Municipal Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Father, we do thank you for this day. We thank you for the beautiful sunshine you give us today, Lord. And we thank you for all the blessings you give us. Lord, we ask you to be with us tonight, Lord. Any decision we make or whatever, Father, it' be to glorify your name. Go with us now. Lead us through this service. And Father, give us all a safety home. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. See, you want to lead the pledge? Yes, sir. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

May be seated. Man, if you give the roll call, please. Sir. Chair Moore, here. Vice Chair Shriner here. Miss Hullman, here. Mr. Morell, you have a quorum. Got a quorum. Thank you. Uh, I'd like to introduce Ben Allen. Some of you met him tonight. Ben's new. Glad to have you with us. Thank you. Uh, I guess we need to approve the minutes from I don't know whether can or not. I wouldn't hear. I I read them. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Can we do that with two, Brian? Okay. Drew made the motion to approve them. Second from Sier. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos. So minutes carried from the last meeting. Uh Andy, you going to say anything for the public comment tonight or what? Oh, you will do. Okay. All right. We'll do public comment after staff. Here we go. Ready? Yep. Ready.

All right. Uh Jim Carpenter, staff planner. Uh the owner and applicant request approval of a variance of 8.8 ft plus or minus from the 40 foot front yard setback per gallatin zoning ordinance uh 06.04.040C and as shown in the Wood Haven on the lake phase 3 revised final plat on a 46 acre lot zoned R20 low density residential district located at 459 Bay Point Drive. Uh the owner and applicant are proposing to do a small 312 ft addition uh onto the front of their house uh I believe to extend their garage. um staff recommends that the variance or before I say that uh they're proposing that it'll match the existing uh house with the brick and

um hopefully the flowers will stay alive somewhere. Um and um other than that it should match it should be architecturally compatible uh with the existing house and the surrounding houses. Um but with that uh staff recommends that the variance uh not be approved uh due to it not meeting the 10 uh standards for variance. Um laid out in the zoning ordinance. Um and with that uh that's all I've got on that one. All you got?

Yep. And then uh this item will have a public hearing now I think. Yeah, that's what uh anyone in the audience either for this or against it would like to speak. I can either speak now or after you close public comment. We got to formally open it to the public. Yeah. And then we have to formally close it to the public.

Yeah. Seeing no one, I'll open it again. Anybody want to speak from the public? We'll close it to the public then. And uh let me read um the owner and applicant request approval of variance of 8.8 8 ft from the 40ft yard setback for Gallton's zoning ordinance with section 0604 040C and shown in the Wood Haven on the late phase three revised final plat on a 046 acre lot tax map on the zone low residential residential district located at 459 Baypoint. Okay, Andy, I guess we ready for you. Andy Leath Greenley Design 114B West Main Street. [clears throat] Um, so the owner of the property, Mr. Brett Woods, is they enjoy living here. They find that their needs are such that they need a thirdcar garage and so this is their option of doing that. [clears throat] They have explored putting a carriage garage in the back, but we would run into similar problems there with setbacks and access. and this is the solution that he is proposing that would allow them to expand their house to meet the needs of their family. Now, in order to address a few things on architecture, I talked to Mr. Woods what they intend to do because it's going to be so hard to match the brick up is to paint the whole entire house once they're done to make sure everything matches. Um, lots of properties in this area have threecar garages and so this, in my opinion, would bring this property more in compliance with the surrounding neighbors. I think one thing that would be important to add is that this project, should it pass the BZA tonight, will have to go before the homeowners association at Baypoint. So, the neighbors there will have input on this.

