Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Today is August 18th, 2026. The Lawrence Board of Zoning Appeals is convened at this moment. I need a motion and a second for the approval of the 21st of July speech.

I make a motion to approve.

Do you have a second? Second. All those in favour say it by saying yes. All those against, no. The speech remains as it is written. If you have not done so yet, please register at the bottom of the room. And anyone who wishes to speak tonight, stand up and raise your right hand. Swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth. All the truth is nothing but the truth. Don't lie, I swear. Thank you. We have special requests tonight. Resignation, withdrawal or resignation? Good evening, Renea Raffa, Director of Public Works. The petition for Valene at the Ottman 1901 of Penelon Pike has been withdrawn. have not been able to complete the revision of the city of Indianapolis in time for the hearing and they have already had three resumes, so they cannot ask for another one. Therefore, they must withdraw the petition, which they have done, and they will have to present it again if they need variants in the future. So you know what happened. It is not simply lost in nothing. It went like this and I just wanted it to be part of the verbal.

All right.

So, can they just ask again? They don't have to wait another year, since... They withdraw. Because they withdrew it. If they hadn't withdrawn it, they would have had to wait another year. So I advised them to withdraw it when they are ready to ask again. They will have to pay the taxes and everything else again. Problem. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Requesting. If you want to approach, indicate your name and address and give us some details. Oh, wait a minute. One moment. I have to... New point in the order of the day. 26 LSV 14 78844. Fall Creek Drive. John. Requires a variant of the standard of development of table 743-103-1 for a requisite of lateral alignment of 30 feet required, 17.5 feet proposed.

Go ahead, sir. My name is Jonathan Shoppe. I live at 734 of Fall Creek Drive.

Do you want me to tell you what I'm doing?

We would like to build a garage and our land is in slope, Uv degrades in a rather clear way towards Uv, Fall Creek and Uv. This takes the ideal position, the closest to the road, Uv, but fortunately retreated compared to the roadway and Uv without damaging the existing mature trees and other simple obstacles. Uv, we worked on the site choice with the team here

in the office next door, and we found what I think is a pretty good position.

UMM actually aligns it closer to what would be ideal, compared to the arreter limit, but UMM, which was built here a few years ago, on the foundation of the 20s, is located about five and a half meters from the reception line. So it positions itself well.

I think it will certainly improve the various aspects of our property.

It seems that you are quite far from the other neighbors.

There are more than a hundred of us neighbors.

I think their garage is about three or four meters away.

So they are practically against each other, back against back, garage against garage.

It should be very comfortable. Do you have any questions? I have one. I was looking at this, I'm trying to... I'm looking at the image here because I'm trying to visualize it. Is this all yours, this land?

So you already have two houses, a wooden hut and a self-covered place.

Yeah. And I mean, this is what the map says.

Yes, okay.

The wooden hut, sir. Oh, what a day! The material of the old bridge over Fall Creek. So it is affectionately called Cabana di Vecchio. Um is the name. Um and um is for our spring garden. And then um, the residence adjacent to the garage site, probably also from the 40s. It was a structure in cement blocks that was placed much earlier than our property. And um, to position the garage at the same distance from the road In front of the main residence. From our area.

And away, I think, domestic agriculture.

We are one of the only sites. They are at least known that they are under the three acres. We are not even actually just under one. Somehow our land is inferior to what it is. It was a bit difficult to try to square everything.

So that part without anything is simply forested.

There are woods, there is a... there is our tool for the exhaust of Lorenz, one for our rainwater, which passes right in the middle of that third lot. The lifting station was at gravity or... I don't know when they started making the pumping stations, but...

So yes, I simply have a house from the 40s that you don't really use. The garage will go next to that one. Is that where you currently park your cars?

We have a vial directly in front of that vial in the alley. Let's park the vial.

Where is this drive written?

It's there.

and there is a roof in the front right corner of the street view. I was trying to understand the map.

Other questions? So the new garage you are building will need the house, but it is next to the small house in front.

Don't you want it closer to the house?

I'm just curious.

Again, the gap between the gap between where the garage would be and the real house is of 12 feet. Even lower from the back of this garage, on the first floor of the former house that has now been rebuilt.

It looks like a beautiful land.

It's very steep. A beautiful serba we were talking about.

