Hotels in two downtown Steamboat districts could rise from 28 to 38 feet under code change headed to council

Key points

• Steamboat's Planning Commission voted 7-0 Thursday to recommend letting hotels in two downtown districts, Commercial Old Town and Commercial Yampa-Two, rise to 38 feet, the height the city already allows for buildings with homes on the top floor. City Council has the final say.
• The code tables cap buildings without homes on the top floor at 28 feet there, so a hotel would gain 10 feet, by the Independent's calculation, if it falls under that limit today. Anything above 28 feet would still have to step back from the street.
• A second change would stop counting above-ground parking garages against a downtown building's floor-area limit when shops or other permitted uses wrap them along the street.
• City planners told commissioners the parking change could mean larger, boxier buildings. One said that, as he recalled, most of the downtown development he had researched had sought a variance from the floor-area limit.
• No hotel application is waiting on the change, the city's planning and community development director said. Council is tentatively set to take it up Dec. 1.

Hotels in downtown Steamboat's Old Town commercial district and on part of Yampa Street could be built as tall as buildings with homes on their top floors, under a code change now headed to City Council.

The city's Planning Commission voted 7-0 Thursday to recommend the change, which would let hotels in the Commercial Old Town and Commercial Yampa-Two districts reach 38 feet. Rebecca Bessey, the city's planning and community development director, said in an email Friday that Chair Brian Adams ran the meeting and that all seven commissioners present voted to recommend approval. No one from the public commented. No hotel application or pre-application is waiting on the change, Bessey said.

The commission only recommends; council has the final say, starting with a first reading tentatively set for Dec. 1.

Commercial Old Town is meant for development compatible with "the traditional character of the downtown area," the city's development code says. The Commercial Yampa districts are meant to provide "connections and transitions between the Yampa River" and Old Town.

What would change

The staff report doesn't say what height hotels are held to now. The code tables in the packet cap buildings without homes on the top floor at 28 feet in both districts, and a staff member described that row at the meeting as covering "all other buildings." Staff said they might revise that row's wording before the change goes to council. If hotels fall under that 28-foot row today, the change would be worth 10 feet for a hotel, by the Independent's calculation.

The tables also keep a 38-foot hotel from rising straight up at the front lot line: any part of a building above 28 feet must sit at least 15 feet back from it in Commercial Old Town and at least 25 feet back in Commercial Yampa-Two. Projects can seek variances from those rules.

One commissioner asked whether a restaurant or bar on top of a hotel, perhaps run by someone else, would still count as part of the hotel. It would depend on the specific project, a staff member said, but staff would most likely treat a bar or restaurant there as an accessory use of the hotel. "So it still is a hotel on the top floor."

The second change would take above-ground parking garages out of floor area ratio, one of the limits on how big a building can be, as long as shops or other permitted uses wrap the parking along the street front. It would apply in three downtown commercial zone districts, CK, CO and CY. The code already requires commercial space along that street front to be at least 25 feet deep, Senior Planner Toby Stauffer told commissioners.

Neither change alters the floor-area caps themselves, though the parking change would let more floor space fit under them. In Commercial Yampa-Two, the tables cap floor area at 150% of lot area without third-floor residential and 200% with it.

Why the city wants it

Council asked for both changes in June, as part of a 2026 goal to "Evaluate and adopt, as appropriate, the dimensional / development standard recommendations in the Downtown Plan to ensure continued economic vibrancy in downtown Steamboat Springs." The Downtown Plan, adopted in 2019, was the first comprehensive plan for downtown since 1999, the staff report says.

Downtown projects must provide their own parking, and counting above-ground parking toward floor area "can present too much burden to allow new development to be successful," says the staff report, written by Stauffer. The change aims "to keep downtown as a strong, viable economic engine for our community," the report says, and MainStreet Steamboat "reviewed the amendment and is supportive of the change."

Stauffer called it "sort of a surgical change," limited to the two goals council named. Asked whether any recent downtown project had managed to wrap its parking with street-front uses while meeting the parking rules, Stauffer said, "I don't think so," though he hadn't researched every project. Of the development he looked at during the city's review of 12th and Yampa, including some older buildings, most "if I recall" had sought a variance from the floor-area limit, he said.

The trade-off

The parking change could mean bigger buildings, staff told commissioners. It depends on what a developer chooses to build, Bessey said, "but it could very well result in a larger building. It will result in more square footage on the lot than... the way the code is currently written today."

Vice Chair Rich Levy asked whether staff had run any examples, saying he imagined the buildings could get "boxier." Stauffer's answer: "I think the buildings could be boxier. We didn't run any specific scenarios, but we can see this type of development in multiple downtown buildings."

He named Howelsen Place and the Victoria building, at 10th and Lincoln, among downtown buildings that already build their parking inside, calling them "sort of relatively boxy buildings" that "step back towards the top." For a look at the alternative, he pointed to the recent 10th and Yampa development, which has open-air parking.

Design standards and other dimensional rules should still manage a building's "character, mass and scale," Stauffer said. Adams said design standards, which the city is about to rewrite, are "kind of the safeguards against a building getting too boxy," and that if the city is careful with the rewrite, "we can ensure that it won't."

Staff also discussed the 12th and Yampa Residences, which council approved 4-1 in June with a major variance. As presented to council in April, the project sought variances from standards including height, setbacks and floor area ratio. Bessey wrote in her email that she believes that building would have met the current 200% floor-area cap if its above-ground parking were left out of floor area. But its approved design "did not wrap the structured parking on the 12th Street pedestrian-active building frontage with other permitted uses," so it would not qualify for the proposed exemption, she wrote.

To take full advantage of the change, a builder may need "a little bit larger lot," staff said, noting that Howelsen Place and the Victoria building were large developments, "almost like a full block." On a single or typical downtown lot, "I think it's challenging," a staff member said.

Commissioners who backed the change still named worries: small downtown lots could bring requests for parking variances, and buildings could get boxier. "It's the unintended consequences that we'll have to wait and see how they arise," one said. Another saw a parking upside: even a few spaces inside a building beat what some lots can offer underground, "especially Yampa Street because it's under the water table."

What's next

Council's tentative Dec. 1 agenda lists a first reading of the ordinance on its consent calendar, where items can pass on a single motion unless a council member or member of the public asks to pull them. The staff report lists Dec. 15 as the second council date. Council meets at 5 p.m. in the Citizens' Meeting Room at Centennial Hall, 124 10th St., and on Zoom; written comments go to citycouncil@steamboatsprings.net.

Staff said they expect the coming design standards rewrite to look at both changes, and that it may even write them out of the code by handling the same issues through design standards. Staff called that a possibility.