housing and the infrastructures this port must try to interpret each application as it relates to city ordinances the sport 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 and your application will be asking you about those answers again tonight this is the procedure we follow yes that you come to the microphone to speak and state your name and address will hear the applicant first and anyone supporting the application then anyone in opposition to it typically we hold a public hearing and 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 can 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 housing dangerous truckers and that's where you please read the first application and and like to amend the order if you don't mind and here the housing special exception first place thank you america is permitted the board is authorized to grant a special exception when certain conditions are found to exist thank you is there a napkin i would like to speak on behalf of their application and please state your name and address for the record daniel rocks and the address is forty seven east fourteenth street thank you and the application is pretty much as cindy stated it the garage height the five five standard and looking at the plans i see that the first two are met and then cindy has let us know that you guys have discussed the third one to the fourth one is a lot more subjective i just wanted to make sure that you know if you have an explanation do you think that this garage with additional height to this gradual be a detriment to the neighborhood at all know that it doesn't look like it to me and i went to the neighborhood and talked with a couple of the neighbors after we had made the application they had said that they saw the paperwork and come around through the neighborhood just letting them know what we were requesting and they both said hey we signed off on it it doesn't look like it's going to be an issue for us and for what it's worth i did drive that neighborhood to take a look to see how it looked fit and in my opinion it's a non issue thank you thank you is there anybody else here to speak in support of the application and if anybody here to speak in opposition to the application and there's nobody in the audience so i'm going to now consider the public hearing on this application closed and i will open up for diller deliberation amongst the board if anyone has any to say or can i get a motion please move we approve this special exception support prince the main body or principal residential structure the minimal roof pitch will be greater than for twelve the side walls will be higher than five and not greater than nine the roof is constructed in manner that th e top quarter of that or the bottom core of the truss is not usable for anything other than light storage and additional height will not be detrimental to the joining neighborhood in that they have been reviewed in a approved under the infill ordinance thank you very much mr davis did you have everything you need with regard to the findings of fact i do mr chairman thank you then i would like to call for a vote davis yes box yes and  i vote yes by the way oh sorry fan we are and i did not call you thank you application thirteen eighteen crown real ltd l l c has made application for variances in connection with the non conforming in freestanding signs for the property at one nine hundred sixty regent boulevard the applicant has four free standing signs where a maximum of two free standing signs are permitted the applicant proposes to relocate one freestanding sign where the ordinance requires that once removed a freestanding sign cannot be really located the applicant is to install an additional for standing sign on the parcel for a total of five the two relocated and new signs will each be a hundred twenty six square feet in area seventy five square feet each is permitted in this own district and thirty six feet in height questions or present your case thank you well if you have the application and i'm told yes you have them yes we did if you look at page the third page which is a survey showing the right of way you can see our brick crown monument sign which is also ok so you can see the crown monument sign there the brick sign in between that sign and the blue honda sign is where we'd like to locate a buick cadillac sign  that sign is also pictured cindy if you have that picture there that is our existing sign for buick and cadillac  looks looks like this here they have a map of the overhead layout showing where the designs are currently located so what we'd like to do is we'd like to move the existing g m sign  over between the crown monument sign and the honda sign in addition we would like to add a certified pre owned vehicle sign in front of our use  which is also on this page should be able see it's marked right here on the most south western corner of our property ask us to move our view a cadillac sign which you can see in the latter that cindy has back now with the general motors had in the top from kevin robins the district sales manager their reasons for it are saying ladder more visibility to the buick cadillac franchises in our marketplace and for the dealership the second point is we do have a practical difficulty in having four franchises under one roof top not something that you see a very many markets in today's day and age we're able to do that because we have a large facility and it is a very nice facility and the whole campus is very nice for that matter so in some of the pictures that i did display kind of show you some of what our facility and the campus looks like we believe that the campus does a poll some of the stand hopefully all the standards that the city has set as to what the did want the landscape to look like as the gateway next to the airport with the expansion of boulevard and what's happened there we've been in compliance fully with everything that they've done in fact pay the additional money to connect to kind of complete that project for the city so we're we're trying to just keep in mind that whole scope of things but region boulevard was originally meant to be a thoroughfare and that's why it's a boulevard  you see a lot of boulevards that are dead in the road so it's probably one of the few and normally it was supposed to connect to south pine which i understand the city has a right away that goes north from the end of reachable of our and all the way over to forty eight street i guess that was originally in the master plan from what i understand and that's not in the plan i think i understand the city's currently evaluating