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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.boa.19870416 CITY OF ASPEN BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT APRIL 16, 1987 City Council Chambers 4:00 P.M. A G E N D A I. NEW BUSINESS Case #87-4 Diana Shafroth Case #87-5 James R. McDade Westec Security II. ADJOURNMENT a RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS BOARD OF ADJUSTMENTS APRIL 16, 1987 Meeting was called to order by Charlie Paterson at 4: 00 p.m. with Rick Head, Anne Austin and Ron Erickson in attendance and Remo Lavagnino, Francis Whitaker and Josephine Mann excused. CASE #87-4 / DIANA SHAFROTH Property is located at 530 West Hallam. This is in the R-6 zoning category. Section 24-3 .4 area and bulk requires 10 feet between principal and accessory building. Applicant appears to be requesting a variance to have less than 10 feet between principal and accessory building. Anne Austin: I want the applicant to know I am a neighbor of this property. I don't have any bias one way or the other or opinion on this case at this time. Charlie: Before you state your case you have to be aware that you need 4 positive votes for passage of a variance. We do have a quorum with 4 members present but you are allowed to ask for a straw vote before we have our official voting on your request. Then if you feel your application will not make it with just quorum here that one extra member would make a difference for your case, you can ask for your case to be tabled to another date certain. Steve Prudden, general contractor : The addition we are putting on this dwelling makes the distance between the addition and the garage 4 ft 9 inches. The wood shed would be demolished. As part of the structural work if, in fact, we can save half of this garage--it will be taken out of the alley encroachment which is 6 inches into the alley. It will take it out of the alley with a new foundation for that garage. Charlie: Then you are taking that all back in order to get it into the property line? Steve : It is still within the setback . But it will not be encroaching into the physical alley. Charlie: Then it is a non-conforming structure. Bill Drueding: If you give him the variance and he gets his 4 ft 9 in, he will still need an encroachment license for what he wants to do in the alley. 1 Anne: Then nowadays if you were to start from scratch, you could not build the garage where it is? Bill : Not without a variance. Anne: Now if he is redoing the garage, does that affect it? Bill : He can take it right down almost , if he wants to , and rebuild it within the setback. Charlie : If he tore the whole garage down, then It would be different? Bill : If he tore the whole garage down then I would see no reason for a variance, but if he is trying to preserve the garage, then I do see reason for variance. Ron Erickson: He could not rebuild it--he would have to have the setbacks. Why was the applicant trying to preserve the existing. Steve: For storage space. She is losing one garage. She has got a basement but needs space for a car, parking place, rota tiller, lawn mower, etc. It is going to have an overhead door. Bill : The point is this garage could stay just as it is. But this is a new addition. In order for this to come out, she will need a variance. Anne : You could still have a garage that was attached to the building. Ron: Tear down the old garage, set it back 5 ft and attach it to the house--then this structure would not need a variance. Steve: I want to keep it as wide as I possibly can. Steve: You have a letter from Steve Burstein stating that HPC says there is no historic value. This part of the building does not affect the essential historic part which is the front part. Basically it is giving us free reign in this back. Bill : HPC approved this new addition with the garage or without the garage. They would have indicated they would like to see it preserved as much as it could be. They don't want it torn down and rebuilt to look as though it is not old. They want it to stay as much as possible. That is their recommendation. Ron: I don't think it has anything to do with us. Bill : It absolutely does. You won't be able to give a variance unless they approved it. 2 In order for them to do anything to it, they need their approval. If he wants to keep it and change it a little bit needing a variance, they will live with whatever you want to do with it. They like the garage. Ron: They are not concerned with variances and setbacks. Bill: Sure they are. They don't have authority to say you can't do things because of a setback--they are saying they approve if you do give it a variance. Steve: I appreciate it being brought up that if it is attached, it could be within 5 ft of the setback. From a building point of view it would be much easier from my standpoint to do it this way than salvaging one wall, moving it out of the setback out of the alley. But we should still pursue the original variance which is the dwelling and accessory. Bill : If it is a detached garage there must be 10 ft between and 5 ft rear setback. If it is attached, it is 5 ft rear setback. Steve: I have no provision for attachment at this time. That would be an alternative if denied. What hardship there is is in the fact that they have had these two sheds since they bought the place 20 years ago and they are losing half the storage and they would like to keep as much as they possibly can in the existing garage. Ron: Why do you have to keep a wall at all? Steve: Then it is a new garage and then we would have to put it in setbacks. Bill : It will be decreasing the nonconformity of the garage as it currently is and will be eliminating encroachment on City property. Charlie then opened the meeting for public hearing. There was no public comment. -Charlie then closed the- public portion- of the hearing. Rick Head: I am not swayed by the HPC recommendation that we save that garage. I think there are too many other alternatives that would achieve the same end. If you really want that garage, you pick it up and move it to a nice open space and abide by the setbacks. I 've also known that for years they have rented this garage out to other people so I can not understand this terrific need for storage. I don't think I would vote for passing this variance. 