The Salida Planning Commission approved a preliminary plat of the Hillside Minor Subdivision Monday evening, allowing for the construction of three single-family homes on a total of about 1.7 acres at the base of Tenderfoot Mountain.
Developer P.T. Wood, the applicant, purchased 17 acres on Tenderfoot Mountain from Judy Everett and subsequently traded the parcel to the City of Salida for 12 lots at base of the mountain. If approved by the City Council, the plat application would replat the 12 lots, resulting in three larger lots.
Local resident Jack Chivvis spoke in favor of the application.
The trail used for the Tenderfoot Hill Climb during FIBArk crosses one of the proposed lots and was the cause of some discussion. According to City staff, the Recreation Advisory Board recommended that a proposed easement for the trail be rejected by the City — the easement would be used only one day a year — and suggested instead that Wood pay a fee-in-lieu which could be used as leverage to help obtain grants for purchase of open space or park improvements.
Ultimately, the Commission approved the preliminary plat on a split vote, incorporating the trail easement rather than a fee-in-lieu and adding language to require a 1.2% real estate transfer assessment (RETA) from future buyers of the property. P.T. Wood, who sits on the Commission, recused himself during the discussion and vote.
Chair Don Stevens and newly-appointed alternate Lisa Malde were generally supportive of the application but voted against it because of language which would allow building footprints to be 40% of the lot size. Stevens said landowners would be allowed to build houses larger than 10,000 square feet. “I have a problem with that,” Stevens said.
“I’m sure any house that big would be beautiful,” Commissioner Verl Curtis said.
Wood had said earlier in the meeting that he would have been amenable to a reduction in the allowed size of the building footprint and, as a longstanding proponent of real estate transfer assessments, that he accepted the imposition of the RETA by Commissioner Chris Tracy. The final plat for the Hillside Minor Subdivision will be considered by the City Council.
In other business, the Planning Commission unanimously recommended that the City Council adopt the Regional Transportation Plan.
In my experience, there are myriad examples of the lack of direct correlation between square footage and design aesthetics. If nothing else, a 10K square foot house would be dramatically out of scale with its surroundings in this location.
I agree that a 10,000 sqft house is out of scale (for any neighborhood). The thought of it is really quite silly. But is it really a concern? I highly doubt anyone will actualy build a house of that size. Are there many instances in town that an owner has built out to the absolute maximum allowed sqft?
We all say “that will never happen”, but low and behold, some nucklehead moves in and builds a 10,000 sq ft art deco home, and the character of “S” mountain is lost. I think the character of the town should be held above the dollar value. Are we just selling out?
If my my calculations are right these 3 lots will be aproximatly 1/2 acre in size similar to those of us who each have a house over there on 3 of the historic 50×125 ft. lots. 40% of that would be a house of around 7,500 sq. ft. which I feel is still way too big for the neighborhood and although the hill is much steeper on P.T.’s lots that alone would not stop someone from building up the hill with some big monstrosity. We were out of town and were not aware of that 40% number. And for any of you who are thinking about living over there let me tell you about all the rattlesnakes and scorpions…..
I spoke with Dara briefly and she said that while uncommon, people have in the past built to the allowed footprint; it occurs most often when people are adding an accessory dwelling on a smaller lot. She also said that the footprint in this case was reduced by the conditional use permit from the 60% footprint allowed by Industrial zoning.
Each of these three lots are 25,000 square feet; 40% amounts to 10,000 square feet. Remember, we’re talking footprint, so the actual square footage for a home could be larger.
Don can speak for himself, but the argument that I heard was not that it was likely that someone would build a 10,000 square foot home on one of these lots — it’s clearly not — but that more generally the rules we have in place to govern development should promote and conform to a shared vision we have for the City.
In this case, Don and Lisa felt that a 10,000 square foot footprint for a single-family residential home in this location was excessive; the other commissioners present, according to their vote, did not (PT had recused himself).