the place for the meaning in the port of deals of the city of holland we are here to respond to applications for construction is only variances and there are special exceptions housing and dangerous structures this port must try to interpret each application as it relates to city ordinances this board is not empowered to rezone or take any action that could be considered rezoning variances must meet for crucial tests in order to be granted those of you who are here for a variance have already answered questions about the tests on your application will be asking you about those answers again tonight this is the procedure we follow we ask that you come to the microphone to speak and state your name and address we will hear the applicant first and anyone supporting an application then anyone in opposition to it typically will hold the public hearing 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 elect not to stay for deliberation and decision you could call the city clerk's office after eight thirty tomorrow morning to learn the results we will hear the applications in the following order construction zoning housing and the infrastructures with that said will you please read the first application has applied for a special exception exemption for the property located at twelve seventy six beach drive the board is authorized to approve the building exceeding two thousand five hundred square feet an area w we've put together sort of preliminary plans and site plan for the city to review and fill meyer has done his infill review of those plans and there should be a report for his review which included approval and you do all have a copy of that correct correct and then the other thing is  if there's any other concerns or or thoughts that the boarded have it be happy to entertain those i've got along architect mark from a dig in here as well so if you have any questions that i could answer about the project do you think that your project will adversely affect the joining properties in the surrounding neighborhood no we do now in fact and we spend a lot of time laying this out so thank you we have no for the questions at this time ok is anyone here to speak in support of the application evens and i just want to say they've been exceptional neighbors take really good care of their current property and i'm in feel i'm in favor of this going forward so thank you very much anyone else here to speak in support of the application if anyone here to speak in opposition to the application if not going to close the public hearing open up for deliberations and or  bean as part of this project that image that you see there is for a smaller home to be on the five seventy six ramona drive has similar characteristics to the one being proposed in also characteristics to neighboring properties with porches and it has the project been approved under the in phil review process and has you so anyone else that would like to speak in support and this has been do you have the names and addresses from the prior yes i thank you thank you ok just briefly i mean i'm in support of this also ok thank you very much is there anyone else that would like to speak in support anyone that would like to speak in opposition to this after cation and if not i'm going to close the public hearing open up for deliberation and or a motion if anyone would like hope college is requesting a variance from the housing property maintenance codes for various properties located in the central neighborhood section fourteen dash for that nine paragraph q requires devil locks on all exterior doors where the college proposes a variation to security thank you someone here to speak on behalf of the application yes greg mayberry director of operations at hope college for official address as one forty one he's twelfth street mayor i'm going to bring a demonstration unit to front for you to take a look and i will have one here to demonstrate as well i'll stand it thank you you thanks for your patience that is a card access activated code luck and the up her triangular piece when the strike is in place a the latching mechanism open sort of in a open position so it can't be retracted so if you put the latch up in there you'll see how the strike plate up against the latch you'll see how that lots of in place the another thing to notice i on all of these the handles do not exter handle do not activate the latching mechanism until the appropriate code is entered into the locking system and then it will have to they to latching mechanism from the interior the latching mechanism always releases the law all of our cottage doors have our steel construction they have those strike plates on them and they have automatic closers on  to student enters their code and enters into their residence the door automatically closes and locks behind them these logs are approximately this code lock is four hundred fifty dollars that lock is approximately seven hundred dollars that's our we have not allowed deadbolts in our entry doors for fear that the students will use as a bypass mechanism so they don't have to enter their code or present their card if you throw a dead ball the clothes will not be able to secure the door without a dead bolt that latching mechanism will automatically close and lock in place until the next person interest or code that's been out is so what you're saying from a safety standpoint it doesn't require the user to take action it automatically a lot of these doors are always lock twenty four seventh's and that's the standard of our residence halls as well we have electronic code access on all of our residence halls the two changes out to deadbolt defeats our security guideline  sorry guideline of trying to have automatically closing and locking doors on all of our residence so that was our primary concern about the code i think the first paragraph of that section  opened from the side from which is to be made without the need for keys special knowledge or effort and shall be capable of reasonably securing the door against unauthorized entry we feel we meet that requirement totally with our current locking system the addition of that hyphenated term deadbolt is what throws us into a quandary at the college for us to replace all of these logs there's a significant cost issue as well the code rock cost to replace is  seven hundred dollars for the code lock and it's a thousand dollars for the card access lock and that's what they call a dead bolt system the issue is that it's also a full mortice locking unit which requires us to replace the steel door and the steel frame at a cost of a thousand plus installation for looking about two thousand dollars per