Inn decision
Planners recommend Inn at the Village for approval, over Brown’s objection.
The Inn at the Village, which could be otherwise described as 80|50 phase two, was recommended to Mammoth Lakes Town Council for approval by the Town’s Planning and Economic Development Commission on Wednesday afternoon. The vote was 3-1. Commissioner David Harvey did not participate.
A thimbnail sketch of the project, as proposed by applicant Severy Realty Group/SFI Mammoth, calls for a 67-room hotel to be built adjacent to 80|50 buildings A & B and atop the current parking structure. The hotel would be seven stories high (80 feet) with an additional 4.5 feet alloted for “appurtenances.”
80|50s existing buildings are 62’ tall with an additional 3’ for “appurtenances.”
Current zoning code allows for just 37 more rooms of density on the site, not 67.
Which means the applicant is requesting 72 rooms/acre versus 55.
The applicant, however, proposes no net gain in density, asking that the density be transferred from additional property the applicant owns at the intersection of Main and Minaret.
Speaking before the Commission Wednesday, Severy said the 67-room proposal is at the “low end of viability.”
To get to the 67, he said he had no choice but to go higher.
“If you don’t go taller, you don’t have a project,” he said.
Severy further stressed that the project would provide much-needed “critical mass” to the North Village.
In explaining why she was voting in favor of a recommendation to Town Council, Commissioner Elizabeth Tenney cited “economic development” as a key factor in her decision.
The biggest concern Tenney said she had with the proposal was its “color palate.”
In explaining her dissent, Commission Chair Mickey Brown said that the project is not consistent with the provisions of the North Village Specific Plan, and that its height and density would be detrimental to neighboring properties.
In her rebuttal to Tenney, Brown said, “We are sitting here, not as economic developers, but as Planners … this isn’t about the overall health of the town. This is about specific findings.”
While Commissioner Amy Grahek did not have a problem with the project’s height, Kirk Schaubmayer, whose family owns the Alpen Hof across the street, did.
He urged “a little more diligence” in vetting the project, and saw the shadow thrown across the street and his property during winter months (as a result of increased building height) as an issue.
While the housing mitigation to be provided by the project is subject to future negotiations, both sides appear far apart.
According to Mammoth Lakes Housing Executive Director Jennifer Halferty, the initial agreement between 80|50 and the Town called for $1 million per building (or $3 million total).
Mammoth Lakes Housing is asking the developer for an approximate $778,000 in-lieu payment or the provision of 3,484-square feet of off-site workforce housing.
The developer, according to Halferty, has offered to make a $97,000 in-lieu payment.
As citizen Gerald Blank, who owns multiple properties in and around Mammoth stated in a letter of opposition to the Town, “[The project] does not even begin to argue justifications for these variances other than the well-known economic one.”
He goes on to summarize as follows:
“This project was approved before in smaller form, a 21-fractional unit, 33-room overall facility but was not considered economically viable in that form and was never built. Translation: 80|50c applicant did not think they’d make enough money conforming to the project as specified before and now are making another, much larger run at it after losing hands down before this Commission on an even larger proposal. So, while this may appear scaled down it is actually much larger than already approved plans.
… In a nutshell, it seeks to pull some big city developer and owner wool over some very important local eyes.”
The Inn at the Village project is tentatively scheduled to come before Town Council on November 5 according to Senior Planner Jen Daugherty.
