Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Uh we're going to open the CL City Board of Zoning Appeals um regular meeting to order. Roll call please. Kathy Gardner present. Patricia Hatcher here. John Kissinger here. Michael here. Dennis here. Thank you, Amanda. Our March 3rd meeting minutes is that next month.

Okay. All right. We have no previous meeting minutes. All right. Um to witnesses, if you're planning on speaking tonight um for any reason, um we have a legal adviser that u will swear you and he'll ask you to stand up and ask you to raise your right hand. Anyone who intends to speak, please stand. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under the penalties of perjury the testimony we're about to offer will be true? If so, say I do. I do. Thank you. You may be seated. Thank you. Nathan, is there any old business for us to look at? Don't think so.

All right. We're going to move on to the first order of business. We have 26- C-V2 Max second and Jane Goldwood. They are requesting a development standard variance to permit construction of a new residence in the front building setback on the property at 782 West Business 30. Nathan staff report.

Sure thing. So, let me bring up slides here. So, as you said, this is Uh this case is at 782 West Business 30 which currently is a vacant lot uh zoned R2 two family residential. Uh might be worth noting that when this uh property was originally platted in 1998 it was R1 and then subsequently changed to R2. Uh little under half an acre in size. What is being proposed is cons to construct a new residence and attached fivecar garage. Um I just note the car size because it's a bit larger than uh most uh the proposed required and platted setbacks are shown there in the table. And of everything we are looking at uh front setback encroachment uh as well as a building line encroachment uh which we treat similarly by notifying everybody in the subdivision not just the surrounding uh property owners. Uh as it states there the proposed uh front setback for the porch which would be what we measure from is 20 ft. The main structure then would be 9 ft or 28 ft if you want to round it up. Either one is still less than the R2 zoning standard of 30 ft. And as I said, the 35 ft building line was based uh upon when it was originally platted on the R1 standard. The other side and rear setbacks are compliant. Notably, the rear setback is proposed to be 43.6 ft. That is to avoid a 40 foot drainage and utility easement located in the rear yard which is a very significant uh easement back there. The additional 3.6

ft is intended to allow for approximately a 10 foot distance between the building and the actual location of the sewer line. Uh sewer department requested if they could to keep it about 10 ft and that's what that reflects. Um however if need be there is still 3.6 feet to encroach. Uh it was a request not a require. So going to the reference materials highlighted in blue is the subject lot. Uh to the west in 2024 when this was uh taken uh but lot was vacant. Now there is a uh building going up there to the west. Closer view. And since we have a little bit time here tonight, I just wanted to point out this interesting little highlight there in Shadow Line. Um, which Dennis will probably appreciate just like I do. But that is the old grade of Squall Buck Road

uh which was abandoned prior to uh the 1960s. But the original alignment went um through these lots and then bent veered back towards the current alignment of business 30 um some distance west of the old church there. So that's kind of neat. I figured you'd enjoy that.

I never would have figured that out. It's where I've got the benefit of historic areas comes in. Uh going on u so for reference if we need it. Um the Tanglewood platform from 1998 as mentioned this is lot number eight here in the middle. Uh the plot plan of the dwelling on the lot. Uh you can see there the uh porch down here and then 20 ft to the right ofway line and then this is a very long L-shaped inverted L-shaped dwelling. So plot plan laid on top of the aerial for reference. And then I also included the sewer line uh location as well based upon the asbuilts that we received from the surveyor. Uh again just to show that the sewer line is not located in the center of the easement as one might expect but it is offset pretty significantly. Uh building elevations as submitted. I'm not sure how committed petitioner is to these, but these are what was submitted for the file. Uh so the front elevation is this one. So this would be as if you're looking from business 30. Uh this is looking from the west to the east. Um north to south and east west. Uh floor plan for reference. North is to the leftish. Um, so main body of the house and twocar garage, threecar garage with uh storage space connecting between them. Uh, petitioner can give you more details on what all uh they plan on having in there. I think that may weigh into uh the request. Um, and then if need be uh again referencing uh the

floor plan overlaid on there, it'll just give you better showing of how this compares. Um, you may wonder, as I did, the house that is on an aerial here to the west, it does actually appear to be a little bit closer than the, uh, front body of the house, although the porch still sticks out. Uh, when I measured it, it measures out to be right at 30 ft. So, it is right at that line. um or excuse me, it measures out to be to the roof line at about 30 feet, but it's a very deep ease. So, it winds up being the building line of 35 ft. Sorry, forgot about that part. Uh and the fact that the lines on JIS actually have a little bit of margin of error as well. So,

I think that one has a Mezer option sign in front of it. It does.

