Zoning Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

Uh, we're going to start with invocation. Anybody want to Kyle? Kurt. Kurt. Yep. Here we go, Kurt. There you go. Lord, we just thank you for this day and we thank you for the time that we get to come together, Lord. And we just ask you bless what we do here this morning. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, we stand for the pledge. 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. Honor to the Texas flag. I pledge algiance to the Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. disgusting. All right. Uh, commissioners, have you had time to review the minutes from June 4th? Yes. Yes. Do we have a motion? Um, so I've noted that members attending Henry Enriquez was not uh set in there. That's been noticed that past several meetings. I just thought it might have been a typo, but just want to make it for the record that uh he was in attendance. You were in attendance? Yes. Okay. So, is that a motion to approve the minutes with Henry Enriquez to be added? Yes. Yes. There's a motion on the table. There a second. I'll second. There's a second. All in favor? I. Any objections?

Motion carries. All right, we're going to open the first case file number 2025-12-V. open a public hearing to consider the approval of the request of Barry Slawson and Cindy Slack, owners of variance from section 14-7-8B of the city of Odessa zoning ordinance to allow an accessory building to be built at 16 in sight yard setback instead of the required 5t sightyard setback from section 14-7-13 to allow set accessories building to be built with the 3-in separation instead of the required 6 ft separation for any other structures in a SPD special dwelling district lot 13 block 70 North Park edition 21st filing replat 9028 Rice Avenue thank you and good morning uh members and uh Mr. Arante. Um, there were 20 notices sent, zero returned, one approval, and zero protests. The property involved in this request is located in 9028 Rice Avenue. This side is currently zone SPD, Special Dwelling District, and is occupied by a single family residence. The property is surrounded by single family residential development to the north, southeast, east, and west. The applicant is Barry Slawson and Cindy Slack is the owner. And the purpose of the request is for a variance to allow a 10 ft x 16 ft accessory building to be built. And I do have to make a correction. Instead of the 16 in, it's uh to be built at 1 ft sideyard setback instead of the required 5t sideyard setback and to allow set accessory building to be built with a 3-in separation instead of the required 6t separation from any other structure. The applicant is requesting a variance from section 14-78E and section 14-713B of the city of Odessa zoning ordinance. The planning office had uh reviewed this

case and the staff analysis of this request is that there are no special conditions associated with the property that do not exist for others in the area. The applicant's request to reduce a site yard set back to uh instead of the 16 in to 1 ft instead of the required 5t and 3 in building separation instead of the 6 ft uh separation will create a precedence for the surrounding properties to follow. Reducing the site yard 16 to 16 I'm sorry to 1 ft will create hazards and hardships to this property due to blocked access to the rear of the property in case of an emergency. In addition, the proposed structure will reduce the amount of light, air, and open space for the adjacent property owner and potentially increase rainwater runoff and may affect adjacent properties. Staff recommends denial of this request for not satisfying the above variance criteria outlined in the zoning ordinance. However, should the board choose to approve this request, the planning staff will recommend the adoption with the following conditions. That no other structures or additions may be placed in the site setback. that the water runoff from the roof shall be directed away from the adjacent neighbors neighboring properties and that the accessory building shall not be used for to conduct business or be used as permanent living quarters. Any electrical connection will need to be tied to the main residence and no additional structures, additions or modifications may be made to the structure or property without first contacting the building inspections department and obtaining a building permit and scheduling the required inspections. I'm here for any questions. Any questions for staff? Is one of the main reasons for this setback for fire? Yes sir. Um so uh we do send these to all the departments. Um sometimes fire does not reach fire department does not reach back to us but that yes that is one of the hazards. Um the one of the the zoning ordinance uh

outlays some of the and issues or or hazards that have been uh in the past years have been uh a risk to to uh residences and it is uh known that fire does travel and it can jump from one room house one through the fence and to another. So yes, that is one of the reasons. Any other questions? Is there a possibility that maybe that structure could be turned towards the yard and back towards the alleyway instead of or is that still going to leave them without? We did inquire as to whether they would like to place it further back. Um there were issues to the yard to their or yeah there were issues to their yard how it was laid out. Um but if you like to open for public to speak then Mr. Slawson can go ahead and Okay. Any other questions for staff? No. Okay. Thank you Mto. At this moment we would like to open this meeting to the public. Anybody wants to speak for or against the variance, please step forward, state your name and address for the record. Okay. Good morning. Good morning. Morning. Morning. Um, can you please state your name and address for the record, sir? Okay. Uh, I'm Barry Slawson. I currently I have my own other home, too, but I'm helping. What's your address? Uh 9028 uh Rice Avenue. Okay, go ahead, sir.

Um so where do we stand right now as far as your um decision? Now, right now, it looks like from what I understand, we just we just got this while ago, but I'm real familiar with it. If there was a fire, that seems like a an important part of the uh issue. But if you look at this photo right here, you have that. Okay. What we were hoping to do that what what our intentions are is to place it there and butt it up against the porch, the back porch. And there will be there will be a gate right here on the between the two houses from this side of the fence over to the neighbor's fence is 8T and it's about same over here on ours 8T. Uh, so access if there was a fire um I mean they could and I'm I'm just trying to u deliver some information that would help us pursue uh this this portion right here. Another thing too is back here um from the fence in the one in the middle it it slopes down for drainage. And of course we all know or I don't know if everybody knows but two blocks over is the big drainage containment ditch. Um and that's that's the reason for that

