Town Council - Regular Meeting

I was a teacher yesterday. Join there. Um, with that, I will ask Pam I'll call the meeting in order and ask Pam to please call the role. Absolutely. Let us begin. Let's begin with deer Schindler here. Angela Anderson, I'm here. Rick Stevens. He's on a flight. Here. Anel Dup preart here. Ryan Slack here. And David Knight here. Yeah. Not the other one we talked with. Cool. I was just double checking because I was I was like, did I miss that when I was looking? No. Yeah. All good. Mayor, I move that the town council approve the consent agenda items as presented.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. Thank you very much. Next up, we have uh item three, which is our call to the public. Um just the the ground rules. Just as a reminder, please limit your comments to three minutes and address your comments directly to me. Identify yourself by name and address when making the comments. And uh there's a sign-in sheet in the back, too. and uh comments should be courteous, civil, and constructive. Uh town council will make no decision nor take action except to direct the town manager. And I think we have a couple public hearings on if if your comments happen to be, which I don't think they are about the public hearing uh topics coming up in the agenda, wait till then, otherwise uh floor is open.

Okay. and my name is Kathleen Brim. Um, it's good to be here. I'm a resident of the community. I've been communicating with various members of the board for the past year. I've been a lifelong recreational bicyclist and I'm disappointed that the pathways and trails have become danger zones across the country. And it was over 18 months ago that I had a severe accident when a 63-year-old fellow recklessly driving an ebike on the Rio Grand Trail ran into me. After four surgeries, I'm finally making progress. Fortunately, I did not suffer a brain injury. Therefore, I choose to advocate advocate for safety. Aspen Daily News article. Oh my goodness, I could not believe the timeliness of this. So, this can cut short a heck of a lot of my comments. Um, as far as what's what's happening with ebikes, the numbers are increasing of accidents and there is a correlation with ebikes. Many community members have shared they needed to step aside on sidewalks as e devices narrowly miss them as well as observing young teens pop wheelies and ride with passengers with no helmets. Now I'm asking for the following safety measures in basalt. The critical need is the Basalt police investigate injury accidents, injurycausing accidents on all of the Rio Grand Trail. That's within Basalt as well as the town. I know that it's partly managed by RAFTA, but they don't have police enforcement. Why? The individual who hit me never called 911. He refused to give me his name. I don't think he could take off because his bike was damaged. He also refused to give them his name to the trail manager. What I found out is only a sworn officer can compel a name to be shared. A good Samaritan saw me in the

grass and called 911. When my thoughts cleared, I was able to remember. I reached for the phone that was in my pocket and I got his picture. Aspen police picking sheriff as empathetic as they were they were unable to do an investigation as ebikes are not classified as motorized vehicles. The sheriff advised me to post the photo and story on social media which is how he was identified. So that's the first ask. The other things is, excuse me, I would advise that I'd like to see ebikes prohibited from sidewalks and to be op and also prohibit them being operated by anyone under 16 years of age. I'd like to see proh the bikes and scooters on sidewalks also prohibited for those who are over 12 years of age. the weike program. They should have regular bikes for our youthful riders. Enforce the speed limits and notifications when passing. And I'd like to see fines implemented for bypassing the governor to enhance speed on any of these ebikes. That's easily done. Now, for that, it's going to need some surveillance. So, that might be some um camera surveillance. Of course, it needs bodies also to enforce this. Aspen's made some big changes in this area and I just shudder to think of the catastrophic consequences had it been my 10-year-old granddaughter who was riding in front of me.

Thank you. This was 300 lb of force, let alone the speed behind it. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

We appreciate the comments. Gloria, maybe at some point when as we get, you know, spring have a um an update um kind of what the rules are where um that we could do for, you know, all of our edification and reminders and also for the public. Um you know, this is this topic has come up at RAFTA, you've been there, Kathleen, um there's been a lot of uh press highlighting the increased incidence of accidents uh not just here but nationwide. that New York Times article I know a lot of people have seen. So I do I think it's a it's an evolving topic, but it'll be good to kind of level set on where we're at now as far as the regulations and jurisdictions and then maybe that'll generate some discussion about what we might be able to do additionally going forward.

