municipal facilities. If parking requirements are imposed in other districts, it seems patently unfair and unreason- able to not have any requirements for that district. Moreover, since those businesses generate much of the need for parking, it is clearly appropriate that they pay their fair share of the cost thereof, rather than having the entire burden fall on the general public. Once you eliminate the requirements, I think it will be virtually impossible to obtain the required consent for the contemplated free district. I have previously heard several of you speak about the need for keeping options open. I respectfully request that you reconsider your position on parking so as -1- not to preclude some of the options which are now open. Very truly yours /s/ Spencer F. Schiffer John Stanford - The purposes of tonight's public hearing is basically to provide citizens to express their concerns about the zoning code as it is proposed and in effect today and also to allow Council to hear the citizens' concerns and in order to allow them to have a better view in their decision making process, and to provide an opportunity to present changes from the recommended ordinance which are presently under consideration. There are a number of land use concepts on which the proposed zoning is based. These deal primarily with density distribution and to that extent we have the overall concept of the zoning code is to allow for a pattern of decreasing densities and land use intensity as the distance from the commercial core increases. Also there is the general planning consideration of conservation. The planning history of Aspen since about 1970 has been based on conservation which is to minimize develop- ment, protect natural elements in natural resource areas, which is the river and the mountains. Also to coordinate land use density with transportation corridors and facilities, both existing and proposed. I would like to now go into the individual zoning districts and give you the intent of each district. In the commercial core, which is represented here by the intense red area, the intent there is basically to let this be our most intense area of develop- ment to stresS our tourist uses in this area and the area has a floor area ratio here of 2 to 1. The next area is the Commercial-l, which is the red cross hatched area, the red and white area here. The intent here is to also allow commercial uses, but uses which are primarily resident oriented. The floor area ratio here is 1.5 to 1. We have our neighborhood commercial areas, we have two areas. They are basically on the blocks which are presently occupied by the City Market and a portion of the Trueman property which is commonly referred to now as the Aspen Center propertY. Floor area ratio here is 1 to 1, and the intent of this district is to allow convenience oriented type businesses, such as .grocery stores, drug store, shoe shops, cleaning establishments and so forth. The type of uses you woUld find in a neighborhood shopping center. Our next area is the office area which is the blue area. We have basically three areas here. This has a floor area ratio of 1 to 1, and allows for office uses and multi-family. We have a service/commercial/industrial district which allows for our heavier type commercial uses and light industrial uses with a floor area ratio of 2 to 1. This area is located basically behind the County Courthouse where Sport Obermeyers is located and on the remainder of the Trueman property. We have two lodge districts, a lodge-1 and lodge-2, both of which have a floor area ratio of 1 to 1. The lodge-1 area is the area which is open here in orange and the lodge-2 is the other orange area which is cross-hatched. The difference between the two is that short term condominiums are allowed in the lodge-2 area. The policy here is to restrict our future tourist accommodations to the foot of the ski hill. We have our multi-family areas which are indicated in dark brown and are located in various spots throughout the City. The density here is based on a bedroom count; the maximum density of one bedroom per 1,000 square feet. We have our duplex and single family areas which correspond to our R-6 and R-15 areas and then an R-30 areas which are basically gold, yellow and light green. These are for low density residential purposes. We do not have a rural residential on this proposal. We have a conservation district which allows one unit per 10 acres, and the intent of this district, again, is to maintain the natural resource and the conservation elements of our planning.. These areas are generally located along natural resource areas, such as the ski hill above the 8040 line and that portion of the ski hill which goes down the Little Nell lift, and along the river adjacent to the Institute. We have two zone distr~ts which are being applied to public lands; one being Park and the other Public. These are shown in the light blue and the dark green areas; the dark green being Park and the light blue being the Public areas. These areas also can have a subscript of T for transportation and D for drainage purposes. There are a number of areas of special concern, planning concerns, that were incorpor- ated in the development of our zoning code. One of these is Main street. Main street is going to remain, for the future, our primary east-west cross town route. So we are very concerned that we be able to maintain this area as a major thoroughfare, and to that extent we have tried to restrict it from becoming intensively used from commercial uses which generate additional traffic which would create congestion and potential accident hazards. We have an area called Specially Planned Areas, which is recommended On this proposal for the Institute property located here and also for service/commercial/industrial area here. This designation has no density or no density requirements or use requirements. What is required, however, is submittal of a master plan which must be approved before development can take place in these areas. -2- John Stanford We have mandatory PUD on a number of places throughout the county; generally these are located along natural resource areas such as the river, and along Castle Creek, and in special areas such as the Villas property here, and also in areas where there may be because of the topographies and problems in general we should have a special look at these areas, as to how they are developed. The code, it's not indicated on the map here, but also in the code we have included the provision which excludes short term rentals in residential areas. In other words in the brown, yellow and gold areas you would not be able to have short term rentals. Also in the residential area we have specified that there be one parking space per bedroom, and we have changed the code to allow driveways to be considered in this space allotments for parking facilities. I'd like to talk about the zone district boundaries, as to how they were delineated. They are generally along the center lines of streets, alleys, and streams, and also natural features, such as the 8040 topo conture line; the edges of banks, cliffs, and so forth. The boundaries generally incorporate broad areas of uniform and compatible uses. The degree of uniformity and compatibility of uses varies in each district according to the intent and purpose of that district. For instance, in some areas where there may be a mixture of uses, it may be considered to be compatible provided this mix is not allowed to increase or change appreciably. It would be an area where this mix would be considered to be desirable, such as the R-6 area, west of the central core area. I'd like to talk a little bit about non-conforming uses. We've tried to minimize the creation of non-conforming uses. To this extent, we've avoided creating large areas of non-conforming uses where they predominate and where improvement to the area can only be accomplished through major redevelopment programs. For an example of this, we have the policy of trying to protect development along the river. Presently the river is already built up along this area, so it would be, if we put perhaps a lower density on these areas all the way along the river here, it would be, every use there just about would be non-conforming because of the existing uses