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Letter: Please vote ‘no’ on 2A

Forget about Mark Hunt and Dwayne Romero’s promises. We are voting on the variances granted as approved in Ordinance 1 by the City Council on June 1, which are still in effect. No ordinance can be changed once it’s on the ballot.

Ordinance 1 does not include any on-site parking. Ordinance 1 does not provide for any building setbacks; that results in a building footprint 41 percent larger than normal zoning. Ordinance 1 allows 16,000 square feet instead of the zoned floor area of 6,000 square feet. Ordinance 1 includes affordable housing for only 1.6 employees; the hotel would require more than 20 employees. Ordinance 1 does not include any requirement that the Base2 hotel would ever be affordable.

These variances would cause more traffic, more congestion and more parking problems in the most congested part of Aspen. Try parking near Carl’s Pharmacy.



It’s a myth that we need one or two more economy lodges. Most of the existing economy lodges are not full except at Christmas, Presidents Day week and spring break, when town is already packed. Internet lodging apps such as Airbnb will gradually provide lots of economy lodging without granting outrageous variances.

Mark Hunt has set aside a record, whopping $50,000 or more for this election campaign. Great for him but not for us.




There are six or seven other Hunt projects that were all submitted just before Referendum 1 was passed in May. We’ll be seeing those applications as soon as this election is over. The first two applications eliminated on-site parking and employee housing and interfere with established protected view planes of Aspen Mountain.

The variances granted are very good for the developer but very bad for the residents.

The only way to stop these Base2 variances is to vote “no” on 2A.

Steve Goldenberg

Aspen