door if we're required to have a double which we don't want operationally in the first place and with eighty cottages you can see that's a considerable expense to college mr mayberry your opinion this alternate proposal by the taliban satisfy the spirit and the requirements of this craft or it does very much so and is it fair to say that it will not compromise the health welfare and safety occupants yes it has not perhaps is a fair to say that it would enhance their health safety and welfare by that not relying on them to manually deadbolt of the rather automatically lacking i feel that a dead bold would allow the students to bypass the system more easily and that would be a security risk ok thank you very much now so i am just going back a dead bull could be added to this but it's just more expensive correct well in the deadbolt can be thrown manually by a student to forestall the clutter my closure from latching the door and that is our concern so if it so if the dead bolt is thrown in it's out student walks in the door sitting in a jar in open  automatic system where the students don't have to think about locking it's always locked you mentioned that they were steel doors or they would frames and most of the stores some of the doors do have wood frames and some have steel for his you know in that latched i imagine the head of what long screws that would be able to do you know the strike we make sure we go into an obviously went home and purchased the cottage we renovate the cottage up to modern code and we replace anything to get the substandard materials full time lot smith on campus and i have time assistant plus twenty four seven campus safety and they have the keys that work these latch systems be able to enter and repair those units the system that is correct same thing sure yes but but but it would take an affirmative action by someone to desired to defeat the system as opposed to have to take an affirmative action to lock if that's correct the college feels that it's providing sufficient security in fact exceptional security for students here they can defeat anything we put in place if they choose unfortunately our th can just put on the one door of the house or front and rear this is front entry only all over other doors have what we call store room blocks on him where the students aren't able to enter through those exteriors doors but only our when satisfied with the samples overbroad thank you thank you very much i have not for the questions anyone else and if you have no further comment we're going to proceed maybe creat is there anyone here that would like to speak in favor of that occasion and if not is anyone here that like to speak in opposition to this application if not i'm going to close the public hearing open this up for in my opinion this satisfies the spirit requirements of the chapter and also in my opinion it will not compromise the health welfare and safety occupants  cindy i imagine there's quite a few properties that this is referring to prove all like this through the housing section we would be able to go by the owner of the property instead of the actual address with a variance that's that is what the application indicates and that is how we would apply it  would like to make a motion or are there any questions or deliberation amongst the board locking system that they're using it is is very safe in his meeting the spirit of the requirements is chapter and he also demonstrated that this will not compromise the health safety and welfare of the occupants you haven't you need  thank you but at this point there were three applications that were postponed to this meeting from last month and we're going to consider that unfinished business that's correct and i do not see a me here yet  gardens already on the property and we desire to put in a structure in the back to house some appointment to do yard work type stuff so we just not that long ago we took our some short drive property and we appended it to the woods empty lot that was on goldenrod so we now have an l shaped piece i think cindy are you able to get that up there that's here that house and so the place where the house says has the farm gardens behind it but that whole side towards goldenrod is all woods and we have we have some pictures so if you could take a picture with the stop sign f those woods that you can't see very well but you can tell there's some woods on the right side that's the property that's a chase sent with our house which is the second house on so shore to the right of th picture and yeah that's a picture looking into the woods where we want to put the driveway and to put the garage about sixty feet up goldenrod back in that woods which is along i don't know if you are aware of sixty feet so this is i'm standing on goldenrod looking down my neighbor and bill is standing way over on the left side that's about as far back off golden rod that the property will be and then it will be into those woods so that's where you know it's tucked well away from people so you can see on this that it's a long way i mean you could put a whole house on that that in that woods there's enough room so the reason why i had some pictures of some what i would call preexisting what the garden looks looks like why we're needing more space so this is a little section of it  stephanie's meditation garden lots of structures and trees and pathways here's the pond right today i took this we're digging up a lot of things that were overgrown and putting in paths and get another one there so this is a called an italian box would not garden and my you know my parents of my and my mom passed you had just on the left there that are like really big and we have something so that that is why we and i have other pictures but that gives you an idea of what we have in the back of our house and why we really wanted some storage for things in the back now the picture of the garage itself so we really wanted a twelve foot tall door so the minimal our air architect thought we needed was a fourteen foot every type instead of a twelve foot average height so we are asking for it would not look nice but as we read in the beginning there are four crucial tests that we're bound by so i'm going to go through and with the help of my colleagues ask you those tests  d we really are need to fit within those parameters and not deviate so can you please explain why your property cannot reasonably be used for the uses already allowed in the zoning distr why it can't be reasonably yes is something pretty preventing you from using it and enjoying it right now all i the fact that i have a garage full of things yet i mean i mean i don't have enough