Cooney: Cerises caught in the one-size-fits-all  grinder

The introductory lead in the May 28 Aspen Times front-page story about the Cerise family applying for a “new housing development” on their property contained a misleading factual error. The old house there is not on a “deed-restricted parcel.” The land, just east of the Castle Creek bridge, is free-market, having been in the family since 1956.  

The Cerises still living there are descendants of Woody Creek pioneers, brothers Albert and Flavian Cerise, who came from Valle d’Aosta, Italy. Working the Leadville mines in the 1890s, they came over the pass in 1903 and homesteaded a ranch in Woody Creek, the Feb. 19, 1959, Aspen Times recounts. In 1956, they sold the ranch and moved to town. The siblings living there now want to accommodate a daughter’s family and grandchild in the reconstruct.

The family is asking city council for reductions on the $800,000-plus fees to tear down their small 1956-built home and replace it with an unembellished $2 million duplex to house the expanding family. This is not a for-profit development, but a modest rebuild. In our shrinking community, the family wants to continue living here, yet they’re caught in the one-size-fits-all  grinder of compounding fees designed to manage the churning Aspen development machine.

Not being of the deep-pocket class, the paradox is that the property value eclipses the rebuild costs. They would simply like to continue the family legacy there in a new duplex. If successful, this could lead to a fifth generation working and living in the valley as the family has always done.

In the interest of fairness, and with a nod to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, the city council ought to find a way to waive unnecessary add-on fees so the family can continue to live here for generations to come. With so few left, a “pioneer family” clause might be the solution.

Tim Cooney

Aspen