By The Aspen Times
This past week, Aspen City Council passed a moratorium that would ban new residential development until the end of September 2022, declaring an emergency in the community. This new ordinance also imposes a pause on new vacation rental permits in Pitkin County, running until the same date.
The moratorium was passed unanimously, on Wednesday night. After several hours of discussion from council members and speaking from members of the public, a vote was made on this temporary ban.
Council member Rachel Richards said that while she doesn’t believe the moratorium will lead to the creation of more affordable housing, the community is seeing large impacts due to the boom in the STR market, including over-tourism and a need for public transportation between all corners of Aspen — situations that warrant an emergency.
Council member Ward Hauenstein added that the city is asking for a pause so they may take an opportunity to look more closely at the housing crisis. He assured the public that there will be more opportunity in the near future for them to have a voice.
Mayor Torre sought to assure the public that permits that have already been issued or that are in the queue for approval will remain intact. The city is currently monitoring $750 million worth of permits, he said.
Aspen City Council is set to meet again on Tuesday, December 14th, to discuss further regulations that are designed to mitigate community impacts in response to the unprecedented explosion in the local real estate market. Proposed changes in regulations would be regarding the city’s land use code.
There are two main changes proposed in the land use code for the purposes of affordable housing mitigation.
The first is eliminating credit given to existing floor area, so for example if a 2,000-square-foot home is demolished and replaced with a 3,000-square-foot one, the owner would have to mitigate for all of it and not get a credit for the existing floor area.
Under that scenario, mitigation fees would jump from $60,236 to $180,708.
The second change is eliminating exemptions for basements and other square footage areas, like garages and stairways.
So if a home was 3,000 square feet above grade and 3,000 square feet sub-grade, the mitigation rate for demolition under current rules would be $108,708 and under the proposal, it would be $474,358.
Ben Anderson, the city’s principal long range planner in the community development department, said the comments he’s received have been mostly fair and there have been suggestions on changes to the proposal that council could consider. Anderson said the idea is that many of the old properties that are being rebuilt were never mitigated for and the new calculations address the city’s antiquated affordable housing mitigation system.
Full information and notes from meetings can be found on The Aspen Times website.