Uh could be when I was last by there, I wasn't so much paying attention to it as I was this. So, uh, so review criteria and keep in mind as we had the last variants, um, this we actually have two sets of standards, one being the Indiana code, which is the top one, which is what we've been using for the last 10 years, but the bottom one is the zoning code. uh and to the degree that we need to mesh these we should do so uh practical difficulty versus unnecessary hardship uh standard being the largest difference between the two. Uh practical difficulty meaning that there's some something difficult about the use of property or something about the property that makes it difficult to use the property. unnecessary hardship being that there's something with property that uh basically makes it unusable without variance. Very different thresholds of standards here. Uh otherwise uh you're looking at the same uh virtually the same between them just with different words. Um my commentary on each, it's not likely that this would really injure public health safety or morals. we still have plenty of room around the building uh for fire safety, for vehicular safety and so on. Uh general welfare is perhaps the biggest thing that might be affected uh because of the potential for additional precedent setting. And this is an encroachment into a building line, which as Kathy tends to remind me every time we have one of these, it is a plaid line that is supposed to be respected as part of the subdivision. Um granted some relief may be necessary at times but if we do that too much then we start degrading the general welfare and that is definitely a possibility again kind

of precedent but in uh a different perspective. Uh use and value in staff's opinion again would not be uh use would not be substantially affected because the only setback being requested to be varied is the front one. So if anything's impacted, it would be business 30. And again, with a 20 foot setback, it's still plus the additional width of the former US highway right ofway, uh you still have a fairly substantial actual setback from the pavement. Uh the value um uh affecting the overall uh area adjacent probably not likely. New construction always is an investment or typically is an investment. However, again, the building line encroachment uh might lead to additional precedent setting decisions um that could change the overall aesthetics and affect the overall health overall neighborhood value. Um whether that's substantial or not, you know, that part might be in question. Uh finally, the strict application of the terms of the ordinance resulting in practical difficulties or unnecessary hardship, whichever legal council wants us to use. Um and the situation not being self-imposed. Uh the sewer line and the very wide 40ft uh wide utility easement does create some difficulty. However, presumably uh the buyer when they bought the property, they were made aware of that easement when they purchased the property uh and the constraints inherent with uh the easements and the setbacks and the building line in place. Um the additional request of the sewer department to maintain a 10-ft separation. I noted that the uh in the

staff report that the sewer line was actually located outside the easement and that was a misunderstanding on a couple different people's part. It's just that uh shift uh southward shift. It's not centrally located. So that was uh we determined that earlier this afternoon actually. Uh so but still they requested a 10-ft uh separation which does shift things still even outside that 40 foot easement. Um that said, um I do have to draw some question as to the overall size of the residence given the size of the lot. Uh it is very unusual to have a 120 foot deep home. Uh I found one other uh resident of a similar depth in the area. Uh one that was close to being the same if you included a detached garage. Uh so it's not a very common situation. definitely not in the tangle with area. So I definitely I I really leave this up to the petition to give you explanation what their uh purpose and and position is on requesting this. Uh otherwise I I feel like that might be uh out of line and more of a self imposition uh in this case. So uh with that uh any questions for me? I might have missed it, Nathan, because you explained a lot, which I thank you for. Um, did you figure lot coverage? Does it fall within the

I did and it does. It does meet the lot coverage. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And you said we had it's setting at 43 some feet off that on that easement line. You still had three three feet some of to still stay 10 feet off the drain. Yeah. So the the easement itself along the north is 40 feet wide. Uh and to stay approximately 10 feet off of the sewer line, uh their proposal of being 43 feet from the property line, that additional 3 ft um allows for that approximate 10 ft. Approximate 10 ft.

Yeah. The the sewer line is approximately 7 feet north of the south line of the Okay. give or take.

Anybody else have any questions for Nathan? All right, we open uh I'm going to open up to the floor and have the petitioner come to the podium, state your name and address and kind of fill in the blanks for us. Uh Jane Goldwood, Max the second.

