Open for business
Council sends message with approval of Inn at the Village project.
“Mammoth Lakes is open for business,” proclaimed Town Council member Michael Raimondo on Wednesday in the aftermath of Council’s 3-1 vote to approve the Inn at the Village (aka 80|50 phase II) project during its regular meeting in Suite Z.
Mayor Jo Bacon offered the only dissenting vote, while Council member Shields Richardson recused himself.
The Inn at the Village project will be a 67-room hotel built adjacent to 80|50 buildings A & B, atop the current parking structure.
The hotel will be seven stories high (80 feet); the existing 80|50 buildings are 62’ tall.
The applicant, iStar Financial, is requesting 72 rooms/acre versus the currently allowable 55. iStar secured this density through a 30-room density reduction to future development of the Mammoth Crossing property, also owned by iStar.
The Inn project will also include a pool and Jacuzzi terrace, food and beverage service, and spa.
iStar representative Dana Severy said that, unlike the private residences of the existing 80|50 buildings, the Inn at the Village will offer hotel rooms.
“People haven’t stopped taking vacations, they’ve just stopped buying resort real estate,” he said. Severy noted that, since 2007, 74 shares at 80|50 have sold; only a third of those available.
“What we don’t want to deliver is a like-kind product [to 80|50],” he said.
Council was asked to consider (EIR), as well as District Zoning Amendments (DZA), which allow for increased height, reduced sidewalk setbacks, and greater density, as well as a tentative tract map and use permits.
Senior Planner Jen Daugherty noted in her staff presentation that the taller building would increase shade during winter. Given existing snowplow services and heated sidewalks, staff determined this to be a less than significant impact.
However, at the October Planning and Economic Development Commission (PEDC) meeting in which the Commission approved the Inn project, Kirk Schaubmayer, whose family owns the Alpen Hof across the street, urged “a little more diligence” in vetting the project. He saw the shadow thrown across the street and his property during winter months as an issue.
Community response to the project at Wednesday night’s Town Council meeting was mixed. Resident Kathy Cage addressed the height and setbacks, saying, “In my opinion, we’re kind of horrified by it, frankly.”
Cage argued that few people in the room could remember when Town staff first developed the NVSP, to which the Town staff was now recommending amendments.
Height and setback requirements “had to do with stepping back development from the road,” Cage said. “One of the things we didn’t want is the ‘Manhattan effect.’”
Cage argued the Inn building, which traded a tiered approach for a pool platform and tall, narrow tower, purportedly to give hotel rooms more sun, would create just such an effect.
“We look to the Planning Commission and Town Council to be stewards to the hundreds of hours and meetings we went to; the huge time investment we made [to develop the North Village Specific Plan],” she said. “There have got to be some really, really good reasons to not abide by those standards.”
Instead of taking a piecemeal approach to amending the North Village Specific Plan (NVSP), she argued, “It seems more forthright to open up the question of, are the development standards not reasonable in the Village?” and update the NVSP in one cohesive effort.
Cage pointed out that while Town Council might approve the Inn project this year, the applicants could sit on the project for years to come. “In the meantime, we have degraded standards for a proponent that might not develop in that timeline,” she said.
“I agree with Kathy that a lot of our principles, I don’t think those have changed,” said Resident Martin Kleinbard. “… At what point are we selling out what we, the people of Mammoth Lakes, want?”
Tom Hodges, speaking on behalf of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, offered an opposing perspective. He argued that Town Council had accepted a North Village District Plan study in 2009 that updated height and density requirements to 90 feet and 80 rooms/acre.
“From a policy standpoint, Council has already indicated it would approve those types of development,” he said. “The world didn’t stop in ’97 [when the NVSP was created].”
“I think this thing really works,” said Developer Chuck Lande of the Chadmar Group, owner of Snowcreek. “Developers are looking at us [and the Council’s decision], asking, ‘Is it Mammoth of old, or Mammoth of new?’”
Councilmembers were largely in favor of the Inn project, although several raised questions and concerns.
Council member John Wentworth wondered how truck delivery would complicate recreational activities on Canyon Boulevard (all deliveries will be made to 80|50 off Canyon).
“Consider including a plan for delivery trucks to be accommodating cyclists and other recreationalists,” he said. Severy agreed to the plan as a condition of the project’s approval.
Mayor Jo Bacon wondered why, with such an emphasis placed on the Inn being a hotel, the application still characterized it as a condo-hotel.
“The building is designed as a hotel,” Severy said, noting the smaller units, higher lobby ceilings, and hotel amenities. “What we think is important is not to foreclose on how this hotel gets financed.”
Severy pointed out that the Westin Monache was also financed as a condo-hotel, although, he said, “It operates as a hotel, and has the amenities of a hotel.”
Councilman Raimondo worried about parking. The Inn project complies with NVSP requirements, but Councilmembers agreed these requirements were outdated. “If and when any [parking] district is formed, for the construction of new parking and/or maintaining parking … [would the] property owner agree to participate in such a district?” he asked.
Severy said yes.
Councilman Colin Fernie offered his support, noting that the Westin currently has the highest occupancy in town. “We do have a lot of people looking for a higher-end product,” he said. He also pointed out that the Village, as it stands, is still only 40 percent developed. “We need critical mass in the Village to make it a functioning center of our community,” he said.
Only Mayor Bacon voiced serious reservations about the Inn project. “I’m very concerned about the setback and location of the height,” she said. “… It’s too much of a straight wall. And by giving hotel rooms sun, what happens is, Minaret Road doesn’t get sun.”
Mayor Bacon also expressed concern that the public will be denied an opportunity to comment on any mitigation measures required of the development.
Daugherty said that the design would be going before the PEDC Design Committee in a meeting that will be open to the public.
Meanwhile Town Attorney Andy Morris said that staff could present updates to Council on any of the project’s compliance with any necessary mitigation measures.
Then there is issue of the project’s Affordable Housing Mitigation Plan (AHMP), which Mammoth Lakes Housing (MLH) and iStar debated as recently as October.
“More or less, it says that the developer must comply with the policies in place at the time that they pull their building permit,” said MLH Executive Director Jennifer Halferty. She added that the developer will likely wait until the Town adopts an updated (less onerous) Housing Policy, rather than be subject to the Interim Housing Policy.
Under the rules of the Interim Policy, she said, MLH would ask for at least a $778,000 in-lieu payment or the provision of 3,484-square feet of off-site workforce housing.
What the updated policy will require is less clear. “The fee and other language will be changed,” Halferty said. She said momentum was building to get the new policy adopted, and that Council would continue talking about priorities for the Affordable Housing Policy in the months to come.
