Feb 27, 2023 Zoning Board of Adjustment on 2023-02-27 5:30 PM

There we go. All right, after determining that according to the President, the Zoning Court of Adjustment will convene in a regular meeting on Monday, February 27th, 2023, at 5.30 p.m., 5.29, yeah, in training room three, four, and five. Are we in all three? Well, that's cool. They've opened all the walls. At the Development Service Center 401 North Elm Street, Denton, Texas, at which the following item will be considered. We have to have at least six members present, which we do, and so we'll call to order the regular meeting at 5.29, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I 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. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. Item 2A on our agenda is to consider approval of the Zoning Board of Adjustment Commission minutes for the December 19th, 2022 meeting. I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion. Thank you. And the second? I'll second. Any discussion of the minutes? May I ask each member to vote? City staff. Oh, okay, okay. All those in favor? Board member Fischer? I think we're supposed to go one at a time. Minus? Yes. Board member Green? Yes. Board member Reveley? Yes. Board member Jesse Aspar? Yes. Board member Ha? Yes. On his staff, board member Necron? Also staff. Also staff. Okay, and then I'm abstaining because I wasn't here. Okay. So it would be six. Six. One abstention. Motion is made by... I was there. Yeah, I was there. Who seconded? I'm sorry. I seconded. That's great. All right. All right. Okay, to receive nominations and election, this is item 2B. ZBA 23-002 on our agenda is to receive nominations and election of a chair and vice chair. And I'll now entertain a motion or discussion from the board on this topic. I will go ahead and ask for a nomination for chair. Sure. Yes, a nomination for chair. I would like to nominate Jennifer Lane as chair. Any second? Thank you. It'll be fun for my last term to do it. All right. Thank you. So that was... Member is Lane and nominated by... And then motion... Oh, I'm sorry. Cut it backwards. Okay. And the motion was made by... I'm seconded by Farhad. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then I guess I have to call on each person again. So we'll start with... Board member Fisher? I vote yes. Aye. And then Michael? Yes. Okay. Yes. And... Yes. Yes. And there's this famous phrase that I'll just say as a joke, but I'll first say yes, which is, "If nominated, I will not run it. If elected, I will not serve." But that's not the case. I love that expression. Okay. So it carries seven to zero. Thank you. And for vice chair, any nominations? I'd like to nominate someone who would like to do it. Or if somebody you know, which members would like to do it. You can nominate yourself. Please. Please go for it if you'd like to do it. And I will second. All right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That carries seven. We better go around. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. All right. Terrific. And now we have item 3A, number ZBA 23-003 on our agenda is to receive a report and home discussion regarding the Zoning Board of Adjustment composition, procedures, powers, and duties. Do you want me to wait on the next item or do they go together? No, they're separate. Okay. Thank you. So thank you, everyone. I think this is something that we had talked about due to me, primarily because we have some new members. I think it would be helpful to have this discussion. I know that there are some members that haven't really been through this and I think it would be a good refresher for you all as well. It's also an opportunity to bring the group together. So if you have any questions about the composition, procedures, and powers, and duties, please let me know. I'll do my best to present it as clearly and concise. But again, if there are any questions, please raise your hand. Thank you. So just going through the development code, it basically spells out the board's composition, the rules and regulations, as well as the duties. So Section 234 of the Dental Development Code identifies composition. And the composition of this board is a seven-member board with three alternates. And you can see that I put together a table here that shows where you are in terms of you're either a regular member or a alternate to the board. The seven members of the Zoning Board of Adjustment is appointed by the City Council. They serve in two-year terms. So if you have already, you're close to reaching your term limit or your number of years, a number of months that is, the city secretary will reach out, our staff liaison will reach out and ask if you would like to continue or not. And if you are, then we would have to present that to the city council. And again, they appoint you at a meeting where they approve all of the nominations in all the different boards and commissions that we have at the same. Now we try to stagger those term limits and those memberships because we want to make sure that we have a steady amount of individuals that are present and then if there are new members, it's not like all of the new members at one time. There are provisions for removal. So one of those is that if you don't show up to a meeting for a good reason, there's certain reasons that you can not show up. And for those reasons, you can be absent. However, if you do not have a good reason and are absent for a certain amount of time, I believe it's twice or three times, then the council can request that you be removed and then replaced with another member. So I don't think that's a problem with this group, but in other committees and boards that has happened in the past. Yes, ma'am. That's a point. I noticed one time that just responding to the meeting, if you have to be absent, you have to also write to the city secretary. That's just the only little detail there. Right. And Monica provides that ability. If you say you're not here for whatever reason, she documents it and she shares that with the CSO. I forward that email to the CSO and then you match it. They will let you know that that's okay. Okay. In terms of the vacancy, so if there's a vacancy, now we have two vacancies. You can see that one regular member and one alternate and alternate number two is a vacancy for this board. We work with the city secretary office and we can only bring forward people that apply for the boards and commission. So as you applied for this board commission, we look for that as well. So