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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.20130319 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes March 19, 2013 Comments 2 Minutes 2 Conflicts of Interest 2 501 W Hopkins, Residential Design and Dimensional Variances 2 Code Amendments — Check-in 9 1 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 LJ Erspamer opened the regular meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission for March 19, 2013 in Sister Cities Meeting Room at 4:30. Commissioners present were Bert Myrin, Jasmine Tygre, Stan Gibbs, LJ Erspamer, Ryan Walterscheid and Cliff Weiss. Jim DeFrancia and Keith Goode were not in attendance. Staff present were Debbie Quinn, Assistant City Attorney; Jennifer Phelan, Deputy City Community Development Director, Jessica Garrow, Justin Barker, Community Development; Jackie Lothian, Deputy City Clerk. Comments Jennifer Phelan said this will be in your next packet that the May 7t" regular meeting is cancelled because of the election and we do have May 14th meeting in Council Chambers. Minutes MOTION: Stan Gibbs moved to approve the minutes from February 19, 2013, seconded by Jasmine Tygre. All in favor, APPROVED. MOTION.- Stan Gibbs moved to approve the minutes of March 5th with the corrections made, Jasmine Tygre seconded. All in favor, APPROVED. Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest LJ Erspamer disclosed that he and his wife have a house with no alley but it doesn't have anything to do with his judgment. LJ did look at this property today. Public Hearing: 501 W Hopkins, Residential Design and Dimensional Variances LJ Erspamer opened the public hearing for 501 W Hopkins, residential design and dimensional variances. LJ asked for proof of legal notice. Debbie Quinn reviewed the affidavits that were submitted and it was properly provided. Justin Barker introduced himself as the new planner for the city. Justin stated at 501 West Hopkins the applicant is proposing the construction of a new single family home that is going to require 3 variances. The first one is a dimensional setback variance; the second and third ones are residential design variances. Justin provided history on the property and the subject property was created with a lot split and rezoning in 2006; it was a 7500 square foot lot zoned in the R-6 District. Justin said the Ordinance that includes vehicle access for this lot is to be taken from the South 4th Street stub located directly to the East of the property. In 2009 there was a single family home that was approved for the lot and that project was abandoned and the excavation was filled. 2 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting—Minutes March 19, 2013 Justin said the dimensional variance for the R-6 zone district there is a rear yard setback requirement of 10 feet for the principal building; the portion used as a garage is reduced to a 5 foot setback because there is a subgrade space below that garage that is going to be using the same foundation wall so it will be encroaching on that 10 foot setback, which they need the dimensional variance for that. There are 3 requirements 1. The granting of the variance will be consistent with land use code; 2. Granting the variance will be a minimum variance in order to make possible use of the property; 3. The literal interpretation of the land use code won't deny the applicant their rights commonly enjoyed by other parcels in the same zone district and wouldn't cause an unnecessary hardship. Justin stated the R-6 dimensional standards do not prohibit reasonable use of the parcel. The setback may be considered an inconvenience but in the case of new construction it is not an unnecessary hardship for that; the applicant has expressed that the previous project had used uncertified backfill which create some additional construction costs but in staff's opinion it doesn't create a circumstance that is unique for the parcel. Justin said they can still construct a new residence and have reasonable use of the property without their requested dimensional variance; staff is recommending denial for that request. Justin said the next variance request is for the garage and the standard requires residential uses can only have access from a public street; provide a garage that is setback from the front fagade of the house by at least 10 feet. The intent of this is to minimize the presence of garages and carports as a lifeless part of the streetscape where alleys do not exist so the applicant has proposed is a garage that is almost 8 feet in front of the front most wall that is facing 4th Street. So the review standard that would apply to a residential design standard and are at least one of these must be shown and the first one has to provide an appropriate design and the other one has to be clearly necessary to unusual site specific constraints. The South 4th Street stub is not an improved road but it is a public right of way and has to be considered a public street for the purposes of the standards and doesn't meet the intent to minimize garages. Justin said that since the garage has to access from 4th street it doesn't have to be as close to the access point and could be moved back. Staff said this does not meet the variance criteria and should be denied. Justin said the other residential design standard was for the windows and the requirements states that street facing windows shall not span through the area where the 2nd floor level would typically exist between 9 and 12 feet above the finished 1St floor; the proposed window is 10 foot 6 inch maximum height located on the wall that is just south of the and behind the garage facing 4th street. The 3 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes March 19, 2013 window is going only 1 foot 6 inches taller than what was allowed; the