{"id":2446581,"date":"2019-07-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=309801"},"modified":"2019-07-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T06:00:00","slug":"business-monday-motion-residential-not-off-the-table-at-north-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/business-monday-motion-residential-not-off-the-table-at-north-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Monday: Motion: Residential not off the table at North Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The city of Aspen is seeking the dismissal of a federal lawsuit over development rights at the North Mill Commercial Center.<\/strong>
File photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

After more than two years, as well as two court venues and several amended complaints, the city of Aspen is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging one of its land-use ordinances is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s motion, filed July 12 in Denver federal court by the Boulder firm Berg Hill Greenleaf & Ruscitti LLP, calls for the suit\u2019s dismissal on the grounds that it was filed prematurely.<\/p>\n

City government and City Council are defendants in a lawsuit concerning development rights at the two-building Mill Street Commercial Center, which is located next to the Aspen post office and across the street from the Clark\u2019s Market complex.<\/p>\n

In January, developer Mark Hunt\u2019s North Mill Street LLC sued the city government and council<\/a>, in both state district court in Pitkin County and federal court in Denver, claiming Ordinance 29 has threatened the owner\u2019s ability for future redevelopment because it is \u201ceconomically unviable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ordinance 29 was one of six new ordinances City Council adopted from 2016-17. Hunt\u2019s attorneys at the Aspen firm Garfield & Hecht PC claim it unfairly targets the Mill Street Commercial Center by not allowing residential development there.<\/p>\n

Both sides agreed in June to drop the case in Pitkin County District Court, placing the legal dispute now solely in federal court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agreed the ordinance that\u2019s being challenged was a legislative act and not a quasi-judicial act, and therefore the claims can be heard in federal court,\u201d said Chris Bryan, one of the attorney\u2019s representing North Mill Street LLC.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s motion to dismiss says that no determination has been made \u201cif free market residential uses are permissible\u201d at Mill Street Commercial Center because it owners have not pursued a planned development review, \u201ca procedure meant to encourage flexibility and innovation in land development.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, while Ordinance 29 precludes residential development in the city\u2019s service-commercial-industrial district, the city\u2019s motion states that \u201cwhether the city has altogether prevented (North Mill Street LLC) from such free market development is still an open question.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit should be dismissed, the motion argues, because the claims \u201cunripe\u201d for litigation.<\/p>\n

Efforts to have the property rezoned haven\u2019t worked so far, Bryan said. Planning and Zoning denied an application to rezone the property, and in April, the City Council rejected<\/a> a similar proposal, according to Bryan.<\/p>\n

The Mill Street center\u2019s tenants are locally serving business \u2014 including an athletics consignment store, a coin-operated laundromat and an auto-service shop, for instance \u2014 that have been operating in limbo<\/a> for more than a decade because of the changing ownership\u2019s plans to redevelop the property.<\/p>\n

Both buildings are zoned service-commercial-industrial, more commonly referred to as SCI. Hunt bought them in June 2018, paying $15 million for both the 465 N. Mill St. property, a 20,000-square-foot building that sits on 49,901 square feet of land, and the 557 N. Mill St. address, an 8,000-square-foot building on 6,301 square feet of land, according to property records.<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city of Aspen is seeking the dismissal of a federal lawsuit over development rights at the North Mill Commercial Center.File photo After more than two years, as well as two court venues and several amended complaints, the city of Aspen is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging one of its land-use ordinances is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 17:45:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}