anybody that you know that would be interested in serving in this board, please encourage them. The application is online. The city secretary goes through the application and if there is one that identifies the zoning board of adjustment as a board committee or commission that they would like to serve, then that is brought forward to city council for consideration and fills that vacancy. So far so good. We were able to fill some of the ones that we had vacancy, but we still have two more that we're working on. The three alternates that you all see there, I think Kate's are alternate number three. We have two other ones as well and similar to the regular members, they are appointed by city council. You have to go through that process, similar staggered two-year terms again to make sure that we have different members that are familiar with the process or new ones as well. They serve in the present or when there is a vacant or not a person not attending a meeting, they serve in that capacity. So for example, if we had five members present and Kate was here, she can sit in for that membership, for that position. We need at least six members to have a meeting to meet for them. We also need six members for the board to consider a case. So six is the magic number, six out of seven. The way the alternates work, you can see here they're actually listed in terms of their assignments and so if for example Prince was here and Kate was here, Prince would sit first because he's alternate number one and then Kate would be if Prince was not here. So that's how it works. The reason why you see alternates is because the zoning board of adjustment is a very important board where we consider items and we only meet once a month. So we want to make sure that items that are brought forward to the board, we are able to meet quorum and the alternates are in that manner serving to make sure that we meet quorum every time we meet. So I know it's been in the past it's been a challenge but I think with this group I think we're able to meet quorum most of the time that we are able to meet. So if we have a case or we're going to meet and we hope that we meet quorum every time. Any question on the composition? Operational procedures, I won't read all of this obviously we talked about already the first one general procedures that all cases are heard with a minimum of six members. The chairperson and or assigned person at that time of the zoning board of adjustment can call a meeting. We follow the Texas Open Meeting Act and open meetings law in terms of making sure we're posting the meeting, making sure that we're recording the meeting and making sure that everything is documented for each of our meetings. So that's also covered in the handbook for boards, commissions and council committees. I believe most of you had gone through some of the training so if you know if you need to learn a little bit more want to know more about those procedures again that handbook for boards and commissions or boards commission and committees is on our website and is available for you provided just an overview of what's covered in there but I think the most important thing that I would encourage you all if you haven't already read up on it or follow up on it is really the meeting procedures which you know Chair Lane does a really good job as far as you know making sure that one that the meeting is run you know in an efficient manner but also recognizes each person as they speak. I think that's the most important thing because when we keep minutes in the video we want to make sure that whoever's speaking is recognized so that we know who's speaking in terms of our record keeping. Another point or another item under operational procedures is the appeal of administrative decision procedures and that's something that I think we've seen more recently than that we have in the past for those that aren't familiar anyone that's that feels that you know a decision by an administrative official is is incorrect or want to challenge that decision they are able to submit an appeal to the zoning board of adjustment and we have 60 days to act on it from when they submit it there are procedures in between but again the main thing there is that the burden of proof is from the applicant that's seeking that appeal we hear the case in the first meeting is the presentation of the case hearing both from the staff as well as the person that's requesting the appeal and then after that there's a next meeting where we have the actual decision happen so I think some of you have already been part of one or two of those and we we we haven't seen like but there are two separate meetings and two separate times on two separate agendas. Any questions on the administrative appeal or appeal of an administrative decision? Ron I'd like to add with the Texas Open Meeting Act with the posting so that's usually when you're going to hear from me as if we're going off topic and we're talking about something that hasn't been posted I'll be like hey we're off posting and that's just a signal to bring it back to the actual agendas we're talking about. So going into the next item powers and duties that's basically established in subchapter two of the development code this table represents just a summary of what the zoning board is able to appeal against or is in charge of any appeals that come forward. I'll have another slide here that zooms into it so you don't have to really pay attention to this table but again table 2.28 establishes the appeal process or shows where the appeals can happen and where the zoning board of adjustment is the appeal body. In terms of other powers and duties the the zoning board of adjustment can consider changes in terms of non-conforming uses the re-establishments of non-conforming uses as well as the termination so that is something that if someone is challenging or wants to address non-conformity it would come to this board in terms of changes re-establishments or terminations. Again we talked about the appeals of administrative decisions again that that is something that the board will consider it's an item that's available for anyone that has questions or does not agree on a decision and then the last one here is the development code has a number of items that they can that an applicant or pop in or can see you know variants but also in the code of ordinances the sign code which is not part of the development code it's a separate chapter in the code of ordinances that is something also that if someone has a