Um we're going for the front because we tried to go for the back and when we went to city council and then they went out and checked, we found out that the sewer line was way up, not where we thought it was. So then We actually kind of lost footage. So that's why we decided to go this way to move it forward because uh we actually lost some footage in the back. Instead of being 40 ft, it's 40. You got all that. Yeah, you do have it. But that's the reason we're uh and the the house does not look unusual. I mean, I have color rendition if you want to see it. It's beautiful home,

but it doesn't look like a big hotel or anything like that. We attached the garage on the back and stuff because when I first read you sent me the bylaws and stuff tangle where you couldn't have a detached garage and stuff. So I always had an outside shop area. We just kind of put it together there and it kind of came into that corner back here. So we kind of put a storage shed that I could put trailers from the inside of the other shop into that so there's nothing around the outside. You know, all the outside decorations going in one time all that kind of instead of having an outside SH that is kind of included.

Does anybody else have any questions for the petitioner? Well, I guess something came up earlier about the use of the extreme amount of five car garage. I mean, it kind of goes Well, there's three in the back and there's two on the side. We don't share with each other very well. She gets two. I get two. This is what it looks like from the street. This is what you can see like that. That's from the side. But the use five car garage. Oh, all the toys is Yeah. Just old folks have to have their toys.

I'm an old folk. You got golf card and he drives a truck and I drive a car. Senior in high school has a car. We want everything inside. We don't want anything outside. In looking and before purchasing the lot, did you happen to look at other lots that might have been larger, thus able to accommodate this size of a house that you know better?

Um, no. We just kind of wanted to go in town and we were looking for a quarter of an acre. So it fit into the quarter acre and we don't want to mow. We're retiring. It's going to be our retirement home. So we were looking for something that was just so easy to take care of. Uh we're not going to be doing anything outside. No kids, you know. So we just Yeah, we have a senior still. So but yeah, but yeah, we were just looking for zero maintenance, retire, um you know, keep everything inside. Um basically built for an 80 house. for handicap and stuff. Kind of got a little wider a little longer to make some of the room work, but always wider

for wheelchairs and everything else for resale or whatever else the whatever the family is going to do after we're gone. So, yeah, set up that way. We're coming from a large large yard and you know, we don't want anything anyone. We don't want to mow

the two graduates on there. Nathan, can you kick it back to the planner.

So, in front of the in front of the garage doors, will that all be concrete or will that all be driveway? Well, we want to kind of come in and slurp it around. And I wanted to come off the house 10 ft. So, there's like grass and flower beds or something down the side of the house. Come in and it kind of swirls around and just kind of opens up on the door. Okay.

No, we didn't want to go that whole time. I put parking lot in playing with house prints can be uh kind of fun. Uh I I guess the a question. Would did you ever like with that front area, the way you have the kitchen configured in that kind of design it so the porch would be on the on the side instead of

front. We thought about that, but we had this with the window on the house. We just thought we see that. We had to change something. We didn't actually draw something and play with that. Okay. Another one down. Okay. I do have one question. In the garage there on the left hand side of the floor plan, there are what appears to be fridge, stove, and a three basin sink, which kind of unusual even for a well, basically for a garage setup. Um, this is zoned R2, so if that's intended to be a second dwelling, it'll be fine with zoning. But no,

I just wanted to ask a question what the intent was. No, I I do just barbecue cooking and everything outside and she won't let me fry fish in the house. So, I kind of set up a little area for that sink.

I just made it a lot smaller. So when she locks you in the garage and I have some place he does his own restaurant. He does a lot of cooking. So yeah, that that would be my my only not really a concern, but just a question on where that porch lays on the front. So sticking out there into that right away. If it was if he had re just kind of looked at it, played with it. I mean, he liked it, great. If he didn't like it, I mean, that's just

Does anybody else have any questions for the petitioner? Thank you. All right. Is um is there anyone else here that would like to speak on behalf of the petition? Please come to the podium, state your name and your address, please.

My name is Don Gluke and I live at 777 West T or West Dogwood. I'm your neighbor in the backyard. He and I had conversations and I came tonight because I wanted to have clarification that we don't have any more of the monstrosities that we have on the other two properties. and he and I talked about that um and I hadn't seen the floor plan or anything like that and so I wanted to know um where it in comes into where I am at

how close they're going to be. Um I welcome you to the neighborhood. I hope you know I have no problems with the variance now that I've seen the floor plan and so forth. um just so that they don't sit empty like the other two do. That is a really big concern for me for property values. You know, the the latest one's been almost two years now and it hasn't gone anywhere. So that's what I wanted to say.

