Board of Zoning Adjustment and Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, I show it's 4:30. So, let's call to order the city of Bella Vista board of zoning adjustments. Uh, call the role, please. Ellis, here. Barner here. Plesen here. Sedbury here. Portillo, here. Wagman Lloyd here. All right, we do have a quorum. Uh, next up we have our meeting minutes from January the 12th. I make a motion it be approved as submitted. We got a motion from Farner. Second. Second from Clelesen. All in favor say I. I.

Any oppose? All right. Meeting minutes are approved. We have nothing under unfinished business and just one item of new business for tonight. Uh public hearing um zoning variance 2026 62869 and variance request on the front setback for a proposed house at 5 Tanfield Lane. Planner Laroo.

Good afternoon board members. Uh yes. So 5 Tanfield Lane is located in the south central area of Bella Vista near Blowing Springs at lot 3 block three of the Rugby subdivision. Of course, the applicant is requesting a um a 15 foot front setback in lie of the required 20 in order to accommodate a septic system. Uh locating the house along the platted setback would otherwise not allow for the minimum uh separation uh for the septic separation requirements. Uh staff would like to note that a setback of 17 and a half feet may be established and would still meet the minimum septic septic requirements um if the if the board uh chose um not to do 15 but instead 17 and a half. Uh staff finds that the lot the lot's limited size and configuration uh of the subject system is not of the applicant's actions and strict enforcement would would cause undue hardship. a variance to reduce the front setback would otherwise meet the spirit intent of the R1 district. Um, all legal notifications have been met and there has been no public comment at this time. Staff is recommending approval of the front uh setback variance contingent upon um that this uh it does not exceed the minimum setbacks required by the septic permit.

Any questions for staff? All right. Is the applicant present? Yes, sir. If you would come up and state your name and address for the record, please. Uh, it's Aaron Jensen. Personal address. Is that what you're asking for? Yes, sir. Uh, personal address is 474 Northwest Kalen the in Gentry. The property we're talking about is for 5 Tanfield. Okay. So, you're the builder? Yes. Okay. Um, staff, I guess I'll let you go ahead and say your piece first on the uh on the variance request. anything you'd like to add to the staff?

No, I don't. I think he nailed it right there. But the the big thing is you could see uh if we leave it with the 20 foot variance, I don't if you can see the septic tank there, it leaves us at a 7 and 1/2 ft and the state requires 10. That's all we're trying to gain. Okay. So, are you are you okay with the staff's recommendation of reducing the front setback by 2 and 1/2 ft to get you? Okay. All right. Any questions for the applicant? Are you the property owner as well? No. Tacoma Holdings. Okay.

Any other questions? All right. If you go ahead and take a seat real quick, we do have to conduct a public hearing. Um, at this time, if there's anybody in the public that would like to address the commission concern or the board concerning this variance request, uh, you would come up and state your name and address for the record. We'll give you five minutes to address the board. Hello, my name is Sam Richards. Need your address too, sir, please. 9 Tanfield Lane. Okay.

All right. Um, this is new to me. I've never been here before, so I wrote something out in respect to efficiency. Um, obviously we live on the street. I'm respectfully asking the commission to deny the request. And again, I'm up to be educated further. I think I missed some of the introduction, so I might have a different perspective. Um, but to my understanding from calling um to deny the 20T to 15t sound like that have may have changed already. This street does not have sidewalks and it is actively used by multiple families with young children including two um a two-year-old, several elementary age children and other kids who regularly ride bikes and play along that roadway. Um in this setting, 5t is not simply a design preference. It is meaningfully um safety buffer between homes, vehicles, limited sight lines and so forth. Um I have not heard any like property specific hardship that would prevent this home from being built in full compliance with the existing 20 foot setback. The property appears to have sufficient land to accommodate any you know building and so forth. Um I would also note one more element is that the public hearing I know I've kind of spent some time talking to neighbors and so forth like hey do you all have an issue? Is there a perspective? They have been they've had have had have some perspectives, but the sign was only placed like in front of our house. So, they really didn't know what we were talking about the way that the street is built. Um, but yeah, I wanted to share that perspective in respect to what's being requested. That's it.