challenge or wants to get a variance from they can also do that from the sign code regulation so that's another important you know item that this board considers. Okay so I blew up the table so you can see here and I apologize it was a little fuzzy but the zoning board of adjustment you see here and any where there is an a that represents appeal or that that what that means is an appeal so for zoning compliance plan if you look over to the left that means that if anybody has a question or disagrees with a decision on a zoning compliance plan they are able to appeal to the zoning board of adjustment. Similarly there is temporary use permits zoning verification letters also gas well development site I'm sorry gas well development site plans watershed protection permit also or other cases or items or projects that is that an applicant can seek an appeal and again it will be to this board the zoning board of adjustment. Also vested rights I sort of highlighted that because it doesn't have the the a symbol but in the chapter under its vested rights it does say state that the appeal goes to the zoning board of adjustment. Next page on on the table is this right here it shows if you can see it shows the letter D now D is this board is the decision making body from this appeal so we go we go through a review process with staff ultimately the director also provides a review and then we make a recommendation to this board and ultimately the board makes the decision. Now you may ask well then what if someone appeals the zoning board of adjustments in decision well that goes to court so after you all it goes to court it doesn't go to city council it goes to a district court so that tells you a little bit about how your decision is so important because ultimately if the decision is not something that is accepted by an applicant they would have to file you know an appeal to the court of the state court. Yes sir. If it came to taking it to court would the city be taking the court or would the board be taking the court? Good question. I haven't had to think about that yet. If they think that the board did something wrong there's a likelihood that the board might be named but it's not in a you individually you need to go get an attorney in time there would be an attorney hired for the CDA as my expectation. You're not going to incur personal liability unless you go wildly off task. That's why you have Hillary here right to help you know it's just provide that advice right so she's she'll let us know and then that's a really good question because in another section under bearings is we'll go through what is needed post you know decision because there's a document that needs to be filled out in references when you make a motion that you're stating the facts of why the board is or your motion that why the board is making that decision so it's all documented so hopefully that protects the board as much as we can. Okay and it goes back to the board being kind of quasi-judicial in addition to being a check on staff if they get an interpretation so that the applicant feels like they need to appeal you're also sort of another checking balance on how the code is interpreted and how we treat that goes so far that y'all's interpretations become part of the development code essentially where we recently outdoor storage outdoor storage a decision from y'all a year or two ago feels like yeah got incorporated into a development code update that is coming going to be coming to council in the next meeting next week yeah so your what you do matters and we're just so happy you're here. So I also highlighted appeal of administrative decision but we already talked about that again that's the the two meeting process you know we need you know from submittal we have 60 days to act on and so you know obviously 60 days is seems like a long time but when you think about you know making sure that you know we have enough people obviously that's why it's important that we have everyone here it doesn't really seem like a lot of time so the as soon as soon as we get an appeal for an administrative decision we are acting on it because we need one it takes some time to go through the development review process but then ultimately we need to schedule the meeting and then have the meetings to have the item heard and decided on prior to that 60 days so that's important okay so I mentioned earlier the D stands for decision for variance and you may say well what is what is a variance like what what does someone want a variance from the purpose statement there essentially means anything that they feel is an unnecessary hardship now I can tell you though if there is a provision that is a prohibition that they cannot act and submit a variance because it's specifically prohibited now there are other areas of the code where they can request a variance from and we can get into we'll get into that but as you can read there it's basically a relief from the application of the dvc specifically you know creating either an unnecessary hardship or because of the special parcel of a specific parcel which cannot otherwise be developed in the same manner so think of maybe a lot configuration that maybe is an odd looking lot and because of the shape of the lot they are not able to develop as similar to other properties within the neighborhood they can ask for a a variance and what they'll go what they will be varying from most likely will be either a setback requirement or maybe you know building coverage whatever it is because then if they did get that variance they'll be able to develop a single family home or something similar that's in the same neighborhood so because of that special project or that specific project which literally limits them so that's just one example of what can be applied for in a variance the second bullet there is that they cannot apply a variant for a variance specifically to change to use or allow a use that's not allowed in that specific zoning district and that's the second item of this project is we'll talk about that as well or this agenda so again what can they vary from essentially anything that they feel is a hindrance for them to develop their property not considering you know ones that are prohibited so those items in the development code that prohibits an item those are not included and then also again if it's a specifically related to a product or a property that really limits them in their ability to develop compared to any other property within the same area so those are the ones that