Editor:
On reading a recent article (“City to start Burlingame construction in the spring,” Aspen Daily News, Nov. 14) I saw that council has agreed to start the next 167 Burlingame units. Wasn’t it just a few days ago I was reading that the Aspen Community School’s policies will need to change because the Aspen High School is above capacity and cannot continue to guarantee places to the students that are out-of-district graduating from the Community School?
When I attended the Aspen School District’s pre-Burlingame meeting many, many years ago now, I remember the district telling Mick Ireland (who was not yet the mayor) that the school district would suffer financially by losing out-of-district enrollment to be replaced with the small taxes coming from the proposed Burlingame project. Now it appears that there may be even more fallout as another 167 units will be placed within the district. In the same edition of the Aspen Daily News there were the two Burlingame units being offered for sale, as have been offered for many months — they are both one-bedroom units. This implies that people are waiting for multi-bedroom units, which in turn implies there will be Aspen School District children to accommodate.
The Aspen Times reported that there is talk of lifting the dog ban at Burlingame. I remember the city applying to itself to grant itself exemption from the P&Z process with the first phase of Burlingame. P&Z had designated Deer Hill as an environmentally sensitive area. In granting themselves this exemption it is my recollection that this is where the no-dog policy originated. One can buy free market 15 minutes away from Burlingame for the same price or less — why is the city so determined to keep people in city-controlled, price-capped housing? Why is RFTA spending so much to build beautiful stone-faced bus stops when so many of our bus stops are located in places where it is life-threatening to cross Highway 82 and no effort is being made to make these stops safer?
Lazy Glen, ABO/CMC and Holland Hills are just three of these stops where adults take their lives in their hands crossing the highway and there has been at least one child fatality. Children walk from the ABC/airport bus stops to be able to cross more safely getting to the CMC and this is how the recent attempted abduction of a 13 year old girl happened.
On the matter of spending money it seemed the most compelling argument for the ill-conceived hydro plant on Castle Creek was that so much money had already been spent; but why had it been spent? This is what happened with Burlinggate. This seems to be becoming the modus operandi for approving projects.
Bronwyn Anglin
Pitkin County