Thank you for your comments. Yeah, appreciate it. It's a very serious thing that I see too with kids going to school on the sidewalk as well as even in my neighborhood. Someone was in a very bad accident. So, I appreciate you coming to us. Yeah. Anyone else? Thank you for the comments. Is Rachel Shinman online? Does that She's with EPS, so she's cool. So, we'll move on to mayor and council comments. Uh, floor is open.

All right. I don't have any either. So, I will move on to item four, which or item five, which is the manager's report. Sure. Um, so I have a couple of things immediately. I'm looking for two council volunteers to serve on the selection committee of the Roaring Fork Charity Classic Beneficiary Fund. Um, the selection committee is scheduled to meet the week of February 2nd, depending on schedules, and the recommendations would be presented to council on February 10th. I'll do it. Okay, Angela, one more.

What does it entail? Um so it would be reviewing the um applications for the Roaring Fork Charity Classic Beneficiary Fund. So when we and and probably James can speak to this a little bit better than I can. So James, if you want to sure give the background of that.

Um through the Roaring Fork Club approvals, uh there's a requirement for the club to host an event, a golf tournament every year. And uh so we put out applications for nonprofits to be beneficiaries and and actually run the tournament. And so they get the funds from running the tournament. And so this year we've got four applications for nonprofits to run the tournament. And so annually we do a a committee to review those and and make the selection and then bring it back to council to um affirm the selection.

And you said that was February 2nd. The week of February 2nd. Um depending on your all schedule. I I could do it. Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

Um and then a little election update as of Monday. uh January 6, four nomination petitions for council have been turned in. Three of them have had their signatures verified and one one needs to be amended before it can be accepted being short just one signature. Um so saving the date Monday, March 2nd, the Basalt chamber will host a candidates forum at the library. A meet and greet will be held from 5 to 6:00 p.m. followed by a forum uh from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. And then ballots will be mailed beginning of March 16th and voters can go and verify the registration at govotecol.com. Um and then some internal news. Uh we just completed a staff survey last week with 35 responses. So, we had full participation from our staff and the survey was meant to help us with our employee handbook updates and provide baseline for future surveys. Um, overall the feedback was positive and constructive and I'm happy to report that over 85% of our staff are satisfied or very satisfied with their current career at the town of Balt. So, we are um the employee handbook changes will be coming before the council um probably late February and March um for final approval. And then I do want to put a shout out that we had 31 employees trained on the incident command system for the government for government employees um by picking county manager Chris Brightitac and I really want to thank him for coming down and doing that with our staff. Um we were kind of leading the way and now we're he's convincing Aspen that their staff has to do it too. So um the incident command system is a commonly referred to framework for disaster management. So having all of our staff go through that was um will be beneficial in our future. And then you'll see in your agenda

packets the staff reports. This is a new format uh keeping count council and the community prize of staff activities. These will be in the packet once a month. Um our newsletter will also be coming out once a month. Um, so sign up on our website. I'm always open to feedback on the format of those reports to make sure we're getting all the information out there. Appreciate the um the project updates for each of you guys. It's really helpful. So, I agree. I really enjoyed reading those. It's nice to see like what's coming. Yeah. All right. Anything else? That's all.

All right. Thank you for that. Next up, we have our presentations. And then 6A is regional housing needs assessment proposition 123 update. And we have Liz is up now and Michelle.

Yeah, thank you. Um so I've asked um Liz Axford are the city of Aspen's housing and policy analysis to make a presentation updating you on the regional efforts going on with Prop 123. Um, as you know, in 2022, the town of Basalt um directed staff to pursue Prop 123 funding to support our housing programs, policies, and developments. Um, and we are challenged as a region with qualifying for those funds because of the low AMI requirements set by the state. So Liz is going to give a little more um background and detail about what we've been doing and what what she's been doing um what we've been supporting and where we are.

