What’s behind Vail’s newest overlay zone district in West Vail
The new zone district is part of the neighborhood’s master plan implementation, with the town eyeing the commercial center next
Ben Roof/For the Vail Daily
The town of Vail recently adopted a new overlay district in West Vail, the first step in the implementation of its master plan for the neighborhood.
The West Vail Master Plan was adopted in November 2021. The overlay district was part of the plan’s first phase and went through around 18 months of planning, taking on multiple iterations and going through both Planning and Environmental Commission and Town Council approvals.
“It’s something that’s been overdue for a long time,” said Matt Gennett, community development director for the town.
The purpose of the new zone district — officially called the “West Vail Multi-Family Overlay District” — is two-fold, said Greg Roy, the town’s planning manager.
“The purpose of the overlay district is to allow properties to be able to redevelop for those that have been unable to do so due to the current zoning,” he said.
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Much of the current housing in West Vail was developed under Eagle County jurisdiction and annexed into the town in 1984. As such, much of the housing supply does not conform to the area’s current zoning, which for most neighborhoods is the town’s “Two-Family Primary Secondary Residential” zone district.
“Those nonconformities have led to some properties being unable to redevelop over time,” Roy said.
Gennett added that for many, this means if they want to redevelop — namely add square footage — “it’s extremely difficult.”
“If they wanted to redevelop to the same density they have today — let’s say it’s a six-plex or even higher density — they couldn’t do that today. So allowing properties to redevelop while maintaining or increasing the density was a goal in the West Vail Master Plan,” Gennett said.
The second goal of the new overlay is “to encourage employee housing,” Roy added.
The master plan identifies that preserving and adding primary resident housing to the neighborhood is a top priority.
“West Vail will remain the heart of resident-occupied housing in Vail,” reads the plan, identifying resident housing as housing occupied by year-round residents.
What the overlay district contains
The zone district aims to meet these goals by giving property owners another zoning option that also incentivizes employee housing. This new district is not a re-zoning of the neighborhood. West Vail property owners must opt-in to the overlay to take advantage of it, applying and going through a re-zoning process with the Vail PEC and Town Council.
Like the town’s other zone districts, the West Vail Multi-Family Overlay District lays out several standards or requirements that a property must meet. The West Vail overlay includes standards for applicability, permitted uses, conditional uses, accessory uses, lot area and site dimensions, setbacks, height, density control, site coverage, landscaping, employee housing, parking and density bonuses.
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Comparing this overlay to the town’s current “Two-Family Primary Secondary Residential” zone district — that most of the West Vail properties fall under — Roy said that many of these conditions are relatively the same. However, where the overlay differs is in its standards for height, density, site coverage, landscaping and density bonuses.
Compared to the current zoning, the overlay sees an increase in the allowed height, which goes “with the fact that primarily we were looking at single-family duplexes before; multi-family is obviously a different product,” Roy said.
It also establishes a minimum density in addition to a maximum density, whereas most other town zone districts just set a maximum density. Compared to the primary secondary district, it increases site coverage by 10% — allowing for site coverage not to exceed 30% of the total site area rather than 20% — and drops the landscaping requirement by 20% — requiring that at least 40%, rather than 60%, of the site is landscaped.
For employee housing, the overlay implements a requirement that “is similar to what we have in our core areas and villages,” Roy said.
“Adding it to this district is part of that goal to have local resident and employee housing that’s (currently) kind of de-facto employee housing be replaced with some deed-restricted housing in the future,” he added.
The district also has a section titled density bonuses, which are meant to incentivize employee housing.
Essentially, the section gives development bonuses based on the number of employee housing units added to the site. For one employee housing unit, the development gets extra square footage that it can add to the lot area. For two units, there’s additional site coverage allowed. For three, the minimum amount of landscaping drops. For four or more, there is no longer a maximum density requirement.
These incentives came not only from the PEC and Town Council public input process but also in the day-to-day work of the town’s planning department, Roy said.
“These incentives in here are generally the ones we see as the most restrictive on lots, especially some of these smaller lots,” Roy said. “The question we get as staff when a new buyer comes in is, ‘How much can I add to the house?’ It’s one of the first things people are looking at. And then site coverage is one of those that on small lots actually can be pretty restrictive.”
When Town Council held work sessions and public hearings on the overlay district, this area was one that it had the most concern with. Namely, council members expressed concerns that it would not do enough to preserve current de-facto employee housing and create new deed restrictions in the future.
“I don’t see how this is going to encourage anyone to create more employee housing units,” said Council member Barry Davis at the Tuesday, Oct. 3 Town Council meeting, where the ordinance establishing the overlay passed 5-2 on first reading.
“I still see a net loss,” he added.
While the overlay made no substantial changes from first reading to its unanimous approval on Oct. 17, Davis commented, “I got very comfortable with understanding that some of the things I want to see happen are going to have to happen outside of this ordinance.”
Future impacts
While Vail’s Town Council only approved the overlay district a few weeks ago — and hasn’t had any applicants yet — the hope is that the town can glean a lot from the new district.
“It will be interesting to see what the first project is that comes through and is rezoned,” Roy said. “It’s not as much how many lots take advantage of it, it’s the ones that do, what product are we getting out of it?”
Gennett added that the town staff has been through all the theory on this.
“Now, we need the test,” he said. “Over the course of a year, 18 months, we’re going to observe what happens if people are taking advantage and seeing the incentives, and if it’s enough of an incentive. And then we may revisit depending on what Council wants to do.”
Mainly, staff will be looking at “what’s working, what’s not working and what we can tweak,” Gennett added.
It could also be some time before anyone takes advantage of the overlay.
“Around town, we probably see maybe 10 to 15 scrape and rebuilds in our primary secondary zone district, which is our most predominant zone district in town,” Roy said. “So if we would get one in a year in this area alone, I think that would be a pretty strong indicator, but it always takes people time to kind of look at the zoning and figure out what they could actually do.”
Thus, any impact on the area is likely to be more incremental, Gennett said.
As for the West Vail Master Plan, implementation of the second phase is expected to begin soon.
“Our next task is really to get rolling on the commercial part,” Gennett said.
According to the plan, the goal of this is to reimagine the “West Vail Center,” with “new and upgraded mixed-use buildings that reflect the neighborhood’s scale and mountain setting while providing much-needed resident housing.”