the master game plan for the city but certainly the goal of our it wasn't made to be a dead end road and so that's why we have that's one of the reasons why we have the sign right there the fourth point i would say is that airport runway tunnel i would think certainly would be a nice circumstance i don't believe any other dealer that i know has that challenge of having the airport tunnel right next to us when i started working there i used to drive that way to work down bluestar highway heading northbound i could see our inventory lit up from a long ways away that's that's been diminished greatly and i think it takes away when people go through a tunnel they're kind of distracted and don't get enough time visibility truly see our inventory which is our used car mentor you can see there on them all southwest part of our law that's one reason why we'd like to have a used car sign that would kind of enhance that visibility and then furthermore the be a cadillac signs of visibility move that over as well so yeah i think the proper signage is good for the community it's good for business of course when our business is good we hire more people so i think there's some intrinsic value there so again i guess i just summarize by saying you know the three things that are unique about our property in our business are running for franchises i don't want to rough up the fact the reach of all of ours originally a thoroughfare are meant to be a thoroughfare as a bowl of our and it's it's a dead end road and i think that probably it's unlikely that any other dealership probably in our region faces the issue with the tunnel being right next so i guess in closing come over southbound on bush to highway that sign seems to have a little bit more visibility you can see it just in the corner of the picture there i know you mentioned this but in your experience how unique truly is it to have four franchises in a single location there's one hundred seven hundred dealers in the michigan indiana kentucky ohio area and i believe that we are one out of three one of the standards that we have to meet is showing that there is unique circumstance with the conditions of the property when looking at this circumstance so we're not really looking at how the current owner or user is using the property so the fact that you have these multiple franchises and stuff you know that if we granted something this would go with the property even after crime is gone so we have to look at it in a greater picture than just current user so you know looking for something that's unique about the property you said something about the tunnel and if you could describe why the uniqueness of the tunnel being located by the property  is reason or merit to have additional signs well that the visibility the amount of time that you really have to see the signs i think if i think back again to prior prior to the tunnel when you're driving especially at night you know you could see coming up from quite a long ways where you are going now i mean because the way it comes out it's i mean it's a very limited amount of time to me that kind of means that five there would actually be closer to the tunnel than the existing undersigned would which would give you less time to look at that sign than even to look so that far i imagine there's a good several variable bright the sign is you know the landscaping around the position the size of the sign and i'm guessing all that was thought of when you chose these locations it was because it's to make it a representative from the council mr white man that impression i gleaned from speaking with him that in fact was supposed to go through you know he could be more than happy to correct me later on but that is was one of the standards that we've got to look at is is whether or not strict compliance with the regulations as they are would unreasonably prevent you from using the property for a permitted purpose not necessarily the purpose that you're you would most want to use it for but are we looking at a circumstance where if you got to comply with the sign ordinances or have to stay with the signs that you have now because there is anything that says that we can't you can't keep the signs in the locations that they are and maybe even change the face plates on the signs that you have now they can prevent you guys from being able to do business or they can prevent you from doing any kind of business there that they would be allowed from from what i understand it thought that we were not able to change this weekend you can't  move the sign and you can't but but you could and this may be a question of step if they want to change that honda sign to be a buick cadillac sign and it's the same size correct you can change the copy or the face on the sign as long as it's not any large not going to going out of business you know you know i would agree with that could potentially chill the relationship with your franchise owners yes yeah i def it definitely did and if you know something about the history of a crown of  properties cindy because your question if we were to put a condition on this and that any exceptions made tonight for variants one run with the land but necessarily with to question my conditions as well one of the i mean one of the conditions that we're we're looking at or that the issues that we're running into with the sign ordinance is height would we have the ability to put a condition to say hey if you want to if you want to make keep the four signs that you have does anyone else from the board have any other questions ok thank you very much thank you is there anybody else here to speak in support of the application that's no one in the before i make a motion on this i want to i want to kind of get see if anybody's got the ability to convince me otherwise i'm having a real difficult time with with number three and that's the strict compliance with regulations unreasonably preventing them from using the property for permitted purpose you know not necessarily the purpose that they would like which is the ford dealership the four different dealerships under one roof but a permitted purpose within that within that zone district and i think that they they run a phenomenal business i think it looks beautiful i like the idea that they're the four dealerships there i think they do a great job with it but i also know i'm running up against the ordinance that was put in place deliberately to try to i think change the way the signs are in this type of his own district they're very deliberate very intentional about the size and about the height and about the fact