Sixth Street corridor emerges as lightening rod of CB Plan

Heartburn over three more feet along Sixth

By Mark Reaman 

A variety of opinions between members of the Crested Butte town council and Board of Zoning and Architectural Review (BOZAR) were voiced at a recent work session on the developing Crested Butte “Community Plan” (CP). The basic goal of the plan is to improve livability, functionality and the sense of community in Crested Butte by aligning the town’s development regulations with the community’s values and strategic goals. According to the staff memo, the CP is focused on “keeping Crested Butte, Crested Butte by retaining and growing the full-time community.”

While there appeared general consensus from the officials that changes to the town zoning and land use codes along with more specific five-year plans over housing and community spaces could help stimulate more affordable housing and the livability for workers in Crested Butte, there was some disagreement over some of the details on what to implement.

Most of the 13 officials agreed with the concept of being flexible when dealing with development proposals and using incentives to push developers to provide community amenities like affordable housing and so-called “community-serving businesses.” While the plan cites examples of such businesses being things like daycares, hardware stores, clinics or community (non-profit) organizations, no definition of such a business was settled, and everyone agreed that should be better defined. There was also discussion about the possible need to pull back current regulations and further restrict what might be allowed to be built in Crested Butte.

The biggest split in opinion appeared to be what to do along the Sixth Street corridor business district. The emerging idea in the draft plan is to provide enough flexibility in negotiations with developers to trade an allowance for three more feet of height for buildings now allowed to be 35 feet tall, in exchange for more affordable housing units and/or community-serving businesses. The expectation is that the extra three feet would be sought after by developers who prefer larger ceilings on ground floor commercial units so they could add two more stories that included housing.

“This is an area we need to put a finer point on what a community-serving business is,” said BOZAR chair Erik Nauman. “I could see this as a place where backing out of some parking requirements could benefit us. But we need to find the nexus of happy living and reducing costs.”

“This portion of the Community Plan gives me the most heartburn,” said BOZAR member Donny Davol. “It could most change the feel of the town. A whole corridor with big buildings would have big impacts and result in things like losing the entire view of Paradise Divide from that area. I’d suggest we start by making the regulations for that area more restrictive.”

BOZAR’s Ed Schmidt said simpler incentives like eliminating the minimum requirement for commercial space of just over 50% of a development in that zone could result in positive outcomes.

“I agree we need to define community-serving businesses, but I don’t think allowing the extra three feet is worth what the town could get for it,” said BOZAR member Roxana Alvarez Marti. “I’m not convinced the extra three-feet gets us anything that will serve the community.”

Luz Spann-LaBato of BOZAR said she too had heartburn over the idea. “There is no need to increase the height. That certainly wouldn’t retain the rural look of town,” she said. “I’m afraid having it in there will mean the developers will find loopholes and assume everything can go up to 38 feet. I think the idea of community-serving businesses or spaces needs to be addressed, especially in regard to senior citizens.”

“When I think of future build-out on Sixth Street it seems out of balance,” said councilmember Anna Fenerty. “There would be so much open public space on one side and such big buildings on the other. It would be less a tunnel and more a cliff. To me I see Elk and Belleview Avenues being the pillars of town business and Sixth being the street that connects them.”

“Can we really craft language in the plan and zoning code that provides enough flexibility so that when a permit is applied for, the community use is then defined based on what is needed at that time?” asked councilmember Gabi Prochaska. “The extra three feet doesn’t bother me. I think that is hard for us to imagine. As mentioned earlier, when development comes in for that, they will want to develop every square foot in town so an extra three feet there won’t matter. It will all be different at that time, and it certainly won’t feel rural. The key point for me is to be able to get something we need at the time.”

“I hear BOZAR not wanting to give that extra three feet so would it be okay to put more restrictions for buildings in that area so that we don’t end up with a corridor of high-end businesses and restaurants,” asked councilmember Beth Goldstone.

“I like the idea of flexibility and I’ll give the three feet for what was estimated might be 16 more affordable housing units at Sixth Street Station than what could be there now,” said councilmember John O’Neal. “That doesn’t give me heartburn at all. Everything will look different here in many years. It’s changing and that is okay. For me, the community and its people are what makes Crested Butte magical. When we choose to stop building affordable housing or looking for opportunities, that’s when we’re an exclusive community.”

“I’m still not convinced the three extra feet will motivate developers to drive an additional 16 units of housing,” said councilmember Mallika Magner.

“I’m a hard no on the additional three feet,” said mayor Ian Billick. “That’s based on pacing and what the community needs. We don’t need to incentivize speeding up commercial development even through community-serving businesses. That should take time. As for housing, it will take five to 10 years to absorb what’s coming in. So as far as speeding up community-serving business spaces, we need to define it better and go slow. We’ll make some mistakes and learn from them. It’s an issue of the pace of change and how we manage that. The last thing we need to do is incentivize more mass on Sixth Street.”

“The conversation shouldn’t just be about three feet or two feet but what are the rules we can loosen to get what we want, another two or three or 16 units of worker housing,” said Schmidt. “The conversation should be to define our goals and objectives and use all our resources to get them.”

“I agree we need to investigate all our opportunities beyond just height,” said Alvarez Marti.

“If we’re not yet agreed on incentives for that corridor, are we okay with more restrictions to prevent someone coming in and having the town end up with something it doesn’t want,” reiterated Goldstone.

“Is it worth considering a moratorium for some of those blocks,” asked Davol.

Billick said the council discussed that option and decided against it at this point in the plan development. 

“I’m for slow and methodical instead of incentivizing quicker commercial development,” added Billick.

With the feedback provided, staff will bring a new draft of the Community Plan for the council to consider in June.