Consultant asks Ketchum what it wants to look like
New design review standards
in the works
"Our job is to help the community figure out what it wants to be,
not for us to impose our visions or ideas."
Nore Winter, Ketchum’s new design review consultant
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
It’s time to get back to basics in Ketchum downtown planning, design
review consultant Nore Winter said in an interview yesterday.
"We’ll engage people in what the design features of the
community core are that they really value," he said.
It’s a question local residents were to help Winter answer yesterday
evening at a meeting at Ketchum City Hall, after Winter spent Monday and Tuesday touring
the city and talking with local residents.
Ketchum city leaders contracted with Winter last month for $45,000 to work
during the coming five months on new design review regulations for downtown Ketchum. In
part, the current effort caps a months-long debate on how Ketchum should look in the face
of booming downtown construction.
The object of his visit this week was simple, Winter said: To find out
what the community’s vision is for its future appearance and to facilitate creation
of regulations that will enact that vision.
Winter, 53, has been a design review consultant for 25 years, he said. His
Boulder, Colo.-based Winter & Co. enterprise has been drafting design review standards
for 22 years.
He said he has drafted design review guidelines for Steamboat Springs,
Crested Butte, Breckenridge and Telluride, all in Colorado, and for Park City, Utah.
His primary concern, he said, is to act as a facilitator in the debate on
what Ketchum wants to become.
"Our job is to help the community figure out what it wants to be, not
for us to impose our visions or ideas," he said. "We want to guide the
discussion and identify some points on consensus and on disagreement, so there can be some
informed decisions made."
Winter said the primary challenges he faces in drafting design review
regulations involve balancing the desire to have specific, measured standards while
allowing developers and architects the flexibility to design new and creative buildings.
In short, he said, it’s "writing standards that are specific
enough and have room for individualism."
The common thread between the communities Winter has worked for, he said,
is that there’s "a concern about maintaining town character in very heated
real-estate markets. Physically, they’re quite different, of course.
"We’ve certainly learned that each community needs to come up
with its own answers." When asked what he learned from residents during his first day
in Ketchum, he answered, "There’s quite a bit of diversity of development in the
core. The relationship to the natural surroundings—the natural setting—is very
important. "There’s an intrinsic character of small scale, simple buildings that
people value, yet people understand that the community is going to change."
But "it’s too early" to decide on specific issues that need
attention, he said.
Winter said that following this week’s visit and last night’s
meeting, he will attempt to outline issues surrounding residents’ visions for
Ketchum. After getting further input from a steering committee consisting of 10 local
residents, business owners, developers, architects and real-estate specialists—and
the P&Z—he will draft standards for the city’s consideration.
Late in July he will return to Ketchum to refine the standards he proposed
in the draft.
In August he will return for yet another workshop, and in October, if all
goes well, he will submit a final draft.
In February, the Ketchum City Council enacted regulations limiting
building height and bulk to relieve the city of rapid construction of large-scale
buildings. That ordinance was extended for an additional six months in May.
Winter said that "certainly" there is a relationship between
town character and building height and bulk.
"But everyone realizes they (bulk and height) are not the exclusive
elements affecting character."
With all the turmoil and passionate discussions on the topic of downtown
building design of late, it becomes easy to ask if Ketchum is beyond hope.
"No, not at all," the design review expert responded.