that if you're going to move a sign if you can change a sign you've got to stay in compliance sure i might respond with a question generally can be the comma comes before the or making it disjunctive and i would think you recently satisfy that by saying strict compliance with conformity in this instance would be unnecessarily burdensome given the fact that it may chill relationship period a time when automobile franchises are fragile and limited and couple that with the uniqueness of the multiple franchises in one location  how do you feel about the idea of making the other science come into compliance and if if the idea behind that is that it's and it would be unreasonably burdensome and therefore franchises that they have and that they need to have fo i'm assuming for signs that are visible to satisfy those those four different corporations that are there but we've still got a zoning ordinance so we've got a we've got to live with it and if we're going to say that they're allowed to have they're allowed to maintain for signs are because that's that would be unreasonably burdensome for us to say to them that they can't do that or that they have to have one sign around the corner on a street that's no longer thoroughfare they say well if you can have four signs you can have those signs in compliance with the ordinance as it is right now trip the sign of its existence would be enough given the traffic but to me the whole you situations unique not just in the airport but in the attention of the drivers maybe they're  getting off bluestar or coming up u s thirty one the whole surrounding area to me is unique and it seems disjointed in the sense that how it eventually manifested was different than the original plan and the original plan as this was laid out was in conformity at the time but between the airport and changing the zoning laws and the uniqueness of having multiple franchises under one roof  franchise set of using the current owner you know the property assets and i don't believe there's been a good argument about why the ordinance would be unnecessarily burdensome not considering the current user i also struggle with number one i don't think that they showed a unique circumstance with the property other than the way it's currently used by the current occupant and run of the mill change to the area and putting that tunnel there mike not on there i'm having a tough time with number three as well it seems the business is been running successfully for several years without the way the signs are now and not putting in extra sign out isn't going to change that i don't see that it's going to be burdensome or prevent them from running the business as it's been run well it would if g m buick or cadillac decides they want to terminate the franchise and look for someone else who can be put in a more favorable location i mean that's something that shouldn't be immediately discounted i don't think i think they argument of the cost of what it will be to replace sign it's somewhat secondary to the fact that there are four signs there right now and i want to have a sign out there  two creating another sign that they have to lease or that's not sure how it's going to be paid for it's not for us to deal with here tonight that we haven't even discussed the fact that there's a fifth sign there right now that they're asking for an additional sign there right you know one more than they have currently the dealership i purchased my car from has three different names of all different brands so it's so it's not unheard of it's not unheard of to have a sign that but my concern is that we're we need to stay within the ordinance and the intent of the ordinance and that this may be one of those issues where we need to need to send another letter back to planning commission and say take another look at this situation because you're you're giving us hard cases that that we don't think main necessarily fit with what the original intent was of that of it but i given they get given the guidelines that we have to work under i can't get past three and i'm having difficulty now getting past past one frankly with this you know they're there and i'm i'm ready to make one of two motions and this one is a strict denial the other is an approval with the with the condition that they're just before signs and that all four signs be brought within compliance and i just make one reminder from our city attorney's office that we need to make certain that we have facts that bigger or more signs will remedy the issue the tunnel is about a block away and the speed limit is twenty five miles an hour yeah i'm not sure the tunnels the problem and i'm not sure the tunnel is is is creating an issue there is a unique circumstance that is that is causing this problem especially since one of the signs that they're talking about putting is actually closer to the tunnel which would provide less time for somebody to be able to look any of those facts and the r study make a difference to anybody here i'm not sure what facts or what study i mean i'm looking at i'm not seeing facts here i'm not have been given facts here  that would justify thank you yeah that would justify approving this application you know there may be facts out there i don't have them in front of me i guess what i'm leaning toward is perhaps the board needs more information and we open up to encourage drawl rather than bring it to the fore i would not have as if the applicant i have always been of the opinion if the applicant would like to have us table i would not be opposed to the chair opening the hearing back up again and and disgusted and asking the applicant if they might be interested in in tape having us table the motion until they can provide us some more information well anybody else have any second that i mean i don't want to open something back up any more facts if those facts aren't pertinent to your decision tonight if the if the applicant thinks that there would be able to provide more information to us that would be helpful for their application i don't want to deny the applicant that possibility or that opportunity or what i'd like to do is open the public meeting back up for public comment either for or against  questions with regard to certain facts perhaps i don't know i don't know if you understand what we've been we've been talking about here is that we were having a difficult time with the application the way it is i i know i am i can't speak for any other members of the board obviously but if if you believe that you have some additional information that may be able to answer some of the questions that