3 Anne: I also know they rent this garage out and the other garage is falling down. You can't really retain it if it is a matter of saving one wall. That just defeats the whose purpose. So I have a real problem with that aspect of it. It bothers me that people circumvent the real issue by saying they are saving one wall. Ron: We have a building that encroaches on City property. It is not set back on two sides and then they are asking for a third variance. I think there is another way of doing it. Remove the structure completely, getting at the setbacks, attaching it to the house. In essence we are asking for a third variance on the same building. Granted it is nice that the building is coming out of the alley. By granting the variance we are going to precipitate this structure staying in the setback . By not granting the variance, I think they have to come back with a new idea. They still have to conform to the HPC because it is a historically designated building. Also if it is in such bad shape, maybe it ought to be condemned. I would not grant a variance. Charlie: We are compounding the problem by granting the variance in this case. I don't feel a hardship has really been shown or a practical difficulty. There are no practical difficulties because the walls are all going to be rebuilt. We are not doing the City a favor by granting this variance. So I would not grant this variance either. Charlie asked for a motion. Rick Head made a motion this application, Case #87-4, be denied. Ron Erickson seconded the motion with all in favor. CASE #87-5 WESTEC SECURITY Property is located in the "Office" zoning category. Sec . 24- 5.10 (B) . Within any office district there may be placed a wall sign or free standing sign constituting a registry identifying included business offices provided such sign does not exceed one square foot in area per office . (Aspen Municipal Code ) Applicant appears to be requesting a sign 10.9 square feet in area. Charlie asked Bill Drueding what was the reason for denial. Bill : It is too big by 9.1 sq ft He is asking for one sign. He is asking for one 10 ft sign. for 12 businesses. Within an office district there may be placed a wall sign or a free standing sign constituting a registry identifying included offices provided each sign being 1 sq ft in area. He is asking for a sign, not a registry of 10 sq ft plus. 4 Charlie then read into the record: This property is a two story office building zoned "0" Office District. Twelve corporations have offices in the building. The owner of the property wishes to place a wall sign on the exterior of the building. The sign will be a registry identifying the business offices. A sketch of the proposed sign is attached hereto as Exhibit "B " . The proposed sign has lettering with varying sized type faces and has a total of 10 .9 sq ft in display surface area, which is smaller than the maximum 12 sq ft permitted by City of Aspen Municipal Code Section 24-5 .10 (B) . The owner is appealing the decision of the Building Inspector who rejected the owner ' s sign permit application. Charlie: For the record there is a note regarding a telephone call from Eloise Elgin who called into the office to say she had no objection to the people next door putting a sign on their building. Then there is a letter from Gus F. Hallam, owner of Deep Powder Ski Lodge saying: "Please adhere to the small size sign allowed under present ordinance, and deny the variance requested for a sign almost 11 times larger. " The address is 410 S. Aspen Street, Aspen, Colorado. I also received a notice because I am within 300 ft of this business and I have no conflict of interest and will not be swayed by being within 300 ft of this. Chuck Brandt, representing Jim McDade: This property has been known as the Mesa Store Property. Jim Mcdade owns the building and the adjacent empty lot to the west. You heard part of this matter in February at which time Westec had submitted an application and they showed a sign for the Mesa Store. During that presentation he was asked what the hardship was and there wasn ' t a hardship. He really did not quite understand the procedure at that time. So on a 3 to 2 vote there was a denial at that time. We are asking you to reconsider this matter but not as a variance. We are asking you to consider this matter and we are appealing Bill Drueding ' s determination of the sign section alluded to earlier under the board's authority to 21 A where you can review any determination made by administrative officials of the City of Aspen. That is the reason why we are back before you. The present case shows an exhibit to the Board of Adjustment application. We are talking about a sign here of 10 .9 sq. ft. An identification of all the businesses operating within the building. To our way of thinking it is simply an interpretation of the sign code. It reads within any office district and this 5 is the office zone district. There may be placed a wall sign, and wall is not defined, or a free standing sign constituting a registry. That is what we are proposing is to register the businesses identifying included business offices provided such sign does not exceed 1 sq ft of area per office. We are contending that we have 12 offices, 12 businesses in the structure much like the Patio Building has--12 separate businesses. We have the same sort of situation. That is our contention . That is the reason why we disagree with Bill Drueding' s interpretation. The list