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Aspen makes offer to bump up density at Burlingame

Aspen Times Staff Report
Aspen, CO Colorado

ASPEN ” The city of Aspen has offered several concessions to homeowners at its Burlingame Ranch worker housing project, including the potential for homeowners to have dogs, in exchange for the ability to build 272 units there ” 36 more than were originally envisioned.

The city’s proposal will be on the table when the City Council meets Tuesday. The city is looking to begin phase II of what it hopes will be a 272-unit project at Burlingame, located on the outskirts of town, between the Maroon Creek Club and the Aspen Business Center. The housing would include 21 single-family lots in all.

The details of the city’s proposal to homeowners were outlined in a city press release issued Friday.



In exchange for hiking the project’s density, the city has offered to eliminate a $60 per month transit fee from homeowners’ assessments (the fee helps pay for bus service, a vehicle for a car-share program and cab rides); forgive $65,000 in debt owned to the city in transit fees, which are currently being deferred; increase the available parking from 1.67 spaces per unit to 2 spaces per unit (resulting in 28 additional spaces in the already constructed phase I and 55 more spaces in phase 2); and turn the parking program over the homeowners’ association administration.

Finally, the city would turn the burden of creating a new trail to the nearby Roaring Fork River over to the homeowners’ association and ” if the association gets the agreement of all adjacent property owners, easement holders and open space boards to amend the no-dogs restriction at Burlingame ” the city will lift the restriction.




How likely homeowners would be in getting all the players on board to lift the dog restriction would remain to be seen. Dogs were a controversial issue in the planning for Burlingame ” environmentalists predicted they would impact surrounding wildlife habitat and the city’s former partners in the project didn’t want dogs impacting their adjacent cattle ranch. The cattle are now gone.

Density at Burlingame was also controversial during the multiyear land-use process that led to the 236-unit plan for the project.

But, in an advisory vote last November, Aspen voters favored development of up to 300 units at Burlingame rather than the originally envisioned 236. To increase the density, however, the city must first get approval from the phase I homeowners.

The existing homeowners’ association declarations require a 100 percent vote of approval from homeowners to increase the project’s density, but the association could vote to reduce that threshold to 67 percent, according to the press release.

Phase I of Burlingame included 84 residences.

The council is slated to discuss the proposal and phase II of Burlingame when it meets at a work session Tuesday starting at 4:30 p.m. The council will take comment from the homeowners’ association, Burlingame residents and the general public, according to the press release.