8/2/2022 - Vail Town Council Agenda Breakdown

Aug 1

A VailSticky guide to Vail Town Council Meetings: for folks that don’t have time for that.

This is an action packed Tuesday, so this is a very long one.

What’s on the Evening Agenda for 8/2/22

Watch video recording of 8/2/22 Vail Town Council evening meeting on Facebook here.

Below is a quick rundown of what’s on the evening agenda. This is not a complete list, just some snippets of what we think are sticky issues. You can find links to the full official agendas at the bottom of this page, including info on how to participate, and where to watch.

6pm Citizen Participation (a.k.a. Open Mic Night):

You get 3 minutes to speak your truth to a captive audience of your leaders – in person or over Zoom. The most powerful and underutilized channel of engagement in Vail. What will you say?

Appeal to DRB’s approval of East Vail Workforce Housing:

External Link to agenda item here - will open in new tab.

Of the two East Vail Workforce Housing related items on the agenda tonight this is the more interesting and important one; not for it’s practical relevance to the Booth Heights parcel as much as it’s implications for the very basic principals of fair and equitable application of code. As the Vail Daily’s article pointed out under the large picture of bighorn sheep - this appeal is not about sheep.

In May Vail’s Design Review Board (DRB) voted (4-1) to approve design changes to the East Vail Workforce Housing Development. The property is still in the process of being seized; but if it were to be built the current design spec at least meets the Town’s standards according to DRB. A handful of folks (Ford, Grisafi, Kiehl, Rutledge) are asking the Town Council to overturn DRB’s latest approval for a variety of reasons, including light pollution, wood siding, traffic noise/impacts (not from I-70, but from the workforce housing residents), heat absorption from the buildings/parking areas changing the climate, and landscaping in/around the frontage road and I-70.

These objections are raised against the construction of East Vail Affordable Housing only. I cannot find any similar objections to the designs of new construction or renovations on luxury housing in the same neighborhood area. Many of which have design features such as external lighting, heat emitting driveways, and wood siding. Anyone with the time to comb through the public record, send proof of the existence/non-existence of previous similar objections to DRB’s decisions on the non-affordable housing construction in this area of Booth Falls to towncouncil@vailgov.com and cc info@vailsticky.com.

DRB has nothing to do with bighorn sheep. Although concern for the sheep are raised by one appellant (Grisafi), it is unlikely the sheep fall under the purview of DRB; we have a separate Planning and Environmental Commission (PEC) dedicated to…planning and the environment.

Background:

DRB is the group of citizens in charge of keeping/making Vail beautiful by ensuring buildings and landscaping adheres to their interpretation of the Town Code. If a citizen with standing believes that the DRB has gotten it wrong, they can appeal to the Town Council to step in and review the decision. Town council will then overturn DRB’s decision, uphold it, or uphold it with some extra conditions.

The DRB does a whole bunch of important stuff that usually doesn’t attract any attention. When the DRB’s decisions do attract attention, it is usually in relation to a commercial development or workforce/residential housing project; there is a group of people that object to it based on it being aesthetically unpleasing or inconvenient. Town code is often boring subject matter to regular folks, but it can be an effective way to keep undesirable building projects out of backyards. The code favors primary/secondary residential homes - preferably with large budgets to expend on aesthetics and stunning architecture - a phenomenon that is not unique to Vail. It puts the DRB in a pickle when trying to apply it to meet the needs of multi-level mid to high density housing and/or commercial buildings.

When a affordable housing project actually makes it through the DRB - you betcha that approval has been hard earned and thoroughly considered.

What can you do:

Tell the Town Council….

Back up your DRB when they approve residential workforce housing
Update the Building and Design code to make it easier for residential workforce housing projects to be approved - and stay that way.
Send a message to developers and investors: When you get an approval from our boards and commissions, you can trust that we will honor it.
Send a message to current and future residents, business owners, and workforce talent: Vail is a place you want to live, and is a place that wants you to live here.

Suspension of all Permitting related to East Vail Workforce Housing

An emergency ordinance to suspend all permits for the East Vail Workforce Housing property is just another another sad mile marker on the road to a garbage outcome for everyone - on all sides of conservation, community, and housing.

Jen Mason nailed it in her comments following the condemnation vote on May 3rd. “I do not want to buy this land…That is not how I want to spend the tax payer money…I would rather put that money into childcare, into teachers, into housing, into anything..”

But that is where the condemnation train is headed; that’s where the tracks always ended.

The Vail Town Council will ultimately decide how much ‘childcare, teachers, housing…anything’ the Town of Vail will sacrifice to prevent affordable housing we don’t have to pay for, from impacting sheep we don’t manage, on land we don’t own. $20, $30, $50 million? To put that in perspective

all of Eagle County’s Bold Housing Moves are a $10 million dollar allocation of county funds.
The total programming budget of the Wild Sheep Foundation for 2021-2022 was $6 million.
The total budget for all of Vail’s capital improvements for 2022 is $21 million.
Of the total $237 million spent by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the 2020-21 fiscal year, on all of the parks and the all of the wildlife in all of Colorado, 13% was on habitat management or approximately $30 million.

Even if we were to raise funds from outside donors willing to spend money on Vail’s wild sheep; how much will we be winning away from initiatives reliant on donor money to protect wild sheep elsewhere?

How many local housing projects will be postponed or cancelled while we survey and calculate our community’s moral compass?

In perspective - suspending permits for soils testing and signage is nothing to be proud of, or mad about.

E-Delivery System & Rules for Core Access Area

Excerpt from Vail’s super complex E-delivery implementation system - (Ordinance 15 series 2022). Link to all the official attachments here.