storage so i  so is the need for the request of variances not result of the actions of the property owner or previous property owners meaning is that there was nothing that the previous property owners did to create the section i guess the previous ones put the gardens and i mean i know you you want to know if there's something physical that i need to sure some do something unique and the city has ordinances in place and this is a variance outside of those ordinances and there's and they put those parameters in place with strict compliance with the regulations unreasonably prevent the property owner prevent you from using the property for its permitted hoped for permitted purposes so already that the permitted purpose is to put a twelve foot door and so there's nothing that can reasonably prevents you from doing that now to put a twelve foot door on i can't with a twelve foot i mean it well i could put a flat roof in the house but with the snow loads i think that's pretty unreasonable at least at the square foot as you would like and in the garage well the bigger the square footage is and the more the angle the easier it would be to get out you know i mean that then sure i guess what i'm saying is it's not possible for you to build a garage of any character that's twelve foot i could build a garage of character with twelve foot i couldn't put the door and that we desire to get the quitman and that we had wanted to store in there is because of the garden so yeah i understand it's a little murky as far as what you guys have to would change in the size or dimensions of the building yeah we've been working with the architect she thinks this is minimal that we could do to get that door size down and of course we could put a or one and i know there's also variance that you can get if it if you already have roofs that go up high i mean there are other garages that have higher than twelve foot average in that neighborhood but our house our existing house is a ranch so we don't have a we don't have a house that already has cathedral type ceilings that we could do it so i don't know i doing let me ask you i thought yeah i mean if the building were wider instead of deeper it's possible to meet the average because of the low side comes down further so if your building was wider than deeper you could possibly oh i say get the door in there and still meet i mean instead of having ten foot right to fourteen feet way down to eight is anyways the whole point is you know just determining if there is a way to do what you want in meet the ordinance or not and and without even having to come here if you've explored a new option yeah i don't think we could go mean to make a difference in that average oh really you mean you could take one way down low and then how do they do how do they figure out that every idea would be to talk to the third floor do you have any more comments that you would like to present the board or is there anyone on the board that has any questions i feel because i've got a question so are we trying to get equipment in the building or motorhome because it when i read the application originally i thought overhauling them are  if not someone here to speak in opposition to the implication and if i'm going to close the public hearing it open up for deliberation deliberation amongst the board and a motion anyone so chooses and in my opinion is logical and as reasonable as the plan sounds it doesn't meet the tests that were bound by any of them and i don't know if anyone would like to contradict that or are thinks differently on his comments request the request was somewhat self created by the prior owner and what they did with the property itself created it but not by the correct strict compliance could be possible by reducing the size of the door  everything that i need you didn't find a lot to be narrow shallow water where have easements unusual shape or topography is that you're finding yes ok thank you but if the findings of fact are complete of like call for a vote please souter the application thank you very much and it appears the applicant for the thirty six west eighteenth street property is here and so could you please read the name of all drink on a six foot fence and the side yard on a side street were certain conditions are found to exist thank you very much is there an advocate here to speak on behalf of the application please state your name and address for the record i'm amy all   yes i have some pictures that i could say are really good renderings of the fence to be constructed but they're not really  if we did set the fence in place but it is not permanently installed there cemented in we wanted and we had i came from an open house sorry about mainly but we had eighteen is this more than five feet from the property line yes and is it fair to say there's no substantial detriment to the neighborhood or surrounding properties in your opinion in my opinion the sight of the sidewalk would be blocked you know i pulled in there myself a bunch of different ways coming either out of the ele into the alley parked in the driveway i saw the one with the house the cars in the far parking spot the picture that it's taken on the side but if the cars in the next parking spot you can still see the sidewalk i was able to and quite often if you are parked in the driveway i find myself just backing up a few feet and i'm going down the alley instead of backing into traffic so i think as long as you go slowly and see that there's no pedestrians you really don't have to come very far on to the sidewalk before  down the alley turn and that would be fair to say is i'm for lack of a better word that the fence is area i mean you can see through it it's pretty transparent it could be picked up and moved to my house know i think it's a big benefit to the future owner of this property just having that little bit of visual screen from that very busy street so it as you can see it's not intended to keep anything in the churn or anything else that's just a visual i don't have any questions no one else does and if you have not for the comments thank you thank you is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak in support of their application is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak in opposition to the application and if not i'm going to close a portion of this public area and open up for deliberation amongst the board i think the question before us is the adequate site distance no one here spoke in opposition to the property that it seems visually appealing to me and in good character and also is more than five feet away from the property line is represented  does anyone have an opinion