we have and that we've been raising what we're suggesting is that would be willing to give you the opportunity to go back get that information and they come back at the next meeting we can table this till the next meeting and give you the opportunity to present that information that may be able to provide us some of the answers to those questions if i could sum up i think there's a couple of issues we're struggling with  ddition of the fist sign and it's the multiple locations along one drive frontage or one street correct to have under the current ordinance a maximum freestanding application pending perhaps reapplication for the next board meeting i think we may want to clarify probably not withdraw the application but but have the application table to table would you like to have a table may i ask two questions  cadillac existing if i may add that that's i'm i'm guessing partly because that's the one that's around the corner that's why it's not a region that's one that's farthest away from where the traffic is i'm sure and i'm certain of that yeah yeah yeah well yes yes  the verses and to be real to be real frankly to try to make this is helpful as possible for you in my opinion guys are asking for a lot i mean it's a and and you know i'm a i'm a customer of crown i've purchased vehicles there i think you guys are wonderful you do a great job i think the place looks fantastic but but we have a we've got an ordinance that we've got to live within and we've got standards that we've got to that we have to meet in order to be able to approve an  application to have it vary from that and what you're asking for is for for quite a bit and that's one of the reasons why i asked the question about you know what about lowering the high what about getting having the size be in compliance because what that can allow us to do is to say you know what we're we are we're doing the minimum that we have to do outside of what the ordinance allows in order to be able to keep you guys doing what it is that you're doing there and so if there if are alternatives that you're able to come up with that can allow us to not have to go so far outside of the ordinance that can be really helpful for us in being able to say yes to something like this and based on what you say and if you think you can supply those facts i would be willing to make a or ask for a motion to table the application until next month if that's not something you think you can deliver i'd like to move forward exactly understood and i say one thing to you know if this is something that you're considering for the board here we have to look at the property for any of the possible uses with districts so any argument you make about why the signs are necessary or what is unique about the property or why this is you know should be done should be outside of what the current dealership needs it could be a factory someday so that whatever are you mean you would have to apply to that what he's saying is whatever we decide runs with the land it doesn't run with the business there now so forbid the crown go away and it gets leveled and it becomes a bulldozer factory whatever we decide runs with the land that bulldozer factory gets for big yeah if they want if they want if i may ask because i would i would but we are hemmed in by the ordinance specifically to the tests that were tasked with and as mr davis said keeping in mind that we're we are making the decision based on the property and not necessarily the property and the uses that are allowed within the zoning district for that particular piece of property not necessarily the use that you are interested in and using it for and if i can include how the additional signs will remedy that situation will they meet powell they meet the need for visibility and will they be more visible than the allowed two signs and keeping in mind that the board cannot change the policy regulations that can only be done by the planning commission in the city council so there have to be some unique stand circumstances and there have to be some practical difficulty for the permitted uses or you do you won't be able to provide the findings of fact that we need to support the exactly so a lot of other dealerships probably face this issue if they have a motor mall type of  looked at it and thought ok i can split the property in like in our case we have over ten and a half acres with out there right away eleven point something with it we have plenty of area information should i come back with a proposal that entails that scenario is well we're not going to tell you what exactly we need but what we can tell you is what board tonight determined was or issues for the board and if you could address those issues based on the way they were numerated and specifically the way the ordinance is read then i believe at that time we would have all the fact we need and i'm determining right now that more facts would be pertinent to this case and that's what we are and once i close the public hearing we can ask for motions at that time is it wrong for us to ask planning to chime in to to the issue of the quality of science i believe mr husband are to do that we would have to come up more than once a recurrent problem that we have multiple times then it can come as a resolution from the board but otherwise it's up to the applicant to approach the planning commission for myself the signs are a case of first impression thank you thank you thank you there's no the person in the audience to comment further so that i would like to  reclaim the public hearing and would anyone like to make a motion to table this pending further facts i would i would make that motion we table this to the next meeting in my box to table into the next main support and that closes the public hearing for the applications that the board of appeals received tonight it's my impression there is no unfinished business that we have before us and we need to approve minutes so my please have a motion to prove the minutes from the regular meeting held on july twenty five and august twenty two two thousand and thirteen i'll make that motion was my hand and support my box on favor say aye all oppos motion passes the president's the next meeting date is december five two thousand and thirteen or can be december twelfth that's to your discretion because for thursday and november falls on thanksgiving usually move that meeting up to the first or second week in december and just combine the november and december meetings the next meeting after that will be the fourth thursday in january if you can think about what your calendars might say