Planning Commission - public_hearing

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the June 8th, 2026 meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals. For those who have not been to a BZA meeting, here's a brief procedural overview. When a case is called, the city staff will have up to five minutes to present their case, after which the applicant and their representatives will also have up to five minutes to present their position. Then finally, the case will be open to public comments, with each speaker limited to five minutes as well. Members of the public who wish to speak must fill out a speaker form for the record. And you can find those forms outside this room. The board may ask questions during any of these presentations, and the response to the board questions do not count against your five minutes. However, speakers are asked to only respond to the question and refrain from elaborating, restating their position, or asking questions of the board. Once public comment is closed, the board will deliberate on the case during which the board may ask additional questions to staff or the applicant. As always, speakers are asked to only respond to the question and refrain from discussion. The BZA is a seven-member board with a four-member quorum requirement, and all motions must have four affirmative votes to pass regardless of the number of board members in attendance. So with that being said, Ms. Christensen, please call the roll.

Mr. Liu?

Here.

Ms. Eveland? Here. Ms. Braun? Here. Mr. Burke? Not here. Mr. Foley? Here. Mr. Justice?

Here.

We do have a quorum.

Okay. First item is election of a Florida officer for vice chair.

Yes. So just to let the board know, we did have two board positions that expired at the end of May, Mr. Patel and Ms. Bowman. Ms. Braun was appointed for one of the vacancies. So she's here with us tonight. But without Ms. Bowman, she was the vice chair. So we do need to hold an election to elect a new vice chair of the board. So with that, we'll take nominations for a vice chair. And then there'll be a motion on that nomination TO ELECT A VICE CHAIR.

YOUR BOARD MEMBERS HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT PROCESS?

MR. LU, I WOULD LIKE TO ASK IF ANYBODY HAS INQUIRED INTEREST TO THE CHAIRMAN FOR THAT POSITION.

OF COURSE. ANYONE, WOULD ANYONE BE INTERESTED IN SERVING AS CHAIR OVER THE NEXT TERM? WHICH I BELIEVE IS A YEAR. HOW LONG IS THE TERM?

It would be until the next elections, which are typically in January, as long as we have a hearing. Usually it's the first hearing of the new year.

Mr. Chair, would you like, I don't mean to presume, but would you like me to explain, it's been explained to me in the past about the position of the vice chair and what the intent of that position is? Please. So it's my understanding that the chairman is largely supposed to be conducting the meeting and making sure it's run orderly, whereas the vice chair, the primary goal of the vice chair is to drive the meeting forward, make it when no one else is willing to make a motion, make motions, and move things along. So that's at least when I was vice chair and back before when I was learning from my predecessors, that's what they had told me about the position of the vice chair, and it seems to make a lot of sense.

OK. Thank you for that information. So would any board members like to nominate either themselves or another board member for the vice chairmanship, vice chairpersonship?

People keep looking at me. I don't understand. Those responsibilities sound like something I could undertake for the next seven months of this year or six months. Maybe if I can't add the number of months, that should be a red flag for everyone. But I guess I would nominate myself if no one else is interested.

Please do, Mr. Justice. And you've been serving on the board for, what, about a year or a little less than that?

I think this will be the year, yeah. I was appointed in May, and then this was the June was the first one after that.

OK. Would anyone?

I'd like to nominate Mr. Justice for position of vice chair.

Mr. Chair, I'll second that nomination.

OK. With that motion being made, all those in favor of this motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All those against, same sign. OK. This motion is passed. Congratulations, Mr. Justice.

Thank you, everyone. I look forward to the rest of the year as vice chair. And moving meetings forward especially, yes.

Absolutely. And if the chair cannot make the meeting, then you would be also expected to lead these meetings as well. OK. Second order of business.

The next item on the docket is BZA 2026-0007, 20 West Myrtle Street, public hearing and consideration of a request for a special exception to construct an addition in the required side yard, zoned R5 residential.

OK. Staff may begin your presentation whenever you're ready.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board of Zoning Appeals. Before you is 20 West Myrtle Drive, which is a special exception request. The property is located in the Potomac West small area plan, and it is surrounded by residential homes. This lot is actually substandard. It is a single unit dwelling zoned R2-5. It is substandard with respect to lot size as well as lot width. The existing house... sits within the required side yards on both sides. The applicants have come in with the proposal. They're bringing in one side of the property into compliance. And then what they are doing is also expanding an existing wall. So what they're actually doing is they're setting the addition in. So the request is really for 8 and 3 quarters of an inch so that they can go ahead and build this rear addition. As you can see, they are tying it into the existing house. with the setback being measured again from the eased portion down. So the R25 zoning is a one to three ratio with the minimum of seven feet. So here we are, the special exception. So what you're seeing before you is that the existing side yard you see there, but they're actually setting the addition in. And so that they are requesting a 6.27 feet. which means the relief is a 0.73 or eight and three quarters of an inch on the adjacent side which would be the west side of the property the addition will be in compliance so it will meet the side yard setbacks and the deck was also being in compliance this i'm sorry this um This project actually meets the requirements and the recommendation of a special exception. And I'm available for any questions or comments if you have any.

