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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHolland & Hart Letter 012313 Holland & Hart LLP Attorneys at Law Phone (303)290-1600 Fax (303)290-1606 www.hollandhart.com 6380 S. Fiddlers Green Circle Suite 500 Greenwood Village, CO 80111 Aspen Billings Boise Boulder Carson City Cheyenne Colorado Springs Denver Denver Tech Center Jackson Hole Las Vegas Reno Salt Lake City Santa Fe Washington, D.C. Christopher H. Toll, P.C. Phone 303-290-1637 Fax 303-975-5300 CToll@hollandhart.com Via E-mail to Kendra Carberry, Esq. January 23, 2013 Planning and Environmental Commission of the Town of Vail 75 South Frontage Road West Vail, CO 81657 Re: Vail Golf Course and Event Center/Golf Clubhouse Proposal Members of the Commission: In connection with the Town of Vail’s application for a conditional use permit (“CUP”), we represent (or speak on behalf of) the owners of ten properties on Sunburst Drive, adjacent to the Vail Golf Course. At the January 14, 2013, PEC meeting, several of you expressed many of the same concerns with the current proposal that the Sunburst Drive community has. This letter will comment on the particular concerns you expressed during that meeting and reemphasizes that many other significant issues still exist. 1. No Viable Solution Exists for the Parking Problems the Town’s Application Raises. As was evidenced at the January 14, 2013 PEC meeting, no practical parking plan can accommodate the Town’s events center. The Town is trying to overdevelop a site that simply does not have the capacity to handle the Town’s plans. As a representative of the Town made clear at the January 14 PEC meeting, even now, when weddings and other events occur only 15 times a year, parking and traffic congestion are still problems when the slightest unforeseen wrinkle occurs. The Town is now attempting to raise the number of events to somewhere between 65 and 1001 The Town has proffered a number of parking plans, none of which has been viable. The latest, which the Town claims is feasible, only works by ignoring key realities and assuming at the same time it is trying to increase the size of those events. It is irrational to think it can do so and avoid the traffic and parking problems it is already experiencing. 1 In its initial estimates, the Town indicated that the events center would likely host close to 100 events per year. After resistance from the community, it revised that number to 65, but the initial estimates were likely more realistic. The Town is hoping to build a premier wedding venue, and that space will attract users. Planning and Environmental Commission of the Town of Vail January 23, 2013 Page 2 perfect conditions, and even then it requires elaborate efforts, such as on-site valet parking, off- site valet parking, and shuttling. But because the Town’s plan will stretch the property beyond its capacity, the reality is that any variable will throw the Town’s parking plans into chaos. The slightest unexpected event will cause traffic, parking, and safety concerns all along Sunburst Drive. A neighborhood meeting, a group of cyclists looking to use Sunburst Drive, more golfers than expected, families hoping to park near the golf course for an evening stroll along Sunburst—any one would create a malaise of traffic, safety, and congestion concerns. The Town is asking the PEC to approve its application on the assumption that no other variable will ever occur. It is not a realistic assumption. In sum, the neighborhood was not designed to host what the Town wants. Even if the size of the parking lot were not an issue, the increased traffic would still cause the same safety, congestion, and noise concerns because the Town is trying to fit a commercial enterprise into the heart of a serene residential neighborhood. It simply does not fit. 2. Parking Is Not the Only Issue We reiterate that parking is not the only problem with the Town’s plan. The Town’s intended uses raise a number of issues, including safety concerns for pedestrians and cyclists along Sunburst Drive, the potential that fire and emergency personnel will not be able to access Sunburst Drive during large events, the Town’s inability to enforce crowd control methods, lack of on-site law enforcement, and the Town’s discretion to put up tents on the 18th fairway. Our letter of November 20, 2012, explains each of these problems in more detail, and we refer you to it. The bottom line is that the Town is trying to increase the use of a property that simply does not have the capacity. The events center is the wrong project for this parcel of land. Even today, when only 15 events per year occur, members of the Sunburst Neighborhood occasionally must call the police to deal with attendees. When the number of events increases by 6 or 7 fold, and the events themselves swell in size, the problems will mount proportionately. 3. The Town’s Plan Violates the Town Code Vail Municipal Code § 12-16-6.B provides that “before granting a conditional use permit,” the “planning and environmental commission shall” find “that the proposed location of the use and the conditions under which it would be operated or maintained will not be detrimental to the public health, safety or welfare, or materially injurious to properties or improvements in the vicinity.” This language prevents approval of the Town’s application for two reasons. First, the proposed location of the use will be detrimental to the public health, safety, or welfare. Members of the Vail community and visitors to the valley routinely use Sunburst Drive Planning and Environmental Commission of the Town of Vail January 23, 2013 Page 3 for activities such as family walks, family bike rides, cycling, and other outings. If the golf course clubhouse becomes an events center with valet parking, shuttles, and numerous attendees trying to find their own parking along Sunburst Drive, many of those using Sunburst Drive will be put in danger. The road does not have the capacity to handle the increase in traffic the Town proposes. This is