that are there. We have taken a policy of allowing non-conforming uses in areas where, if they're not allowed to expand in s~ze or intensity, they can co-exist with other uses without creating detrimental impacts or nuisances. This is the area, again, just to the west of the downtown area, the R-6 area here where we have a mix of single family homes, duplexes, multi-family uses and lodges. The intent here is that it offers the person who comes to visit us the opportunity to stay in part of the more residential part of town as opposed to staying an the very intense lodge areas. We have also, in some areas, created non-conforming uses where they are clearly incompatible with the intent, purpose and function of adjacent uses within an area. This would be for instance, as an example, along Main street, where we are very concerned about the future intent of keeping the street as a major thoroughfare and also in trying to protect the visual image of Main street as a person enters town. Since the Council has been working on the zoning code, there are a number of changes from the P & Z proposal, which I'd like to review with you briefly. That would be on this map here. On Main street, it's been recommended to change the zoning from the multi-family category to an R-6 category. The are a along the City limit line here has been recommended to be changed from R-5 to R-15 in order to make it more compatible with the county zoning that is adjacent, which is also R-L5. The Council is considering also on the east end adjacent to the river designating this area R-6, which is presently the only area in this part of town which has a reasonably low density. Another factor also is that these streets are dead end streets which if allowed to go to multi-family would create additional traffic congestion and problems. Council has recommended also the inclusion of the Rio Grande property as a Specially Planned Area, in other words, development can only happen if there is an approved master plan for the area. Also the area east of Ute Children's Park and the Ute Cemetery is presently R-15 and its been recommended that that go to rural residential which allows one unit to 2 acres in order, again, to be consistent with adjacent county zoning. Another planning consideration is the park itself, which represents a break from the urban development to the land, which has a basically rural character. Ramona Markalunas "How many acres are in that rural residential area? Within the City" John Stanford "I don't have that figure" Ramona Markalunas - "It's the only rural residential in the City, isn't it?" John Stanford "That's correct. Another consideration which the planning office is looking at now and will bring before P & Z tomorrow, we discovered a slight inequity in the zoning in our office and multi- family areas from the standpoint that duplex is required to have 9,000 square feet whereas a multi-family can be built with as many bedrooms, let's say on a 6,000 square foot parcel you could have six bedrooms. We are going to propose to P & Z tomorrow the idea of in our office and multi-family areas to allow duplexes on 6,000 square feet with special review for any excess over three bedrooms and one bath. With respect to changing along Main street to R-6, we are going to change one aspect which we had in the multi-family zone whick allowed a structure which has been designated H - Historic to have its use upgraded or increased to an office use or a boarding house/ rooming house type facility. We'll need to change that since we don't really want to see office uses going in other R-6 areas, to allow this to happen only on designated major thoroughfares, which would be basically Main street and Cooper avenue. These would be streets that would be specified for this designation to occur. We have the recommendation also to reduce to F.A.R. in the service/commercial/industrial area. This was a concern of Council from the standpoint that the 2 to 1 F.A.R. is perhaps too high. We have not come up with an ultimate decision as to what that F.A.R. will be, but we will be working on that. -3- We have also added catalog sales to be one of the uses by special review in the service commercial/industrial. We are recommending allowing townhouses in RMF, which will require a definition of townhouses in our code. We also made a minor change of taking this little finger of lodge area, which is really unbuildable and unusable for lodge purposes and putting it into an R-15 category here. The parking, of course, has been a major consideration, which we are still in the proce of deliberations on. The present recommendation from Council has been to eliminate the requirement for off-street parking spaces in the commercial core, to allow underground parking spaces but no on-grade parking spaces in the C-1 area; and to allow the option for offices, to allow parking to be provided on-site in office areas. That basically covers our background and brings you up to date as to where we are. Yank will present to you some of the more build out and economic factors related to the proposal." Yank Mojo - "From preliminary studies that Larry Simmons and I have done a few of the early part of last spring, we concluded that the pressures on the economy were pretty much generated by the tourist oriented units and tourist oriented facilities in town. One way to address the problem of increasing land prices, or housing prices, for residents and to try to bring some of the peaks and valleys in the economy to flatten them out or to bring them to a more stable flow, it was decided that a good course would be to direct our attention to the AR districts under the old zoning code. This process had already started long before our arrival on the scene by Mr. Bartel and one of the results was downzoning in the Ute Avenue area. What I've done is compiled some analysis of the charts that I've handed out to you. Essentially what we've done is we've reduced the total build out in terms of units throughout the City by planning and zoning commission's proposal between 62 and 63 per cent. That's been a reduction in the total build out. Now the two components of that build out are build out in tourist oriented units and build out in residential oriented units. In the tourist oriented units, we had a reduction from the present zoning code to the planning and zoning commission's proposal of 89 to 92 per cent in the number of units that could be build and directed towards an effective tourist market. You can see by the amount that the orange has diminished on the pre-Ordinance 19 zoning map to the area that it's confined to on this map. This area is largely built up at this time to the total potential build out, I think it's about 132 units. However, in the residential oriented units, which are units that we would deem, under the new code, to be covered by the long term rental limitation, which is a prohibition against multi-short term rentals. If you want to leave your house at Christmas, it's still possible but you can't run it as a business or condominium. The potential build out change in these areas was an increase of from 48 to 65 per cent, so we've done two things here. We've done, with these reductions, we've taken some of the pressure off of the demand for tourist oriented services and at the same time made housing available literally only to the resident oriented market, or the longer term oriented market. Previously the whole area running from the Villas all the way through the southwest end of town could have been built into condominiums at a density about of the Fifth Avenue. The Whole area could have been that way, and it could have been a market in which effectively the tourist and the out of town owner would have been able to out bid the local resident. There are some changes so that the land available ~o the local resident has in fact increased under this zoning proposal. I'd like to go into a little analysis here about the composition of the units under the various zoning codes. Under the present code, or the pre-Ordinance 19 code, tourist oriented units accounted for 80 per cent of the potential build out in the town. And the other 19.6 per cent was resident oriented units. Under the planning and zoning commission past proposal, those numbers just about get reversed. The tourist