Vail’s E-delivery program is indented to streamline the last mile delivery of goods to businesses in the commercial core areas to keep delivery trucks off the streets for aesthetic and environmental purposes. There is a good deal of reference to public safety in the material but it is unclear if there is actually a prevalence of people and/or property being harmed by delivery vehicles - or if it’s an air quality and noise thing.

There is a ton of material and conversation regarding this program. Last meeting (7/19/22) there were a handful of business owners that spoke about the program.

Matt Morgan from Sweet Basil says that his experience with the e-delivery system has been “flawless”.
Simone Reatti from La Nonna spoke very eloquently about protecting the cold storage chain so stuff that needs to stay cold - stays cold; both for food safety (think chicken) and for food quality (deliciously delicate macaroons).
Tom and Jackson Higgins from American Ski Exchange are concerned about the time frame and capacity provided to haul skis and such.
Jenn Bruno pointed out that small business owners that get their stuff from UPS/FedEx (which aren’t included in e-delivery) shouldn’t be charged for the service. The Town of Vail has since removed the flat fee for all that was initially contemplated.

The bones of the debate centers on the cost and who will pay it. The cost appears to estimated to be approximately $1.2 million - $600K paid by TOV tax dollars, with $600k estimated to be collected in fees based on a point system that charges distributors depending on how much stuff is being delivered and how often. There is no such thing as free shipping. Costs added at to any point in the delivery of goods gets passed down to the next user in the chain.

Distributors will pay an additional fee to deliver goods to Vail businesses, but word is they will save time, money, and labor by handing off the final leg of distribution for a net wash.

Hotel and condo guests on the traffic route will certainly benefit from quieter streets in the morning hours; but will they be chipping in anything extra out of their own pockets for the perks of peaceful streets?

Our planet is melting so fewer diesel trucks rolling around is the least we can do. 106 West Logistics is the local company that has been running the pilot program and it’s always positive to promote locally owned businesses, providing local services to improve the local experience, and putting local dollars in local pockets.

However…let these words also be heard:

"Be aware of how much pressure you're putting on the businesses when you're coming up with all the ideas to be the heroes. Whether it's economic, environmental, or social....be aware of the pressure you're putting on to businesses. You have costs that are rising every day, all over the world, from actual real issues in the world” - Sam Biszants Two Arrows, Root & Flower

The Four Seasons Dorm Rooms

External Link to agenda item here - will open in new tab.

New construction for big businesses have to provide some housing for the workers required to support their businesses (commercial linkage requirements). When the Four Seasons was built, part of the deal was 16 on-site dorm rooms. These dorm rooms are incredibly small and depressing, and have never really served their purpose for anyone. The standards and requirements for workforce housing have changed since then - for the better. The Four Seasons would like to convert these dorm rooms into money making hotel rooms and condos.

In order to do so, they need to make a deal with Town Council to provide more/better workforce housing. Coming up with a deal to appease the council has been a saga to say the least. On one hand - these dorm rooms are truly terrible and all parties involved would be better served by less prison-like living conditions. On the other hand - better housing options cannot be provided on site at the Four Seasons, which requires moving workforce beds out of town; or adding to the competition for securing new deed restrictions on existing property in town.

Looks like this deal might finally be done, and the result will be a net improvement for housing. But in it lies a lesson for the future; if you build sub-par workforce housing to satisfy a commercial linkage requirement; and then later come back to seek permission to export that housing because it is sub-par….You will have a very very hard time; and it will cost you. Build the type of housing that attracts the talent you want to employ from the outset and avoid this pickle.

What’s on the Afternoon Agenda for 8/2/22

Watch video recording of 8/2/22 Vail Town Council Afternoon meeting here.

Below is a quick rundown of what’s on the afternoon agenda. This is not a complete list, just some snippets of what we think are sticky issues. You can find links to the full official agendas at the bottom of this page, including info on how to participate, and where to watch.

Housing discussion and presentation by the Vail Local Housing Authority - the answers to the questions posed to the council will probably have a larger impact on human lives, guest experiences, the economy, and community cohesion than any other agenda item. Food for thought and future action. This discussion starts at 2:30pm - catch it LIVE on Town of Vail’s Facebook Page.

A presentation for an interactive issue tracker. In the name of all things holy…YES. This initiative should be green lighted and fast tracked for expedited delivery. We would write more about this but…it’s exceedingly time consuming to keep track of what’s happening on the Vail Town Council.

How to Participate & Comment at Vail Town Council Meetings:

The first 10 minutes of every Evening Vail Town Council starting at 6pm is Citizen Participation (a.k.a Open mic night). You get 3 minutes to speak your truth to a captive audience of your leaders – in person or over Zoom. This is the most powerful and underutilized channel of government engagement in Vail. Public comment pertaining to extra spicy issues on the agenda may be held later on in the evening prior to a vote by the Council Members - these issues are usually in the “public hearing” section of the agenda.

Register in advance to participate by Zoom: Here are quick links to register for 8/2/22 evening session or the 8/2/22 afternoon session.
Show up to the Vail Town Council Chambers before the 6:00pm start to comment in person.
Email your input for the public record to publicinput.vailtowncouncil@vailgov.com and CC: TownCouncil@vailgov.com before 12:00pm on Tuesday. Your emails will be part of the public record, but will not be read aloud at the meeting.

Where to Watch Vail Town Council Meetings:

Catch the livestream on Town of Vail’s Facebook Page
Follow the Twitter feed @VailTownCouncil
Watch the recording on HighFive (it takes a day or two for the recordings to be posted. Facebook is better.)

NOTE: Comments on social aren’t really read or responded to in real time. If you have something to say see the above section on How to Comment.