on whether or not there's adequate site distance because there really isn't a whole lot of other yard space so and then as far as the sight distance part of their goals i think it's it's reasonable and i think that you know if it's set back more than five foot they've taken the take and consideration that maybe it's better to have it set back a little more anyone else have any comments about it they were driven by it since it was erected i have yes it looks nice the house is a drastic improvement over what it was are at the stage to make a motion or continue debating fact mr starr i believe that there is adequate site distance does not have a substantial great detriment to the neighboring properties and i believe that's the only  it's more than five feet from the property line yes has proposed or did you want them to be is be able to go as close as five feet i would think if it's at seven feet that should be fine ok which is in line with application correct correct so condition a condition being if i'm hearing this correct that it can be no less than what happened can stated at some feet this thank you past the final item that was tabled from the last process was the onion dome properties application at two sixty two west ninth street can you please read that application just franken on behalf of the onion down properties his reply seen a variance from the housing property maintenance codes to remove the third floor metal fire escape on the north side and replace the third floor door with any grass window and an interior wall mounted permanently installed escape letter thank you very much is there an applicant here to speak on behalf of this efficacious josh frank n furter sixty two w to be that independent two independent to access from the third floor the ultimate goal of this house on down the road is to convert back into a single family home is then a three unit probably the one nine hundred twenty s from what i can tell from tax records so it's been this way for quite a while but we would like to convert back to a single family at some point and so i think creating that second approved independent stairwell is probably  not an option for us as because we don't intend it to be three units for ever and there is also issues with where the the independent exit could come out of the of the home so would certainly like um a different option to approve the aesthetics of the house to get rid of the fire escape that's there and just create something a little less obvious while still maintaining the purpose of having an independent exit separate from the stairwell ok thank you anyone have any questions is there this or the reason you're you want to do this right now i mean is there anything wrong with the existing staircase that come down from thirty or the the existing staircase for one is coming down the new flat roof and so just with the nature of a flat roof with the sheer weight of that fire  escape it's been noted by a housing inspector that there is some significant pooling at the base of that and the the rubber membrane itself and the subfloor is already getting pretty soft underneath that so you know some of that's just because of you know michigan winners and she is very concerned about the ease of the third floor resonate to go out of the door down the staircase you know into that roof and the liability that as for us as property owners being able to get out hay good about a possible options and again you know they're not allowed to say yes or no we can approve this but they have suggested that with the property the way it is with its uniqueness with the limestone facade be very tricky to get past to have a door of some sort carved out of that third floor to make some sort of independent exit and they have mentioned that they would they would probably support putting any grist window in there getting rid of the fire escape and doing an interior letter is there any other method for firefighters to get in there is there is a minute well there's obviously the stairwell  coming up the south side of the property do they have to cross over the other units they do not consider is an independent access to the area that is addressed by this correct the stairwell goes straight up the middle of it comes from the west side of the property it goes straight up towards the east and then at the at the second floor then there is a little hallway that goes into the door to the second unit and the re's a no other independent stairwell separate of any other unit that will go to the third floor and there's nothing in the middle between there to obstruct anybody from coming up or down you mention that your business partner is it is an insurance and has commented to you regarding how much the insurance would probably rise or be lowered if you did this  so in your opinion does removing that and put in ingress egress window is that proposal will that satisfy the spirit of the choir months of the chapter the housing will it will still give a second means of escaping the house in the event of the primary sterile being blocked and your opinion will not compromise the health welfare or safety of the occupants that's correct i'm not sure of that i there's no records of checked online on b s n a and i haven't seen any sort of permits that have been pulled to replace the roof on there are a number of patches up there and there are a number of soft spots walking all way around it so i would imagine that it's been up there quite a long time so escape route if you will independently without crossing over or having to worry about locked doors or anything else like that from other units yes i believe so the the second unit itself you know one floor up does have a window large enough can be considered a gross that'll go directly out onto the flat roof on the front of the house so again if that second stairwell which can be accessed by anybody isn't obstruct you don't go through any other units to get out of the house is blocked and they can just and i'd also like to add in this is just supplemental we would be adding another box ladder on the back end of the that front porch in order for i convinced if they did have to escape out their front they would be able to just flip the lid from that box off back to the porch and then this caved on their porch they don't have to jump or they don't get stranded from that from that that porch roof i was kind of wondering do you feel that just about any occupant of the home could use a sweater to escape any occupant on the third floor yes  ok i also had the same question regards to you know miners and such let me say there's a problem right now with there being a door there and they're