Snowmass City Council Approves Changes to Support Worker Units

**Snowmass Village Sign.**
*Aspen Times Archives*

New size limits have been implemented for support worker units in Snowmass Village.

The Snowmass City Council on Monday approved lowering the maximum square footage bonus an accessory unit can add beyond the lot’s square footage limit. That lowers the regulation from 1,000 square feet to a limit of 750 square feet — or 15% of the total square footage, provided that 15% is below or at the 750-square-foot maximum.

The current code allowed for a 10% premium for additional floor space. However, council members called the previous proposal excessive, given the size of many homes in the area.

“We tried to balance the concerns of the HOA and the Design Review Committee with the need for more workforce housing,” said City Councilmember Susan Marolt. “I’m glad we were able to get this through.”

Marolt said there are currently about 80 additional worker housing units in Snowmass, “which is about 5-10% of all single-family homes.”

“We hope that if we introduce this provision, more homeowners will participate,” she said.

The ordinance, part of Snowmass Village’s municipal code aimed at encouraging homeowners to create more workforce housing without imposing an additional excise tax on square footage, has been the subject of previous discussions, including a continuation on Aug. 19.

During the August meeting and on Monday, Snowmass HOA Design and Review Committee representatives expressed concerns. They centered around the size of the accessory units and the inclusion of separate, stand-alone units.

City Council Member Tom Fridstein expressed concerns about the impact on the character of the neighborhood, especially in the case of stand-alone units.

“15% of the allowable floor area limit, capped at 750 square feet, so people with larger lots could build 750, but people with smaller lots couldn’t build a large AEU and overwhelm the scale of the neighborhood,” he said. “We want to be more generous than the current code to encourage participation … but not so that it can be abused by a smaller lot to scale up the size of the home.”

HOA Design Committee member Mark Umbarger spoke at the public hearing and agreed that moving to 15%, with a 750-square-foot limit, is a step in the right direction.

“Other than that, I haven’t heard anyone talk about being busy,” he said. “We think of two people as a bottle of wine and a conversation. But four people who are here on J-1 visas, for the winter, to party and work for SkiCo, that’s a party.”

Snowmass Mayor Bill Madsen said J-1 visa holders typically don’t stay in the country long enough to qualify for auxiliary employment because of the six-month requirement to work in Snowmass. But the City Council agreed to extend that to eight months.

Marolt said the current code allows for two people per bedroom, with a maximum of two bedrooms. Changing that could prove difficult, city attorney Jeff Conklin said.

“(The occupancy limits) could have been written before the last legislative session, where the state legislature said local governments can’t impose limits on the number of people per unit unless they’re based on proven health and safety standards, such as international codes, fire codes or Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulations, or wastewater and water quality standards,” he said. “I think the two-person-per-bedroom limit is intended to be consistent with those limits.”

Conklin said HOAs are not limited to this right and can establish their own residency restrictions.

The current code allows for a reduction in the percentage of the floor area limit, allowing for basements that are at least 50% covered with earth or for the entire basement area to be completely covered. But that became a point of hypothetical tension for the HOA during Monday’s meeting.

“Under the current code, you can have a 15 percent floor area limit, a tax-exempt below-grade (basement) and a garage. That can significantly increase the size of the structure, which exceeds the original floor area limit,” Umbarger said. “We’re concerned, especially with a detached structure, about allowing those tax-exempt spaces.”

There are currently exceptions to these exceptions in the current code, which are the maximum floor area allowed per lot plus five percent. Umbarger admitted that he personally received exceptions for a 500-square-foot basement for his lot, which caused confusion among staff as to what exactly his concern was in this hypothetical situation.

Mr Fridstein said current planning regulations allow certain areas to be excluded from the floor area limit, such as outdoor terraces, utility rooms or basements.

“If you have a basement that is covered with dirt on all four sides, that would not count toward your floor area limit,” Fridstein said. “If your home is built on a hill and more than 50% of the lower level of that home is covered with dirt, you can count a percentage of that area as your basement.”

Fridstein said building a basement isn’t as much of an issue when it comes to size because people are more concerned about the size of the home that is visible.

Marolt didn’t think the problem was serious.

“Homeowners already have room for a basement that wouldn’t count toward the square footage,” she said. “Allowing it to be under a staff unit wouldn’t change much.”

While the ordinance introduces a premium of up to 750 square feet without triggering the excise tax on floor space, there may be a small financial impact in the form of lost tax revenue. However, in the long term, the City Council has stated that the development of additional support staff units is to be used minimally but will still increase property tax revenue in the long term.