Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

all right we'll call to order the Springfield Municipal Board of zoning appeals for March 11th 2025 so let's stand and do the pledge a 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 all right police call roll Briggs here Simmons here Ward Sheran here V cheer here for pres we have a quum all right thank you all right next item is 1.3 approval of the minutes from the uh Board of appeals on February 11th is there a motion to I make a motion I second okay all those in favor say I I any opposed all right minutes are adopted next item is 1.4 public comment period so anyone signed up to speak okay all right we'll go on to new business so item 2.1 which is V 20251 discuss and possibly take action on a variance request to not require minimum spacing between the two buildings at 1015 Bradley Drive is there a motion to put this on the floor I make a motion to put it on the floor second second all right director Durham good evening Commissioners what we have before us tonight is a variance to eliminate the minimum spacing between um buildings on a single lot essentially if I'm going to summarize all of this this situation was a result of the tornadoes of December

2023 uh the request before you let the request before you is a variance of the City of Springfield zoning ordinance requirements to eliminate minimum spacing of buildings on a single zone lot the subject property is located at 1015 Bradley Drive um it is currently Zone restrictive industrial RI to give you some more background the property was severely impacted by a tornado in December of 23 when the site was originally developed it was platted as 11 condominium units and the applicant utilized several to operate his business as his business grew so did the number of spaces he occupied eventually he and another entity bought the entire building with the intent of splitting the property to provide space for two buildings or I'm sorry for two businesses the applicant is eager to move forward with construction and reestablish their business presence in Springfield unfortunately the second property owner is not currently able to commit to the construction of their portion of the building because the building was originally built as one structure the Springfield regulations as they are currently applicable to this site require that the entire building be rebuilt before any certificates of occupancy can be obtained so the entire building was one structure that got destroyed by the tornado and so what the code is saying and it has to do with this being ploted as condominiums for the building to be re plat or rebuilt essentially the entire shell needs to be done right now prior to the tornado the applicant was operating a successful business if granted this variance request would permit the construction of the one building in two phases both property owners are supportive of the additional fire protection measures that have been requested further at such time as the second half is built the owners intend

for the building to appear as one structure so what we have here is a plaque that shows the layout of the 11 condominium units the red outline shows the area where Mr brazwell who's here tonight where his ownership lies within the current building and the part that he would like to rebuild right now so that he can put his business back into that structure um what we've got here is a description of the phase one and the phase two and then the only comment we've had from staff is some additional fire protection measures between the two build or between from the outside when it's fully complete it will still look like one building but because of the way it's being built in the two phases that they're asking for two hour fire rated walls on each side or one side to do a 4H hour fire rated wall the section zoning code that we have right here is the specific code that we would need the variance from that we're asking for an elimination from um minimum distance between buildings requires that it shall be either 20 ft or the distance required under the following standards whichever is greater however the actual standard says where two opposing walls contain no glass area required or other separation shall be as required by fire regulations so what we're asking for is to build a building in two phases that have some additional fire protection measures that would not be allowed to be built the way the code is written but we'd like to see this business get put back into place in Springfield okay do we need we need to go through the the points do we not need to go through them

oh we don't have to read those okay so okay there are of the nine criteria we found that the applicant meant eight of the hardship criteria um the request was posted in the newspaper letters were mailed staff supports this request okay all right thank you for that and it looked like based on the agenda packet we we got it detailed the eight of the nine criteria um and so this seems like a unique circumstance as it was called out so are there questions for and the fire department of staff are good right yeah they both electric and fire just put a notation that they would request that we have fire rating between the two buildings but now that was a question I had if the fire department had approved yeah it was in one of the emails in the agenda packet I sent it as it I went through and looked there was a comment from the fire department and it was basically duplicated by the electric department so I have couple questions the minimum distance says required by fire regulations what is the standard fire regulation space it would just be there's as long as there's protection between the two units I mean it's essentially the same as if you're building a townhouse sure those units are right next to each other so that is why they're asking for the 2H hour on each side the two uh two hour firewalls on each side so or one one building right now the the applicant who's going to rebuild could potentially do nothing and wait for the second owner to do four hours and the other question is would this accepting this variance allow anyone else to build two structures of zero space only if the building got destroyed by a tornado the only

precedent we're setting here is destruction caused by a tornado okay this hardship is uniquely created by an act of nature so if we accept it can we do it with the specific specific to that scenario meaning as long as we have that verbiage in it I abely I would be afraid that somebody else would accept this yeah I think that's reasonable other questions would you guys like to speak I'm here to answer anything you want to know and I would just I I appreciate the consideration it has been I have a Dro deadline because I'm in a temporary place and and I have till May the 30th to BM and it is and it's his birthday today happy birth the uh but it's we my my son-in-law is a c he been here his entire life everything about us is here and we just appreciate the city and you all listening to this because we we want to work we want to get back into our building and we're growing we started with one space went to two and we keep growing now we have six and it's it's like this this is what this is just about so I appreciate your consideration all right motion I make a motion to accept the variance uh for space between two buildings down to zero is with the verbage that condition requires previous destruction of it similar entity under with a tornado

okay so approval with with that condition is there second I'll second okay properly motion and seconded so we call rolls yes Simmons yes yes shro yes cheer yes passes with all right thank you thank you thank you all right uh is there any other or old business nope okay I have nothing staff has nothing you anything all right is there a motion to adjourn so move all right set all right let's go all right have a good night thank you