By Allyn Harvey
Aspen Times Staff Writer
December 11, 2001
Life for a large number of land owners in Pitkin County is about to undergo some drastic changes.
The county attorney’s office and the community development department are proposing changes to the land-use code
— changes that haven’t been seen since growth controls were first implemented in the 1970s.
The new zone district regulations, which are scheduled for a hearing before two county boards on Wednesday afternoon,
have caught many in the development and planning community off guard. The new regulations are beginning to become
the subject of increasingly sharp criticism from those who make their living in the industry, for both their scope
and the secretive way in which they have been crafted.
“It looks to me like a major downzoning without a planning process,” said private planner Glenn Horn. “And I don’t
know anyone who knows it’s going on.”
The proposed changes include:
• A new house-size limit of 2,000 square feet in some rural areas, down from the maximum of 15,000 square feet
allowed under current regulations;
• Limits on subdivision that make it impossible to carve out homesites in rural areas of less than 35 acres. That
is, except for those who own large parcels of property and agree to preserve at least 85 percent of it for open
space or agricultural use;
• A countywide prohibition of fractional-ownership projects like the Ritz Carlton Club at Aspen Highlands and the
Roaring Fork Club near Basalt;
• A requirement that all affordable housing projects be located within Aspen’s urban growth boundary, a narrow
swath of land that begins at Aspen’s downvalley boundary and follows a narrow corridor down Highway 82 until Aspen
Village. Both Aspen Mass and the W/J Ranch would be eliminated as possible sites for affordable housing;
• A 4,000-square-foot maximum for new retail businesses and a 5,000-square-foot limit for all other business uses;
• And, according to former county attorney Tom Smith, the county appears to be granting itself the right to force
the demolition of any nonconforming structure — including, for the first time, cabins and houses.
“Just about everybody who owns land in the rural areas of the county is going to be affected one way or another
by this,” said Smith, who is now in private practice.”However, it really affects people who have enough acreage
under the current zoning to build more than one house.”
Landowners will see their subdivision rights — which allow them to divide their property into smaller parcels for
sale or development — drastically reduced. Rural property owners will see the total number of zone districts that
might apply to their land reduced from more than nine to three and a corresponding reduction in their development
opportunities.
Someone who currently owns 100 acres in the county’s AF-10 zone district is allowed to build 10 homes. Under the
proposed regulations, the number of homesites would be limited to the number of 35-acre parcels that the owner
can carve from his land — two in the case of the landowner with 100 acres.
The new house-size limit also represents significant change — an 87 percent reduction from the current maximum.
If the zoning rules currently proposed are passed as written, a limit of 2,000 square feet would apply in a yet-to-be
determined swath of the county’s rural area. The restriction would apply to property in what the proposed regulations
call the Resource Conservation District.
Under the proposed zoning, landowners would be allowed to build larger homes if they cluster their development
and agree to preserve most of their property from development.
“They’re trying to force people into clustering, but the regulations show no regard for what’s best for the land,”
said one rancher who asked to remain anonymous.
The Resource Conservation District is aimed directly at ranchers like the one quoted above. It would apply only
to parcels greater than 200 acres in size, according to the draft released last month. And it includes many of
the incentives recommended in the agriculture plan that was put together by a committee of ranchers in the mid-1990s.
Homes larger than 5,750 square feet will not be allowed anywhere, except around Aspen and Basalt or in existing
subdivisions like the Lazy O Ranch in Old Snowmass.
“The bottom line is this is being done under the radar without any public input,” said planning consultant Sunny
Vann.
Planners and attorneys like Vann and Smith have been surprised at how little the county has done to include the
public. They note that the county hasn’t gone through a normal planning process, with studies that outline the
problem, planning and zoning commission hearings about possible solutions and open discussions with the county
commissioners.
Instead, say the county’s critics, the regulations are being crafted behind closed doors and presented as fait
accompli to the county commissioners. Two other sections of the land-use code, on vesting and transferable development
rights, have been dealt with this way, but the planning community isn’t sure that it will work with the zoning
regulations, which are more complex and affect more people.
But Cindy Houben, director of the county’s community development department, thinks Wednesday’s meeting will be
the first of several on this section of the land-use code.
“There’s a lot of material to go over. The scope of this section is so large, it’s going to take several meetings
to complete,” she said.
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