relates to city ordinances this part is not empowered to rezone or to take any action that could be considered rezoning manses must meet for crucial tests in order to be granted those of you who are here for variance have already answered questions about the tests on your application and will begin by asking about those answers again tonight this is the procedure we found yes that you come to the microphone to speak and state your name and address here the applicant first and anyone supporting the application  anyone in opposition to it typically will hold public hearings on an application and then deliberate and decide on the application before moving on to the next application you are welcome to stay for the deliberations but there is no opportunity for  further public comment if you are right not to stay for deliberation and decision you can call the city clerk's office after eight thirty tomorrow morning to learn the results will have applications in the following order to destruction zone housing and dangerous structures me the test that you guys had served us up with the last time that we talked i just kind of quick preprinted up a few things here bear with me as it looks like i can this sign the center on the same page originally in the application and put on there that we wanted to add a pre owned vehicle sign on blue star highway and then move this from the existing location  regent boulevard further east on the ball boulevard and then try to move that face seen blue star highway so it's at this point we've drawn the fact that we don't we don't need to add another sign we just want to currently move the existing scion that we already have and so the question that reads unique is the property unique i don't have a lot of changes to a few of these items but one thing that i left  out i mentioned a few things last time one of them was the fact that regional of ours originally intended to be a thoroughfare and of course that changed and it's now a dead end road and also at the addition of the tunnel i want to continue elaborate on those things we've already talked about them but then one other thing as well especially the property was during all of our that i had really considered the fact that there are three roads surrounding that property is unique to what you'll see in a lot of the other properties listed this way and also for car dealerships in general i'll leave your discretion but there are two board members here tonight that weren't last time ok ok so if you want to go through that explain yeah i mean as you're heading northbound tunnel and that does make it so that when you're heading northbound ambush the highway you don't see the dealership from as far away there's less recognition there is a diminished visibility and there's also a component of kind of an oddity of going through a tunnel there and you kind of come out a little as to where am i and why is there a tunnel here and then boom there's our inventory that's why we had originally proposed to add the certified used vehicle sign in that area just that the inventory would be recognized more as a used car lot there the reason why the sign that you're seeing here in the picture being a region boulevard you know obviously they don't make boulevards to be dead  the city game plan was for that road to connect to south pine avenue south payne having to connect north to forty eighth street you know back in the eighty's things have not carried out the city's game plans changed and so at this point this view this sign we were asked by general motors who we've srong a value that relationship for the community and for for the good of everybody who as a general motors vehicle they asked  just employees of challenge and i'm probably been gracious and saying a thousand or so and you know that and then the fact that the and i know that most of the test here does not have to do about the type of business  it's more about the property although i do think it's still relevant just to say our facility essentially operates four dealerships out of one building which is very unique for example out of one hundred seven hundred dealerships in the michigan indiana ohio area there's only three that have a situation like ours with multiple franchises in the same building so it's very unique in that sense of the business and doing that under one roof the expansion of our and connecting to that and i think we serve as a pretty good landscape for the gateway of the city there by the airport so anyhow for franchises on eleven and a half acres so the next the next i think i think that i mean those four things between being surrounded by three the boulevard being a dead end road the runway being extended and having one building which by the way that building a sat back quite a ways from blue star so signage on the building itself would be you know kind of irrelevant based on the landscape there i think that that definitely defines a property is unique the second thing is  not soft created the question of result of an action by the current previous owner you know when the city made the game plan for that to be a thoroughfare you know we weren't involved in that but understood that that made sense be boulevard and city changing that i don't believe is a result of a current or previous owner as far as well strict compliance regulations governing area et become unnecessary burden some regardless of the business that operates out of there it's still a business with three streets and you know if you read the the ordinance you know except for a street fight frontage exceeding three hundred continuously or feet in which case to say it should be permitted in some ways that can be pretty easily interpreted that like in our case we have far in excess of that type of money or footage but there could be additional science allowed ok moving   you know having if we had three separate buildings or four separate buildings in our case before franchises that would be a pretty feasible option having one large building and all four franchises in it really makes it a very very impractical situation another thing that kind of came up the question of the board was you know far is what can you really kind of statistically prove here the impact of this sign being moved and you know really after diverse numerous several different professionals anything i would have really come up with there quantify it would be fairly easy to shoot holes through because it would be there would be a lot of assumptions made on the value of the sign be in that spot based on business impact to customers etc so i really i wasn't going to spare you guys with a bunch of that information so you know