I mean, obviously, no neighbor showed up tonight, but they will have to go through the HOA for this to be approved and that they'll have input there. I did talk to the owner and they just by chance had their annual HOA meeting a week or so ago and some neighbors did question the sign being in the yard. So, it's already out there what he would like to do. And um he said several neighbors have talked to him. I know that's hearsay and not for the record, but regardless to let you guys know, this will have to go through their HOA for approval even if it passes here tonight. So, the neighborhood will have lots of input on it. If you go through the criteria here, the the 10 different things, I think most of them, there's a few of them that are always difficult to overcome. Um, we feel like our hardship in this case is the shape of the light, and I make that argument the best that I can. Um, and the position of the house just makes this the logical place to extend the garage, the living space or the space for the home. And I think it's also good that the 40 foot setbacks are are nice. They're not really um we don't do those a whole lot anymore. So, we still have a pretty sizable front yard. And don't feel like that this variance in this addition is going to impact anyone in a negative manner. So, I'll be happy to entertain your questions. My guess is that the landscaping is going to be restored in full. Uh Mr. Woods is a landscaper by trade, so would imagine he's going to fix this up really nice. Ryan, uh was all the neighborhood, was they informed of this? So, in accordance with the laws that are there for notification, they've been notified with signage

and newspaper article and such. I just wondered no one showed up. So, but they have they was they was aware made aware of it. Yeah. Okay. Questions for Andy? Yeah. Okay. Um, assuming that the garage is added, how far will it be from the from the road? From the property line, it's going to be 32 feet. So, okay. So, that's what I was thinking. Okay. Um, and it's only in that 12 or 13 foot stretch. The main part of the house you see by this exhibit, it sets way back past the 40.

Yeah. So, it's not like this structure is really encroaching into the front into the front yard just as greatly. How much of a variance would they have needed if they put a single carriage garage behind the house? I think your biggest issue there um is you can see right there that the driveway is right on the property line.

Yes. And so more so than anything, it's getting access back there because you get even more narrow as that house goes back and that property line comes together. Is it accurate that and I don't see any other structures on this but back from the the pole barn in Baypoint a while back to to reference that not comedically but for contextually was if that accessory structure was built behind the homeowner it would essentially have felt like it was also in the backyard of some of the neighbors. So again, I hadn't been out here, but if a carriage garage was built behind the house, would that feel like it's in his rear neighbor's backyard?

I mean, I can only tell you from my perspective, and if I I was a neighbor out there, I would rather have this slight encroachment into the front yard than have the carriage built into the rear yard. Okay. That's that's kind of what I'm looking for is the context to see. Oh, yeah. Can you zoom in on that, Jim? You may be able to on your screen. Well, I tried to do the but I'm talking about like the the Google view. No, I'm looking for like the aerial view where I can see where the other houses are. But I mean I trust Andy's judgment on it. I mean if there's So there's there's somebody's got a pool just right. Oh yeah. Okay. Back.

So I can see that from this picture and I can say this. I'm the HOA president in my neighborhood and that could be a hurdle for them. Just so they know. No, they he's full of he's active in the HOA. He's okay. Well aware of the process and part of it frequently, but he's not one of those that's inactive. He's active with the agent. Okay. I was just curious to know if they had explored other options, but it seems like that's the the simplest approach other than only having two cars, but not my place to tell them the third world problems. Maybe

understand. Yeah. I have another project unrelated since nobody's here. Say it again. I have another project that's unrelated that I'll share with you since nobody's here. We were having some issues in another municipality because he h wants to build a 20,000 square foot accessory structure just for that's a big accessory structure. Yeah. So, you know, we we don't all have the same problems. I mean that was the extent of my question other than the brick because I have a similar brick at my home and we had to get new mailbox and it was hard to match the brick. He well aware of that and he's not even going to try. So he's willing to paint the entire house to make it uniform.

That's all the questions that I had. What was the main reason Brian uh that staff recommended ny sort specific one? We always recommend denial just because the prop the the actual application doesn't meet our code. So, um it's it's not for one reason or another against any of these criteria. It's just because it does not meet the code. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions for Let me read through this. Just a reminder too as you're making your motion to try to speak to the criteria so that um there's reasoning that backs you up. Yeah, understandable. The other houses that have threecar garages, were those built that way or did they get varants to add that additional?