Yeah, thanks so much Michelle and thank you everyone for having me here. I do know a couple of you from West Mountain Regional Housing Coalition. So nice to see you. But for those who I don't know since it's my first time here, I'm Liz Axburg as Michelle said. I'm the housing policy analyst for the city of Aspen. I'm in the city manager's office and I've been taking points on this housing needs assessment. I'm looking forward to giving you an update on it and a lot of the focus today is really on the why we're doing this and what it's going to amount to. But I also did bring some highlevel data that we can speedrun through just so you can see the key takeaways that we've had so far. But um I do want to think of today as it's a checkpoint and I'll get into that more. It's because we still have the remaining components of this housing needs that we assessment to finish. We're basically halfway maybe three4s of the way through and hoping to finish that out in 2026 by the end of spring or so. Um the data slides I put in the packet are a little bit more um detailed and those are the presentations that Snow Mass Village, Picking County and Aspen received. And so today's a little bit more focused though on the project overview as a whole. And I do have Rachel Shinman online too. She's from EPS and she is my backup in case any of you have any data questions that she's more equipped to answer just because she has been the one that's been doing all the analysis. She helped inform a lot of the guidelines that went into these housing needs assessments that uh the state developed and so she's really the expert and I believe did Basalt's housing needs assessment that you recently did too. So she's kind of the state housing needs assessment expert but um let's keep going. So really to level set and inform why we did this housing needs assessment, we need to start with Proposition 123 and Senate

Bill 24174. And some of you are probably familiar with these, but I'll just start at the basics for those who aren't. So Proposition 123 was the affordable housing fund approved by Colorado voters November 2022. Initially, it was around $300 million in affordable housing funding. And this year though, because of the state deficit, a bit of it's been diverted in this last cycle. So there's only around $22 million left, but um it's still plenty to help cover some gaps in projects. And um there are several different projects included in this. This includes land banking, equity, and concessionary debt. Um, I would also add to this as Michelle said, these had pretty limited requirements in term of terms of what AMIs the diff these different funding pools could serve. And like land baking is capped at 60% AMI for rental, 100% AMI for ownership. Equity is capped at 90% AMI for project averages. concessionary debt is a little bit more lix focused and is kept at 60% AMI for rentals. And so, as many of us know, these AMIs that have been laid out by the state don't really work for our community. It's just we have programs that have to serve people who make significantly higher than 100% AMI. And we just tend to have higher wages because of the higher cost of living here. And so to be or to be able to be eligible for funding in these different programs, rural resort communities can res can submit these rural resort income limit petitions. They have to be backed by housing needs assessments to show and prove that we have housing needs at higher AMIs than what the programs currently allow. So that's really the

first thing that made us realize we needed to get moving on this. Secondly, there's Senate Bill 241 174, which is just state legislation that now is requiring all local governments have a housing needs assessment. Um has to be be updated every six years. Um and then in that too, there's this housing action plan which we're still kind of learning what all will be required in that. And so our goal of this housing needs assessment was to get the data necessary to support that rural resort income limit petition to be able to unlock some funding for Prop 123. Um because Aspen's planning to try to get some funding for Lumberyard, Snow Mass is planning to try to get some funding for the draw site. And so that was really the big piece. But then also there's the Senate bill requirements. And so the other part of the housing needs assessment is to make sure that we're complying with that. Um so yeah, so those are the two big drivers that really went into the why of doing this housing needs assessment. Now I can go to the next slide and talk a little bit more about the the what. So February 2025, we started work with EPS to get this work done. um picking county Aspen Snow Mass Village. We um were paying for this study because we agreed to go in together on a rural resort petition and um but we've been working with Basalt. Thank you so much for working with us through this. We also included Garfield County, Carbondale, Glenwood Springs, Newcastle, Zilt Rifle, Parachute to really try our best to capture the commuter corridor um best that we could and really inform the housing needs in this region. And so we ended up also splitting the housing needs assessment into two separate phases. First was to get the petition done for Proposition