it's the minimum relief needed we move that sign up there's nothing else to ask for and you know this last question you know the sign being zero impact on our neighbors there's a reason why there's no neighbors here contesting this it's the same sign we already have we just want to move it a few hundred feet i think if you talk about the intent of the ordinance i don't think the intent of this ordinance was to not move a current existing sign a few hundred feet i guess private to prevent signs from being you know burdensome to other cadillac sign is located over here on the side of of our property if we moved to here's our mazda sign here we could keep it facing region boulevard which would give it some visibility from blue star highway if we basically put it about where this pine tree is here so any i guess the only thing i'd just say is i just again i'd last i'd say i think the intent was for the ordinance was was probably not to prevent this sign being moved a few hundred feet but thank you thank you i want to have often the board have any questions for that can leave a question for you yeah is there a specific reason why you could not achieve what you want to achieve with t songs you mean consolidating the current science that we have exactly right yet manufacturing acquirements they say based on here is what the dealership sizes and here's the site for example we just replace this honda sign and that's in my opinion i think that may be a good option for your company when you when we look at the your property in particular you've got four signs out there and two of the signs have a crown name out into the signs have only the name of your vendors on them and i have issues with that i don't think it's asking a lot to request  ask you to have only two signs out there you can easily achieve that thr so what was the question and i apologize is there a reason why you can't achieve true science and so i was like question to you yeah i mean i think just the i guess the simple fact that the other signs are already existing and are clear evidence signs and this one's already existing as well i guess just a general common sense could we propose something like that to the manufacturer we could i'm curious can you share the brand names that you mea if i were a business owner like myers for example and one of my vendors came to me and said mr meyer mr fred we'd like to put a sign up front of your building because we know that your company is the number one seller of our product like coca cola for example and that's they brought that to a city should we grant them the ability to have a sign yeah except for of myra he had the sign out there and they just wanted to move it one hundred feet or two hundred feet that seems like it changes it to me i get it if you're add an assigned channel one's already been there let me ask question here from wrong it looks like porsche and subaru is it entirely possible that those franchises have different sign into requirements that you and those three brands are not mass market r their niche brands low volume brands in the marketplace and they do have much lesser standards in the mass market brands would you mind flipping back to the picture that you had o there you've got the crown in the corner you've got honda bluestar you've got a g m sign down the dead end street that you'd like to move on to blue star are we still talking about another sign behind mazda for  and of course you know most people know about the importance of relationships with the manufacturers especially the detroit three over the last several years is a restructuring so we it's speculation but this noncompliance with their request jeopardized the franchise i really can answer that yeah i mean it's again they didn't put a deadline on it they didn't make a threat it was just it was a request that's been brought up or believed by them probably i don't know several times over the last several years and then this has now escalated to be in a written statement that visible it isn't to new will this be a part of the record by virtue of its display ok you anybody else from the board having the question is the letter up here or just stating that it's a request at this point it looks to be yes ye that monument sign in the corner is that closer to the blue star region or is it sort of right there it's closer to blue or fact ahead  setback nobody else have any other questions if not if there is nothing else to say thank you thank you is there anybody else here to speak in support of the application and if not is anybody here to speak in opposition to the application anybody have any thoughts i'm ready to make a motion find effect place yes i find that the request for the variance is not due to the uniqueness of the law or conditions of the property or believe that it is due to the personal and economic difficulty of the applicant based on manufacturer acquirements and the fact that they have four dealerships on one property it's great that crown has been as successful as they have and keep a beautiful property and have been able to get four dealerships there but i think that the need for the additional signage has come from the fact that they've actually grown as much as they have i don't believe that strict compliance with the ordinance would be unnecessarily burdensome i believe that the property can still be used for a permitted purpose that they could run a smaller number of dealerships or even one dealership on that property  know i do believe that by by moving the sign and having the four signs along bluestar highway would have an adverse impact on surrounding properties believe that the intent of the ordinance is specifically to limit the number of the concentration of signs on particular properties for signs on the road frontage is simply too many when the ordinance is very clear about the fact that only two are allowed ok thank you i would like to call for a vote please from the eight thousand three hundred four year to six thousand nine hundred ninety six square feet where a minimum of sixty feet in with and one thousand six hundred square feet in area are required for this existing two family dwelling thank you very much is there an applicant to speak on behalf of this application clarification i sat through the study session and i think there are some things maybe that there were discussed that i'd like to clear up i'm not really here asking for permission to move a lot asking permission to keep something that was given to me and which indicated to me to move forward i did split these lots almost a year ago into three lots with the intention of building three new homes that that is the  true