Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA)

PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS September 19, 2016 7:00 p.m. Mr. Monnett: Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals meeting for September 19, 2016. CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL/DETERMINATION OF QUORUM Mr. Monnett: Mr. Secretary would you please have a roll call for determination of a quorum? Mr. Klinger: Ms. Duffer- here Mr. Monnett- yes Mr. Cavanaugh- here Mr. Gibbs- here We have 4 members present and one seat is vacant. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mr. Monnett: Would you all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mr. Monnett: I will now entertain a motion for approval or amendments to our meeting of our Board meeting minutes of July 21, 2016. Ms. Duffer: I will make a motion to approve the minutes. Mr. Gibbs: Second. OATH OF TESTIMONY Mr. Daniel conducted the Oath of Testimony PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Monnett reviewed the guidelines governing public hearings PETITIONS FOR PUBLIC HEARING Mr. Monnett: Our first petition tonight is BZA-16-017 Damon N. Jones. Mr. Berg: Good evening Board members. Today we are going to look at BZA-16- 018 which is variance of use to allow the continued use of a trailer parking on a gravel surface zoned agriculture and I-1, Office Research Industrial District, 2198 Reeves Road. You have seen this twice before. Back in ’08 you saw it when it was converted from a contemporary concrete plat to this use. At that point it was given a full year window with an option to come back to you again, which they did 4 years ago, for BZA-12-019. Quaker Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 1 Boulevard, Reeves Road, Stoops there. You may remember the special exception we had for liquor sales there, so you kind of know the lay of the land. I went out and took some pictures today. This is from 267, you might be able to catch a little bit of a glimpse of some it there. If you are you’ve got better vision than I do. So that is from this point right here approximately on Quaker Boulevard. I went down here off the warehouse on Reeves, their parking lot, you can see a little bit of a trailer as you come west bound on Reeves you get a little bit of view as well, but it is an industrial area and you are seeing trailers almost on every site. 8 years ago you approved this, it was a temporary use because of the location and the site characteristics four years later, for a lack of a better word, extended it. Is that still the preview of the board? If so are the conditions appropriate or are there other uses you would like to see? Staff has placed 2 conditions, one compliance with the site plan on the 29th and the same type of a four year window on this with the possibility of the applicant coming back to ask for another use. With that the applicant is here so I will step aside. Mr. Station: Bob Staton, Banning Engineering at 853 Columbia Road, suite 101. I don’t really have anything to add to what Eric has said. Damon Jones property owner is in attendance tonight. If you have any questions we will be glad to answer those. Mr. Monnett: If there is anyone here that would like to speak for or against this, please come forward. I will close it to our public and open it up for our board for further discussion or a possible motion. Ms. Duffer: I just have a comment, I don’t have any problems with the variance whatsoever, but at what point do we determine that it continues on because we are getting it in 12 years, 8 years, when is it time to do something else when it becomes permanent and not just… Mr. Cavanaugh: I don’t think even a rezone would change the need for the variance because we can’t zone to allow the parking as a primary use. I presume that we would also have the variance need if it was even paved. If was still truck parking as a primary use, so I don’t think the conditions have changed at all, it is not intrusive, we never have any remonstrance. It is an appropriate use for that site in my opinion. Mr. Monnett: Could we make the condition take away the 4 years and just make it on the condition of if it was ever sold or do you not want to do that? Too far? Mr. Cavanaugh: I would rather keep it because then it is permanent that if there is other development that takes place out there whether it be Mr. Jones or another owner then it already has a permanent variance. I would rather keep it time limited. Mr. Monnett: So leave it to 4. Ms. Duffer: I would be an agreement with that. Mr. Cavanaugh: If there are no other comments or questions I am prepared to make a motion. I move that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve BZA-16-018, as filed by Damon N. Jones, requesting a use variance to allow trailer parking on a gravel surface in property zoned AG and I-1 north of Reeves Road. Subject to the following conditions: Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 2  1. Substantial compliance with site plan submitted file date August 29, 2016. 