impact of this will be generally minimal. Staff did find that it met the first standard and staff is recommending approval for this one. Justin reiterated that staff is recommending denial of the rear yard setback and garage variances and approval for the window height. Cliff said that the garages are facing east along the Midland Trail. Justin replied yes. Jennifer noted it was an improved right-of-way; it is considered a street. Jennifer said that City Council required that access for this vacant lot that we are talking about not from Hopkins but from the 4th Street stub. Ryan asked if there was vehicular traffic beyond this house onto the trail; he asked if it was pedestrian beyond this house. Jennifer said yes. LJ asked if this was the final review. Debbie replied yes; all these decisions are made by P&Z. LJ said it could be called up by Council. Jennifer replied no, not residential design standards. Gary Wright, attorney for the applicant, introduced Luis Menendez, architect, for the applicant Christopher Huckabee. Gary passed around a smaller drawing, which was already in the packet. Gary explained the history of the lot and it was an unusual shaped lot with the square out of it and no alley; 4th Street is not maintained by the City. Luis said that they will focus on the garage variance and made the 2006 plans and building permit Exhibit E; the garage placement is almost identical from the current plan and the 2006 plan. Luis said from the Residential Design Standards the garage setback at least 10 feet further than the street and the front most wall of the house. Luis said if the garage doors are side loaded and both refer to the front fagade. Luis had a copy of the residential design standards with the drawings. Luis said the design standards say on lots less than 15000 square feet at least 60% of the front fagade shall be within 5 feet of a minimum setback line; on corner sites this standard shall be met on the frontage with the longest block length which for this property is Hopkins. Luis said the garage is more than 10 feet back from front fagade of the building therefore we are in compliance. Gary said the reason we need this variance is the staff's interpretation of the code does not treat the front of the building the way we do and would require the garage to be set further back from South 4th Street. Luis said for one the variance has to provide an appropriate design or pattern of development that is consistent with the development that is proposed or we can meet one or the other to be clearly necessary for reasons of fairness related to unusual site specific constraints. Luis said he believed that they met both of those criteria. Luis said if they moved the 4 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes March 19, 2013 garage back in doing so would create a hazardous condition. Exhibit B in the packets was from the 2006 Ordinance. Luis said the neighbor at 431 Hopkins plows 4th Street because the City does not maintain it. Luis said the residential design standards deal with scale and character and massing and shape and believe that they are in compliance more than the multifamily buildings in the neighborhood. Luis said that they were using the garage as the secondary mass for the property. Luis said the other variance has to do with the windows and appreciate that staff concurs with them on the window and does not compromise the residential design standards. Luis said the third variance was the basement space underneath the garage; the garage is allowed a 5 foot setback but living space has to have a 10 foot setback; the garage is going down the same depth as the basement. From above grade nobody would ever know whether there is any space below the garage Exhibit D. Gary said the 8 V2 x 11 photos need to be Exhibits F and G. Cliff asked if Luis said that this was the only single family home on the block. Luis utilized a drawing of the block to show that there were other single family homes on the block and also multifamily, duplex and a proposed lodge. Cliff asked if this lot was going to have a total of 3 homes on it. Luis replied no, this is Lot 1 and Lot 2 already has 2 homes and a duplex. Cliff asked what their landscape plan was for the East side of the property. Luis replied they haven't gotten that far in having a landscape architect on board yet. Cliff asked if the City still had a pedestrian right-of-way to this Midland Trail. Jennifer replied that it was a public right-of-way, it is 4th Street. Gary said if the garage faced West Hopkins then they would be in compliance and wouldn't have to cross the trail but the Ordinance says we have to have the garage entrance on 4th Street. Bert said in the beginning you said if the garage variance isn't approved you would have to start over; what would you do differently. Luis said if the client continues with the property the only way to comply is to maybe build part of the house wall all the way and move the garage back to the west and it would impact this neighbor to the West more. Bert asked what the hardship was from page 4 of the memo. Gary replied the hardship is a severely constrained site and the property doesn't go all the way to the alley, the square taken out of the property corner and the way that the Ordinance requires access off of South 4th Street. Luis said the 3 points only apply to the dimensional variance, which is the living space below the garage; 5 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting— Minutes March 19, 2013 it does not apply to the garage placement or the window. Luis said the garage placement criteria are different. Bert asked if that was on page 12. Justin responded it was on page 6 of the staff memo and you only have to meet one. Jasmine said it says there are two review standards that the applicant is required to meet. Justin said that was