variances must meet four crucial tests in order to be granted those of you who are here for a variance have already answered questions about these tests on your application we will be asking you about those answers again tonight and there is a procedure guide out there and we will ask that you come to the microphone to speak and state your name and address we will hear first and anyone supporting the application then anyone in opposition to it typically will hold the public hearing an application and deliber 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 like 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 hear the applications in the following order construction zoning housing and dangerous structures with that said will you please read the first half cation great hill on behalf of the washington square minute mark  a variance in connection with addition of a garage at four thirty for washington av the graduates proposed the graduate as proposed will be set back from the west property twenty feet or twenty four feet is required thank you is there an applicant that would like to speak on behalf of th three five five one hundred forty second avenue i think i will miss you forty four to four ok we've received a regular application and if there's any like to come and speak towards before we open it up for questions i'd be appreciated well i'll just give just a little bit of an overview you're all aware of the washington square the minute mark it's being redone rig owner requested that he actually live above the old building or the old minute mark on the first floor so we retrofitted the second floor to be as permanent residence and with that we're trying to think of ways to make it an actual permanent resident so he does not have to park out on the street so this garage addition then would be on the west side we call it the back side of the building and it would be allowed to hells and a couple of his cars where he could park inside and not have to have an outdoor parking we did that once one of the reasons just for safety reasons as well so he could pull and be safe just like a no residence and by getting the extra four feet it actually then turns up being what would be a normal sized garage so you could park two cars in there so that's the basic overview of from east to west from their property line to the back side is twenty feet ok and what's the what's the garage to match that looks like it's the same as that or a little bit larger right basically the garage is twenty four by twenty four square ok that's even if we  you're also in the future want to put a stairwell in the back sorry but garage to go up to it's going to be a deck above the garage that was the other reason for the extra four feet on the drawing there's a there's an x shape that we're no that will be no that's a that's actually would be interior space for a cooler that's a actually part of the off the minute mark or the business down below so it's actually of the dual purpose will have a little space for business and a little space for garage we don't have a lot of room and that's why we're here we're trying to squeeze as much as we can into that area how do you get just curious how do you get from the garage into the building now then if the stairwells not there is there a doorway that i'm missing somewhere between there is a missing door with that little crosshatch area that you just spoke about if you would do west there's actually i'm a man door that's that's right there so right now yes what you would have to do is park in the garage go outside and then go back into the building that's why in the future we would like to actually put a stair what would be adjacent to that existing you could pull into the garage and then walk right up into the residence at the moment we don't have that in there but that is the plan for the future jeff to go outside then when you reach the top of the stairs correct right now you have to go outside you pull in the garage you go back up but it but even after you put the stairwell in which i had always said we wouldn't close it it would be a steer that would come up from the interior of the garage and then go right into well you don't have the second floor the second floor is actually a back patio or three season porch that we could enter right into that in the residence so that would be enclosed up above that would be like a little mini mud room right now it's set up for that now ok but you can't spend all your money at one time so we have to do things in phases ok did you happen to bring any elevations of the building what's that did you ha elevations elevations the i'm sure we can produce them i have elevations of what would be the garage itself which matching exactly the building that's there so it's just one beautiful box on the back side of the building which matches the beautiful box that is already there right now so there's that other door to somebody asked about the door so that now you can you can see that that would come out and the a ten and you can see up above two that also is a good picture the one right in the middle that would that's where the steering closure would be so what you would do is come up right from the inside and you walk in right where that door is shown on that west end and then you don't have to worry about going outside either so the driveway it appears from our drawings that the driveway behind it runs through your property services the other buildings on the on that block is that correct yes there's actually three  that's that's to the south end of that block of buildings is that a legal easement or is it just a courtesy easement the want to the north would be a courtesy  easement because it's own property by the owner the alley way that's to the self that's the one that would be in public the east and west of the cell i mean maybe i'm getting my north and south to the west side is where the the ground war for the up just to the south a four four four that's the actual alleyway that connects that entire back parking lot  so in essence you could actually build that entire area if they want sent back you could actually build that entire area and you'd still have access to them yeah i was there i guess i was referring to the prep the parcel or the part of land on your property lot you guys have dumpsters on your lap right now do you guys still plan on having dumpsters when you're there after you remove the grudge i will if you had if you installed a private address