123, which we're submitting now. And we really want to expedite that part because funding was time sensitive versus the Senate bill requirements are it's not till December 2020. I have to double check 27 um that it's required to be finished for that. And um so that so those are the remaining components that we'll build out from here on out and we'll check in with councils once that piece is done. And then also I don't want it to feel like we're just trying to check boxes too. So, there's other perks of doing a housing needs assessment. It's helpful for planning. It's not the end- all beall. It's not a legally binding commitment saying, "Here's the number of units you need to build." It's a tool to help us plan and understand the needs in our communities. And it's and some of the data I hope you really find interesting as well. That's always a good part as well. That being said, are there any questions about Prop 123 or the Senate bill or the project as a whole? Okay, great. Well, then I'm just going to speedrun some data, tell you some of the big takeaways you had and then we can talk about next steps quickly. So, yeah, go here. Okay, so as many of us already know, picking counties population we're seeing is going to be fairly stable. Well, we're seeing a lot of growth in Garfield County. Actually, we're also seeing populations, and this is happening nationwide, too, but counties are aging as a whole, but we are seeing significantly like as you go down the valley and into the Colorado River Valley, household sizes get bigger and younger as well. It's a very distinct pyramid trend that way. Um, next I can do some economic trends. So Garfield County actually has 1.5 times as many jobs as Pickin County, projected to grow slightly higher rate. Garfield County is really big. So this wasn't too surprising. It's a really big county,

but we still see Picking County as the driver of economic in the region. We just have higher wages, which is why everyone is doing that commute up valley. Um, so like in the bottom one, 62% of Picking County's workers commute from outside the county, which is a pretty stark number. And keeping in mind, like this could also mean you live in one end of the salt in a different county and commute into a different county. So there's some of that, too. But for the most part, like as we know, I mean, I drive from Carbondale to Aspen for work and a lot of people commute, and there's a reason why I higher wages. So next, um, we can go into housing trends. Vacancy rates are much higher in picking county than Garfield County. As we know, there's just a lot more second, third, fourth homeowners. One thing that's just amazing is that we have about 4,500 for 4,500 units of affordable housing in our region. It's just incredible. Um, 90% of them are in Picking County. Um, and then as also we all know, houses are expensive here. There's nowhere in the region where the median price of a single family home is less than 1.5 million of town homes less than 1.25 million. Um next some housing afford affordability numbers. Um, so here, so 100% AMI in Picking County is $100,000. And a twoerson household at this level can afford around $2,500 a month, which someone who is just part of the rental market for a while. That can be really hard to find something in that price range. Um, and even households at 200 and 300% AMI cannot afford the medium priced home in the mid or upper valley. So unaffordability is a big issue here.

Um yeah, now I can actually go into the overview of housing needs. So this is just to help you understand how we're calculating housing needs in this study. These slides were all created by EPS by the way, but it just helps you know where these numbers are coming from and I'm just letting you know where we're at right now. So there's two components. We have the catchup which includes how we can reduce overcrowding. So when there's households with a lot of too many people then compared to number of bedrooms we also are taking a certain number of the people commuting and a taking that into the housing needs as well. So it's the percentage of people who commute who would maybe move to picking county and then we're also looking at unfilled jobs. The second component that goes into housing needs is this keep up need. So, we have employment growth that goes into that over a 10-year period and then also units to accommodate employees filling jobs vacated by retirees. Someone retires, they stay in their unit, that job's open, so they need somewhere to live basically. Um, and these are pretty to the like this is what the state recommended how we calculate housing needs. We're trying to abide by recommendations. And then just as a reminder, this number I'm about to show you, this isn't like we all need to build this much housing. It's just an idea to help us understand better what the housing need here is. And we all know it's really great. So can you hop to the next slide? So the 10y year net housing need calculated for picking county is 20 2545 units and basalt's share makes up if you look at the chart there around 12% of this and that's really all allocated by job growth in each of each town um within that as well and as I said like like snow math village looks at look at looks at this and it's like we're not going to