oriented build out as a percentage of the total build out is only 16 per cent and the resident oriented build out as a percentage of the total build out is 84 per cent. So what we've effectively made available a lot of land to the longer term markets in town. There are an awful lot of numbers and information I guess I could go into but it would be not appropriate at this time. Essentially what we're talking about when we talk about vacant land is 23 per cent of developable land in the City. 75 per cent of the land within the city is already developed. So we are really discussing only 23 per cent of it when we talk about land that's still vacant in the limits. Under the present zoning proposal or the pre-OrdinanCe 19 one, there was 27 acres of what we would consider under-utilized land. This is land that could convert say from a single family use to a multi-family use; or to convert up to some higher unit. Under the planning and zoning commission's reSolution there was 16 acres. So this is effectively addressed both the vacant land in the town and a lot of the under-utilized land in the town. The City Council recommendations as they were promulgated to us in their recent study session would drop the under-utilized land down to about 12 Or 13 acres." Wesley Melahn - "I'm recently the business manager of the Aspen Institute since last Tuesday. I'm looking forward to moving my family from Boulder, Colorado, and become permanent residents in Aspen. I have this statement which I would like to place on the record: The Aspen Institute, which is a non-profit organization with a public trust, has a number of serious objections to the proposed zoning ordinance and map recently recommended by the City's Planning and Zoning Commission. The Institute respect- fully points out that from our perspective the Commissions's recommended map and ordinance are arbitrary, discriminatory, ambiguous and unreasonable. Their adoption without amendment or modification would in effect confiScate much of the Institute's property and thereby put the Institute's future in serious jeopardy. -4- The Aspen Institute desires to work cooperatively with the City to develop plans that are compatible with the City's objectives in rezoning and which enable the Institute to remain a healty, and viable organization. We have been encouraged by the progress during the past year. Both public and private discussions have led us to believe that we can achieve a mutually acceptable plan for use of the Institute's property. At the suggestion of the City, the Institute is presently working on specific alternative proposals for consideration by the Council and the Commission. Because this work is in progress, no purpose would be served in attempting to detail here all of the specific problems with,and in, the proposed map and ordinance. In due course, the Institute wOuld welcome an opportunity to present our specific plans to the appropriate City authorities. The Institute sincerely hopes and believes that reasonably zoning can result by working together." Larry Yaw -" I am a planner and architect and I represent the Oden property. The Oden property, many of you know where it is on this particular map it is indicated in black. I would like to request that the Council consider an amendment to the zoning recommenda- tions, and a review for this property." Councilman Breasted - "Larry, would you turn that around so the public can see it." Mayor Standley - "No, this is for us. The public hearing is for us to get information. They can walk up here and look at it but we're the ones that have got to react to it." Larry Yaw - "The modification of this building would be from its present designation, office~ to C-l, which is the zoning under which it existed for some period of time. I'd like to briefly state why we think this change makes good planning sense, and then if it's appropriate to re-convene on the details in any study sessions you may have following. Our request is based on three areas of planning concern (1) the zoning location relative to other permanent fixed uses in the area, secondly the parking situation, and thirdly the specific uses for which the property is presently contem- plated. By virtue of the zoning overlay in this area, the zoning overlay of office, we feel the City has inadvertently created a zoning island. The uses noted here in red are primarily C-1 and C-C allowed uses on the new zoning code, including some in the new office area. Many of the adjacent uses are also not allowed in the office area. We think that that zoning for that property is inconsistent with the already established uses of the property and that while this area along this side of Main street was up zoned from C-1 to C-C the area back here has been down zoned from C-1 to office. Also we feel it inconsistent with other zoning standards or precedents set next to the C-C zone. On the maps, one of the major C-1 areas, six blocks I guess, is located on Hunter street directly adjacent to C-C, and thus we think establishes a strong precedent that should be adhered to. The only, with regard to the parking requirements, we think it highly inconsistent that the ordinance requires parking to the detriment, that it does when it's located next to a public area that has been designated parking and designated conceptually so to encourage its use. As examples of what parking does to this cite, if the minimum parking requirements for this land were put in on the surface, it would require 85 per cent of the land. But with the setbacks required, that leaves a 25 by 25 square foot building, three stories high allowed there. If we used the maximum parking required for high intensity office use, we would use 122 per cent of the land area available for parking. One of the reasons that we want C-1 zoning for this is that it presently allows an owner to buy parking and no place in the City is it more appropriate to be allowed to buy parking than it would be directly next to an area that's designed for parking. In addition, it's contemplated by the owners and has in the past been contemplated by the zoning commission that the Bleeker street right-of-way or alley which is now not so, if parking were be allowed to be placed here for this particular use that this area through here could be landscaped and turned over in a right-of-way to support access to that parking. There presently isn't any real good access from that parking directly into the center of town. Now with regard to the specific uses that are envisioned for this site by the owner- ship; there are two and they are presently not allowed in the office district. One would be a lower floor use and it is an office/stationery or office supply type of facility that is not allowed. Secondly and most importantly, the owners have for a number of years been considered an indoor athletic club, an urban athletic club which would consist of locker rooms and playing facilities for squash and handball. That is also not allowed, although both those uses are very compatible with the uses around them which are already built and there and are permanent uses. One way in which that compatibility exists from a topographical standpoint is illustrated in a little sketch. The bank would sit roughly in this area, the alley and then the Oden property here. And it does take.about a 15 foot embankment changing levels from the alley level to the parking level. This is where, essentially a basement use, where the athletic club would go so that the height and any other qualifications in the code aren't really (unclear) but the fact that the 1 to 1 F.A.R. contemplated in the office district does count basement space. In this case the basement space can be counted in; it takes about a story and a half for an athletic club. The zoning amendment is the only realistic legal course that we have for this area, which is sort of islanded off. Our other recourses would be to wait until next October which is the only date at which zoning amendments can be made or to go before the Board of Variance and there really isn't a case to indicate hardship here, so that would have to be ruled out also. The City has encouraged these uses for a number of years and Dr. Oden has repeatedly over the last four years deferred this project at the request of various offices of the City. I