typically will you'll see in terms of a variance request that will come to the zoning board of adjustment applicability like who can apply for a variance just because you have a question okay applicability who can apply for various basically any property owner right that's that feels that the ddc you know is is a hindrance to developing the property for those reasons that we spoke about earlier the chapter 33 of the code of warrants is another one it's listed separate because it's not part of the ddc so i just want to make sure that it's not just the ddc it's also that sub chapter of the code of warrants is we do have an approval criteria so if they meet that then they can submit an application for it and then the the last one is um it just shows that the zoning board shall decide on all requests for variances so you're the board that considers those variances and again as we spoke earlier it's your final decision so anybody that you know wants to challenge your decision they would have to go through the courts to get that resolved i won't spend too much here on the procedure is basically what we go through in terms of going through the review process and ultimately taking it to you for your consideration obviously it can be initiated by the director or the property owner most likely it's an application by the property owner or their authorized agent it's reviewed and then a recommendation is is presented to the board um so the zoning board of adjustment we talked about an approval criteria is actually part of this presentation i'll list what those are we want to make sure that the approval criteria is met um and because that's going to be part of our findings in fact if we're making a decision we need to base it off of the approval criteria again this is to protect you guys in terms of what we talked about being appealed or sued from the applicant if they are not they feel like ingredients is placed on them by the board so that's why the appeal approval criteria is so important that we follow um we talked about the six members that is required to to vote on the items that's why we need six members in the quorum um again the zoning i just i kind of mentioned it already shall make written findings of fact and conclusion of law um and hillary remind me that is uh essentially uh summary there's a there's minutes that also that's part of it as well that summarizes why the board is making decision and we can then use that as a written documentation that gets filed um you know under the zoning board of adjustment office right so the the finding of fact is just the criteria were met were incorporating staff's reasoning because they did an excellent job writing their report and the conclusion of law is therefore we're going to go ahead and grant this variance or not or not right the other way as well um variance is good for 24 months if they haven't gotten a permit or they haven't commenced development if it expires by you know within 24 months they would have to come back and seek that same variance it can transfer it can not transfer so it's per that application for that property appeals we talked about district court or county court you know but the appeal must come 10 days after that decision has been filed with it's filed with the the zoning board of adjustment office which is really the development services so we keep file of all of the different written findings of facts and then there's discussion on suspension and relocation of variances of course if they don't follow through with the variance conditions is it 10 calendar days or 10 10 business days i have to go back to the code yeah i think it's probably after check i'm sure it doesn't say in the code but i'm going to see a calendar i think i think the definition section of our code clarifies i feel like it's calendar day great thank you way to save the day and it's not transferable by the current from the current property owner to a future property owner like if they sold it in the midst of that 24 months so i think the problem i think is important that the property owner now hillary i know that we talked about this earlier this morning but if the decision is by i'm sorry if the application is by property owner then they sell the property i think the net chat the non-transferable i think is related to the property i don't know it's the owner nicks maybe we should ask to risk that and check that's a really good question yeah i don't know how to understand your question the question is whether or not it's transferable if it's the same property but is sold to a different person so before the project that the variance authorizes is complete right ah that's a good question so i have a i have it here luckily i brought it here right uh under the section non-transferable an approved variance shall apply only to the property or structure described in the approval and shall not be transferable to any other property or structure so i think the property owner is is fine they sell but it's the property and we're talking about right so property a is going to have the house with this variance or business or whatever then that property has that variance as long as it hasn't gone beyond the 24 months correct okay they have to act on it right because then that allows them to implement that i don't know that i've been on the board when that was a problem but i know it has been a problem yeah somebody bought it and ran up against the wall so um here are the criteria i apologize there's a lot of wording but i'm trying to highlight the main ones that i thought were pertinent so right letter a you know that the i mean let me step back a little bit um i'm going to read it because it makes sense in reviewing a variance request the zoning board of adjustment shall find that all of the following exists so when you're making a decision it has to be where all of the criteria have has been met and not be although they met two of the you know two four six you know it has to be all so that's how it's presented and that's why it's underlying so letter a that the property that's seeking that that variance there's something peculiar about that problem about that parcel or property we talked about you know maybe a different you know shaped lot or whatever it may be maybe there's a hill next to it which makes it difficult to develop so those things are specifically peculiar to that property and not to any other property so that would fit under letter eight and then it further states that any or conditions uh that are there's a strict