build 500 108 units in 10 years. So, it's really supposed to be informative. And I would say housing needs assessments are a tool that among everything else that you have like growth plans to help us inform what we want our communities to look like and what the needs really are. And also, I'll say this again, this is our kind of like halfway checkpoint. So, there's still going to be a full housing needs report too to come out. So that brings us to our next steps. Uh so right now picking county Aspen town of snow mass village we are submitting our proposition 123 petition to try to qualify for some of those funds. We are finalizing this phase one report for that portion. They require you to have a final report. That being said the final final one will be when we finish building out the compliant housing needs assessment with Senate Bill 174. um which will just include some more things like housing problems, housing resources, challenges, opportunities, and you can you get some time to fill in some context of what your community actually has going on. So, so that's everything. I know that was kind of like crash course of Prop 123 and the housing needs assessment. So, happy to field any questions or um yeah,

just one small question. I get why it's not included in there, but obviously you jump Eagle County because Basalt splits that the majority of everything else you're partnering with is in Garfield. Is there any extra analysis on, you know, Eagle County is pretty big on this side even though it isn't as big as the true Eagle County. So, so I just today was sitting in the Eagle County Housing Development Authority quarterly meeting. Okay,

I got it right. Um, and they had just announced that their regional housing needs assessment for the same exact reasons just got approved this week.

So, everybody's getting there. We're taking the steps. Um, so there'll be some crossover. The the thing for Basalt and how this is all relevant for us is we had our housing needs assessment done prior to this work. You guys sat through that presentation, that process a while ago. Right after we finished it and paid the last invoice, the state said, "Hey, you know what? We just made this checklist of things that we're now going to require to be in your housing needs assessment to access the funds, which will basically make you pay for a second new housing needs assessment." So, with that in mind, Dola reached out and said, "Don't do it. Hang on. We're going to do a regional needs assessment because you're all in the same boat. Let us do this. Let these guys who have funds go through the process, figure out how to be successful and then we'll figure out how to have access for for you. So, we're in a really great place between Eagle County having just had that accomplished and so much progress happening here. So that's that's the relationship and I wanted you guys to know that going forward since you have some funding stuff coming up in the future.

I just want to add to Oh god dive um cases where you see that includes the county portion.

Okay. um we need to address like a community as a whole in the data the portion the back is a little funky um but that's generally reflected and I think just to Michelle's point um I think the the assessment because it's so recent and has worked together really well sort of the macro and the micro this helps us understand how fits into the region and the global needs assessment and help provide a really clear road map of what's going on at the local level.

Yeah. And and as we just said too, Eagle County did just do a housing needs assessment which I think will be really interesting to compare the two as well. And and already having Pickin and Garfield, we have a massive region covered in this housing needs assessment. But it was tricky always figuring out how to make sure that we're really covering who who all lives here. Yeah. And where we all are. So, no. And I appreciate you guys going way beyond your boundaries and using your funds for a a giant study that we all need and we all need for this participation. So, kudos to the city of Aspen for stepping up.

Yeah. And I appreciate everyone who's contributed to it. And I mean parachute working with us and sending us data as well and working together. It's been great. Yeah. Stop. Any other questions or comments? I have some guesses, but one of the things that's interesting in the slides is that Picking County's vacancy is increasing. Garfield's County Garfield County's vacancy is decreasing. like what were the biggest categories causing that increase in homes being occupied by real people in Garfield County from a data perspective?