through different activities by the city as an investor i mean you have to keep in mind i am an investor my partner and i have invested a lot of money into the city over the last few years i mean i can't deny that my intent is investment as the city continues to change her mind and the amount of tenants are occupancies that can be in a home a year ago it was set at six now there's talk that they're going to change  again as an investor i have to try to stay one step ahead of what the city's going to do so through the last year i had some time to think about it because keep in mind i started we started this project almost three years ago it was held up for a year and a half which cost a lot of money when you're sitting on property paying taxes on it and no income coming into it we completed the first house which is forty six thirteenth street and then i was looking to move forward with the next projects which didn't tend to tear down the house at forty two east thirteenth street i was thinking about it so i went in and i sat down with two of the members of the building department and proposed to them and i actually gave them i think the what you have on the screen there i said what i would like to do is to keep the two family home and all that all my setbacks were correct i mean there was plenty of room on the lot for both houses and i went over it with them at the end of the meeting they said yes you may move forward with this project with the intent to build the house in the middle i was actually given a permit that day when i walked out that day i had a permit in my hand so i immediately started with the procedure to renovate the two family home i gave a large deposit to the home movers to get in the schedule i think that the tenants and started the process it was weeks later that i was notified that i would no longer be able to build the middle house because they had made a mistake  in allowing me to move forward so i guess what i want to make clear to you is that a lot of money was spent because i was given the green light to move ahead and now all of a sudden i'm being told i could not move ahead and that the lot in the middle is no longer use now keep in mind when you as an investor when you plan something out you know that lot is a critical part of my return on this investment and now i'm sitting with a lot that i'm being told is useless  so i guess the other thing i think i provided you would some pictures and i don't know how many of you rolled by this property look for the two family was look at the lot in the middle i don't think it's at all out  character the house that would be built in the middle lot is pretty much the same with is the one that we built forty six has different looks to it so it's not the exact same house but i mean if you look at the other homes on the block you can see that it definitely would not be out of character at all to put a twenty four foot home on a forty foot lot there so i guess i'm asking board to take a look at what we've done which i think we greatly improved the neighborhood and i think if you look at our track record of where we've done other projects i mean we don't just build a box we build a very nice home we try to work for the city of keeping them up and doing what we need to do so i hope you look at the big picture not only the fact that i was given permission to move forward spent a lot of money already before i was told to stop and the fact that i think the hole in the middle would fit the character of the block thank you are there any questions from the board i have a couple used in part of your presentation you said that you were held up or delayed for a year and a half what was the reason for that the lie we bought the first house at forty six hundred thirteenth street and we tore it down and we were going to build a duplex there because the lot justified that at that time it came in front of the infill there was a lot of objection to it so the mayor put a moratorium on the hope neighborhood and stopped any building for i don't remember exactly how long it went a   i'm sorry well and then in the meantime we purchased a home west of that is this your first time undergoing a project of this nature you know we have several projects like this in the hope college neighborhood most of them are between lincoln in fairbanks ok with that in mind even though you did obtain the them would it be fair to say that familiar with the zoning ordinances you know i mean no i mean not when it comes to the square footage provide that's why i sat down with the two individuals i did to make sure that i was clear to move forward with this i mean you know it's hard enough for them to know all the different rules and regulations let alone i mean that's i rely on them so my interpretation that is you've undergone a number of these projects built a number of homes and you're not aware that zoning ordinances not of the square footage for a two family no i no i mean i would have came and asked if it was ok if i mean the main thing i came to community well you know we're doing another project identical to this on the corner of fourteenth and lincoln right now also so i mean this isn't something that's totally new to what we do have a question for you when you had a survey done that the engineer and you point advise you that the garage was located on an area that would be the new property line and that you may have heard in the in the working meeting prior to this one i had a question about that the notice dimensions and the dimensions that are on the survey you may be able to clarify that for me on the on the original notice we i believe we noticed it out that it would be down to a fifty foot lot i think it was fifty two feet fifty two feet but i'm but i'm when i look at the survey that's here in front of us it says fifty six point four six it is actually fifty six point four six ok all right thank you two east thirteen which is the one west to the one that we just built the further that's the parcel c and your yes yes yes at that time we did talk that well it was a little bit up in the air i mean when i first talked to the city my main purpose was i wanted to be able to build the middle house without tearing the two family down once again as investors when you're you know generating twelve hundred dollars a month out of a home if i could leave that there build the middle house and then see once what the demand for the hope college students would be after the first two were built so that was the whole reason of moving the lot lines like we did to allow us to build that little house  thought was to turn both down to build three houses yes but when we split the