City of Aspen Seeking Public Comment on Expediting Construction Projects to Support Economic Recovery
– Aspen City Council is asking the community to provide public comment and to fill out a survey regarding their opinions on the potential of Council fast tracking a program to expedite construction in Aspen in order to facilitate economic recovery efforts as soon as possible. The community can find the survey and opportunities to comment on www.aspencommunityvoice.com.
Council will meet in a worksession on Monday, April 27 at 4 p.m. to discuss the concept of offering an expedited process for new building and right-of-way permits, expanded construction hours, phased construction, and to extend the right-of-way construction season beyond the usual deadline of June 15 along with other policy process changes. The idea behind the change would be to boost the economy, create local jobs, and leverage construction activity as an economic recovery tool.
If Council decides to move forward with expedited construction, the Community Development and Engineering Departments will temporarily change their permitting policies and processes to get new permits issued with a faster than usual turnaround.
Expediting permits would mean reviewing and issuing demolition, right of way, construction, and building permits faster than normal, which would be possible because Community Development and Engineering would refocus existing staff to permit processing, utilize third-party assistance and require more complete permit application materials. Community Development would also allow for issuance of phased demolition and construction permits which would reduce review times.
It is essential to understand that all these building projects are already poised to move forward and have planning approvals in place, these policy changes would simply speed up the process and concentrate construction into a shorter time frame. This does not change any of the land use regulations or rules for construction.
Earlier this month, Council passed a resolution with six objectives aimed at providing relief to the community to address COVID-19 impacts. Objective #4 is to proactively and swiftly work to minimize further economic disruption and actively encourage its recovery. This policy change would address this objective.
Please submit all comments to www.aspencommunityvoice.com by 12 p.m. on Monday, April 27.
