Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

[Music] harder please join me and say the pledge [Music] allegiance hey roll call um yeah I just want to remind everyone to talk directly into the microphone or vice chairperson Mooney will not be able to hear you at all um chairperson Sebert here Vice chairperson Mooney oh Mike I think you muted here thank you member Phillips here member Rogers member Philip Pig here we have five for a quorum oh wonderful okay I also would like to introduce our City attorney Aaron steel have Amy Stark our community community development director Courtney Harvey our permit coordinator and Sue Moody will be be our court reporter tonight all right on to City attorney oh please Aon please right the proceedings in tonight's meeting will be recorded by a court report order for future transcrip transcription if needed all speakers will be sworn in before speaking please remember to speak into the microphone at the leor in a clear voice and only address the board at all times no discussion between parties will be permitted as the court reporter will not be able to accurately transcribe multiple persons talking at once the city C all ordinances and the notice for tonight's public hearing are present for review and made a part of the official record for each petition the appal application with all submitted attachments the city's official denial

the permit requests and the staff report are also available for review and are made part of the official record each applicant is reminded that the burden of proof of the necessity for the variance is on him or her a variance is granted to relieve unnecessary hardship or a practical difficulty in the way of carrying out the strict letter of the municipal zoning code as determined from the facts presented and is not to be considered to be setting a precedent for future variance results quests the board will only consider the nature and conditions of the property and whether these factors mandate a variance the concurring vote of four members of the board should be necessary to reverse any order requirement decision or determination of the community development director approval is subject to written acceptance of the terms herein by the petitioner within 30 days after re seat of the written notice of approval from the City of Fenton board members may ask questions to clarify the facts presented the applicant May request a continuance at any time during the hearing prior to a call for the vote to bring in additional documentation the board may also request a continuance to gather additional information of our further visit to the site thank you okay so anyone wishing to speak at this please please step forward to the podium pleas do we need your name and address or just name just name okay Mark doring Amy Stark community development director okay do you swear that the information you'll share here before this board tonight is the truth and the whole truth to the best of your knowledge well okay thank you okay I guess this is considered old business since we had to cancel last month's meeting so let's get right into

it we're going to hear case 2025 v- 01-a a petition by Mark a doring of doring engineer Inc on behalf of Watson home Properties LLC for the following variance from the zoning code at 690 South Highway Drive for the purpose of a boundary adjustment plot to create two New Lots one section 4151 190 E4 to reduce the minimum required lot size and two section 4.34 A5 A3 to allow an existing billboard to be located a distance closer than 150% of the height of the billboard to the adjusted lot line the property is Zone hp1 Hospitality Park District M Stark do we have everything to hear this case we do uh would you like a staff summary sure okay second to get my PowerPoint up all right the partitioner is proposing a boundary adjustment to move the shared lot line between 670 um and 690 South Highway Drive um that would be to move this lot line approximately 50 feet to the West 670 South Highway Drive is improved with a former restaurant bar and it's currently vacant and 690 South Highway Drive which is the subject lot um has an existing billboard on the lot um this lot received a variance in 1984 um from the minimum lot width requirements to construct that billboard um with the condition that with if when the property was sold the billboard

would be removed the property was sold in 1985 and the city sent letters requesting that the billboard be removed um but never proceeded further probably due to the unclarity of being able to enforce that condition because as you know variances run with the land and not with the property owner um the billboard is a non-conforming structure it's 60 feet tall which exceeds the maximum 35 foot height for Billboards and it's located closer than 150% of the height of the billboard from the front and side lot lines um additionally both properties are considered legal non-conforming because they are smaller than the minimum one acre lot size required for the district um the proposed boundary adjustment would cause 690 South Highway Drive which is the lot with the billboard to further deviate from the minimum lot requirement um it would reduce the lot size from 041 acres to .18 Acres um again the the minimum lot requirement is one acre it would also reduce the lot width to 47 feet under the current code the minimum lot width requirement is 150 fet the variance granted in 1984 reduced the lot minimum lot width to 101.4 this would further reduce that lot width to 47 ft um the adjusted lot line would also create a further encro M of the non-conforming billboard to the adjusted lot Line This would reduce the distance from the side Lot line from 58t to approximately six feet and the code requires that Billboards cannot be closer than 150% of the height of the billboard to the lot line um so in this instance um the billboard uh distance from the lot line would have to be 90 feet um in order to meet the requirements of the code so variances are required um for both of those um sections in order to uh proceed with consideration of the boundary adjustment thank you hey and do we have doring a partitioner good evening again Mark