incorrect it should be one. Jasmine asked where the correct language was. Jennifer replied right on page 6 at the end of"a" or. Bert asked if this were an alley or a street. Luis replied by definition it was a street but as far as the character as far as the Residential Design Standards address as a streetscape it is just void of those characters. Gary said by definition this is a street and that was why we were here for a variance. Ryan asked if the 10 foot setback along Hopkins was the front yard setback. Luis replied by the land use code you can only have one front yard setback and by definition it is a side yard setback at 17.5 feet. Jasmine asked the square footage of the house. Luis replied including the garage it is approximately 6500 square feet. Gary said that includes the basement as well. Jasmine asked what the above grade square footage was. Luis replied that it was about half of that. LJ asked if the neighbor to the East was sharing the snow plowing. Gary replied yes Luis spoke to them, unless the City will plow. Public Comments: 1. Craig Navias (his letter is in the packet) said he doesn't see the issues with the garage from an impact point of view and is probably better than what we see up and down the street. Craig said there was a trail that runs behind here and staff wants to reject the garage because it is visually dominating the trail. Craig didn't see why this big mass (on the west) had to be there and it wasn't there in the house that was designed before and it was larger in square footage than this and he believed that things can be done to move this mass back. Than would be pleasing to him and if it could be pushed back. 2. Cheryl Goldenberg stated that she lives in the duplex that is caddy corner to this property; she looks out on this property and the trail. Cheryl said that the trail in 1985 was incredible, it was a great trail and it has been ruined with all the encroachments on the trail. Cheryl said this house is nothing compared to what has already ruined it with houses up against the trail. Cheryl said their garage should access from the 4th Street stub. 6 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 LJ closed the public comment section of the public hearing. Commissioner Comments: LJ said we were looking for these 3 variances. Cliff said he uses this trail to get to these meeting in the spring, summer and fall; the trail does rise up right after 4th Street but when you came up the Midland Trail through Koch Lumber but this is the only safe access. Cliff said a lot of people use this trail and voiced concern for anybody using that trail. LJ said the garage can stay there P&Z is deciding a basement wall. Ryan said he understands exactly that City Council is directing them to come out on that street; regardless of where the garage is put on that site they are going to cross the trail. Stan asked staff if there were any requirements from Engineering or Parks and Trails. Jennifer replied that there weren't any plans on improving the right-of-way. LJ asked if they want to bring that basement wall to match the side of the garage; is that an increase in FAR and asked if it is does exceed. Cliff said it was subgrade. Jennifer said it doesn't calculate as much as above grade but if you are going to increase the basement you will have an increase in floor area. Jennifer said the biggest issue is that our code doesn't allow front setbacks for a primary habitable space verses a garage property line and we don't have that allowance for the primary residence. Jennifer said what the applicant is asking for is to take advantage of the setback permitted for a garage when it is solely used as a garage so that they have more area to put habitable space. Bert agrees with staff's interpretation with pretty much everything in the memo but he would support a code amendment at some point to allow below grade space to match the footprint of the above grade setback. Ryan said that what they are doing with the garage meets the intent of the code, the primary street as the frontage is along Hopkins; Ryan feel they have met the intent by having the garage on the side. Ryan said he would be in support of the primary variance request and whether or not you allow them to take advantage of the space below becomes semantics and then the City is imposing an undue hardship on an owner requiring that they reconfigure the construction of their underground space. There was a structural and a soils engineer that told them the foundation has to be that low so whether or not you allow him to take advantage of 41/2 feet is making a 7 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 point that he thinks is arbitrary at this point. Ryan said he doesn't have a problem giving him the below grade space when this garage goes over it. Ryan said he would be in favor of granting all 3 variances. Jasmine said if you pulled the garage back you wouldn't have the problem of the below grade space but that is not the proposal that is before us. Jasmine said the viewpoint of a spectator that subgrade space is not going to make any difference. Jasmine said she didn't see where P&Z should be encouraging people to build support walls that go down that far. Jasmine said that she didn't like the windows but would go along with it. Cliff asked to hear more about this code that if the garage were attached rather than connected, what does the code say. Jennifer said the secondary mass does not need to be connected. Cliff asked if the garage can be attached directly to the house. Jennifer replied there doesn't need to be a connection period; they can have 2 separate buildings and the requirement between buildings is 5 feet. Jennifer said what is required in the code is a secondary mass not necessarily need to be the garage it could be something else for the secondary mass; this is what the