especially true when, during the summer months, the events center will likely be in use multiple nights every week. Second, the Town’s plan most definitely will be materially injurious to the properties in the vicinity of the events center. Mike Nash, an appraiser with over 20 years of experience in Colorado and Eagle County, has stated that the Town’s plan, if approved, would “negatively impact values of existing homes on Sunburst Drive, thereby causing material injury to those homes.” Mike Nash Opinion, attached as Exhibit A, at ¶ 10. That economic injury alone is reason enough for the PEC to deny the Town’s application, but there is also the injury the neighbors will suffer in the use and enjoyment of their property. On most summer nights, instead of the tranquility they enjoy now, those immediately adjacent to the clubhouse will face loud music, the din of mingling and partying guests, and the annoyance of attendees wandering onto their properties (something that already occurs with the smaller and fewer events the clubhouse currently hosts). Those throughout the neighborhood—including residents of the townhomes—will find their current use and enjoyment destroyed by the guttural sounds of shuttles passing in the afternoon and late at night, clogged roads, slower response times by first responders, and the noise that will inevitably arise as attendees (many of whom will have been drinking) shuffle back to their cars or shuttles as late as 2 A.M. The Sunburst Neighborhood was not built for this kind of operation. Those who developed it meant it to be a quiet, residential community lining a golf course, with narrow roads and almost no shoulders. See Jay Pulis Affidavit, attached as Exhibit B. Because they designed it that way, there is no way the Town can create a commercial enterprise in the heart of it without risking safety and public health and without materially injuring properties in the vicinity. 4. The Town’s Plan Violates the Zoning Regulations Section 12-8B-3 of the Municipal Code permits as “accessory uses” in the Outdoor Recreation zone district, “[a]ccessory buildings (permanent and temporary) and uses customarily incidental and accessory to permitted or conditional outdoor recreational uses, and necessary for the operation thereof, including restrooms, drinking fountains, bleachers, concessions, storage buildings, and similar uses.” Under this provision, to qualify as an “accessory building” or “accessory use,” the structure or use must be (1) customarily incidental and accessory to permitted or conditional outdoor recreational uses, and (2) necessary for the operation thereof. What the Town is proposing is neither customary nor incidental. First, at the last PEC meeting, several commissioners suggested that many golf course clubhouses have banquet halls. This is not true. Most golf course clubhouses, like the current clubhouse, have golfers’ grills— Planning and Environmental Commission of the Town of Vail January 23, 2013 Page 4 one dining area for those using the course to eat and relax before or after their round. Almost no clubhouses have a golfers’ grill, as well as a separate banquet hall complete with a bridal room, banquet patio, and banquet garden area. That design is unique to the Town’s proposal and thus violates § 12-8B-3. There currently is no banquet room at the clubhouse. Rather, there is an eating space that serves as a golfers’ grill and, on rare occasions (just 15 times per year), acts as a dining space for other events. Second, the proposed banquet facilities, including all the outdoor space, are not incidental to the permitted use of a golf course. Because commercial business, wedding, and other parties will often book the events center years in advance, the Town’s plans will necessarily crowd the golfers out of their own clubhouse. No doubt groups will schedule non-golfing events at the clubhouse a year or even two years in advance. When the golfers decide to schedule a tournament or other event, they will find they cannot because it will already be booked. As a result, the “accessory” use of the events center will become the primary use, and the golfers will need to find another venue for their golfing events. This is especially troublesome when the amount of revenue generated by the golf course dwarfs that predicted to stem from the wedding venue. Likewise, the proposed event center is not “necessary for the operation” of approved uses such as golfing and Nordic activities. If the event center has no relationship to the permitted or conditional outdoor recreational uses, then it certainly cannot be necessary for their operation. While a golfers’ grill is arguably necessary for the operation of a golf clubhouse, two dining areas are not. If the Town were to keep the golfers’ grill and remove the banquet space from its plans, the golfing and Nordic uses of the clubhouse would continue unimpeded. The banquet space is therefore unnecessary for the operation of the golfing and Nordic activities. Accordingly, the PEC should reject the Town’s application. In sum, the proposed event center fails to satisfy either of the two tests for a conditional use as an accessory building for use in the Outdoor Recreation zone district. 5. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, the PEC should reject the Town’s application for a conditional use permit for an event center and subordinate clubhouse at the Vail Golf Course. At its January 14, 2013 meeting, the PEC acknowledged a number of concerns with the Town’s proposal. The Town has failed to address those concerns, mostly because it cannot. They are inherent in the Town’s event center proposal. As long as the Town insists on turning a golf course clubhouse in a residential neighborhood into a large event center, the PEC should deny its application for a conditional use permit. Planning and Environmental Commission of the Town of Vail January 23, 2013 Page 5 Respectfully, Christopher H. Toll Steven T. Collis Enclosures: Exhibit A – Opinion of Mike Nash Exhibit B – Affidavit of Jay Pulis 5969903_3