The column to the right would be yes all the way down.

I don't control it. I don't have any control. Sorry. But it meets all the criteria, each one.

Yes. Thank you. Just wanted to confirm. Yes. Does the board have any questions for staff? OK, if not, then we can move on to the applicant's presentation if you want to have a word about this.

Sure. Well, I'm Nathan Young with my wife, Becca Spencer. We're the homeowners. Really, when we purchased the home a number of years ago, we knew buying the smallest house on the street would be perfect for the two of us. But as we wanted to kind of expand our family, like many of our neighbors have who have been here for two doors down, has been here for 50 years and done multiple additions to kind of grow their family, we kind of wanted to look at doing something similar. and taking into account both our neighbors' houses, the setbacks, the light, the airflow, and not going either beyond their depth of house and trying to comply as much as possible and really only requesting the easement hopefully that we need to build for a family room and for another bedroom and two. That's sort of the approach that we took with this. Try to make all the setbacks that we could work and then remaining the rest of the house entirely untouched from the front and either of the existing side walls and the roof to truly try and keep and preserve the history of the Cape Cod and then just add what we can to build for hopefully a future family.

Thank you, sir. Does the board have any questions?

No.

I guess the reason I ask is the three-quarter inch mass, which is the thickness of a sheet of plywood. It seems very odd that you would go through this whole process for three-quarters of an inch. So I was curious how that came about. You don't have to tell me. It's not really relevant to the whole decision process, but I'm just interested.

It is 8 3⁄4 inches, to clarify. From the 7-foot setback, that 0.73 feet is in feet and not inches on the display.

I thought it says right there in front of us the relief requested is 0.73, which is not even three quarters of an inch. Is that a foot? Three quarters. Oh. Oh, that's a foot.

Yes, sir.

I got it. Yes, sir. Okay. Got it. Thank you. You're welcome. Rain fog tonight. I understand.

Thank you, Mr. Foley. Any other questions for the applicant?

Not a question, but you did a great job of the explanation as to why you were pursuing this special request. So good job.

Thank you. Mr. Young, have you notified the neighbors of this upcoming project?

spoken with quite a few of the different neighbors. And then the last page in the docket is a letter from the most affected neighbor on the east-facing side. We didn't receive any objections from any of the neighbors we spoke to. We had a good conversation with all of them, which was actually quite interesting, as they've all done additions, just to learn a little bit more about what they did and why.

So with no questions from the board, would anyone like to make a motion?

Mr. Chair, do we have any speakers from outside? I don't see any, I guess.

Ms. Christensen, do we have any speakers?

There are no speakers signed up.

Okay, so we're moving to board deliberations.

Yes, yes, I'm sorry.

You're not the only person with brain fog tonight. Yes, so before we make a motion, So as part of the deliberation process, do any board members have an opinion or thoughts they want to share about the application?

Chair, if I may? Of course. So we've seen quite a few examples of the same type of requests come through the board. We have always, I cannot remember a time where we have not granted the request with you know, this is a very modest amount of, I guess it would be called an encroachment into the setback. And this is largely going along the property lines or the walls of the house. And I think that it's right in line with however many have come through here in the past. And so I would strongly recommend Feel that it's it's it's we should just we should just approve it as it as it is and not that I'm making that motion just yet because I'd like to give the other Board members an opportunity to to speak their mind as well Thank You mr. Foley

Any other thoughts from the board member? Do you agree with his assessment?

Sure. Yeah, I would just like to echo Mr. Foley's assessment as to the minor nature of the relief requested. Maybe not quite so minor as Mr. Foley thought at the beginning, but still well within, I think, the history of what this board has approved in the past.

MR. Ms. Evelyn, Ms. Beshear, any thoughts?

MS. I already expressed mine, and I'd like to make a motion that we approve the request.

MR. Please do.

MR. Motion seconded.

MR. OK. We have a motion made and seconded. All those in favor of a motion to approve this application, please say aye. MR. Aye. MR. All those against, same sign. None the motion is passed five to zero.

Thank you and congratulations The next item on the docket is the consideration of the minutes from the May 11th 2026 Board of Zoning Appeals hearing I did receive a few Corrections from miss Evelyn and those have been made those typos have been corrected.

So The minutes appear correct to the best of my recollection from that particular meeting. And the things that I had requested corrected have been corrected. So I make a motion that the minutes are approved.

Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor of approving the minutes, please say aye. Aye. All those against, same sign. OK. The motion to approve the minutes are passed. Thank you, everyone. And I believe those are all the items on the docket, Ms. Christensen.

We don't have any other items, and there's no other business to discuss.

Okay. Great. Well, I guess before we adjourn, I would just like to formally welcome Ms. Brashear to the board. And we look forward to your contributions every month during these meetings. And as always, please use us as a resource if you have any questions.

Thank you very much. I am also very much looking forward to it.

Thank you. And then with that, this meeting would be adjourned. Thanks, everyone.

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