lots the idea was to split the lots in the sizes they are to allow us to build in the house and then determine at what point to tear down or do whatever with the two family so what is the current state of these parcels as far as their dimensions the current drawing that you see is what was approved by the a saucers office and already partment those lots have been split in that formation depending on your decisions and i think you need to remain or they will have to go back to the minimum lot size on the the minimum lot within the two family up to sixty three feet i guess i don't well i guess i don't mix i don't understand your question so so let me rephrase because that was going to be my my question the first test we need to find is that the need for the variance is due to something unique with the law right so we've got a we've got a parcel in downtown holland here in a residential neighborhood what's unique about this parcel such that we should be able to put a two family residence on something less than the minimum square footage what's special about this lot well i think what's special about it is that i was given permission and a permit to move forward something and now i'm told i can't do it so it's a financial burden on us all the money we spent splitting a lot of the money i mean if we were to if i was told that day and didn't walk out of there with a permit in my hand it could have changed how everything to get understood yeah that's what's unique about this i mean i wouldn't be here if i was told right from the get go i can't do it right no i understand but nor to say yes and make everything clean and pretty we need to find something due to the africans personal or economic difficulty standards for the variance include that requirement that a unique circumstance is the property not due to the applicant's personal economic difficulties ok so given the language of the ordinance it seems that just based on your explanation here the uniqueness you're claiming has to do with investments you made even though when we read or nancy says and does not do unique and to to generalize it and try to answer these questions is really no no i think this is a very unique citation i understand that you know we're going to be you know we've got some rules we need to follow here right and ron is going to cringe when i say this but follow the rules might involve thrown the city under the bus well you know what i don't want to throw the city under the bus because you know what i get along really good with the city have been wonderful you know so i don't to throw them under the bus either but you know i you know in some ways i've been wronged i don't think there's no way they purposely wrong me but i've been wronged and i've spent a lot of money to do what i've done and and i think you know keep in mind i think if you look at the neighborhood if you look at the homes used to this i don't think building this house in the middle is going to look out of place you know the rooks are here tonight they're building a home i think if you look at how the houses on their are you know the size of their house and what they're doing there i don't think i'm asking for something that's out of ordinary here so problem is or at least my problem sitting here is we have a certain procedure we have to follow we've got certain things that we're allowed to do and not allowed to do and what mr hugh said is correct our job is to interpret the ordinance and we've been given very specific criteria to to use in interpreting that ordinance and  one of the things that we're not allowed to look at is economic difficulty and that there may be other venues to be able to look at to deal with that issue but we have we only have the power to do certain things and we only have the power to make decisions based on the criteria that we've been given by the law and that's what running into difficulty when you're saying hey you know we relied on this and i spent money based on on these things that happened that may be very difficult for us to swallow sitting here and we and we feel for you because of that but when we look at the criteria that we've been given that's why we're asking the questions that we are because they based on the criteria that we absolutely have to use in order to make our decisions and it's not that we're not sympathetic to that position don't judge it all it's just that then we would have to say ourselves ok perhaps a mistake was made further up the chain now do we violate were tasked with doing in order to undo that right know i understand that i was told that when i went back and talk to the city about this and you know you had the closest thing to what i can come to an appeal this to i mean my next step would have to be to sue the city and i guess this is so you want to call yeah well i mean yeah i mean there's a lot of things i could make up i guess and tell you that makes it difficult i mean and we don't want to make up anything but we're looking for the actual conditions that exist in this in this area that make this lot unique within the zoning district i think there's a lot of things unique about this neighborhood i mean you can't deny this is just a neighborhood is different than a lot of other neighborhoods it's there's a college in this neighborhood in so you have a lot of college students who live in this neighborhood like a set of this whole neighborhood is unique but is there something about this lock that creates a difficulty you know there's not that it comes to my mind right now i guess that i can think of this house be converted to a single family yes yes all the ones that we do the other ones that we've done like this are set up there's a common area that you come in to the entrance is a common area and you either choose to go downstairs or you go to the main floor so you would if you didn't tell somebody that it was a two family you would not know it's a two family especially even walking through it looks like a single family home anybody have any other questions for that nobody was an architect consulted when you're putting together your plans i hired i hired someone to draw all the plans   see if we can come up with something here i guess the whole thing here is based on the fact that there was not enough square footage on the lot right to family right there is for the one family  i guess when we look at the parcels a b c here is see the one with the garage is the attitude family at this time that is the two family as of now yes ok yes and that i showed you pictures of ok so then the yellow house here too was the last line change on that at all yes that was jane that was changed also yes that