not being restrained from them falling down the stairs if there was a three year old i have a three year old at home for example anyone else have any questions about this application or about the structure and in him what's going on with the property so if so if the plan is to make this a single family home why why are you waiting two to do this job because it's going to be a ten year project there's a lot of with the way the staircases are structured on the inside we would probably want to do you know like a spiral staircase or something like that just to make it much more appealing because right now with the way the stairwell the structure the only way to get up the stairs is from the exterior there's no way to get inside those second that stairwell from the inside so we have to restructure that  unit has its own kitchenette there's just a lot of stuff that would have to happen in order to convert to that single family and so you know being a rental property you know with mortgages and i kind of stuff it's going to take a while to build up a fund you know or to do that and so this is probably a ten year project you know a ten year outlook for converting it back to a single family and so this is more of an aesthetic aesthetically pleasing fix temporarily which would end up being a permanent fix you know for down the road i mean you know if we converted back to a single family then we would leave in the the stairwell but this is something that we would put in now to both and you know meet the requirements now plus to be a safety a plus for when it's converted into a single family down the road the the first floor is a single gentleman a leave mid thirty's just by himself second floor there is a a mother with a probably a four year old daughter and then the third floor ten particular ten has been there for four years as far as i know he is again probably a single gentleman maybe thirty or thirty five years old and they've all shown interest in being a long term  to get down the the ladder should that be in place but he's also has the capabilities of getting down the staircase and having parties you know fireworks birdies on the on the porch roof and as just something that we don't want to have a liability so really this the stairway impacts the third floor unit in terms of in a now only correct now the second the first  remove the stair ingress egress window and there's independent access to in from the a fire or the occupant already based on a stairwell that moves directly to the outside of the house much city can i can i get clarification on something certainly does for the eagerness is that for both in and out that's correct and so if the latter would have to be available single you know with a stairwell and then it would be your exit only for the second alternate that's that's correct if the act occupant were not able to deploy the let the wall box latter then it would not be available for an enclosed staircase is inherently more dangerous for firefighters many times the firefighters do not want to go into the interior of the building they would rather have access from the exter and that that's part of it is it fair to say that in order to access this stairwell they would have to have a quick much of their own in the first place they do have they do have ladders that can reach the porch roof in order for them to the warranty on the product that you showed in your application i looked on line that the warranty was thirty years was there any plan for replacing it enough in a certain date or  we could probably make some sort of policy you know again with two other owners and so they would probably be in favor of making sure that you know just like with no fire detectable to the batteries you know it's you the the pearl products specifications that would take the occupant down to the second floor only correct correct but i did mention that we would there was another product that i put in the application that would be most on the backside of the porch down to the driveway which we get here from the porch roof down to the on the ground level so in some sense it if you would install both these products the occupant would now have access to get to ground floor whereas before they would not without having to go back into the building correct so from an accurate standpoint  it could could be safer city point of clarification the test it says will not compromise the health welfare and safety of the occupants were considering the occupants here but we've also mentioned that that fire escape was there at least prior to one thousand nine hundred two so it's been there a long time and i suspect it's been there a lot longer than that is it even sound is it is it is it safe the current stairs or does a wobble too much it's supported by there's two by fours literally that are up against the floor of the roof of the coverage but in terms of its stability it has seemed in pretty good shape i mean there's just you know the typical rust from all the attachment to  or any other questions from the board thank you very much is there anyone here to speak in support of the application and there's no one else in the audience but is there anyone to speak an observation that gish and if not i'm causing this portion of the public area and open it for deliberation would be as if we were to be in favor of this can we set some conditions i don't know if this is possible but can we set conditions that the third story well yeah understand the concerns of the safety of the occupants there unfortunates ordinances you know seine third floor apartment situation like this is supposed to have to dress and here's a door with you what is a story steep stairway but it is a fire escape it's obviously been there for many years so i mean it's has been viewed as a that for many many years  chair i guess i've broken it down and as much as if the occupation is able to deploy the proposed alternate it would actually be better for the occupants well in as much as they could get down to the ground i  actually spoken with somebody from the fire department his opinion was that it it might be a reasonable way to do it by he would sure recommend that people are practicing this not just waiting for the fire to happen any other deliberation amongst the board would anyone like to make a motion this is the existing fire escape is probably the more safe requirement than what was proposed so i don't think that the alternate proposal satisfies the spirit a requirement of this ch thank you there will be no minutes to approve from the prior meaning the next day is october twenty three two thousand and fourteen at this point i'd like to call for a motion of