It's rather mountainous.

It ends with a rocky garden.

Other questions, Commission? Thank you, sir.

Oh, wait.

Are there any protesters in favor or against the petition? Now we will listen to the city of Lorenz. Good evening again, I am Renata, the Director of Public Works. So, as Mr. Schupp explained to you, the levels of this property cause a practical difficulty in positioning the garage closest to the main residence, which they actually use. As I wrote in our report, this property is an existing single-family residential lot located in a consolidated neighborhood mainly composed of independent houses. The proposed improvement would invade the lateral margin required of about 12.5 feet resulting in a proposed margin of 17.5 feet. He had made a request when he built the new house to modify the margins then, and we had granted it. The properties on that side of the road are all in the area of ​​A, which requires rather significant margins. Excuse me. They should actually be 30 feet from the border of the property. 30 feet from the edge of its property represents a huge unevenness. So the garage should be on more levels to be able to put it where it is required by the code. Another requirement of a DA is to have lots of three acres. This is not the case. There are three lots, but it is not a three acre lot. So it does not necessarily meet any of the standards of development of property. On the other side of the road, north, south and east, everything is in the area of two. So it makes sense to meet those requirements. This will correspond to what surrounds the property. The area of 2, the margins, this satisfies the margins of the area of 2. So the practical difficulty that we have to look for when evaluating whether to approve or deny a variant applies to that specific property and I think it has met all those requirements. The variant does not create any additional non-residential activity. It will park us in cars. It will demolish the existing roof. In reality it has made a request for permission. We have released it today. It does not affect public health, safety or well-being. It will not affect drainage, public services, emergency access or other municipal services. And it is not expected to negatively affect on anything other than his private property. Since the request is limited to a dimensional standard and does not modify the residential use permissible in this district, we recommend approval. Thank you, René. Questions for René?

I have a question. Yes, ma'am. So all the houses on your side of the road are all A? Yes, ma'am. Have we considered reclassifying the area? Because it seems that they are all occupied by single-family homes.

They are. They are all single-family homes and we have made several exceptions for that neighborhood. And probably it would make sense, but every single owner should come and make a request. and present yourself in front of the council to ask it. That is something that, when we finally have control over the zoning, will be one of the aspects that we will try to change in our general plan.

In the meantime, since I myself had to do it for an old neighborhood where I lived, you could lead an initiative. Go to your neighbors and ask them if they would like a re-classification of the area. Prepare a petition and I can organize it for you.

But unfortunately at the moment we don't have the control to make that kind of changes to the general plan. It would certainly be one of my priorities once we have transferred the competence to the city of Lawrence, removing it from Indianapolis.

When will it happen?

I know that this administration is working on it. To be honest, I've been waiting for 28 years.

Maybe it's been so long that we've been waiting for a long time.

You know, in Indianapolis, for every local improvement permit you require, they charge $140. Do you think they will give up that money?

But they are not the last word, right?

No, we decide for the variants, but every structure that is built requires a permit for local improvement through the city of Indianapolis. I'm talking about giving up money, I mean the legislature. Why are you referring to that? If the legislature intervened, would things have changed? The state legislature should have to change it.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Exactly, and that's why if the state legislature changed it, then I imagine that this administration and others are working to get a change there.

We are in negotiation with the city of Indianapolis, almost from the beginning of this administration, even the previous administration had addressed the issue, as well as the previous one. So much time. A lot of time has passed. Yes, us. If you know people with whom we should talk, I would be happy to take their names and contact them. So it's something we've been trying to do for many, many, many years. Do you have any other questions about this petition? Thank you. Thank you, Reni. Does the plaintiff have anything else to add? No. Anyone else? Four against.

I don't know how high the water was in your garden. On the slope? On the slope. You didn't have water, did you? Oh, talk about this rain!

It's a great, a great time to live on a slope. We were, I think, our...

It was... Probably less than a mile. It's a good one.

The council is now ready to vote on the 26 LSB 14 7834 Falkirk Drive. Variance of the standard of development of the table 743.103.1 for the requisite of lateral alignment. 30 feet requested, 16.5 feet proposed. Il Consiglio ha accolto all'unanimità la vostra petizione. Non essendoci altre petizioni, il Lawrence Board of Zoning Appeals è aggiornato.