will submit for the record a letter from Dr. Oden. The letter indicates how and by whom and so forth these requests by the City have been made. I think that is all I'd like to say, since I would like to meet, if that's possible, in study session and would appreciate your consideration of this matter. "Aspen City Council Ladies and Gentlemen: Land which Mr. Larry Yaw has referred to, was purchased in April of 1970. We wanted to initially build a building to house the expanding Aspen Clinic. In March of 1972, preliminary drawings of a building were obtained, and were presented to the Aspen Board of Adjustment, to establish the height, they would allow, considering the peculiar topographical condition of the land. (Five lots at the alley level, at which point on the north side, there is a drop of approximately 12 to 15 feet, at which point the lot is level with the extension of Bleeker Street.) This initial building that was designed, did in fact extend over the Bleeker Street, and we were going to use a part of Bleeker Street, for the building. The Board, granted us the right to establish the height of the building as off the alley. The building was to be approxi- mately 37 feet in height, above the ground, with a full basement beneath the ground, opening on to the extension of Bleeker Street. In the winter of 1972, knowing that the City eventually wanted to purchase the Rio Grande property, I organized a group of investors, and we gave a proposal to the Rio Grande to purchase the same. This was done to the knowledge of Mr. Herbert Bartel, the City Planner, and at that time, we stated, we wOuld sell the property to the City for what we paid for it, if they desired to eventually purchase the whole property or any part thereof. At this time, Mr. Bartel asked me not to building the building that I was anticipating, as he wished that the City could acquire an ownership or at least access through the Bleeker Street part of the property. He wished this access, so that they could have access to the Rio Grande property if and when it was in fact purchased. As you know, Mr. Truman ended up initially purchasing the property and subsequently selling same to the City. In August of 1972, Mr. Bartel again asked if there was any possibility of our using this property to build the new Post Office. Mr. Bartell proposed that we make an offier to the County, to exchange these 4 lots east of our existing property, which are owned by the County, for ownership in Bleeker Street extension. With this in mind, we made a proposal to~ the United States Post Office Department, basically proposing that they use this site for their new Post Office, and concurrently a proposal to the Pitkin County, whether they would be willing to make this exchange. Meetings were held, and a reply was finally made in May of 1973, from Mr. Leonar Oates, the County Attorney, stating that because of the way that the CoUnty land was acquired, it was nOt free to exchange, but instead had to be offered for public auction, which they were no willing to do. Again we started to redesign another building, to correspond to Mr. Bartel's wishes that it be limited to the upper land surface, leaving Bleeker Street free, and at that time, he suggested to us, that the County had been discussing the possibility of build- ing a building as originally designed bY Mr. Ted Mularz after his extensive survey as to the amount needed for both City and County to include the jail etc. A proposal was made to the City and County in September of 1973, with the thought that such a building could be planned in the fall and winter of 1973 to be built in the beginning of 1974, however, at that time, the County Commissioner would not be interested in this proposal. At that time, we again returned to the idea of bUilding a 3 story building on the property, with full basement, and some preliminary drawings were made. When the thought of starting construction in the spring of 1974 was discussed with Mr. Huebinger, he assured us that it would probably be impossible, because of the shortage of steel and concrete, and he encouraged us to spend more time on the plans, to order the materials and to make certain that the materials were in fact available, and to plan on construction in the spring of 1975. This though was carried forward, and in the summer of 1974, we discussed our ideas with Mr. Bartel, and his staff. The new zoning study was being held at this time, and we were assured by Mr. Bartel and his staff, that in all probability the zoning would not be changed, and that we would be allowed at least 1½ to 1 area to land ratio, and that we should proceed. Ms. Donna Baer stated that after October, that Ordinance 19 would not be in effect, and she encouraged us to wait until that was over, assuring us that the building as planned would fit within the basic proposed zoning. It was for this reason, that we did not present the plan under Ordinance 19, which in hindsight, was an obvious error. In summary, we have attempted to cooperate with the Planning Department of the City and County in the use of this property, and now find ourselves in the detrimental position of being "down zoned", where we cannot build a 3 story building above ground, with basement underground. With this in mind, I urgently request that the zoning of this property be returned to study session for a continUation of its C-1 zoning. Sincerely, Robert R. Oden, M.D. /s/" Jim Adams "I'd like to keep my comments relevant but not specific tonight, if I may. Over the summer we did some Work with figures and I think probably Yank is more qualified than any of us who worked on figures that were trying to prove or disprove transit, but we came up with some that were kind of interesting and they should be a part of the public record, I think. tendency in the past for not only Aspen, but Snowmass and base of Highlands, well let's say Aspen and Snowmass, to over build by 20 per cent because there is a general rule of thumb that about during the winter at least, there's an 80 per ~ent occupancy in each of those towns or villages. That's pretty much what's happened and that 20 per cent doesn't mean that in the future we can still count on it being unoccupied because there's certain marketing techniques and certain efficiency in reservations that could in fact bring that figure up close to 100 per cent. So that's 20 per cent on any normal day in Aspen we've got as a surplus in visitor beds. I think that it's got to be taken into consideration. We were trying to work up some transit rider figures and, of course, we took that 80 per cent occupancy figure and it's also an established fact that about 80 per cent of the people here on any given average day ski; the other 20 per cent are not skiing. Now, I would think in the future, there would be some mechanisms that could be directed to that 20 per cent, which would increase that up towards 100 per cent figure. So we've got two figures in limbo there that could be cultivated in one way or another and increase the movement of people out of Aspen on any given day progressively through- out the next ten or twenty years. We also came up with some figures that indicated that Aspen had a pretty well established visitor bed capacity of 12,000 and we tossed that around among people who know pretty much what that bed capacity is and we got no argument. There is a fairly well establish~ figure that says there are about 5,000 residents in Aspen, at least in the winter, permanent residents that work here or stay here and are potential skiiers and potential movers. There's another figure that we've worked, we said that of all the permanent residents, beds, there were probably 3,000 of those beds that were potential tourist beds. And so we have another 3,000 that are potential skiiers and people that are moving around. So we have almost 20,000 people in Aspen who really can move around any given day. After conducting all the 80 per cent occupancy figures and the 80 per cent skiiers any given day, we end up with about 8,000 skiiers that leave Aspen a rather high average day, every day to go ski somewhere else, right now. And if we were allowed 7 per cent growth, over the next ten years, we might double that figure in seven to nine years and that will mean 16,000 skiiers. The point I'm trying to make