there's actually been talk of trying to make  he said yes ok ok thank you is anybody else here to speak in support of the application and it's not there anybody here to speak in opposition to the application if not i'm going to close the public hearing and open it up for deliberation amongst the board embody have any questions comments or would anyone like to make a motion i'm ready to make a motion we have a motion by box i move we approve support support by libby i believe that both through the written application the the additional documentation aerial photographs have been shown the information that was provided by the applicant that there are unique physical circumstances to this law to its an oddly shaped the near a lot within a within the zone district i do not believe that the need for the requested variance is the result of the property owner's own actions and i do believe that strict compliance with the regulations governing the set back would unreadably prevent the property owner from using the property for a permit for a permitted purpose believe that we've already made the determination in the past that it is fairly common for a property owner to a residential property to want to have a garage and i do believe that is the minimum variance necessary there has been talk in the past about a twenty two feet being enough to be able to provide a grudge there asking for twenty four foot garage but i believe that the the the desire to have an enclosed stairway to provide yourself enclosed access to the property would be necessary in this instance and that you need that extra square footage to be able to do that and that we've not seen anything that would show that this would cause any adverse impact on the surrounding property or property values which mr turner do you have what you need to thank you and if there's no conditions then i would like to call for the i think the only condition i'd like to put on that is that this grudge be used for the person occupying the residence that it is attached to david hoping for is requesting variances in connection with the construction of the storage building at two forty east twenty fifth street the building has proposed will be eleven feet from the property north property line and twelve feet from the west property line where thirty feet is required thank you is there an applicant to speak on behalf of the application you good evening i would like to just read a statement here ok for introductory good evening thank you for considering my appeal tonight i watched the december appeal board meeting on television a couple weeks ago and was very impressed by your desire to come to a proper conclusion i thank you for your diligence in serving on this board i have a small unique piece of industrial property i have owned it for about fifty years i made a little over about six or eight years ago john we're if joe and i together bought a parcel joining our two properties the board of public works removed a large piece of electrical equipment from it and then sold it to us through the bid process then we divided it the property was about seventy feet by one hundred eighty feet  john build his storage building last year on his half and i just cut it kept cutting the grass on my head but i have been thinking and we've been thinking about how to develop our propert for a long time of adi years ago we research on a small portion of the property and we moved a lot line to improve the possibilities for development we had a safe plan approved for a building but we didn't move ahead with it because it didn't really look right and it didn't feel right and it really wouldn't work right either the way it was it would just taken up way too much space to be workable and practical and be it all but attractive so we so we just let it lie there and we didn't think we didn't follow through on that site plan drawing now that my friend john and we're struggling a bit as a build his building last year would i think a ten foot setback for his side yard and a ten foot setback for his rear yard and my other neighbor walters automate automotive build his building a few years back with a ten foot setback for his back line i feel justified in asking for the same setback variance all three buildings have the same lot lines to set back from i'm sure all three of us have the same hardship reasons for a variance and that reason is space we all need space to work and do business just like the farmer replicants space of course is is a vital thing to have we need space to do proper business we need space too to park cars and trucks and space for larger than average cars and trucks and in a case of an industrial property has this v allow me to build a nice building that fits in well with the other two buildings that are there it still leaves twenty feet of yard between buildings for your safety and rainwater absorption the ground has very harmful effect no effect at all actually on our neighbors or around the city it will be very beneficial to for us because it will show us a way to begin to develop our property you know in an attractive in useful manner i see this as a wise and attractive use of space with no harm to anyone or anything so i appreciate your consideration on this v question there's lots of questions of course that you have asked of me in the application and i'm sure you've read those and it really wouldn't allow for parking in front of it or certainly for any larger trucks to park in front of the building so it would almost would be not not worthwhile actually  to do that just because the parking lot is there for our shop building doesn't mean that that parking lot should be available for this for the new building because there are cars parked cars and trucks parked on our parking lot and so without variance it's going to get for it get really too crowded variance of this size is his almost say over the top because with it with a thirty foot setback requirement and ask for a ten foot requirement or variance it seems like asking for a lot and i think it is asking for a lot but might my other my two neighbors have the same have the same problems that i have  and i think especially because john building was just built last year with i think a ten footer and so i don't i didn't ask him but it measures it measures ten feet from that line to his building  he's got a problem with space walter's got a problem with space and i've got a problem with spies so i don't even know what is it's a large request