application of the provision of this seat would deprive the applicant of the reasonable use of that property again tie it back to what is that specific thing that makes it so difficult to develop letter b granting of the variance will not be detrimental to the public welfare or converse to other property or other improvements so you want to make sure that that's the case that the variance is the minimum variance uh that will accomplish this purpose so if there is any other way of accomplishing it uh then we should explore that but if not then this is the the only option that they have and it's one of the the variances that they're they're seeking um again we talked about unnecessary hardship um literally enforcement of the dvc will resort in unnecessary hardship you may ask well what what is that unnecessary hardship that's a that's a hard thing right because to one person unnecessary can mean one thing to another person it can mean another thing um however it does state further that general provisions and intent of the dvc and that granting such variance the the spirit of the dvc will be preserved so um looking at it in that respect you know unnecessary hardship is it's not just one person it's it's it's every everybody that's that's you know uh being affected so that's where i would lie on that um the granting of a variance is not solely for the purpose of mitigating a financial hardship so it has to be more than just i don't want to do that because it's going to cost me more money so it has to have some some a little bit more um reason for that hardship and then the the conditions that was created and the reason why they're seeking the variance is not one that was created by the owner so yes so again when you're reviewing these various uh requests these cases um we really the staff focuses on these criteria for approval in our staff analysis we make sure we try to summarize it as best as we feel in in terms of our our reasoning uh but when ultimately it comes down to it's your decision as the board and you have to either confirm with the staff's um reasoning or not but these are the criteria for approval that you should use based on to base your decision on the particular case um that's really my last I didn't I didn't mean to make it that small I just really it's more of a graphic the reason I show this is that when I search the development code and don't don't try to read it because it's really small um I found there are other sections of the code that references the zoning board of adjustment in terms of actions so I try to highlight some non-conforming uses we talked about already if someone has a grievance on meeting an application you know completeness they can also ask the zoning board of adjustment to consider that decision vested rights we talked a little bit about business registration again it talks about being the board is the decision factor on that and when when it comes to appealing decisions the area in blue is related to gas well so from our gas well section of the code I think it's I think it's six sub chapter six subject sub chapter six has um a lot in there in terms of gas well it does references the the zoning board of adjustment in certain um areas of the the regulations uh in terms of setback requirements extensions of what of a special exception if you know the operator fails to obtain written waivers and then any things that they need to cure on an alleged failure all of those things I don't want you to really focus on right now but if there is something that is requested or something that is not working in terms of the gas well development regulations the responsible board and commission or board is the zoning board of adjustment to hear those items now when we worked on the the gas well ordinance how long was that Hila? 13, 14. Was it that long? 15 was the ban. Right so we uh we made it we made a point that the um that there should be some relief in an appeal process and so the board of adjustment you guys were the lucky ones for that so so the board of adjustment does consider uh items not the ones that I haven't mentioned but also um the ones I did mention but also with regards to gas well as well and then there's a there's a nod one this is actually in another section some something about satellite you know being located somewhere else not on the side of the rear if someone says no I want in the front well then they would appeal to you all to make that decision they have to prove why that variance is required so that's really just a quick you know update and some summarization of the zoning board of adjustment the composition we talked about some of the procedures in terms of the appeal process again um we've heard several of them lately I think for the newer members we haven't had one yet but um maybe coming hopefully not anytime soon and then we talked about some of the uh the rules in uh the powers and duties that is in terms of what applies uh to you all and then ultimately the various procedures because I think that the various procedure is more likely what you'll see on a more regular basis say than the others so any questions on that that was good can we have the presentation emailed to us like sure yeah all right oh thank you that's very good um the back up the link with the package they probably don't remember probably not um we'll make sure we email that to you you did the sub chapter but i don't think okay while i was working on the presentation came out after i have actually read it before but it doesn't matter how much of you did when the case has come up then you have to review do you want to call the next item i certainly do um all right is there any further discussion of this item all right um item 2b number zba 23-003 on our agenda is to receive a report and hold a discussion regarding um zoning districts sub chapter 3 zoning districts thank you chair um the reason i wanted to also provide a presentation on the zoning district is because a lot of the variances that you'll see will relate to a particular property and what they're they're requesting a variance from is typically from their setback requirements their height you know maximums building coverage those are the things i just wanted to give you guys an overview of where that is in the development code because when we present this to you you have a better understanding of how and what and where they're actually requesting that variance from so zoning district is in sub chapter 3 as the chair introduced it contains you know all of the zoning