Thank you. Is there anyone else here that'd like to speak on behalf on behalf of petition? Is there anyone here that'd like to speak against petition? Hearing none, I close the floor and open to board discussion or motion. Any questions?

I just a com couple comments if I could. Um I do not doubt in the least that this home would be absolutely beautiful. Um I do have a concern as I have um anytime it comes forward where we go in front of the building lines. I really feel like when developers create subdivisions and they put building lines and utility easements and things like that, they do it for a reason and that's to keep consistency within their development. Um, so I'm just kind of that's just kind of my my thought on that. I mean, I think the home will be beautiful. I honestly and truly feel like the garage portions of it probably a little overkill maybe that are possibly creating the need for that varian. So, um, that's just Mr. Chairman, I would make the motion to approve 26 C-B2 max gold. You did not have any. There's no

no conditions. No conditions. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Um, let's do a roll call vote, please.

Miss, no. Miss, no. Mr. Yes. Mr. Michael. Yes. Mr. Martin. Yes.

Motion passes. Thank you. Good luck. Don't get locked out in the garage. Just Just remember, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Nathan, we have any other business?

Uh, no other business tonight. Uh, do just have a couple quick reminders. Uh, well, in a statement, too. Uh, later in the year, we will be having a mandatory notatory, it's mandated by state statute that public hearing is what's mandatory. So, uh, but, uh, I'm planning on taking the August 5th Monday training session and doing a public hearing on, uh, the requirements of House Bill 1001, uh, which requires a public hearing before the end of the year to discuss housing and so on. I'm planning on doing that as a joint meeting among all the jurisdictions, all the planning commissions, all the PCAs, probably all the elected officials. So whether it's a formal public hearing or whether it's more to be uh more of a public workshop, that's something that I'm waiting for the state to give us. But I right now it's a public hearing. So anticipate having a very large public hearing for all the boards uh possible at the end of August in order to satisfy.

Okay. So, it's uh August third Oh, sorry. Uh August 31st. Yeah. 31st. It's the fifth Monday. Fifth Monday. Um so, please put that on your calendar and plan on attending. Um just so that we have a quorum as much as we can. Will each will Columbia City vote on theirs and and will the county vote on theirs or will it be one big The understanding that I have right now is that there is no action to be taken. Okay. It is a public hearing for discussion purposes. That's why I'm wondering whether the intent of the law was actually to require a public workshop

and whether we we can get some clarification from the state as to how we handle this. Yeah. Um, similar to what we do with comp plans where you have bunches of public workshops and then the public hearing itself is basically a statutory requirement and it's not really that functional other than to say yay go us and make final technical changes and stuff. So, but please put that on your calendar um just so that we can hopefully have quorums for everything. Um, it may wind up being that uh we don't have to have forums but again on the assumption it is a formal public hearing. Uh also the June 5th Monday meeting which I will not be at because I will be on vacation that week. Uh I am organizing it to be a special uh event. Um those of you who are more senior may not um uh it's more for uh moderate and no offices. So uh uh Kathy and Dennis, you guys may not get as much benefit as the other three of you. Janna, you're kind of in between. Um but uh I'm anticipating uh Chip and possibly Scott Wagner uh to be leading that session. uh and talking about uh their specialties in relation to development and uh then also having an off-site field trip as well um uh as part of that one. So you might want to put that on your calendar at the end of June. Uh that one's a standard fifth Monday training session. It's not going to be as critical for forum, but I just highlight it for the but it's going to be a bit fun and I won't be here for it. So if that's a selling point. Um so I think that covers the three things that I talked about last night

with planning commission. The twoth Mondays and HP 101. So Amanda, was there anything else we had for him? Do we have a anything filed yet for next month? So that's what I've got. I had an individual and I don't think it has anything to do with us whatsoever ask me today what's going on with the gas lines all leaking lately. Um so

so there's a lot of poring going on for cyber lines so which has been the last several years. Uh but I was also made aware of a couple other scenarios uh which are rumors and I'd rather not say talk about rumors in public forum. Uh but I know that a lot of them are due to fiber line being fiber lines being bored. So at least none with one boom. We will fake wood here. All righty. Have nothing else. Motion journ. Thank you.