doring president doring engineering I represent uh Watson Holmes who was Tyler Watson Tyler's probably been before here before you yet but um he's a young guy which everybody's young to me these days but um he's got several properties that he's investing here in Fenton and doing a very nice job so it's good to have him Inon some them as you go forward he also owns Mr rder plumbing company and then you also have some other um other trades off of that rter but could be her now's so successful he's on vacation and talking to you so Amy point out a lot of good things for thanks Amy mayy but anyway um but I do have to coordinate with Amy because she running my PowerPoint and I fly things in to keep pass so go ahead Amy good next one so here's the site go ahead Amy um North is up Interstate 44 there's the South out of Road and there's a merits Drive coming in as our property as exist today okay and you see we got two existing Lots like Amy alluded to go ahead Amy thank you um the existing restaurant was constructed in 19 1958 guys I was constructed in 1959 I promise you I don't look as good as I used to look but I'm going to show you in a few minutes this restaurant really looks bad okay go ahead Amy um here's the billboard Amy discussed it's again it's 60 feet tall and by the city ordinances it's supposed to be 90 feet one and a half times the um height ball radius I'm sorry the setback supposed to be one and a half times the height so it should be 90 ft away from every property currently which it's not when we're done it's still not going to be but it's going to be a little more in the One Direction our purpose here tonight is really for Tyler

he wants to sell the restaurant lot and get a new restaurant we want to tear the building down that's our goal here tonight he wants to get a restaurant moved into there it's more difficult to sell a restaurant life lot especially of this size when you have a billboard with income on it would make the entire light very expensive for somebody who building a small restaurant because they have to about the future Revenue that comes from that billboard sign so we' like am I confusing you and you look confused um so this re I don't know what the revenue in the billboard sign is but it's probably about $3,000 a month okay so if you buy the whole property you're going to have to monitorize bring back all those $3,000 month payments when you buy this property so this property value if you if you put the whole thing together together I guess is what I'm saying if you didn't keep it subdivided into two lots you'd be end up buying a lot plus $33,000 a month revenue from a billboard sign so the price a lot instead of being maybe I'm going to say some numbers here $600,000 the price a lot may now be 700,000 I mean maybe 12 $1.2 million because of that future revenues that that sign brings into the own okay okay good I apologize so we want to keep the two lots go ahead Amy if I can remember where I'm at here okay there's an existing entrance there Amy and there's a shared entrance to the east side there and again that's our parking lot theree Amy um total acreage of the tracks Amy Says 1.22 Acres so it's a non-conforming lot but it was done legally by the city ordinances when it was created go ahead Amy um lot there is 083 acres and the other Lots 38 I guess I can't see anymore guys I go ahead Amy and here's a

view of that 19 goad Amy hit 1958 um building that needs to go bye-by and here's the existing 60 foot billboard there you see the billboard is very Stout it's not going anything where moving the property line ain't going to be a situation where somebody gets closer and it falls over during a storm like we had a couple nights ago very well-built sign thanks Amy go um here's a close-up to the abandoned restaurant here another one that's good Amy F I want to go watch the Blues game myself Amy so next one's good Amy um this is a view from the morat sil pass um love the site you can see the sign to the right and you can see the restaurant down below to the left okay um again our requests for variance like Amy said ear earlier the lot size of the western lot is going to be less than one acre which does not comply with current standards okay and then number two we need to allow the Bild billboard closer to the east Eastern property line because remember moving that Eastern property line to the west and even though the light the sign doesn't meet the existing code ordinance we're going to make that distance less next one Amy um so again the reason is for the variances to re maintain separate ownership for the restaurant site and the billboard site and we want to make the Eastern lot the restaurant site we think can be a future restaurant larger if we can get enough parking on it to enable a new Resturant restaurant to be constructed Amy U this is the boundary adjustment plant Amy went through that well so I don't need to spend any time on that and again here's same thing am Amy went go ahead Amy that's the existing Lots in blue 83 Acres 214 to of Frontage lot9 acres and go ahead Amy and that lot with originally is 104 okay and then we would like to move the lot to that red line like Amy said and to do that now we're going to have um proposal lot of