I can't speak to that. I'm not aware of any other variances that they may have had, but it looks there are some newer houses in there and I assume that they built with the third car in mind. How many feet are we over? 8.8. Hey, I've got an uncle that lives over there and those homes were from a time when you just didn't have the cars that we have. Like he's got a 6,000 foot house with a two-car garage. This is probably one of the earlier houses in the neighborhood. The some of the others are newer built. [clears throat] They're just like that. They're big houses with a twocar garage.

Any other question? got all mine answered.

I'll make a motion then that we gr them grant them the variance. If you do that, you got to select there's a like there's a through j. So like you would have to say that based on the fact that the variance like item G that it is the minimum variance that would make possible the reasonable use of the land. You just have to select one of like A through J to say this is why basically you have to say why why you want to grant it and it's A through J. It should meet actually all of A through J. you just it it helps to speak to at least some of the stronger points.

Sure. Well, I don't know what to what to use. So, if you go to if you go to page 19, if you go to page 19 of the PDF, I don't know. Oh, I got you. I got you. All right. I don't do it. That's all right.

I I was looking That's what I was looking at here. I was trying to find figure out. So if you go to the last page, this one right here, we had to zoom in on that. So if you go to this last page, yeah, Green Lid, so of those of A through J, Green Lid's presentation of A through J hits all of those points. Well, I I I would say I'd use it as a hardship created created by anyone with interest in the property could. Well, that wouldn't be exactly right, would it? Well, what they're saying is the hardship wasn't created. Yeah.

Like they didn't create their own hardship, which would mean like if it was an irregular shaped lot or and they they did argue that the shape of the lot is justification. Um, I I assume that's intending to allude to the fact that it's slightly pieshaped and may not allow for, you know, the the flexibility that they may be able to get otherwise.

I've seen that before with those pies-shaped lots. They're already in encroachment in the back because they try and keep continuity on the front of the houses on a curve. I've seen that in neighborhoods, but I mean, you could literally site A through That's the way A through J.

A I I I would make a motion A through J be considered and grant them the variance. Will that work, Brian? I I think when you say that it be considered, you may want to say um something to the effect that, you know, we we feel that the criteria A through J have been met or something like that versus like, you know, considered is not really I don't know if that really justifies what you're saying. You see what I'm saying? I make the motion then uh to grant them the variance using A through H uh and the hardship that they may have. I I make the motion through all this that we grant them grant them the variance.

I would I would second that and emphasize that uh emphasize in addition to A throughJ that item G that they are in fact using the minimum variance needed. Okay, we have a motion and I would second that and a second. Any discussion about that? Any question about that? No questions. All those in favor will say I I nos. I think I heard. Okay. So, we grant you the varian. Alrighty. Uh, Brian, do you have anything that you'd like to

Not at this time. I don't have any other business to share with you. Andy, I would be curious to know if it passes the HOA. Just if if we could ask for some followup. Just curious to see how the HOA felt about it. Well, you would think if the neighbors or anyone that had they could against it, they should have showed up, you know, or they would have showed up. I mean, well, way most of those boards go, it'll go to the actual board. Um Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, it could be it's just the first phase. Yeah.

And they may show up the other one. Who knows? But anyway, any other business come for the board at this time? Oh, I do have a question. Okay. Uh, Miss Gregory's replacement, will the mayor be appointing someone? What is the process? Because we do need to find a fifth. We've got some They've got somebody in mind. Yeah. I was trying to say it at the beginning. I did see that there was an item on the agenda. Um, I am not aware at this point in time what the action had been, so I can't report on that yet. But which one? Uh for a new member. Oh, okay. Okay. We've heard some names.

It was an action item uh on the city council's agenda. Dempsey's name was mentioned. Okay. I miss I missed that. Okay. Anything else? Motion to adjurnn. I make a motion to adjurnn and I'll second my own second my own motion. [laughter] Can I do that? All f say.