just to meet the letter of the law i think it it it would make a lot of sense to allow the variance to go through i might say that we do own the property to the east of this also that hundred twenty foot wide lot  the one that's got it to the cell tower and we do all of that a lot also and in the future we might want to expand to the east along that line relation of course a set back would have to be greater at that point because those lots are residential lots and walter's property i'm sure is industrial could possibly be commercial but i don't think so i think it's industrial but the lots next to it car residential lots but they are very deep residential lots with it with a standard presidential lot of one hundred thirty two feet on to on the two measurement but you know i could have just from that somewhat of that if that would please you more of you handled the night well what  might suggest is that we ask in the field some questions just to see where else go forward and get to fire and we certainly appreciate the presentation and ended with that if you don't have any further comments i would like to open this up for us to ask you some questions find a couple questions for you what are you planning on using the building for we're not sure it would be storage or some kind possibly possibly  people would want to even rent the space for what you might call a toy barn you know so possibility of having vehicles going in and out of it so that you would need the the room to maneuver vehicles years yeah or if we i mean if it would rent just for storage space we got it going to have some pretty big trucks backing up there i don't have the building size actually for height i guess height is one of the big hundred seventeen foot dimension what's keeping you from moving the building to the east so that you're splitting the difference and you get you know twenty to make doing my math right here twenty seven twenty eight feet you could get you could almost make the you could almost make the set back if you moved it to the east correct yes but that would be from building anything along side i mean sometime i'm going to want to expand that that building area i might want to expand that space and make almost a strip all along that line over to the east line of the hundred twenty fo then that would open up because i because i want that law and that property we have a flag lot driveway from twenty six street comes in ok you see that alongside that tower it's called next door but it's not nextel anymore but that that could be a legal entrance and never connect one one thousand and one twenty you know if what would prevent you from building this building say to the west of your current building you know that's true overall i've got i've got quite a bit of the area around around our shop building yes but i don't want to build a building or for that you know i don't want to build straight building in front of our shop building i like it there but the space is there storage building in front of your main structural building and on the front entrance i don't want to be a showpiece i want to be a store to go actually if you look at this it would hardly be visible from anybody the neighbors that residential neighbors would never see it sure wouldn't even see it walters one see it you know it's almost an invisible building there nobody from twenty six street is going to see it you know you can peek through the trees a little bit how much space is there  because there's not to mention that on the site point between the proposed building and what you've got designated as your parking lot area there if you moved it farther to the south would you be able to get the setback that you need as i say i'm i'm seeing a dimension of sixty three feet from the edge of the building to the edge of the driveway right and then additional space from that edge of the driveway to the proposed building that's space the large vehicles so on and so forth and so you would like to have it the cars using this area would would come in on twenty fifth street from lincoln and if you well put out to get the setback they wouldn't be able to drive straight in and turn into to use that area the parking lot we've got now we utilize we have we really need that to make proper turns and we like randy so we've got a drop box in that area and their garbage truck got to come in economy cars turner on in there to get to it and so on and anything that would keep you from using the space to the west of your current building  that one of one of the things that we need to find is is that strict compliance with the regulations would unreasonably prevent you from using the property for a permitted purpose i think it does and so well and that's that's tried what i'm trying to get at is trying to determine if that's the case or not if you would be able to if there were other ways that you would be able to do what it is that you want to do without us having to grant such a significant variance i could do it but it would make sense i would never do  ok you know because of the our our building you know we've got we've cut entry doors that we've got overhead doors you know facing that parking lot and to and to to park and you were sales put in front ok well i guess like i started to mention earlier you know i'm picking nice variance numbers  make it work i could make the building just a little bit smaller for one or two because we haven't got anything he said you know yet but i guess it just makes sense to me  what's good for the goose is good for the gander about out something i don't i might wonder why i said i might be inclined to agree with you if the lots were the same but they're not the the lots are not the same the size and shape of your you say it was not approved though it was a ok the site plan approval is just written in pencil there but i did that at the time when the proceeding was done and but i did question it a little bit because it was eight  and i've got a receipt i think with us now although i could not afford or stuff to that would short three hundred dollar amount paid but that so we had to say plan approved before but wasn't the same size as what i'm looking at now and it was a different location that's a plant might even have met  that's the size a building i'd like to build know so i keep them for a while ok is there any other questions from the board suggestions but we might ask is this the minimum relief necessary for you to enjoy your property as a whole enjoy