1.3 now I got a conforming lot for you 206 ft of property furnit and then the proposed lot's going to go down to 0.19 acres from L4 something okay Amy and then that furnish there goes down to 51 feet trouble seeing it does say 51 um yeah the lot width is me under the current code is measured at the setback line so that would be 47 feet thank you Amy yeah Amy we're making a good team next slide work on it again aerial and goad Amy that's the existing lot line I want to show to you what it looks like on the aial and you move it over to there on the aial okay next slide Amy summary um both lots are created prior to the adoption of ordinance that requires one acre in hp1 Hospitality Park zoning district there are currently two lots that do not meet the current one lot one acre lot size this request there'll be one lot is greater than one acre and one acre one lot that is less than one acre apologize and in order to remove the existing restaurant constructed in 1958 and construct a new restaurant the additional lot is needed for building and parking parking requirements are much they were created and with that I thank you for appreciation questions I'd be happy to answer [Music] them right thank you please stay up there might be best if we have questions anybody board have I give us am attorney if I say this wrong I don't believe I believe it would be conforming if you granted this it' be a non-conforming lot if this easement was granted and I'm sorry I forgot the first part of your question that what happens to us it

would just be very very small non-conforming lot for use as a billboard yeah it'll be a smaller non-conforming lot exactly it is today it'll still be on the tax rows your assessor's office but it'll just be having a sign like the lot does today but the the lot itself it be less so you're not going to notice any difference with what we really do tonight okay but again we need to get more parking area over onto the other lot in order to sell the other lot on restaurant so your Cent will still own the tiny lot as well as over eight um his presid plan to keep this sign lot himself finances and things like that he'll sell it if he can make money on it but he going to make money as time goes um but he does not want to be in the restaurant business but he might set somebody up he may still own the lot while somebody else does a restaurant or whatever goes in that little spot okay it's going to take a very specific user to do a one acre commercial lot in the city with setbacks Green Space requirements things like that but we get it up to one acre we think we can take the building down and take the site look nice again missing something that um this thing sign is higher than our current requirements that's correct there need to be also variants to allow that sign to stay at it's no uh because we're not changing the the billboard we're just changing the lot line so the only variance is needed is is the variance from the lot line if they were to change the billboard they would need a variance for the billboard yeah okay I noticed the smoke [Laughter] coming um so the owner not really sure what he wants to do with the property he thinks he wants

to sell but he needs to make this variance in order to keep the billboard in his own offers let's say yeah is that what we're looking at yeah so we're anticipating possibly a restaurant user but somebody else comes down the line and wants to pay the right price like all of us he's sell it and know City still got to approve the Zone things like that right right um I'd like the idea of a lot coming into Conformity with our know zoning in that moving that property line next close to that billboard itself I'm not sure what kind of can of worms we're opening there I'm I'm not real comfortable with that idea myself know how everybody else feels up here but you know we really don't have a clear idea of what you're going to wind up doing with this property right so I just in favor of of making that boundary adjustment personally I it's very difficult to sell a lot not knowing what you're selling and if we we' go out looking for a vendor for a buyer right now or user okay hey we think we can get experience through the City of Fenton okay but if we you really can't Market it saying you know you're going to lose six or seven parking spaces if you don't on this size lot so it makes it very difficult to Market I understand I I I get that uh personally I would think it'd be best just to combine this into one lot and give the extra 1.18 Acres or whatever it was for that small lot again that would mean tearing down the billboard obviously because the variance for that that's not correct they actually could keep the they could combine the lot and keep the billboard

and board with the that was actually within your staff member a plan was approved where they actually combining the lot and doing a development but it did go forward but it is possible to combine the lots and develop and keep the billboard okay yeah I apologize I tried to explain that first and I went too quick that's all right I'm I'm I'm a little slow this evening so it's fine I'm with you but um what I was saying originally is if you sell it as one you've got to sell it you're going to sell it as ground Plus for that sign that's a very difficult for somebody someone to commit that at this understand that's I okay I I don't because I would think that would be a revenue that g to buy the lot with a sign making Revenue you're G to get that re no yes you're GNA pay price yeah may I suggest that restaurants don't want to be in the sign leasing business one okay they don't want to be there and two we're not talking about an apple Beast coming to the site okay it's going to be a local guy who's doing well maybe back in the industrial area that wants to move up to a new location a new building be more efficient okay when you put that that sign has a big value to my client or some future owner okay and I'm GNA like I tried to say before I'm gonna say it's worth 600 Grand I'm gonna say the empty lot's worth 6 grand okay when I go to the bank I got to borrow 600 Grand more and I'm just little old Mark you know it gets a little tough it's a bigger upfront cost sir uh you're saying uh do you know that is that property for sale I guess yes is he asking price 600,000 no I made that up I have no idea but why would you not know how much it is when you come in here tonight the I apologize I'm I'm an