I handed to you is entitled Building Businesses. It itemizes the businesses operating in the Mesa Store. My intention here is to show you that these are legitimate, operating-separately businesses. It is our thought that it is necessary that each business has an identifying sign or registry. We don't want an oversize sign. Ron: Are these companies common to the building system or are they individual interests? I am trying to ascertain how important it is to have these businesses identified by a registry because customers are going to try and locate you. Or is Westec just an umbrella and Westec is what you are selling. Chuck : Westec is the umbrella company. Westec is a d/b/a for doing business. It is not a company. It is not Westec Security Company. It is just Westec Security. Bill : I want to make a couple of statements. You are here to appeal my decision-to overturn my interpretation. That is a big difference from asking for a variance from the sign code. Chuck : We are not asking for a variance. Bill : This does not say that you are here to overturn my decision. It says you are here to appeal a decision, not to say that it was incorrect. You are appealing my reasoning for my interpretation of the sign code. And if you are appealing the interpretation of the sign code, then I don't want this to go on any further without having the City attorney here. Chuck : That 's right. After a ten minute recess the meeting was turned over to Tom Todd. Tom Todd: We would like to create a building registry sign that is a total of 10 .9 sq ft in display surface area. We have got varied size lettering here. This is what we are applying for. Bill : I guess I misunderstood you and you misunderstood me. We talked about the fact that you have 12 to 15 businesses. With Each one at 1 sq ft, you could have a sign 15 sq ft but you 6 wanted a little different configuration than the 1 sq ft. I suggested the applicant come back to the board and see if you know that basically this is a trade. I didn 't encourage them to come back to have my decision or my interpretation overturned. Chuck : We are appealing the decision for the denial of the sign permit on Bill ' s interpretation that even though you have 12 businesses and can have 12 sq ft, Bill said you can't have a sign of that configuration. That is Bill ' s interpretation. That seems to us to be a proper basis to come back to the Board--not for a variance because it seems to us that it is an interpretation question of the applicable code section rather than either a practical difficulty of ours. Charlie: To Erin--This seems to be a problem of schematics. Do you have a way that we can resolve this so that we can move with this case rather than have to re-apply and go for everything again. Erin: I think that from reading the application that what they have asked for is for the Board to interpret the code section upon which he was rejected. Now the Board has the power to either grant variances or interpret a code provision and it can interpret a past procedure on what the intent of the code is. I think that part of the interpretation needs a definition or a finding as to what a registry is. Generally all is the same. If the Board wants to uphold the interpretation of the Building Department in that way, they can do so. If the applicant can show us what practical difficulties there are or argument that would justify a variance and go into criteria that you are used to dealing with ie property rights by others. That is they won't then have other signs all over the place. The way I look at it is that it may not be in the registry. If you have a big sign like that, it is not a registry identifying the people in that office. It doesn't say that if you have a bigger office then you get a bigger sign. Chuck : There are certain difficulties with the ordinance . Registry sign is not defined. Office is not defined. Business is not defined. Do you have to have partitions to have an office? It is a very loose code and that is why we felt that we could appeal this decision. Ron: There is a new sign code being developed. I think it would help if concerned citizens who are impacted by this thing were to talk to their City Council members and get them to move on it. We have been urging them to do something on this and clear these things up because anything we do today could be superceded by that sign code. Tom: I spoke with Steve Burstein and he said as far as he knows 7 the focus of the sign code re-writing that is going to be done on the second floor commercial area here in town--the retail , the office and the restaurant activities. Ron: That is in the commercial core. This is office. Chuck : If the owner of the building wanted to put back the words Mesa Store Building on there, under another section it says whenever there is placed on an historic building, a wall sign identifying the structure as of structural interest, such sign shall not exceed 10 sq ft area. So it seemed to us that we could have a 10 sq ft sign that said Mesa Store Building on it or Mesa Store and a registry identifying the 12 businesses for a total of 25 ft of sign. Anne : Is this is in fact an historic building, and was that sign not part of the historic building. I am questioning whether that has to stay up there. Bill : It is on HPC ' s list of buildings. HPC does not want anything to do with signs. So if you want to take down the sign, you can take down the sign. So if someone took down Mesa Store sign, they were perfectly allowed to do that. Ron: How about putting it back up now? Bill : Then we go back up to the Mesa Store Building being 10 sq ft. and that would be allowed because that is on the City' s historical designation list. Charlie asked for any further comments. There were none. He then closed the public portion of the meeting and asked for comments from the Board. Anne: My interpretation of a registry is