Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA)

Town of Zionsville Board of Zoning Appeals June 10, 2014 Pledge of Allegiance was said and attendance was taken by the Secretary. Present: Greg Morical, Chairman, Al Wopshall, John Wolff, and Bryan Traylor. Larry Jones was absent. Staff attending: Wayne DeLong, Carol Sparks Drake, attorney. A quorum is present. Morical Good evening and welcome to the June 10, 2014 Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. The first item on the Agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. All Pledge. Morical The next item on our Agenda is attendance. DeLong Mr. Morical? Morical Present. DeLong Mr. Wopshall? Wopshall Present. DeLong Mr. Jones? DeLong Mr. Wolff? Wolff Present. DeLong Mr. Traylor? Traylor Present. Morical The next item on our Agenda is the March 11, 2014 meeting minutes. Do any of the Board Members have questions or comments on the minutes? If none, I would entertain a motion. Wopshall I make a motion that we approve the minutes of the, what was the date? March 11, 2014 minutes as written. Morical Is there a second? Wolff Second. Morical All those in favor say, aye? All Aye. Zionsville Board of Zoning Appeals June 10, 2014 Morical Opposed? Motion passes. The next item on our Agenda is continuance requests of which we have none and no continued business. The next item is new business Docket #2014-06-DSV on 340 Fitch Place. Would the petitioner please approach the podium? State your name and address for the record. Rausch Good evening. My name’s Dave Rausch and my address is 70 East Oak Street here in Zionsville. Also with me here tonight are the property owners, Jeff and Jane Smith. They’re the ones in the front row. But seriously thank you. Real simply, I have a quick handout for you that I’ll bring forward for a little more clarity. And,very simply, in front of you tonight, as outlined in your packet, is a simple request for an adjustment to a rear yard setback for this piece of property from 20 feet to 5 feet and very simply the property has got a little bit of a unique configuration, and it currently houses a single family residence, and the Smiths intend to build a new residence which would replace the house that’s there that would be demolished. The existing residence actually, by definition, encroaches on what would be the front yard and with our new structure we will comply with the front yard setback which is to the south in this particular case. The property as you can see, is kind of a chevron shape and on its west edge are power lines. The power lines actually run almost on the edge of this property, but there has also been a vegetation easement, so effectively the west side of this property, as well as the west side of the adjoiner’s property, is protected or unbuildable due to this power line and vegetation easement. As we look to push a new structure back the very narrow portion where the property jogs by definition gets classified as a rear yard even though it, as it zigzags around, it is a side yard, so what we’re looking to try to do is actually be able to make use of that 15 feet of space there in order to allow our proposed new structure to extend into that. Attached to the second sheet is actually a slightly revised findings of fact with one article highlighted and that is in fact that, you know, the ordinance would allow us to build an accessory structure there. That’s not our intention, but the notion of being able to actually build on that portion of the property is obviously something that is allowed by ordinance, but what we would like to do is illustrated in the drawing in front of you, is to be able to have the edge of the new structure actually encroach into that corner. So that is succinctly at this point we don’t see any other variances to the property, the home, the new home would be about 20 percent coverage, well below what is allowed by ordinance, and everything else we feel should fit nicely, so with that I’ll just see if you have any questions. Morical Thank you Mr. Rausch. Do any members of the Board have any questions? Wolff Just for clarity sake, the highlighted section of the materials you handed to us what you highlighted allows for an accessory structure, so the current zoning allows for an accessory structure? Rausch That’s our understanding, yes. Wolff Yeah, and what you’re proposing is the primary structure and it looks like, according to your illustration, it is a relatively small portion of the primary structure would actually fall within that setback. Page 2 of 4 Zionsville Board of Zoning Appeals June 10, 2014 Rausch It is. We’re not 100 percent final with the design although we’re moving along, and at this point it’s, you know, we don’t envision it would go to the full 5 feet at this point, but I guess for simplicity sake we thought, you know, being able to establish that line, you know, as it meanders along the west edge of the property was probably the easiest way, but it is the primary structure, and you’re right it probably is, you know, I would guess even less than half of the encroachment. Wolff Has there been any feedback from the neighbors? It looks like it may affect the Bailey Court address more than anybody else. DeLong As I’m aware, we had one adjoiner or interested party stop by and they were curious as to if any trees were coming down related to this project, but I don’t recall any representation of concern as to specifics of the setback. Rausch And I might speak to that. There are a number of trees around the edges of this property. All of those will be, on both this property as well as adjacent, and are quite frankly one of the assets to the property, and we are going out of our way to protect those and make sure we don’t, you know, endanger those trees. There are two trees in the building footprint, and they slightly show up in your site plan just to the upper right corner of the highlighted area and they are not fully, I call them teenagers. They’re not fully mature trees, but they are big enough to be impactful, but they are in the building footprint and those would be taken down, but the balance of everything else will stay. Morical Are there any other questions? Hearing none, are there any remonstrators here tonight? Seeing none, could we have the Staff Report please. DeLong Thank you. Staff is recommending approval of the petition as filed. Certainly Staff has met with Mr. Rausch on a few occasions to discuss this petition prior to filing. Again, Staff is recommending approval of the petition subject to the Staff Report and certainly the amended findings and I’d be happy to answer any questions. Morical Are there any questions for Staff? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion. Wopshall I’ll make a motion. I move that Docket 2014-06-DSV, Design Standards Variance, to reduce the rear yard setback requirement in a residential Village zoning district for the property located at 340 Fitch Place be approved as presented. Morical Thank you, is there a second? Traylor Second. Morical All those in favor, please say aye? All Aye. Page 3 of 4 Zionsville Board of Zoning Appeals June 10, 2014 Morical Any opposed? None opposed. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Rausch Thank you. Morical That being all the business in front of the Board of Zoning Appeals the meeting is hereby adjourned. Page 4 of 4