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Aspen — Reducing allowable home sizes in Pitkin County in order to increase the market for transferable development rights received plenty of discussion from county commissioners Tuesday but little support.

Only Commissioner George Newman voiced interest in further cutting the existing home-size caps, both to keep a viable market for transferable development rights and to discourage mansions that don't forward the community's environmental goals.

"We should zone it like we mean it," he said.

Commissioner Rachel Richards said she's willing to have the discussion but didn't outright advocate reducing the caps.

In general, commissioners lauded the TDR program, initiated in 1994, which allows owners of backcountry lands zoned Rural and Remote to sell the development rights off those parcels for use in areas deemed more appropriate for growth. The TDR program has since been expanded - parcels where development is constrained, for example, are eligible to sell a TDR, as are historic properties.

TDR buyers can gain development rights or build square footage beyond the 5,750 square feet allowed on any parcel in unincorporated Pitkin County except Rural and Remote lands.

To construct a home of more than 5,750 square feet, up to a maximum of 15,000 square feet, a landowner can buy one or more TDRs (each is worth 2,500 square feet of development) or seek additional square footage from the county's annual growth allotment. Several commissioners complained that floor area is too easy to come by through the latter approach and said the allotment should be reduced.

Since TDRs were implemented, more than 5,840 acres in the backcountry have been sterilized from development, according to Cindy Houben, county director of community development. Approvals have been granted for the use of 332 TDRs (they haven't all been used - or even created).