is that the bigger Aspen grows, not only in the toursit beds but in the permanent residential areas, we are contributing and couid, in fact, in 20 years increase the contribution we the people in Aspen would have to make toward the transportation system but 300 per cent. I jUst want to leave that fact with you." Hans Gramiger - "I have a question Mr. Mayor before I go into that. Would it be proper that some of you members would express yourselves as to the proposed zoning code because everybody has purchased this mimeographed or xeroxed version and we know exactly what's in here. But we don't know, we only know what we r~ad in the paper that you have not bought 100 per cent the ideas of the P & Z" Mayor Standley - "That was done at the onset of the meeting." Hans Gramiger - "I did hear that but I thought about you individual members" Mayor Standley - "It's a public hearing for us to get your input. We have study session, we will schedule a study session. If anybody on Council wishes to speak, it's certainly appropriate and they can do it, but it's basically an input for us rather than an outpouring by us." Hans Gramiger ~' Well it might have a bearing how we react tonight." Mayor Standley -"If any of them would like to, they have the option and the right to speak. At this point, you are the next speaker." Hans Gramiger "But you don't want to give the option now?" Mayor Standley - "No, We'll hear you and then we'll make any comments that anybody would like to make, but we've scheduled to listen to you at this point." Hans Gramiger - "Do you all have in front of you the proposed zoning? Because what I will go, briefly, and if you want to take time we can supply you with Xerox copies of my suggestions, and if you want to save time I can very briefly go through it and Kathy can have a copy, because I go by page number. Page 5, which is 24-2.7 Mandatory Economic Studies, I really question the validity to burden the cost to the applicant. So you just take this down and think it over later. Page 7, 24-3.1, Definitions, under n, hotels and lodges, no kitchens allowed. I again think in view of the modern trend to have some kind of link bars or pullman kitchens in the most modern hotel accommodations in the world, which is a complete reversal of years ago, anything with a kitchen was a kind of a court on the highway. But things have changed. I think we again should think whether we are not punishing the tourist or if an owner, operator, or developer would like to give the best service to the clients~who Come to Aspen whether he wouldn't be allowed to use his discretion to put a kitchen in or not. I might not think a full kitchen, but some kind of a pullman. -7- Page 9a - under R-6 lists as conditional uses, open use recreational sites, schools, churches, hospitals, public administration buildings, nursery, day care centers. To me these conditional uses seem to be considered by the planning and zoning commission and the planning department as compatible with residential uses because R-6 is residential. I'm perplexed to learn that in the proposed R/MF, they are listed professional offices and business officers under conditional uses if located in a structure which has received an H - Historic designation. To me it would be also unconstitutional to say, Mr. so-and-so you have a house somewhere, a Victorian, you designated historical, you can have an office building, you can have a dentist in there, you can have an insuror in there. But the vacant property next to it, absolutely adjoining is a different zoning classification by the mere fact that he doesn't have a house there yet, that he can designate historical. Maybe he would want it, but he can't. Page 9b - under CC/commercial core. This allows medical and dental clinics and professional office, why should medical offices be limited to an area reserved for pedestrian traffic. Here you're going all out to make malls and try to dominate the auto somewhat, or control it. Don't sick people and injured people usually rely on some kind of vehicular transportion, or do you want the people from the parking lot down at the Rio Grande be walk on crutches up to the doctor's office. You also allow appliance and furniture and antique stores in that CC. It seems to me that should be looked at because that depends on a heavy automobile use, trucking, you know, through the alleys to deliver and pick up. Page 9c - C-1 commercial. The language in there says "to provide for the establishment of commercial uses which are not primary oriented to serving the tourist population." And under permitted uses in that C-1 you say medical and dental clinics, professional and business offices. Either I don't read it right or maybe I'm right. Namely, you do think that some of the medical and dental clinics or some of the professional and business offices are not tourist oriented, and that's my contention all along. That 50 or 75 per cent of these offices are not tourist oriented. 'You take the Aspen Agency, Cliff Brelsford, he writes insurance for everybody in town, certainly not for the tourists. Page 9d - under S/C/I Service/Commercial/Industrial. I happen to be in the study sessio~ there, just listening in and lumber yards were put back into this designation. Matter of fact, you see it, it stands kind of on the side, like it was put in later. Well, that's the reason, it was put in later, and I really feel we just got about through when the Denver Rio Grande is still owned, the property down there, to get rid of what we call undesirable industry that was not compatible with the North Mill street going to the hospital, Red Mountain, so on, we got rid of it and this was the reason why the master planner designated an area which is now the Airport Business Center, to have all this industrial uses out there. Now we want to go and put a lumber yard back in there. My suggestion is to take it out, and the second suggestion is, if it's left in then at least it should be a conditional use subject to 24-3.3(d) with a further condition that the lumber storage area must be in a building or completely screened from view. Under S/C/I/ and N/C which is Service/Commercial/Industrial and Neighborhood/Commercial you permit gasoline service stations. Ex-Mayor Barnard you remember when we talked about service stations years ago, here in town, and at that time, the planner came up with a minimum lot area. He felt that if somebody could build a service station on two lots it would be a crummy one, three lots a crummy one, four, and there was a site requirement. I really feel that if a service station goes in down there, in addition to the restriction it has, namely, cannot build more than 9,000 square feet of building, there should be a lot minimum of 15,000 square feet of land. Page 9d - under Office, offices are listed under permitted uses, and I think I repeat myself with the only thing that you again mix in there medical, dental or other professional business offices, single family, duplex and multi-family residents, which again in my interpretation means that the planning department and the P & Z in their minds do not find it incompatible to have limited office facilities mix in with residential, otherwise they wouldn't have put it under the permitted uses. Page 9d - L-l, lodge-1 and I want to take this together with L-2, lodge-2, in the former one you say under 1) encourage construction of lodges 2) to encourage renovation of lodges 3) to prevent the conversion of existing lodges into long term residences. In L-2 point 3 is changed to allow construction of tourist oriented multi-family units. Well, if you really have the intention to take this area which is on the map under the L-1 and L-2 and prefer to have lodges there instead of multi-family, then I think you should give a better incentive. Older properties, for instance, should be allowed to renovate or completely rebuild with the same number of units as their old facility. That's the only way you can get a Blue Spruce or a Glory Hole or anything like that completely up-dated, you know. Everything has an economic life, an economic of lessons has come in, into the lodge business, and if you want to really keep it up with the newer resorts and have a face lifting job, you've got to give these older facilites the same density so that they can build it