This week, a divided Basalt Town Council approved on second reading a long-contested commercial storage/housing complex on the south side of Basalt. Councilors voted 5-2 to approve both a series of amendments to the 2020 Basalt Master Plan and a PUD, allowing the development to move forward.
Mayor David Knight and Councilor Greg Shaffran put forward a motion to deny the Master Plan Amendments, which was not supported by the five other councilors. Instead, Councilor Angele Dupre-Butchart submitted a motion to approve the amendments, which was supported along the same divided line of 5-2.
“It’s housing near public transit, there is community benefit … I’m not saying it’s perfect, I hear and understand the concerns, but I don’t see all the downsides everyone else does,” Dupre-Butchart said.
The proposed development combines 42 storage units, 42 housing units and two commercial spaces at 555 Basalt Avenue. The first reading was continued four times since first being introduced on March 24, and was approved by the council by a vote of 4-3 on Aug. 11. A second reading was held on Aug. 25, but due to some councilors being absent, the applicant requested a continuation. Since then, multiple continuations have been requested so that the applicant could perform additional outreach to neighboring homeowner associations.
Public comments during the meeting were generally favorable. Tom McCauley, the chief human resources officer at Aspen Valley Health, offered his organization’s support for the project for the purposes of creating employee housing.
“There’s a large percentage of [our employees] that have to get back to the hospital within 30 minutes, and this is within that circle,” he said. “We may or may not partner with this project, but we did want to throw our support behind it.”
Since first being introduced, the applicant has altered the application due to council comments to reduce density from an original proposal of 54 commercial storage units and 47 residential units. Of the now 42 units, 30 will be purely residential, while 12 others will be live-work units. Of the live-work units, five will be prioritized for sale to local residents. Presently, 64% of the residential units will be deed-restricted.
Furthermore, the applicant proposed to set aside three industrial storage units for an artist incubator program, with the spaces initially made available exclusively to start-up small businesses or artists for 120 days.
Annie Henninger, executive director of The Art Base, did not appear before the council as a representative of her organization, but voiced her personal support for the project, especially for its affordable housing and artist incubator program, which she described as “desperately needed.”
“One of our employees recently moved to Arkansas because they could not afford housing or artist studio space, so I see the value of this project,” Henninger said.
Resistance to the development has primarily consisted of safety concerns due to increased traffic in the area, which already sees a burden of vehicles coming to and from Basalt High School. In addition, the development would require improvements to nearby Fiou Lane and Cody Lane to bear additional traffic, and to address an existing drainage issue on Cody Lane.
To help address concerns about traffic, the applicant will contribute a per-square-foot fee to any future transportation improvements necessary to mitigate traffic created by the development.
The applicant has also agreed to contribute approximately $40,000 (calculated by a rate of $944 per dwelling unit) to an already planned “mini-roundabout” at the intersection of Basalt Avenue and Cody Lane.
In terms of Cody and Fiou lanes, the applicant has committed to a total contribution of up to $355,000 to improve both streets. Up to $175,000 of that total will be used to create a 10-feet wide public and emergency vehicle access easement on Fiou Lane. $180,000 will go toward addressing the drainage issue on Cody Lane.
Councilor Hannah Berman found herself struggling to vote to approve the project, but ended up throwing her hat in.
“The bells and whistles are great, but what I grapple with is that the core of it is luxury storage; and I think the best-intentioned plans are up against the massive pressures of the wealth in Aspen trying to find a place to store their Ferrari that’s a little cheaper,” Berman said.
Mayor Knight resisted making changes to the Basalt Master Plan and maintained opposition along with Councilor Shaffran.
“We can be pickier. We don’t have to be afraid that if it’s not this, it’s going to be worse,” Shaffran said.
However, with a 5-2 vote to approve the amendments and the PUD, Basalt’s south side can expect to see new construction in the coming years.