Aspen approves changes to its land use code

Aspen City Council has approved changes to the town’s land use code to comply with a new state law aimed at increasing housing availability. 

The decision, made on Dec. 17, aligns Aspen’s growth management system with Colorado House Bill 23-1255, which prevents local governments from limiting the number of new residential projects each year.

Long Range Planner Haley Hart explained that the goal of the bill is to boost the housing supply across the state. 

“As it pertains to Aspen, the House Bill is invalidating our annual residential allotment system,” Hart said, referencing Aspen’s Growth Management Quota System, a fixture of city planning since 1977.

Aspen adopted the GMQS in response to rapid development and population growth. The system capped the number of free-market residential projects and imposed limits on new commercial and lodging construction to ensure that growth didn’t overwhelm the town’s infrastructure.

Community Development Director Ben Anderson described the GMQS as fundamental to Aspen’s development over the past decades. 

“Going back to the ’60s and ’70s when the community was booming, locals had concerns over the increased traffic, number of new homes, and number of new businesses,” Anderson said. “Certainly, the increased environmental impacts played a role in the concerns the community had with increased growth.”

He emphasized that GMQS was designed to evaluate and control the amount of growth the city deemed acceptable each year. This practice, he said, shaped Aspen’s identity and required developers to contribute to affordable housing through mitigation fees.

However, House Bill 23-1255, passed by the state legislature in June 2023, overrides local growth caps like Aspen’s. 

The law aims to address Colorado’s housing shortage by eliminating barriers that restrict the construction of new homes. For Aspen, this means the city can no longer use its quota system to regulate how many free-market residential building permits are issued annually.

Anticipating the change, Aspen’s City Council passed a temporary anti-growth ordinance in 2023 to maintain existing rules while staff reviewed the land use code. 

After analyzing the data, city planners found that Aspen’s growth limits were rarely fully utilized. Over the past seven years, only 5% of available residential allotments were claimed.

“We’ve had lots of conversations with council over the past five or six years about the fact that we have not been using these allotments,” Anderson said. “To be clear, allotments right now are for new lots for single families and duplex development or new multi-family developments. The redevelopment of properties or renovations of properties do not require new allotments.”

Anderson noted that the same applies to commercial allotments. The new ordinance removes references to annual development quotas but preserves the city’s affordable housing mitigation requirements. 

City staff believe the changes will have minimal impact on Aspen’s growth management, as most development in recent years has focused on redevelopment rather than new construction. Additionally, many undeveloped lots already hold existing development rights.

Projects involving subdivisions and multi-family developments, which previously required allotments to increase density, will no longer face that hurdle. 

“The House Bill is invalidating the residential allotment system,” Hart said. “The approach that staff took was to break up every subsection under GMQS, to see if it complied, or was out of compliance with the House Bill. Ultimately, the GMQS was a very important section in our land use code … We decided to take a very targeted approach instead of blowing up GMQS in its entirety.”

Hart explained that staff removed the residential allotment section without altering any policy outcomes under GMQS. While quotas will no longer apply, developers must still adhere to zoning regulations and affordable housing requirements.

The Planning and Zoning Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission endorsed the updates, and City Council unanimously approved the changes. City officials expressed confidence that these updates will allow Aspen to manage growth responsibly without compromising the community’s long-standing values.