Letter: Concerned about parking

To Aspen City Council members,

I have a concern regarding the possible approval of developments in town based on agreements that are being requested to lease space in the public parking garage.

How can a project be approved that has a potential usable life well beyond the future capacity of the parking garage?

How can the council approve a project based on perceived capacity within the garage while at the same time not setting a precedent that it would then have to allow other developers to have the same arrangement to handle their parking needs?

Are there locations for future parking garages being set aside and approved such that the parking fees these developers would pay would then fund the construction of such?

Even if the council felt comfortable making what I think is a short-term-solution decision by allowing the use of the public parking garage, this doesn’t take care of parking issues related to the retail space associated with these developments or certainly folks who just want their cars nearby regardless of the valet service.

I’m all for a certain amount of development, but I don’t think we need to solve the problem of parking for private developers by giving up the future capacity of our public parking garage — certainly not without a plan for parking garages and spaces that would take into account the similar time frame for these buildings and associated approved use.

Thanks for taking my concern into consideration.

John Shine

Aspen