The Aspen Center for Physics will likely scrap its proposed single-family units after the Aspen City Council was not satisfied with its pared-down proposal for the units along North Street.
During a fourth hearing on the Aspen Meadows affordable housing proposal on Tuesday night, the Physics center said it would remove two of the three single-family units originally planned along North Street after council members expressed concerns about those units during a March 10 meeting. The most recent proposal would construct one single-family unit on the corner of North and 6th streets, with the entrance facing 6th Street to maintain the current North Street trail access.
But council members still did not want to see units built in that area of the Meadows campus. They suggested constructing the single-family unit behind Stranahan Hall, but Josh Frieman, chair of the Aspen Center for Physics board, said the center would likely just remove the single-family units instead of relocating them.
“We’ve heard the message about the units on North Street. We came back with what we hoped was an acceptable compromise,” Frieman said. “I think we’re hearing that it’s clearly not, both from you and from neighbors. We understand the concern, so our proposal would be to just eliminate that unit, we don’t plan to move it somewhere else.”
It was one of several concerns the city council still had with the Aspen Meadows housing proposal, which was continued a fifth time to April 20. Council members have said they want to take their time with the proposal that will reshape the Aspen Meadows campus and surrounding neighborhood.
The original proposal would construct 60 units of housing across the campus for the Aspen Institute, Aspen Music Festival and School and the Aspen Center for Physics. The three institutions submitted a joint application for the project, but each housing development is unique to its institution.
Council members were still stuck on plans to locate the entrance of the AMFS’s affordable housing to 4th Street. It is proposing 13 units of housing east of the parking lot along Gillespie Avenue.
Residents on 4th Street have frequently told the city council that the street is too narrow to accommodate a main thoroughfare to the housing units. They worry about pedestrian safety on the road that leads to one of only a handful of bus stops on Main Street and about the difficulty of two-way traffic on the narrow road.
Jessica Garrow, a principal at Design Workshop, said the current 3rd Street intersection is a dangerous one and “one of the only places where there is crash data within the neighborhood.” Jacobs Engineering conducted an analysis of the 4th Street entrance after the previous city council meeting to determine traffic and safety hazards at that intersection.
One resident requested that the city council hold off on its decision to approve the housing until an analysis of congestion in the West End is completed. City council approved about $400,000 in contracts in December to study potential traffic mitigation measures in the neighborhood.
It is unclear if the parking lot will be redesigned in the next iteration of the project. Councilwoman Christine Benedetti asked city staff to determine whether the current proposal is the best configuration possible for that access point and why, and if not, what the other potential solutions may be.
Mayor Rachel Richards said she wants to explore different options for using the existing parking lot access points for the AMFS housing.
“I think the changes to 4th Street are really severe. You’re going from a street where people were used to having the traffic in the summer, they were used to this is the route, and now you’re saying let’s move it over to a whole separate, different block for different people to absorb whatever those impacts are coming out of the parking lot,” Richards said.
The city council was also concerned about designating the Aspen Center for Physics housing as workforce housing. Each entity’s developments will be governed by APCHA deed restrictions with specific minimum rental periods. But the physics housing will be used for a much shorter amount of time, from one to five weeks, and will be used to house visiting physicists rather than traditional employees.
Councilman Bill Guth was concerned about granting development benefits reserved for the construction of affordable housing in Aspen — like fee waivers — to a development that is not traditional workforce housing. He said categorizing it as workforce housing could have unintended consequences in future housing developments.
“There are very specific and generous benefits afforded to [affordable housing developments] like no tap fees, a lot of other development fees are waived, utilities fees are different — the list goes on and on,” Guth said. “They’re significant, and I’m OK with them for workforce housing. This is not workforce housing, I don’t think we can treat it as workforce housing.”
City Attorney Kate Johnson said the city could explore required limitations for the physics housing, disqualifying the units from affordable housing waivers but still requiring them to be governed by deed restrictions.
Parking at the Aspen Center for Physics has also been a sticking point throughout the city’s review of the project. City staff have said earlier proposals do not meet the typical parking requirements for a development of the Aspen Center for Physics’ scale, and the city council is concerned about the additional strain the lack of parking may pose to the surrounding neighborhood.
During the meeting on Tuesday, the Aspen Center for Physics presented parking protocols it would impose on the visiting physicists. It would include the center’s free bike program, encourage mass transit use and require visiting physicists to sign a parking agreement at the time of signing their lease.
The agreement would prohibit the residents from parking within Aspen’s residential parking zones with no exceptions for weekends, holidays or overnight parking. It will be monitored by a third party agreed upon by the city.
The first violation would result in a written warning and immediate demand to remove the vehicle from any neighborhood parking. Any further violations would deem the physicists in breach of their contract with the Aspen Center for Physics; they would be asked to vacate their housing and would not be invited to return in the future.
“We take this very seriously,” Frieman said. “We’re also exploring conducting a detailed parking occupancy study this summer with our consultants while we’re in session to guide further enforcement efforts.”
But City Planner Jeffrey Barnhill said the city still believes the Aspen Center for Physics can do more to fulfill its parking requirements.
And Benedetti said the Meadows institutions should explore parking and traffic mitigation beyond what is just required for the housing proposal.
“We need enforcement for parking and some sort of mitigation beyond what’s proposed here. The comments about the increased traffic are valid, and what we’ve heard is an increasing frustration with the intensity of vehicle traffic from events and West End exiting,” Benedetti said. “That won’t be solved by this project.”
She suggested moving toward car-free events or permitted parking in the future.
“Your neighbors are frustrated,” she said. “We know from other events and policies — JAS Aspen, skier parking at both Highlands and Snowmass, Up In the Sky Festival — that if you tell people they can’t drive, they won’t, and if you give them alternative solutions, they’ll take them.”
Council members will continue their review of the project during a special meeting on April 20.