Thank you. You're welcome. Is there anybody else that would like to address the board concerning this request? If not, you we'll let you come back up here. Um, and then actually we'll give you an additional uh 10 minutes to add anything to the conversation if you'd like. I just wanted to add to it. There's only one you need to talk. You need direct your answers to us, not to Sorry. There's only one residence on that uh circle and the only thing that we need is just the two and a half. So that's it and we'll be fine with that. There's no sidewalks really anywhere in Bella Vista, so I don't really know what we're accommodating to that part, but

Okay. Thank you. Um All right. So are we now talking about the 17 and and a half rather than the 15? We have we have a staff recommendation uh of approval to uh for no more than what is required to meet the setback requirements which would be 17 and a half versus 15 and the applicant is okay with that too. Okay. So

well I mean for me the size of the lot isn't the hardship. Nobody twisted the property owner's arm and made them buy the lot to build. I mean, you should I mean, the lot's too small to accommodate everything you need to accommodate it. I mean, that's not our job to relieve that. The size of lots of hardship to me. We've got a regular small lots all over Bella Vista. That doesn't mean they all need to be built on.

Well, there are a lot of lots in Bella Vista that only have a 15t setback. That's true. A lot of them. We're not talking about those. Yeah.

Any other uh questions or comments? Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. I was concerned about the 15 because there are a lot of vehicles that can't park on 15 feet and then they would not be parking on their property. Um I might have more tendency to approve the 17.5. Um, but I agree that they could have figured that out before they bought the lot. All right. Any other questions or comments? All right. All right. If not, can I get a motion to approve zoning variance 2026 62869 with staff recommendations of reducing that to 17 versus 15.

So moved. We got a motion from Portillo. Second. Second from Farner. Call the role, please. Floyd. Yes.

Yes. Hson, yes. Sedbury, no. Ma'am. Farner, yes. Portillo, yes. Ellis, yes. Excuse me. Your variance is approved and staff will get with you on what paperwork they need and whatnot. All right. Thank you, sir. Uh, next up we have open discussion. Do we have anything for open discussion? Uh, not for this board. Okay. Uh with that we will stand adjourn and we will readjourn here in just a second for our planning commission regular meeting.

All righty. Let's call to order the city of Bella Vista planning commission meeting. Call the role please. Ellis here. Barner here. Here. Sedbury here. Portillo here. Wagman Floyd here. All right. We do have a uh we do have a quorum. Uh next on our agenda is our regular meeting minutes from January the 12th. I make a motion they be approved as submitted. Got a motion from Farner. Second. Second from Sedbury. All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? All right. Meeting minutes are approved. Uh we have no new business tonight, but we will go ahead and conduct our public input session. There's anybody in the public that would like to address the commission tonight, you would come up and state your name and address for the record and we'll give you five minutes to speak. All right, seeing none, we'll close our public input session. We have no no unfinished business, no new business, any committee reports. Not at this time. Open discussion. Annual training and administrative meeting. Director Robertson,

we'll keep it very brief um along with the rest of this meeting, but um just a reminder that the administrative meeting, which is typically our March um or um third cycle, is what our administrative meeting is, and that's where we'll reelect um the officer positions um as well as we typically will do training um our annual training with that, the administrative cycle. Um, so I would aim to I'll try and keep it pretty brief. Um, I'll say an hour just to be very like lenient, but I doubt it will even be near an hour. It probably be like 30 minutes for our work session. Um, coming up the end of this month on the 26th at 4:30. Um, so even if we don't have a lot, which I think we have three items on the cycle right now, um, that will be for, uh, new business, but, um, following that during open discussion time, we'll have that annual training session. I don't know if you want to add anything to it. You want to do your typical FOYA or resoning.

You asking whether you want me to do my normal song and dance. if you would like to do it. If if it's entertaining, I would the next meeting I will I will feel free to chime in when needed and give any uh answers to questions or FOI reminders that I need to.

Okay. Um so yeah, we may have an intro from him and then I will give the typical um training and then just a small reminder um with the administrative meeting also means that um certain c some of you your terms are expiring. Um, so just a reminder, uh, Clayton and JB, you guys have both been reappointed. Um, if you could please attend the work session this Monday. Um, are you guys still good to attend that? 5:30. It'll be in this room. Um, Tuesday, huh? Isn't it Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday the 17th. Um, because we are closed Monday due to the holiday. So, that's all I've got for you.

Unless you have something for me or questions for me.

Anything else for open discussion? Alrighty. Um, with that, the city council work session will be on Tuesday, February the 17th at 5:30 p.m. Sounds like Clayton and JB are going to be attending that. Uh, the regular meeting for the city council will be on February 23rd at 6 PM. And then our planning commission work session will be on February the 26th at 4:30 p.m. And our board of zoning adjustment will be on Monday, March 9th at 4:30 p.m. followed by our planning commission meeting. And so with that, we stand adjourned. Thank you all for making the trip out. Hey, we we need we got business to take care of.