Article by Madeline Osberger: Aspen Daily News: Related Colorado and town of Snowmass Village officials have finalized the 10 agreements that were still outstanding following last December’s conditional approval to restart Base Village, meaning the developer can move forward on completing the 1.1-million-square-foot project that’s been stalled for eight years.
Town Attorney John Dresser told the council on Monday night that staff was satisfied with the language in the agreements that deal with the administration of Base Village infrastructure and cost-sharing, among other issues. The town and the developer had been negotiating terms of the agreements since March, and last week’s announcement that Related had settled a lawsuit brought by a former partner in the project helped resolve a final sticking point, Dresser said. The 10 agreements’ specific language was not presented to elected officials on Monday.
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Related Vice President Craig Monzio, who was not present at Monday’s meeting, said the town’s approval of the agreements clears the way for the developer to sell a parcel within Base Village to Aspen Skiing Co., which plans to build a Limelight hotel.
“This clears the way for us to move forward with our plans for Base Village,” Monzio said. “We’re really excited to be able to move forward.”
The land contract with SkiCo for Lot 2 has been pending for several years, but was encumbered by impediments including a lawsuit between Related and Sunrise Company concerning a terminated contract over another Base Village lot. Related and Sunrise announced on Sept. 15 that they had settled the suit under confidential terms.
Monzio added that Sunrise, the owner of the Dancing Bear luxury fractional project in Aspen, is not being considered as a near term development partner for Base Village.
.“They do not have a role in the future right now,” he said.
He also said that no there are no other developers, including East-West Partners which last year had an option on the project, who have an interest in Base Village at this time.
Instead Monzio insisted that “having everything solidified and knowing we’re moving forward” is a welcome assurance as Related Colorado continues with design development for its new buildings.
“We may not have been publicly advancing” those plans, Monzio said, but added that behind the scenes, “it was business as usual.”
‘Great objections’
Dresser explained to elected officials that a clause involving an $8 million security deposit to guarantee Related’s community benefit requirement was no longer needed. The settlement with Sunrise, which saw the dismissal of a formal notice of pending litigation concerning the property — known as a lis pendans — negates the need for the cash security on the building that has been eyed for uses including an ice age discovery center.
“Now there [is] no cloud on the property,” said Dresser.
Monzio said the conditional approval of Ordinance 9, series of 2015, did not include specific language spelling out the need to secure Building 6. That came about because of Sunrise’s lis pendans filing, which has been dropped.
The decision to certify the final development ordinance enraged the head of a Base Village homeowners association, Stuart Nathan. He suggested the homeowners may now have to litigate.
“We have great objections to these 10 agreements,” said Nathan, who criticized council for repeatedly ignoring the homeowners’ concerns about what he considers to be taxation without representation in Base Village.
“We’re the people that are impacted and affected by all these one-sided agreements,” Nathan continued, specifically citing a plaza agreement that he said allows Aspen Skiing Co. to not pay its fair share for future usage. The owners are also unsatisfied by a proposal to allow them access to a future neighborhood pool because they feel that a prior, $47.5 million bond for Base Village infrastructure was to have guaranteed an aqua center.
Nathan said the Base Village residents weren’t opposing the long stalled project’s restart in concept.
“We’re not objecting to Base Village moving forward. We’re objecting to how it’s moving forward,” he added.
Pat Keefer, another Base Village homeowner, said by her estimates that owner fees and taxes could rise in the future by 40 percent because the developer has the ability to shift those obligations at will and without any oversight.
“Because those agreements were not discussed by council or in the public forum, we were not able to weigh in,” Keefer said. Monzio called Keefer’s projected figures “unfounded.”
“There’s nothing in the approval that would forecast that kind of increase,” he said.
Mayor pro tem Bob Sirkus said those kinds of fees were not within the council’s ability to control. And Town Manager Clint Kinney said that the framework for the 10 agreements had been etched out before last December’s conditional vote, suggesting that issues raised after that date were too late to be considered.
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