yes i can still enjoy it with a little less and if not is there anyone here to speak in opposition to the occasion and if not i'm going to clear the public hearing closed and i would like to open up for deliberation amongst the board you know what's good for the goose is good for the gander but we need to look at each one of these applications based on the particular parcel that that application is based on and that in his parcel is definitely much larger than those other parcels are and we're not looking at the decision based on those parcels tonight we're looking at a decision based on this particular parcel and when i look at this particular parcel i see multiple other locations on this parcel where this storage building could go it may not be in the first choice location that the applicant would like but it certainly seems feasible to me that he could put those put this building in another location location aside would a reduction in size help to alleviate that concern i mean i think i think that it would be would not be difficult at all to put this same size building or a slightly smaller building in a number of different locations on this property and stay within the zoning ordinance i'm i'm ready to make a motion but i'm interested if anybody's able to convince me not inside the public   about the appearance of the property the appearance of other buildings being added and everything we want to do things decently and in an order you know our lives and in our houses and our buildings and to put this building and any other location on this property will not be aesthetically proper we just want to look right ok i just have one of the question for you that would you be able to continue doing business on this property without this building yeah ok i mean it's additional yeah ok but it's not you're not you're not increase the value of it  t we paid an awful lot for this little piece of property when we did it now that's not supposed to enter into this here decision i realize but but we did and you know it it's a nice piece of property to do something with i'm going to close the public we have a motion by a box to deny i need support support support by davis i'd fight and effect please thank you certainly i don't believe that there are  unique circumstances with this slot that would necessitate the variance i also believe that the the requested variance is based purely on the desires of the property owner not most certainly any a ny action or of a prior property owner and i do not believe that strict compliance of the regulations governing governing areas set back frontage would unreasonably prevent the property owner using the property for a permitted purpose as a matter of fact the property owner just commented that he would be able to continue using the property for the purpose that he has been using it for i believe he said the last fifty years even if he did not have the building and that there are other locations on the property where he could build this exact same structure may not maybe not in his first choice location but other locations are possible on this property and i do not i also do not believe that the requested variance is the minimum variance necessary to do substantial justice to the applicants appears that it would be possible to have to relocate this building in other locations that may be within the the setback but only minimally within the setback not the motion to deny the applications fails would anyone like to make a motion in support of the application i guess i'd like to make a motion to support i may have a little problem here with go through all the most to support by souter use the four thirty four yeah most i'll give this a shot basically the way that i'm looking at it right now is this i do feel very in special exception whatever the case that's kind of what we're here for and i feel also that you know there's there's two other buildings there that are are doing the same thing that this mr whole world would like to do so all i'll try to went through this a minute  but i think that the request of variance is probably unique because i do agree that that would be the best really think that this is anything in result of you know the actions of the property owner i think that it's a it's he's own a lot for a long time i think he wants to make some improvements on it and i think that the location that he would like to make it is in my opinion the best spot to do it as far as strict compliance with regulations governing areas unless he's go the other lot line enjoy the two lads i don't see any other way to do it number four i think that you know it basically the other properties owners who have done it i think he has the right to do it as well and then number five i don't think it's going to cause any adverse impact on the surrounding properties at all any other numbers that you had issues with the other one is that compliance would would necessarily be it would be unnecessarily burdensome unreasonably restrict that right with this site plan that showed thirty foot setbacks for thirty six or thirty something by sixty buildings maybe you can explain that just a little bit more well i guess i'll do the best i can with that i i think when it comes to the setbacks it just it's coming right back to the same fact that you know the goose is good for the gander  what's good for the goose is really gander i feel like you know if the two other buildings have been allowed to do that then in this specific space very well hidden very out of the way i can see where e can use the parking  between the two properties property lines in that northern section of property i'm not in disagreement ok i will i move we recess for a moment we have a motion from box for recess read the rule that we took a recess for to address the voting or soon or for proof by motion the chair person shall call for a motion to approve or deny an application if a motion is made to deny a matter shall be deemed nine unless at least four members voted against the motion now just before the re approve has a three three vote the motion the appeal is denied as well and that's why that was written that way i'm satisfied that the the application does not pass based on the reason that ruling and that closes matter to bring this before the board has been withdrawn by the city and so there is nothing for us to review and we also now consider that matter closed and with that i am concluding the business of the public hearing but would like