TELLURIDE – The  Telluride Town Council’s “call-up” review in June of a small residential addition to an historic building at 221 Colorado Ave. has, so far, cost taxpayers approximately $10,300.  

A call-up occurs when at least two members of council believe it is necessary for the full town council to review an action taken by a lower town board. In this case, council members Bob Saunders and Chris Myers requested the call-up of a 2-1 approval of the same application by the Telluride Historic and Architectural Review Commission last January.

Council’s call-up of the project produced an approval of the project, albeit with different conditions than the earlier HARC approval.

Town Manager Greg Clifton said last week the breakdown of costs for the call-up includes $7,000 in staff time preparing for the council review of the previous HARC approval and an additional $3,500 for print costs.

“A significant number of staff was involved in the call-up,” Clifton said. “Preparing the record for the call-up was a daunting task because the HARC hearing process spanned a couple of years. Because it’s a call-up before council, staff made sure everything was accurate and everything received a double-review.”

The $10,300 figure does not include costs incurred during the lengthy HARC approval process and only reflects the call-up procedure. Because the proposed project must come back before council on Aug. 23, as stipulated in council’s June conditional approval, it remains a quasi-judicial proceeding.  That means that members of council cannot comment on the costs the call-up has imposed on taxpayers.

The Telluride Land Use Code stipulates that costs associated with a call-up are borne by the town.  By contrast, per the LUC, any individual who is deemed to have standing in a particular case can appeal an approval. When that occurs, the party that files the appeal is required to pay the costs incurred during the appeal.

Clifton said there is no fund in the town budget to pay for council call-ups.  The $10,300 used for current call-up came out of the 2012 Council budget under its small projects line item. The amount of that budget is $15,000.

And the call-up review of the project is not over yet.

In its conditional approval, council determined that the 18-foot brick portion of the building was erected before 1913 is a part of the original contributing structure. Therefore the applicant is to preserve that portion of the building as a connector in its original form, with the same roof level. The applicant may construct an addition beginning from that existing brick structure “substantially similar” to what HARC approved last January.

Since council determined that the addition cannot be built on the 18-foot brick portion of the building, council did allow the applicant to modify one-foot setbacks on both east and west sides of the building and may default back to the original Land Use Code zero lot line setback. Council in its approval also stated the applicant may modify its approved plans to decrease the current 19-foot building setback near the rear toward the alley but must respect the LUC’s setback requirement of five feet. As the conditional approval aims to preserve the brick portion of the building the applicant may also redesign and eliminate the step back feature at the rear of the proposed addition.



gjarvis@watchnewspapers.com or @GusJarvis