An inherent conundrum lies at the center of Ketchum's downtown.
Residents want more affordable housing units to stem the exodus of their community, but many don't want increased density. They want more places to park, but fewer ugly parking lots. They want more hotels, but no tall buildings blocking views.
Approximately 80 people attended a town meeting Tuesday, May 16, to hear about—and offer—possible solutions to these questions, and to get an update on the downtown master plan. It was the first public presentation by economic development consultant Tom Hudson since March's Designfest, an all-day event wherein people contributed ideas for each quadrant of Ketchum's core.
"This is a community-based process," said Ketchum Planning Director Harold Moniz. "To forge ahead and find solutions ... your input is critical to the success of this."
Hudson, in conjunction with elected officials, city staff and members of the public have since October been submitting ideas and crafting the framework of the downtown plan. A draft should be ready by mid-June, with more public presentations to follow.
The city hopes to have the plan in place before the expiration of a multi-zone moratorium on all-residential building applications.
"A lot of materials are coming together on the downtown master plan," Hudson said. "There are a lot of pressures to act. What we really need is that action."
Some of the tools for implementation, such as the urban renewal agency, are in place, he said. A non-profit community development corporation that will focus on affordable housing is in the works.
Ketchum has become unaffordable for middle-income residents, he said.
"Year-round community is an essential component of maintaining a sense of place," Hudson said. "What we propose to you is shared responsibility."
A fifty-fifty mix of private and public contributions is on par with other Western mountain resort towns Hudson's team studied.
Current city-owned land can be used for affordable housing, possibly including smaller retail spaces to enliven the shopping scene.
Inclusionary zoning and increased density could increase affordable housing units.
Hudson proposed ditching the current floor area ratio system. Without FAR requirements, which determine the amount of building space in relation to the lot, the city could dramatically increase density, Hudson said.
Visual impacts of that could be mitigated by a stepback system for successive stories.
With a 10-foot stepback on each floor, there would be a 3-degree difference in the view from across a 100-foot street, Hudson said.
A revived system of TDRs, or transfer of development rights, would allow owners of one-story buildings to sell rights to develop future stories.
That gives them incentive to keep small, cute buildings as they are in the face of tempting development opportunities. Buyers of TDRs could then add more stories to buildings in other designated zones.
Those designated areas could be in lower elevation locales.
"Put them in lower spots," Hudson said. "The lower they are, the less impact they have on the view corridors."
Other zones would not be downzoned, he said.
Although parking and circulation will be topics for a future public meeting, many attendees at Tuesday's session wanted to examine the issue right away.
"You've made parking a dominant feature," Hudson said. "In our view, this is an auto-dominated downtown."
Parking places on the street can cost tens of thousands of dollars per stall, Hudson said.
"Do we owe everybody who comes into town a $40,000 parking place?" he asked.
A survey of meeting attendees after the session indicated a high level of comfort with the process, according to the results Hudson provided on Thursday.
On a scale of 1 to 5, over half responded with a high score of 5 to all seven questions.
Participants gave an average score of 4.72 to the ideas for creating a pedestrian-priority area. An average score of 3.61 was the comfort level of allowing specific buildings to have five stories. Having a form-based code replace the current zoning system registered an average score of 4.22.
Trading TDRs for additional height in other areas had an average score of 4.27. Ideas to curb sprawl by increasing density averaged 4.42. Making affordable housing a responsibility of the public and private sector had an average comfort level of 4.12, but splitting it between public and private lowered that number to 3.79.
Ketchum resident David Norton said the meeting was worth attending.
"I thought it was a great meeting," he said. "This whole thing is about time. Everything (Hudson) said is exactly right."
Fellow participant Tom Van Slyke said he was encouraged not only by the ideas, but by the proposed ways to achieve them.
"It gives me a sense of optimism," he said. "It's forward looking rather than reactive. I'm distressed about the town's present situation, but I don't think it has to stay that way. (Hudson's team) has a lot of great ideas on how to implement things. A lot of things for retailers will happen when people live here."