engineer I'm not a real estate person but you know that's a I've been doing this for 38 years and no one's ever told me that tonight George and I appreciate that no that's okay uh but you're saying that if we if we combine it like uh like you want whoever buys this is going to get 3,000 a month is what you said approximately whatever they're going to get that money every month off of that sign of the billboard okay so all right let's say that the the property is they're asking 600,000 for it and if uh we don't okay this and uh it comes as two separate p is well let's say that he has to pay do the back pay on the billboard talking about how much is that how much would be owed on that George I I apologize never been when I go to zoning I'm not used to talking dollars because I'm told dollars don't matter for Zoni okay but you make some very good points I appreciate that is correct I mean generally when you're looking at a variance you're not looking solely at the financial impact that it is having you are supposed to be looking at the unique characteristics of the property and whether or not there is an hardship based on what they're trying to do based on the characters of the property not based on finances that might come into play sorry I apologize yeah no problem 38 years first time I like it hey any other questions go ahead remember more Moone excuse if if they I'm sorry go ahead member Mooney okay thank you so um just a couple comments I know it's all about property but that one piece of property totally revolves around a billboard so are there other avenues

like for tax purposes or Revenue purposes that that billboard alone could be leased to someone else like um the owner could choose to lease it out and and combine the properties so question is if just leave take it into one lot and then the owner receive Revenue back from it yeah he could um there's lots of billboards out there where people don't own the property yeah and I got like said I'm I'm the engineer and I the real estate agent and the owner thought that was very important to send me to here this evening but the owner is on vacation and I'm not so I really have to apologize I don't know the details of a signed contract for a piece of property okay I kind of feel like the same I feel like um just looking at the property the best thing for would be that com combine the you have two non-conforming lots um combining them now you have a conforming lot with a non-conforming billboard and um and that's an issue we could probably figure out but um I don't know I just feel uncomfortable with having the smaller lot I'd love to see the property developed don't get me wrong I'm all in favor of that but it's um that one little lot with the sign uh billboard on it U becomes a its own animal when you sell the the developed property is someone else and um I don't know what other s that presents down the road for the city thank you um more of

um with the hisory going back on the 60 the current 60 sign was in 1985 with a condition that has really been uncontested or or tested in any kind of a eating that sign theoretically should have been burn down but we don't I would I would be uh concerned that maybe whatever we do future board or future you know zoning situation might contest the actuality for the scientist there I mean 1985 was supposed to be torn down and it just never got done because push um that might want to be asking you might I mean Bruce you make a great point because I didn't think about that but if you try to sell this as one track you got to disclose to this person at least I would disclose to that person okay that the sign could go away at any point never been tested legally by the city and the city hasn't had that indication that they wanted to do that over these years which is really going to make it difficult sell this parcel M that premium or that future Revenue that's not not really to me the biggest issue with this I I'm just just not seeing real hardship thatly with what our Planning and Zoning have set out we're not here to set up

planning if this should comply or not help this board if I was to ask to be table tonight and I come back with a couple different layouts for a small restaurant say hey guys here's my problem I haven't done that yet well you can always ask for a continuous yes if that's what you want to do yeah I think I'd like to ask continu you guys you guys expressed some very good questions that I didn't anticipate and I'd like a little time to look okay then don't have to do a vote on that I do to continue yes you would oh we do vote okay hey all right have to vote on everything at B of adjustment last time did we can I say sure of course you can right it seems to me like we have one nonconforming lot and another nonconforming that is correct all three of these shouldn't be what the way they are way to correct this whole situation make it one everything that correct yes close the Billo billboard would remain non-conforming because you're not changing the billboard low that everything else would be but okay I would there's no requirement that there a restaurant on this spot that is not the only allowed property I mean that's something you've been talking about but yes is it possible another use could be on this property F lot we're just looking for a say Hey you buy this parcel size okay we're hoping for some help on that and sometimes we can't get that and we understand all right so we have a vote

for continuance to next meeting for case number 2025 v- 01-a I have a roll call vote please take that as a motion oh second yes okay I'll make a motion to continue until next meeting uh case number 2025b one- a okay do I have a second I second okay roll call vote then please member Rogers I member Phillips I Vice chairperson Mooney hi chairperson Sebert I member Susan Philips Pig I motion approved to continue to April thank you so much April is April okay well I came back from Florida last month Amy called me when I was driving back from the airport and said you guys weren't going to let me meet I'll come back in April that was my fault no that's that's great I'm sorry I'm a smart Alex night if you needed more time we could continue it to a different month thank you right yeah give with Amy if you do need more time thank you sir okay so that takes care of old flash have no new business may I get a motion for approval of the minutes from December 17th 2024 motion to approve a second second roll call vote please member Phillips I member Phillips Pig I chairperson Sebert I Vice chairperson Mooney hi member Rogers I minutes approved great we have no other business

I guess I need a motion to close our meeting I'll make a motion to close the meeting do I have what second roll call vote please member Rogers hi member Philips Pig hi chairperson Sebert I Vice chairperson Mooney I member Phillips I we are adjourned all right thank you thanks Mike thanks everyone okay guys that fun on what's that that's