something that you can read. A sign at the top of a building is not something that a pedestrian on the street is going to be able to read because he is going to be well under it. So right there that voids the fact that it is a registry in my interpretation. Charlie : Council has told us that those 12 names could be somewhere else and they don't have to be up on top of the roof. It doesn't have to be in one place. I just beg to differ that according to the ordinance, as long as the total is not over 12 sq ft you can put 6 sq ft here and 6 sq ft down there. Anne : I see this as being one major stockholder for several businesses. I have a real problem with this. I don't see it as 12 individuals holding separately owned businesses--all different businesses who have nothing to do with each other. This is really one business that has its one umbrella with 12 smaller companies under it. As far as being 12 separate businesses, I 8 just don ' t read it that way. I would be opposed to this variance. Rick Head: I am basically in favor of this variance or this interpretation overturning the building inspector ' s interpretation of it. I am still not clear as to whether this Westec is going to presuppose any registry down below of the individual offices that are contained therein. Is Westec the only sign that is going to show up and there is going to be no other? Several answered that there indeed will be another sign. Charlie: The square box down here tells you that Westec is 6 .9, that is the top portion and the lower is 4 sq ft. Ron Erickson: I think that the code was written to protect the small business owner who is occupying maybe 500 sq ft of a 15,000 sq ft building. I think there was a compromise made whereby they didn't want 50,000,000 signs all over the place but they wanted a sign big enough for somebody to read and they decided that 1 sq ft was the minimum or the maximum size that a business could have and still make it readable. I don't think these signs with X:ose all businesses are going to be readable. So if I owned one of businesses, I wouldn't approve that sign for me. I live in a building where I have a company and I have a 1 sq ft sign and I know why it ' s there. I have 2 companies, I have a 2 sq ft sign and divide it in half and I got the 2 companies listed. That ' s all I'm allowed that ' s all I got. But I took advantage of 1 sq ft, anything less than that couldn 't be seen from the street. So I think this sign defeats the purpose of the ordinance and therefore I would vote along with the building inspector ' s interpretation of the code. I would not grant that sign. Charlie: I am torn because I have a feeling that I don't have the objection to Westec Security as a 6 .9 sq ft sign. I have an objection to the small signs. As it is presented together, I don't see how it could pass that. If it was just Westec Security alone under one umbrella, even if there were 12 businesses under it, I wouldn't object to it. It' s not quite the same decision I made that last time but it was not presented the same way. Ron: What they are trying to do is borrow from the registry to put a big sign on. If they want to put Westec Security on the building--fine. Anne: What if Park Central came along, the owners, and said we want 20 businesses in here so we want a sign that says Park Central that is 20 sq ft and then they tell the tenants, tough, you've got nothing left over. Whereas the code is saying that each tenant has the right to 1 sq ft of sign. 9 Charlie then re-opened the public portion of the meeting for review. And reminded Chuck that on the basis of 4 votes you could ask for tabling. Ron: One more vote would make no difference. Erin asked if this was for a variance or appeal. Chuck : The notice is for appeal. Erin: That is too bad because if you asked for a variance I was going to suggest that you come back. Charlie: He is not asking for a variance. Chuck : We have made our choice and I think it is twisting it to say let 's talk variance. Ron does not have problem as a point of verification with just Westec up there. 6 sq ft or 7 sq ft. We have to get approval from Bill. Bill : This is an office zone and it says a registry-1 sq ft per business. Ron: I take it you want to come back and ask for a variance of 7 sq ft. I probably would not grant that. Apart from that it is an historical building and it is known as the Mesa Store Building. It is not the Westec Security Building. Chuck : It seems to me that the answer on that is to come in with a registry that meets the 1 sq ft per business category and then to have the client decide whether they want to also utilize the historic sign portion of that code. Bill : They could also do Mesa Store. Charlie: They could write Westec Security under their 1 sq ft. It could be in the middle but it should be only 1 sq ft. Chuck : This has been very informative. We felt we had a difficulty with the building department justifying even the fact that there were more than a single business there. I think it is clear that there is more than a single business there. This gives us a way to where we want to go which is a separate identification. A registry of some sort. Bill : You could do Mesa Store Building under historical category. Chuck : Let 's table the application for two weeks to give us a chance to consider what we have discussed today, then get together with Bill Drueding. 10 Charlie asked for a motion. Ron made the motion to table Case #87-5 to the 30th of April . Chuck then requested the Board to go ahead and vote. Ron : I move that we uphold the building inspector ' s interpretation of the sign code as per Case # 87 -5 , Westec Security Building, 500 West Main Street. Anne seconded the motion. Roll call : Ron, yes, Anne, yes, Rick, no, Charlie, yes. Appeal was denied. Meeting was adjourned. The time was 6: 00 p.m. L --- ' -- --- -- e�--, Janice M. Carn y, City Deputy/ Jerk 11