architect put before you. Jennifer said a certain amount of square footage required in a secondary mass that has a linking element but it is not dictated that the garage need to be the secondary mass. Cliff asked the length of this connection structure that links the house to the garage. Luis replied 10 feet. Stan said he agrees that the dimensional variance doesn't make any sense unfortunately the applicant doesn't meet any of the requirements for a variance because this is a 7500 square foot lot with 6500 square foot house he thought there was plenty of fair use and it will complicate construction he said that he agrees with Jasmine that it isn't a good way to approach this. Stan said in the future he would have a hard time saying "no you can't do it" because this is new construction and the have to meet the rules as they are currently written and he agrees with Bert that we should change the rules. Stan said if you had the ability to go to 5 feet with the garage what is the problem with the subgrade space; he said he can't go with the variance in this particular situation. Stan said the garage setback meets the intent of the design; like many others situations we have seen it puts the garage on the side. Stan said we have had other applications on corner lots that people have to choose one to be your front and the other is the side; so this is not the front so it shouldn't have to be setback from the edge of the house. Stan said he didn't think we needed to grant a variance but he will support granting a variance. Stan said the windows were not an issue for him. 8 Regular City Planning& Zaning Meeting —,Minutes March 19, 2013 LJ said to Mr. Navias P&Z does not have the criteria to judge that corner of the building that you are concerned about. LJ said he agreed with Stan, Jasmine, and Bert. LJ asked if they can bring the corner of garage back to the current wall and make up that space somewhere else. Gary said the way this works before is share the existing driveway with the trail parallel to the driveway and cross it as we have to get to the garage. Jennifer said she wanted to be clear we that are talking about a city right-of-way so they really can't do anything to the right-of-way; they can just drive along it as vehicular access. Cliff asked if all 3 variances were under one resolution. Jennifer responded section one notes which ones are denied and section two which are approved. So if you make a different motion we can change which were denied and which were approved. MOTION.- Stan Gibbs moved to approve Resolution 008-13 denying variance requests from the rear yard setback and approving a variance request from the garage placement from the residential design standards and the window height residential design standards to construct a single family residence at 501 West Hopkins; seconded by Jasmine Tygre. Roll call: Ryan Walterscheid, yes; Bert Myrin, no; Cliff Weiss, yes; Jasmine Tygre, yes; Stan Gibbs, yes; LJErspamer, yes. APPROVED 5-1. Discussion prior to vote: Bert said he supported the original motion with staff. Stan stated this was now modified to read is the setback for the subgrade space must be maintained at 10 feet and the wall of the garage can go to 5 feet; the setback from the front of the building is so they can build the garage where they want to build it and the window variance as proposed is approved. LJ said the subgrade space goes in a little bit and the garage goes out a little bit. Continued-Other Business:- - - - - - - - - - - - - - Code Amendments — Check-in LJ opened the Continued Code Amendments — check-in. Jessica Garrow said the memo in the packet was a summary of the discussion that we had at the last P&Z Meeting. Jessica wanted to check if she missed anything and get those comments because they will be forwarding this to City Council as we move forward with some of these code amendments. LJ asked about the 4 step process. Jessica said that sentence is referring to an option where it would not be a 4 step process anymore; the conceptual review 9 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 would lock someone into their approval; essentially a 3 step review which is P&Z, then Council for conceptual and Final review would just be with P&Z with the option for Council to call-up. Jessica said in the PUD and SPA process you get an Ordinance at conceptual and final review is just about materials, exactly where the utilities are going to go, potentially where a lot line is going to go, and Council can call it up if they have a concern about it. Jessica said mass, scale, building location and program is locked in at conceptual. U asked what an intermediate SPA amendment is. Jessica replied we talked about it with PUD amendments there is another amendment that comes to P&Z and does not go to City Council. Jessica said that SPA does not have that same intermediate step in administrative change or a caseload change so it would create parody between the SPA process and the PUD process. Cliff asked about Stream Margin Review and one of his concerns is that there is not a lot of guidance when it comes to non-conforming lots; there needs to be a limit as to how far they can push that being close to the river. Jessica responded the code does not allow anyone to build any closer than the top of slope or the high water line even if they are sort of encroaching in that area, they can't build any closer than they already are. Jessica said to replace like with like; it something she has talked to Engineering about; they and we have concerns they will be working with the City Attorney's office if there is something that is existing and they are tearing it down they should come into conformance. Cliff said he agrees that they should come into conforming but he is concerned about new development killing the river. Cliff asked if the line would