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Cerise family seeks to keep multi-generation Aspen home; council approves allotment and asks staff to craft fee-deferral policy
Summary
After a lengthy public hearing, Aspen council approved a long-time-local demolition allotment, top-of-slope special review and allowed the applicants to use the existing affordable-housing mitigation deferral program while directing staff to draft a broader fee-deferral policy for long-term locals.
The council approved Resolution No. 72 (Series of 2025) concerning a combined land-use request for 790 Castle Creek Drive, where Jim and Carolyn Cerise proposed demolishing and replacing their longtime family home with a duplex while seeking mitigation deferrals and certain fee waivers to keep the property in local hands.
Represented by Patrick Raleigh of Raleigh Design Planning, the family explained the project is intended to remain workforce/employee housing across generations and presented designs that the applicant said were being held to roughly $875 per square foot with modest finishes and an all-electric building strategy. Raleigh asked council to consider reductions, or deferrals, for building permit and impact-review fees, and to waive or reduce tree mitigation fees tied to longstanding family plantings.
Staff long-range planner Haley Hart walked council through three discrete reviews: a 20/26 long-time local demolition allotment (staff determined the family met long-term local ownership and occupancy criteria), establishment of the top-of-slope setback as part of stream margin review, and a request for an indefinite deferral of affordable-housing mitigation under the city’s Growth Management Quota System (GMQS) code. Hart told council staff finds the top-of-slope and long-time-local criteria satisfied and indicated that a deed-restriction (resident-occupied designation) was an established code pathway to waive many fees, while other fees (utility tap, sanitation district, school dedication) are outside city waiver authority.
Public comment was strongly supportive: a large group of longtime locals and neighbors urged council to preserve the family compound and proposed leaning on policy tools to lower the effective permitting burden. Council members debated precedent and program design — balancing sympathy for the family with the need to avoid creating an open-ended exemption. After discussion the council voted to approve the three requests and directed staff to prepare a policy resolution exploring a limited fee-deferral/waiver program for qualifying working locals; the applicants were allowed to participate in the existing affordable-housing mitigation deferral program administratively where applicable.