was part of the first split ok we wanted to leave as much green space as possible so we moved a lot so we could use a shared driveway between the first the home that's built and then the one in the middle would share a driveway so we would leave more green space so we moved a lot so the lot line of that home was in the middle of the driveway ok ok so you're you're looking to share the drive between a and b yes do you plan to rebuilding project a garage you know just tear the sidewalk or the driveway will remain no we'll have all new driveway for the two family that would be on the driveway all the driveway and on the sidewalk is anybody else have any other questions applicant and if there's not anyone here to speak in support of the afghans or anyone here to speak in opposition to the applicant and please remind you state your name and address for the record too much into the available space the total space available with whether it's two lots three lots that number keeps changing it's about seventeen hundred seventy thousand nine hundred fifty two square feet now to build a single family unit you need five thousand square feet to build two single family units you need ten thousand square feet to build a multiple unit you need four thousand six hundred square feet per unit that totals one thousand six hundred square feet he short sixteen thousand four hundred sixteen thousand one thousand six hundred forty eight square feet it's kind of like trying to put a seven sixteenth's not a half into built it just doesn't were these properties has been before like randy has kept changing the number of buildings and number of spaces in his proposed boarding houses after a lot of controversy confusion and delays his plan to build a six unit structure out of forty five five hundred forty five foot lot was approved by the planning commission late in two thousand and twelve this was understood to be the first of three when it's which he advertised as a three sisters had a big sign up front this would have allowed eighteen bedrooms in april of this year he tried to replant the lots into three lots to forty foot lots in the remainder as a third lot containing a two unit structure and not failing to have sufficient space for the two units structure it appears at  april two thousand and thirteen a city employee failing to do do do do due diligence perhaps some of the existence of the multifamily structure gave tentative approval for this division this action appears to have remained unknown until hearing before the planning commission requested regarding brandy's proposal for structure and forty four east thirteenth looks like when questions were raised about his own in violation randy has rushed forward to complete it's much work as possible so he could try to claim hardship if sony  be thought of in many ways but not no one thinks of him a stupid or inexperienced he's a big time property owner or i mean at least seven boarding houses  street and fourteen at least fourteen total in the whole college neighborhood i'm convinced said he knew the rules the rules are easily available and posted on the internet i can't imagine the builder build it without having first read the rules that it's sure sounds like he's trying to get things fast and we've had other experiences like this but it's only a b lot smaller in that fifty percent concrete limitation he had to take i think two hundred and six square feet of concrete so that's another expense and then there would be challenges about the twelve years ago and maybe for automobiles electric lights and indoor plumbing i want to request a variance would have a negative impact upon the neighborhood by increasing density parking  is there anybody else is here to speak in opposition to the sept cation sixth street i noticed a member of your team that's on the neighborhood advised neighborhood improvement committee is not here tonight but i also serve on that committee and we've been working diligently to  come to terms with the core city neighborhoods and i've also served on the wall street committee for the last twenty years before that but transients tenement housing seems to be the applicants claim to fame in my neighborhood some people call those rooming houses but anyway they're not designed to put families and the city i know at this point is working to spread their rental properties to an overall average of thirty percent our block is at least double that at this point so yes to sort of a long term goal for the city would be to improve all the neighborhoods even the hope college  why would we allow for a split why because each apartment needs for parking spaces we're already allowing half the yard to be paved everywhere in the city and i'm quite sure if you guys are part of the city you probably don't have parking lots next makes it for makes an interesting challenge so why would we create a grandfathered situation and i know that paul mentioned that the fact that some of the houses in the neighborhood are one hundred years old city of rentals in the city is an issue and i would say when he met with the neighbors we talked about his three tenement houses so i highly recommend that  he may have been cahoots with the third floor but he's not with the neighbors thank you anyone else here designed to speak in opposition to the application if not i am going to close the public here and with that the public hearing is closed and i'm going to open it up for deliberation amongst the board i'm ready to make a motion mr  i move we deny a motion by box to deny support support by hughes findings of fact based on the statements of that of the applicant himself this property is not unique within the sony district there is nothing in regard to shallowness to challenge its narrowness shape water topography other physical conditions of the property involved that would require the need for the for the  variance i also don't believe that strip strict compliance with the regulations governing in regard to this property would reasonably prevent the property owner from using the property for a permit permitted purpose the applicant stated himself he would be able to convert this property relatively easily to a single family unit and i do believe that if the requested variance would cause an adverse impact on the surrounding property property values and the use and enjoyment of the property in the  have everything you need ok and that would like to call for a vote please yes yes yes and with that we closed our unfinished business from that time and we do not have any other unfinished business i would like to prove minutes from the last meeting please a motion to move the minutes move