be set hard. Jessica replied yes and that was why we have to work with the City Attorney's Office. Bert said on page 1 of the staff memo of avoiding surprises at final concerns him on big projects and the community gets involved at the last minute and will it be too late at that time. Jessica said creating some clarity of what conceptual means and helping create that expectation that we are actually locking the building in. Bert said we are not only locking in the applicant but also the city and the community. Bert said there was a concern about doing PUDs on lot sizes less than 27,000 square feet. Jessica said that she lumped it into setting different thresholds and didn't specifically reference the 27,000 but she can do that. The Community Development Director can approve or deny because of community benefit having smaller sized parcels. Stan asked if there were 2 or 3 scenarios given in this process from what we have today. Stan said you are going to build this building and what decisions are we 10 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 going to see at conceptual and now will be final as opposed to what we currently had;just a list of few different examples of what think the kinds of things we have seen in town and how they would be different with this new process; it will give people and Council a way to evaluate this and what really are the impacts of this. Stan asked do we really need to change it if there is a good reason to change it then let's do it. Jessica said that she won't be able to do that in the next 2 — 3 weeks because we need to work on some code language to come up with some of those scenarios; this is the first step taking your ideas. Bert said he had the same question as U had about the intermediate. Cliff said he sees this as streamlining the PUD process. Jessica replied streamlining and predictability for everyone. Cliff said it was important that if we do this that we tie the underlying code into what we are trying to do. Cliff said if he is going to give developers a simpler, easier, more predictable process to work with at the same time; he understands that there has to be a certain amount of flexibility but at the same time he thought that is why this came up. Cliff said he would like to position this with Council with the carrot comes the stick otherwise we have less control over PUD. Cliff said the developer comes in with a project and if underlying code says 42 feet height don't come in with a project with 64 feet in height. Jessica asked if everyone agreed with that. Ryan said if you give developers and architects a set of guidelines that they know that they are working in they are not going to ask for the moon; what you are saying is applicable. Ryan agreed with the underlying zoning was set up to try to control things. Jessica said staff wants to clarify the review standards; they are redundant and don't necessarily address the right things anymore because they were written 20 or 30 years ago and those are some areas that there can be more clarity and predictability. Bert said that on page 3 of the staff memo from the private planner/architect comments on the detailed comments that were the opposite of what P&Z thought and we need to acknowledge or come up with a solution for; if that was a good way to say that. Bert said the Environmentally Sensitive Areas moving the one line is not less restrictive than the current code because we don't want it to be less restrictive. Bert said that P&Z would like to see the one line proposal overlaid on the past several applications so we can actually see something in hindsight instead of trying to guess what it might be ahead of one. Bert said in Subdivision it says Condominiumization so that is what we were talking about at the time; could that apply to things that look and feel like houses and not just buildings downtown. Bert asked if there was a way that those could turn into subdivision. Jessica said 11 Regular City Planning & Zoning Meeting — Minutes March 19, 2013 on the downtown side you are saying we support a less stringent review in Condominization and in residential areas where you are dividing ownership interests in the same way and you want the review to be more stringent. Bert replied no he thought it should be the same way. Jessica said that it currently is and they only go through Condominization unless they want to go through a full blown Subdivision or a Lot Split. Bert asked why there were so many condominiumized lots in town. Jennifer replied that it was a way to create ownership; even in a mixed use building you can get it. Bert said it just seems like it should be subdivided. Debbie said that the State Common Interest Ownership Act sometimes requires subdivisions to file plats similar to what we called Condominiums but we now call Common Interest Ownership. Debbie said if there is a Subdivision with a common area that all the lots get to use you have to go through that Common Interest Ownership and essentially Condominized; everybody in the subdivision can use that common area. Jennifer stated that the code has a minimum lot size but it has the amount of area you need per dwelling unit and depending on the for it might be more or less and so if you just cut that lot in half, right down the middle you might not have the minimum lot size required in the zone district to have a free stand alone lot. Jennifer said it is still looked at as one whole lot but it is just a way to divide the ownership. Jasmine said that Jessica did a very good job of summarizing. Stan asked if staff has a response to the idea for allowing property boundary changes when the properties agree to it; he wasn't sure what that means but it seems like the City is involved in this. The Commissioners agreed that was a good job. Adjounned.6:55 pm. 14!Jcffie,Toth�ian", deputy city clerk. 12