up, otherwise they won't do it. Now as far as the L-2 is concerned, an incentive for getting more lodges built there in addition to the small incentive that Yank Mojo has given, namely, that they have a higher bed count or higher bedroom count than under residential multi-family, would be to give them a bonus. And I know this is kind of hard on you to understand right now but I think a bonus of maybe an additional story. Maybe with a land restriction that they have to have a little more green space. But you will not get another ski lodge on Ajax mountain on the base of Ajax mountain because it's not a summer location, you know. Today you have to have a lodge that is in between. At one time, I give you a little historical background, Ajax mountain was the only ski hill and therefore all sleeping and tourist accommodations were built at the base of Ajax mountain at Little Nell. Then came along Buttermilk, Aspen Highlands, and Snowmass, which changed the location aspect, or the location game. No new lodges were built at the base of Aspen mountain, strictly because of the location. Economic factors dictate the location for a ski lodge which also can attract summer trade. Today a lodge, a potential lodge -8- Owner or developer would rather build where he has a fairly good assurance of summer business, that he can attract summer business because winter business almost comes automatically today. Page 9e - under the Park and Park Transportation I qUestion the language. Because of the size of these public tracts, it will be impossible that the park character remain dominant when simultaneous use is made for public transportation. Because there you say the park character should dominant, well I question the validity of this statement because our designated park or park transportation designated areas are too small and any time you going to double it up with transportation, that's going to domineer. So I'm putting this in for what it's worth. Page 10a - Under 34-3.4 Area Bulk Requirements, I really think that R/MF should be also R/MFO and I will go into this in a minute. Matter of fact, I do it right now. At one point, in June of this year the planning department, I believe it was still under Bartell, came out With the maps and I don't know whether you have seen these maps, but along Main street they kept everything pretty much the way it was. It kind of was zoning by present use. Wherever there was a lodge, there was a lodge. And then office and multi-family were allowed adjoining a lodge or office multi-family. To be personal, my corner became MF on this map and the adjoining property became office/multi-family. I mean kind of like somebody was trying to say how they could get rid of me, you know. Speakin~ of that, incidentally, my office I consider obsolete. I think it's a disgrace to the town at the entrance to the town to have my office in the present condition. And yet I'm allowed to keep it there as non-conforming as long as I want to and I like to replace it with something as good looking, possibly, hopefully, as the public library but not as dense. I believe in a lot of open space. But I'm just saying, it's kind of ironic. Now the next suggestion came out a little later. Mr. Bartel left the town, somehow, under some circumstances, and the next thing came out. On Main street, you see these white spots on the blue prints. There were a lOt of erasures made, left and right, quick like. Like some kind of a political thing happened, and it did. And I will tell you what it is later on. I mean all kinds of changes were made quick to R/MF officer were deleted. Here, wait a minute, two or three officers were left, amazing. So, I'm just saying, the political thing is, of course, historic. Namely, Ramona can probably say this, is it true that circulations has been going on in the West side that they want to make the whole town or west side historical?" Ramona Markalunas - "The R-6 zone which does not affect Main street." Hans Gramiger - "Now, I maintain under 34-3.4 Area Bulk Requirements where offices are deleted, I think it is a fallacy to think that if you designated Main street, MF or MF Office that all of a sudden over night or in the next ten years you would see nothing but offices on Main street. Nothing else, every empty lot right now is an office, or every empty lot is a multi-family. I have heard in study sessions that the planning department advocates to preserve a healthy mix. They even consider what's there now was not unhealthy. And yet now all of a sudden, the recommendations are multi-family or the latest and I haven't seen this in writing, I heard that someone on the Council would like to see R-6. So I really think a healthy mix is great, and you have had everybody had a leeway up to now to develop Main street any way they saw fit because the tourist designation, the former T was much more liberal. And yet you haven't seen it abused. You have not seen it abused. Now under item 2 under R/MF on the same page, 10a, you find a minimum lot area per dwelling unit. I feel that (a) it should be uniform regardless of size of property because you have there an asterisk and then down there you have an asterisk here; You see that the density is somewhat different if you have three lots or less. I think it~ should be uniform for everything whether a guy has ten lots or three lots or two. And number 2, since we are talking about the City zoning right now, we are in the City of Aspen, and the town has been platted almost uniformly in 3,000 square feet lots. I suggested in a study session here, nobody paid attention to me, but I really think the density should be in multiples so you can divide any multiple of 3,000 square feet into the density requirement so you come out even or you have a mix. Maybe so many Studios, so many one bedroom, so many two bedrooms, andso on. But the way it is, namely, let me make my recommendation. From 6,000 sqUare feet, no quarrel, that you've got to have 6,000 square feet. The duplex from 4,500 ~quare feet for a duplex, I'm talking now not in the residential, I'm talking now in R/MF, I think it should be reduced to 3,000. Under the studio, 1,000 square feet, okay. Under the 1250 requirement for one bedroom, that doesn't jive into 3,000. You've got left over, it doesn't work. It should be 1,200, that works pretty good. And from 2,100 for two bedroom, should be 2,000. And from the 3,630, which is a very odd figure, for a three bedroom, that should go into a 3,000, or maybe you have a better suggestion, but at least something that works again. And the other one, I don't even understand, the BR U-1 should be, I forgotten, I think that should be 4,000. Page 10c under CC S/C/I N/C, you have a requirement of minimum lot size, 3,000 square feet. Well I always understood, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that in most cities, commercial property because you can build without setbacks from property line to property line, that you can actually buy fractional lots and that has happened over Aspen all the times. We just recently sold the lease, which was the westerly 14 feet of lot and the other property the White Kitche, which closes unfortunately on December 24, is the easterly 16 feet, you know. Now the only condition that I would like to make is that they don't divide lots horizontal and then they are cut off from the alley, like some places that has happened. So maybe a further condition would be that any further sub- division of lots in the commercial area must have access to the alley still. So they've got to be, you know, north south subdivision instead of, no just the opposite. -9- Under supplementary Regulations, which is page 1Sa, which is 24-3.7, you have under I. Limitations of Leasing and subparagraph 3,"within the RMF district, no units within a multi-family shall be let fOr any term less than six months". Well now if the intention is to prevent renting to tourists and/or provide housing for seasonal employees, then I may agree but the mechanics of leasing cannot be restricted in the language as you suggest. For instance, all my rentals that I have in the City of Aspen, are to employees and not a one is one the lease, they're all month to month on my word and their word and I have some people who are staying four or five years already in one apartment hoUse on the hill so I think you have to find another way, you cannot say you must be a six month lease. I mean if somebody comes in Thanksgiving and they want to leave by college break or some- thing, they are not going to sign a six months lease, why should they be punished to pay six months if they only want to stay four months and they happen to be employees. Under page 17, which is 24-4.7, "the number of off-street parking required" Under the singl family and duplexes you require one space per bedroom. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have no suggestions. All I can see I have doubts about this. I do not recognize, I do recognize the problem, sorry~but I just do nOt see where they should be on a bedroom basis. I mean, I have heard that somebody has four kids and they can not afford four bedrooms for the parents, the master bedroom five, makes five off-street parking for a resident, I just don't know but I do recognize the problem but I think it should be where the locatio is because, you know, our own Building Inspector, for instance, he lives in an RMF in an apartment house. He has a girlfriend, so there are two cars, then he has a sailboat that he parks on my property and a canoe is under the trees so I think it should go by location because, strangely enough, ironically, an apartment dwelling on the hill that caters to tourists uses less parking than we residents, you know that? Ok, under Hotels and Lodges, now you go back over the games that has been played so many times, we had one space per unit, then two for three, now we go back to one per unit. Agai I recognize the problem but its the smaller lodges that need more parking, unfortunately. The bigger lodges that cater to ski clubs today, you can see the lodges today, big ones, the two hundred fifty bed capacity and over where you see a charter bus or two at five o'clock in the morning, maybe they wanted to fly and couldn't so they had to charter in Denver and then they took the bus and the place is completely full, absolutely full, and yet they manufacture on their own parking facilities is nil at that point. I think it would be absolUtely inj~st to punish somebody who has the guts to build a new lodge with a lot of bedding capacity and then tell them to have a space for every unit and then he is going to cater to the bookings that come in like skiclubs and charters and so on. Now as you know I didn't speak specifically about my own property too much and all I can say is, ah, I am caught within it, I made some suggestions for which I have, you know, I have no personal interest in, I've been here long enough that I feel I can make some suggestions where I don't gain anything from it monetarily. I do have my own office property and I feel that you should really think this over before you come in with a design and make the widest street in Aspen, there's only another one like that which is Garmisch, hundred foot wide. Its the designated routing whereby the State of Colorado, State Highway 82, a traffi. count would say that is almost, you know, too noisy to have residents or even apartments on it. And somebody dreams up the idea that if you have an old Victorian and we take you in in the club and make it historic, then you can have a professional office building but the guy next door with the empty lots or me with my non-conforming, with an office that I really feel is obsolete and is a disgrace, I repeat, wouldn't be allowed to expand on it and make it a nice office building that, I would stand for architectural control, I stand for a cut in density, but to take the idea away that a professional office building is something that is ugly on Main Street, that I haven't seen yet. Thank you for your time." Dr. Barnard - I told you how to handle that problem. Bring one of those plastic,yeah one of those old buildings and then you could make it an office building. " Han~ Gramiger - You're sense of humor is only exceeded by your good looks. May I say one more thing? We have heard a lot of lip service about upgrading Aspen, everybody says that we've got a quality resort, and anybody who wants to upgrade anything, he runs into a stone wall." Mayor Standley - Those are designated historic stone." Laura Thompson - That's like following B~b Hope and Kissinger. Are we talking about 27 per cent of the land, that was all that orange there, on this beautiful map here? Yank Mojo - 23 per cent of the entire city is still vacant." Laura Thompson - Bu~ that's the changeable areas or are you just doing that along with everything else? Yank Mojo - Well, under any kind of zoning, it doesn't matter what it is, it is still 23%. Laura Thompson - Well the whole schmear is getting rezoned? Second question - when you mentioned rural ten acre near Ajax, I'm still addressing you because you came up here, one of you all did, and you pointed near Ajax and I couldn,t see a thing(Yank Mqjo this is above the 80/40 line, this area all here) that's ten acre lots? (that's Conservation). Owne by who, at the present? (mostly leased to the Ski Corp.) In other words, National Park. How does the downzoning affect the Institute Property? In other words, what Kind of master plan could they get away with? (John Stanford -There are no specific requirements in respec density, until they come up with their master plan, at which time it Would be then to reviewed for its impact) With public hearings? (right, a public hearing would be required) But no vote? (it has to be accepted - planned area has a set of procedures which you have to go through) Well fine I don't know the procedure, I'm saying how much control does the populace have, since this is a very important green area. (well the procedures do allow for a public hearing, two public hearings, in other words it's just like zoning it goes through the Planning and Zoning, they have a hearing and make a recommendation to Council, Council then looks at the plan, has a public hearing) Why was the Institute upset about the vague and so forth? (Mayor - you'll have to speak to them, we can't speak for them, wh~ they get a plan, we'll have the public hearing, you'll have the opportunity to ask them I think there is a lot of concern for the Institute, that's why its being treated the way it is) It's not a very good answer. (Michael Behrendt - what do you mean? Th~ts why its being zoned o..) I understand that Mr. Slater planned to build more units out there on that -10- Laura Thompson land. Now if its just left until they propose, they haven't proposed anything yet? (nothi~ ]) (Sandra Stuller - before increments will issue, they will have to have a completely adopted master plan) They brought it to P & Z for their review. (Ramona Markatunas their propose~ master plan has been presented to P & Z for their information but not for any formal actio~ I don't think so. (Mrs. Markalunas - oh please, less than six months ago, the Institute appeared before a neighborhood group and the P & Z with .a rough sketch and a rough idea that they wanted several hundred bedrooms oh their area - it was not submitted as a formal plan but they were trying to feel people out as to what they would allow and I think this is what she is referring to. I've never met Mr. Millan either, he's business manager for the Aspen Institute) Fredrick Benedict I would like to register an opposition to this Rural Residential. It's the only place whe~ its applied, I believe. On the two or three acres that my wife and I own, across from the house. About a year ago we built an office building there, conforming with the existing zoning. And at one point we redesigned it because a 100 ~ foot setback was proposed along the river so rather than go before the Board and ask for a variance, it was eighty-five feet from the river's edge, I had decided to go through a procedure of redesigned it to stay out of that setback which I thought a good idea. There was very little room left to build anything and I have no intention of building anything else there except possibly one or two tennis courts. There would be room to build something more if I wanted to build it in the hundred foot setback which I don't have any intention to do that and I don't quite understand the reason for this zoning and making a new building non-conforming. I stuck my neck out to build the building and spent about $350,000 