slope. Uh the farther you get toward Rainbow Avenue, and that's about a block away from Rice, all the houses are pretty well uh on a flat surface, but as you come over to the east, it starts sloping. That's why we have that slope over there. Um, let me see. Also on the back end of that building, right by the fence, there's a there's going to be a door right there to that building, which I don't know if that u makes any difference if there was a fire or something, but um who who wants to make a comment about what I'm saying? You go ahead and uh as as we have questions, we'll we'll ask. Okay. Well, that's that's the only thing that's only thing I have to try to gain uh approval to put the building in that spot. So, I do have a question. Can we go back to the pictures of the yard? Is the center picture the side where the building's going to go? Yes, sir. So it would start it looks like up at the fence or does it start actually I measured all that off where there would be a border of about 16 in on all three sides and of course the back will be toward the backyard

and then with the building being of course 16 or 10 foot wide. That allows us to have some space to get around the building to manicure the lawn and stuff, you know. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, sir. Anybody else that wants to speak for or against? Please step up step forward. State your name and address for the record. I'm Cindy Slack and I'm the owner. And I just wanted to mention he was talking about how it slopes down. I'm on a retainer wall and there's like a little alley. Uh I've got an alley behind us and then there's another street and then there's that big basin, that open basin. And the neighbors next to us, they just have dirt. They didn't even have grass where they'd be up against their, you know, close to their fence and they did not object. But, uh, what were concerns me is the slope. If we have it anywhere else, it's going to have to be, um, shorter. Yeah. That uh because that's it's less slope there right there on that side. And it is up against that uh porch and there will be room against you in between the fence center for him to do some weed eating. And so it's that slope that concerns me. But we are on a retain. Yeah. Picture right there pretty well shows it. Oh yeah. See the alley? Yeah. you know, and she's one of the few that has an alleyway, right? Most of them are just fence by fence by

fence by fence. They're all connected, but mine isn't. It's just got two fences on each side. Anybody has questions? And this is just a portable storage building. It's not a slab on grade type. No, they'll they'll come in and and it'll Yeah, they'll deliver it and they'll level it and get it anchored. Well, they're going to build it in the backyard because there's no access between there's no access back to h between the houses to pull a building in there because we got air conditioners on one side and and it's just going to be too tight. So, they offered us u they have a they have a a team that can come in and just build it on site for this particular application. So, they will build it right there. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Anybody else wants to for variance? No. What else? Um, commissioners, at this moment, we close this section of the meeting to the public. Commissioners, you have any thoughts? just uh some housekeeping, you know, just uh some thoughts just to remember because you know we do have some new uh commissioners. If we were to deny this, we're going to lock them for a year. Uh if that is the way you want to go. Um, and if there's we're thinking that we want to deny, uh, another thing we could do is table it just so that they could have go back and have more options and come back and present back to us because if we're to deny, uh, they're done for a year. They cannot ask for another variance for another year. If we were to table it, they can go back and see if they can figure something out. Just some just so they could know. It's just for our new commissioners.

All right. Any thoughts, motions? I'm I just want to just say, you know, if we was to accept it and the recommendations from the city, like line item number two, is that absolutely necessary because I'm looking at the design of this thing and I don't see it really being uh an advantage to, you know, preventing erosion. Again, we are here uh as commissioners and those are if we're to accept it, those are what the recommendations from the city are are asking of of us to do. But do we have to follow each and every one of them too? We're we're here. We can make the we can make that call. Okay. But again, those are the recommendations from the city. Well, and I think that's just standard practice, you know, uh not putting runoff on your neighbor, you know, because if that drains to the neighboring property and creates a little puddle, you know, I mean that that's I mean that's pretty common, you know, not to not to do that. So, I think that's just pretty much standard practice. But if it's offset still within the property inside the fence line, what is it 16 or 12 in? What have you 12 in? going to be is that is that really is I'm just using common sense I'm just falling back on common sense here is that is that really going to be an issue to the neighbors you know I don't know so much it's a runoff issue for me as a safety issue with the fire department I mean there's no way they can scale down the side of that if they need to I mean again I know in the past we had they had similar situations and when a situation was to put up fire like a center block wall or something like that. Those like that's what I'm saying. There's there's other

avenues that can be arranged. They can even position it. Yeah, they can reposition. They can reposition the building because either way, I mean, even it is a slope. I mean, if they're going to come in and build it, they can level it out. Yeah. But when they do it all the time, Yeah. when they set it and anchor it, they can do it. It's just because it's going to be so close to that neighbor. Yeah. And that's my concern. My concern. Close to the building and the neighbor. I think they have they have ample space if they want to do it, but I think they just need to go back and reconfigure. It would just be more expensive to have to do the dirt work, build a retaining to move. Well, I don't know that you'll love the building. You know, some of those out there are really It depends. I mean, that'll be up to the installer on how best to do that. So, that's What do y'all think? What do y'all think? I think we should table it and let them help moving it. I'd like to make a motion to table it and they work on other options to work other options with the city that can work and better. Okay, so there's a motion to table. Do I hear a second? Second. There's a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any objections? Okay. Motion carries to table. Um, at this moment there's no other um case files. So, do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion make no other no other case. There's a motion to adjurnn and there's a second. All in favor? I I the objection. Motion carries. All right. if you just get with her uh just uh just get with her for other options and stuff. We're not denying it. We're not saying no, but maybe we could come up with another solution because if we were to deny it,

then we c you can't come back for another year. So, just get back uh with the city to see what other solutions they could come up with. Do do we have to come up here? Okay, we're we're done. Just get with her and then she'll explain.