It's an interesting question. I mean, we know why the trend in Aspen is happening, right? And especially how much that's starkly been increasing. But um in Garfield County, I mean that's a good question. I guess so. Like parachutes jumping from 31% to 7% unoccupied. Everybody's moving there, right? Everybody's moving down Valley and they're just moving. It used to be moving to Carbonale or Glennwood. Now everybody's moving to the Colorado River. And were those like second homes before? Just homes that weren't sold? It's a lot of new development there. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Mhm.

That was an interesting visual seeing that as you kind of see the the gap move like that between the two the 2010 and 24 bars. Yeah. Good stuff. Anybody Anybody else have anything? All right. Thanks, Liz. That was really good. Appreciate

all the collaboration. Look forward to following up on her way home. All right, next up we have our council actions. Um, first up is 7A. It's a public hearing and second reading of ordinance number one series of 2026. Ordinance of the town council of the town of Asalt, Colorado. Ordinance of the amending town code sections 111 and 1178 to license, permit, and regulate the use of town rights of ways, sidewalks, or other town property within the town of Basalt. And Michelle and Carlton, you guys have this. So, the floor is yours.

Good evening, council. Uh, I'm back this evening, uh, for public hearing and second reading of ordinance number one, series of 2026. Um, just as a refresher for everybody. Uh, you guys saw this a couple weeks ago. Um, but the goal for this ordinance is to establish process for streetscape activation um, primarily in our com well in our commercial uh, core and in our commercial areas. um by allowing uh private businesses um to access our sidewalks um and activate those areas uh for commercial purposes. Um again, a little background. um with the completion of the Midland Avenue streetscape, we look forward to encouraging um businesses to using that to use that additional right ofway um and further activate our town um and promote business in our town. Um I can open up to any questions, but this is also a public hearing.

Let's do the public hearing first. Um, so I will open the public hearing here at 6:37. And if anyone would like to speak, the floor is open on at the podium. I don't see anyone here. And looks like there's uh no one online who's going to speak at this point. So I'll close the public hearing, open up questions or comments. If not, I'd entertain a motion. May I move the town council adopt ordinance number one series to 2026 on second reading. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Cool.

Thanks, Carlton. Appreciate the getting this all formalized for us for going forward. And you're up for the next one, it looks like. So item 7B is a public hearing and second reading of ordinance number two series of 2026. uh ordinance of the town council of the town of Basalt, Colorado, approving amendments to Basalt Municipal Code Article 8, use of town parks and other town property as a se a new section 11-179 parks and facilities reservations and adoption of a fee schedule for reservation of public space within the town of Baltt. And like I said, this is Michelle and Carlton. So floor is yours.

Uh similar to the last ordinance, um bring this back for second reading tonight. You guys also saw this two weeks ago. Um the goal here is to establish a process and combine two separate processes that had been occurring in the town um and bring those into one single process uh as well as updating our fee schedule for reservation of town parks and public facilities uh within the town. One change since uh you guys saw this two weeks ago. Uh if you look in exhibit A, two parks have been added um to the special event fee area and that would be Patty's Park and the Stats Mill South Park. Um those were just missed in the first pass. Um but there have been um requests in the past to to have special events in Willlets Town Center. Um and so Patty's Park was included in that special event fee schedule. Um and then Still Mill South Park uh has recently been completed and has is coming into um the jurisdiction of the town and so that was included as well. But similarly, this is a public hearing and happy to answer any questions from the public or from you guys.

All right, thanks for that update on two additional parks and I'll open the public hearing at 6:39. And uh if anyone would like to speak, they're welcome to online or in person. Don't have anybody, so I'll close the public hearing and open it up for questions or comments from my fellow counselors. Mayor, I move the town council adopt ordinance number two series of 2026 on second reading. Second. Been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All right. Thank you again. Let's go basalt lemons.

Yeah. Went to basketball. So, uh, we'll catch y'all later. Bye. The gavvel. We should use the gavvel more often. Resolution, right? We use the G surviving