to which I have a $350,000 mortgage. And I am just a little baffled. Dr. Barnard I would just like to present the letter that I presented to you at the last Council meeting and introduce it into the proceedings of this meeting, I just don't happen to have the letter, is my problem. "Mayor and City Council: I am appearing before you as a private citizen of Aspen to protest the recent reversal in your position regarding the off-street parking requirements in the central business core As I understand it, in a recent study session, you instructed the Planning Department to remove all off-street parking requirements from the CC and C1 zones in the new Zoning Code. From what I have heard from others your reasoning is that you wish to discourage the use of the automobile from the downtown business district. Your assumption apparently is that businessmen do not have to provide parking for their customers, those same customers will then cease to use their cars to conduct their respective business affairs at these same establishments. This assumption is totally fellacious. Nothing could be more further from the truth. The installation of the present mall proves the pudding. If the Mall prevented ~ anyone from parking in the designated Mall area, but did it stop the people who~work in the ~ Mall area from bringing their cars to work? Certainly not. They simply park now on the periphery of the Mall. T~ere is one sure thing that Council's parking policy will acoompli and that will be a very rapid buildup in the commercial core as soon as the property owners are relieved of the cost of providing off-street parking, either on-site or in the form of a buy-out from the City. Hence you will lose in two ways: 1) you will get what you have been saying all along what you don't want, namely more growth in the downtown; 2) you will lose the opportunity to lock new structures in the CC and C1 into parking districts, fee parking system, or whatever it is that you ultimately decide to do. In closing it seems me that you have lost sight of what you are trying to do. Deemphasizing the car is a idea but you are still obliged to find~ someplace to put the cars that are already here. This you will fail to do completely. You're most recent decision, re: the parking problem is like to taking the shoes away from a person who you think is walking too much. Taloxin of the laddin, ad hoc will hoc you, which means which comes first - the foot or the Sincerely, Dr. Robert Barnard /s/" Jack Walls I have a letter that I would like to introduce in regards to the minutes to make a matter of record. Its very short. I guess that I could have written another Hans Gramiger special that would have been 15-20 pages but I think that by time it was finished that we would all be asleep. And this is not knocking Hans because he was trying to get a point across but nevertheless: Ladies and Gentlemen: With the initiation of the public hearing on the proposed zoning changes in the City of Aspen, I must at this time register my displeasure with, and objections to, the proposed zoning changes that are before us today. After having been intimately involved with city planning and zoning for a good number of years, I find myself in the extremely awkward position of not being able to support the city on this matter. Having been one of the persons who helped establish the Aspen Area Master Plan and set up the planning department, I have the feeling that I have been a to the creation of a political monster. My desire from the beginning was to establish meth to solve the problems we were experiencing then and now. My feeling of disappointment with the city and with the so-called planning process started when we were setting up Ordinance 19. Tbis Ordinance was enacted to give us the opportunit to get a handle on our growth problems. At that time I was appalled because decisions were being made by the planning department without an adequate basis of background information. I had the feeling then, as I have now, that these decisions were made by the 'seat of the pants' approach. We were told that a number of necessary studies for obtaining necessary background information had to be made, such as economic analysis, transportation, existing land use, etc. When the proposed Aspen Land Use Plan was brought forth under Ordinance 19, I was that all the so-called studies would be slanted to justify this plan. I pleaded that the proposed studies be done from an objective point of view so that the Council could make rational and logical decisions concerning land use. It seems that my fears were not unfounded and that my vision of what was about to happen has actually happened. -11- TO my knowledge, very few of the background studies have been completed, yet we are in the Jack Walls process of changin the zoning. I sit through work sessions, and Council meetings, and listen to decisions being made in what seems to me to be a haphazard and vindictive fashion. The~ is disagreement between the planning department and the Planning and Zoning Commission. T~re is disagreement between the Planning and Zoning Commission and the City Council. And to complete the circle, there is disagreement between the City Council and the planning department. I watch Councilmen take proposals from both the P & Z and the planning department and make changes at their personal whims. On what basis are they doing this? It is all too appare~ that out planning department has become a political tool which politicians can use at theiI leisure. I have stated a number of times that a credibility gap exists between city officials and citizens, and this gap is growing larger and larger. To illustrate: 1. We established a Planned Unit Development .(PUD) concept so that the city and the individuals desiring to build could work together to meet their needs. This is now a sham because PUD is being used by the city to buy time to create the justification to deny the application. 2. We established the Ordinance 19 review process for new projects being planned in the City. This review process was designed to insure that new projects would be in line with proposed planning and zoning being worked on at the time. Individuals accepted this and worked with the City and were allowed to go through the whole process only to find in the end that the planning department was recommending that their projects be denied because they didn't match the zoning that was being proposed. I guess the point that I am trying to make is that we should be deeply involved in the planning process and aiming toward solving our problems but in my mind the planning proces~ has been and is being subverted. We are still in the same quagmire that we were in back ix 1960, and if we continue to go in this direction then none of the solutions arrived at by this process now or in the future will be beneficial to the citizens and the tax money we are spending will continue to be wasted. I would have hoped that by this time the leadeers Of Aspen would have arrived at a reasonable and logical method of growth control. Before there can be a cooperative growth control system in Aspen, there must be a method under which the City and the people can work together. The proposed zoning not only will )t lead to that cooperation, but instead will intensify the ill feelings already present. Respectfully, CouncilmanJack M. Walls, Jr. /s/ I realize that a lot of people don't agree with me in regards to this and I am not really opening it up in regard to rebuttal. I had to get my two cents in. I've been sitting here for an awful long time in regard to listening to what is going on, I've listened, as I said in my letter, to sessions that we've been in that I have been rather appalled at, in which I would have assumed that the planning department had had done their homework before, and which at that 'time we asked for certain things and it wasn't forthcoming. And yet we are still in the process, so, ah, that's my two cents worth, I don't want to get int any arguments, I just want to get this out. " Mayor Standley - If there are no further comments, we will close the public hearing. Thank you all for attending. We will schedule a study session to review the comments after we get a transcription of what transpired. Kathryn S. Hauter, City Clerk by Susan B. Smith, Deputy