2. The terms of the variance of use shall be for four (4) years from the approval date at which time the use variance shall expire. In the event petitions wishes to continue the granted use of trailer parking, another use variance shall be petitioned for and granted. Mr. Gibbs: Second. Mr. Monnett: Motion by Mr. Cavanaugh and a second by Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Klinger would you please poll the board? Mr. Klinger: Ms. Duffer- yes Mr. Monnett- yes Mr. Cavanaugh- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes BZA-16-017 is approved 4-0. Mr. Monnett: The next petition tonight is BZA-16-008 Reeves Realty. Mr. Berg: Okay, this is for a use variance to allow off street parking area on a vacant lot at about 222-224 Indiana Street in a medium density R-4 District located here at the southwest corner of Indiana and Short. R-4 here, Town Center use district here, Main, Avon, Indiana, East and Short Street. The different view here at the time this was taken, a heavily wooded by kind of a shed. This is the property here the apartments. They have 16 units and only 12 spots so what they are looking to do is to add 6 spots over here, just directly across from back out here. typically from what I understand there isn’t a huge parking problem because people have different schedules and things like that, but occasionally we do have some people parking in the commercial area because there are not enough spots, so that is why they are looking to do this. They have taken down the shed which is about right here and cleared up the lot so it looks a lot better than it did. Kind of backing up on that point. Does this variance justify not having people parking in the commercial spots just by the variance. The next point is, has he used minimum relief and there are findings - don’t have landscaping standards or other standards beyond much of 8’ wide, 18’ long, and 24’ wide drive aisle and that is 90 degree. Are there standards that we will feel appropriate as far as for landscaping was similar? The conditions that we are asking for are that they meet the standard parking lot dimensional standards and that if more spaces are needed that parking is reconfigured to access off of Short instead of Indiana. The applicant is here so if there are any questions. Mr. Cavanaugh: Do you have this plan available to show on the screen? I just wanted to make sure I was interpreting this correctly, so it would be just pull in parking from Indiana Street similar to what is in front of the apartment complex now? Mr. James: That is not oriented correctly. Ms. Duffer: So where are you pulling into the parking lot? Mr. James: Right of Indiana Street. Ms. Duffer: But doesn’t that show the 6 parking spaces right there so you are pulling into? Is that what that depicts from here? Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 3 Mr. Cavanaugh: I think the idea is to create parking spaces that you pull into directly from Indiana similar to spaces right across the street. Ms. Duffer: Okay, I am sorry, I misunderstood. Mr. Cavanaugh: That is the way I am understanding this plan. Ms. Duffer: Okay. Mr. Monnett: Would the petitioner like to come up and speak, you may. Ms. Reeves: Hi I am Joni Reeves, I reside at 7496 Quincy Court, Indianapolis, Indiana 46254. I am the partial owner of Reeves Realty. The U shaped apartment building that you see was built by Raymond Andrews in 1958. At that time a lot of people didn’t drive, we had this apartment building I think we bought it originally in 1979 and we made it for widows and older people and a lot of widows didn’t drive. So parking hadn’t really been an issue until recently when we have 16 units and only 12 spaces. So we recently were able to purchase 223 Avon Avenue with a house and then in the backlot. We clear-cutted the lot in hopes that we could now build this 6 parking spaces that we need on 1,080’. We do intend and have a plan to put in trees and shrubs to make it like a park setting but also make it pretty for the Town of Plainfield, but also allow our residents to have these spacing that they need. As he said currently zoned R-4, so we are just asking for a variance of use. Mr. Monnett: What are you going to do with the house? Ms. Reeves: We actually sold the house to a friend from high school. So they are rehabbing the house. They’ve put in a new furnace and new floor joists and they are updating to make it pretty again. It belonged to Doc Stafford so the Stafford family had been in that house since the early 1900’s. So now Celina owns it and like I said get more parking spaces that we really need for our residents and make it more of a park setting with trees and shrubs. Mr. Monnett: I will close it to the public and open it up to our board for any discussions or a possible motion. Mr. Gibbs: The only question I have has there been any engineering study done on drainage or anything? Mr. James: No we took it to TAC and Town Engineer, Tim Belcher was there and he explained that the Town has done some improvements on Indiana Street. It has improved the drainage, we’ve put in some storm inlets and he thought that just the 6 parking spaces was not going to create a significant change in the drainage. Mr. Cavanaugh: So then the request is for use variance over this entire parcel? Mr. Monnett: Not the house just, yes. Mr. James: I don’t think they are going to use the whole parcel, in fact I think they might split it and give it to the house. Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 4 Mr. Daniel: You might in the motion you might tie it to that plat that they have attached to where the use variance actually applies rather than the entire lot referred in the… Mr. Cavanaugh: Well what I am considering and this is for discussion, most of the board and it might take some input from the petitioner. I’m a little leery of granting the blanket variance for that entire piece that could be turned into parking at any time. I am incline to want to support this because I think it is an appropriate use to allow increase parking there to overcome that hardship and to reduce hardship on surrounding parking spaces. But I will prefer to limit the development at this time to just the spaces indicated on the application and then request the petitioner to come back if there was to be further development under this variance. That way you can get the spaces that you want, but it would be more difficult to come, not that you would do this but it would be more difficult to come in and just pave the whole space because it set for parking. So that is kind of the intent that I have in mind and I want you, if that sounds acceptable, that is how I am approaching it. Because then if we would grant this variance for the entire piece and you would sell it to someone other than yourselves of course that might approach this use differently, then they would have the opportunity to come in and just asphalt the whole thing. So I don’t think that is what you intend and I would prefer to keep our use variance limited to exactly what your needs are at this time. Ms. Duffer: Did I miss it in the petition, but did it specifically say it was going to be asphalt? Mr. Cavanaugh: There is an assumption and I don’t want to make the assumption. Mr. James: They said compliance with standards in 4.10 in the zoning ordinance which requires that. Ms. Duffer: Okay. Mr. Monnett: Have we received any emails or any of the green cards back, Joe? I’m in agreement for just the use just specifically for the 6 spaces. Then if they did further development they would have to come back. That makes sense to me and helps them. Mr. Cavanaugh: Does that seem like an agreeable situation? Ms. Reeves: No, that seems very reasonable to us. I mean we have no intent, we just want to overcome the hardship to at least allowing one spot per resident and that would just give us 2 or 3 extra spaces for guests. That way we don’t have to park at the accounting office next door and the gas station and those kind of things. Ms. Duffer: And I would agree that there is a parking, in fact my husband who is a Police Officer who drives in that area and says that there is a need for this as well. Mr. James: If you are prepared to make a motion I would like a condition regarding the landscaping. Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 5 Ms. Duffer: The petitioner stated that there were plans to put in shrubs and trees, however if we acted like this was the GC District then we could require the specifics. Mr. Cavanaugh: It seems like there is quite a bit of foliage there now. Ms. Duffer: Well is it all gone now? Mr. Berg: The photos there on the left are the current condition. I think the foliage that you see is part of the other property. Mr. Cavanaugh: That is what I get for not driving by. I am prepared to take a run at a motion if there aren’t any other questions or comments. I move that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve BZA-16-019, as filed by Reeves Realty, LLC, requesting approval of a use variance to allow an off-street parking area for legal nonconforming apartments on a vacant lot at approximately 222 Indiana Street subject to the following conditions: 1. Parking lot layout shall comply with the requirements of Table 4.10-A in the Town of Plainfield Zoning Ordinance. 2. The development shall be limited to the parking spaces indicted on the site plan file dated August 26, 2016. Future development of this site will require additional review before the Board of Zoning Appeals. 3. Landscaping shall be added to equal the Town Center requirements of 22 shrubs and 3 trees spaced evenly in a 5’ planning strip that the Town Center requires. 4. The variance shall be tied to the plat of the property indicated on the submitted plan. Ms. Duffer: I will second that. Mr. Monnett: I have a motion by Mr. Cavanaugh and a second by Ms. Duffer. Mr. Klinger would you please poll the board. Mr. Klinger: Just for clarification, I think you described it as BZA-16-019, is that the appropriate number or is BZA-16-018? Mr. Berg: 019 is correct. Mr. Klinger: Ms. Duffer- yes Mr. Monnett- yes Mr. Cavanaugh- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes BZA-16-019 is approved 4-0. OLD BUSINESS/NEW BUSINESS Mr. Monnett: Old or new business Mr. James? Mr. James: That is all we have for tonight. ADJOURNMENT Mr. Monnett: Motion for adjournment. Ms. Duffer: So moved. Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 6 Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 9-18-16 7