designations that is listed on the right you see that we have residential districts rr through r7 we have mixed use districts as well and men through md and mr corridor districts we have two suburban and highway and then we have other non-residential districts which is you know your general office light industrial as well as public facilities public facilities are your public agencies you know the city the state and the county as well those are disd those are all considered public facilities in addition to the zoning districts we also have plan development districts plan development districts are if you can imagine their own zoning district so this particular board will not likely consider any variances to those plan development districts but i just want to make mention that we have them as well those are approved by city council any changes to those or variances they would have to go through the zoning i'm sorry the city council or consideration they're either minor or major the major ones are go would go to this to the city council we also have overlay districts and we have two four six seven overlay districts which includes three historic districts these similarly have different requirements than the zoning districts again very specific if there are any changes they would have to go through that process of the city council similarly master plan communities it's another another way of saying that these particular areas have their own rules and regulations and their zoning requirements so that's why they're called out separately we currently have one big one it's called a coal hunter and that's a 6 000 acres it's a fairly large master plan community it has its own again requirements standards as well as their uh their process um really we might like if there was a cell variance there is that is that i don't think do we do i'm trying to remember we listed the zoning board that was something that they have to amend the mpc i have to go look but i believe they almost wholeheartedly adopted urgent development code and made minor modifications to things that they needed to suit them so they probably do have a work adjustment procedure yeah those mpcs um just this is just to show the that those those letters or those zoning districts is is is basically there's a second part of it and it's the second part of the zoning map so uh i apologize hard to see but you see r3 is more of a yellow color um zoning district the blue blue is pf it's i was going to ask anybody can guess but the blue is but it's already shown as pf this is obviously um tw and then this is unt and then the city properties and tic properties are shown in blue but we also have mn sc and r4 so again just so you know that those zoning districts there's a map that's associated with them so again based on the map of a property you would then identify what zoning district you're in so someone say that's in the r3 wants to develop they have to follow the zoning district's requirements under the r3 regulations so that's sort of how there's a whole zoning thing works anybody have any questions i think this is pretty self-explanatory but i sometimes i just want to make sure that it's covered yeah okay so in each of the zoning districts we have four elements or four areas each zoning district and this just happens to be the r3 zoning district it has a purpose and intent so it basically provides a narrative of what that zoning district is intended for there's also a graphic that's that summarizes and it's not exact but it just gives you an idea of what the areas are you know identified the rear setback the side setback the front setback and also the height so these are just kind of illustrating the main things that are covered under the zoning districts the second or the last two is related to the table that's that's within each of the zoning districts so each zoning district again this is the r3 has a table and each table or each zoning district has lot dimension minimums has setback minimums and has other standards so again we talked about if a particular lot is shaped differently and a property wants to develop and for their property the 10-foot rear yard does not work i mean that seems really minimal but for whatever reason they can't fit it in there and they have to encroach that 10 foot that would be a variance request that board would consider i don't think we we get a lot of the rear i think a lot of times it's the front yard setback that we get people want to encroach their front and so that's what the board typically sees so that's probably a better example we also have a building height and other building coverage as well you know say set property can't meet that meet that requirement then they are standard then they would come to the zoning board for that particular case the next few slides just basically shows all of the different zoning districts we won't spend a lot of time on it but what i did want to show is that there are also additional standards so in addition to the the minimum lot dimensions and setbacks there's also further requirements but there's you know it's standards but it could be to to be more restrictive but it also is it's to provide some alleviation in terms of certain you know setbacks and certain lot dimensions so for example in the r7 townhomes are allowed and if you familiar with townhomes you know maybe maybe the setback is a better example you know those those are basically side by side you know they're not you know they're there you can't how am i going to do a townhome if there's a five foot setback well section 373 of the development code provides some of those provisions to allow for townhomes developments and that's spelled out in that section so people will ask well i can't do a townhome well under 373 you can because it's covered in the ddc the next few ones again make mention that additional standards and they reference these sections that are listed here lot dimension setbacks building height and building coverage i wanted to point those out because you'll see that in a few seconds or a few slides and then this just rounds off the other zoning districts that we have again very similar they have the same lot in setback and building guided building coverage standards what are the acronyms stand for for which one you know the one row across the top sh cg what does oh so yeah so well that's a good question that is the zoning districts yes i understand that but what are those letters what are those acronyms just suburban corridors okay yeah you got it there it is yeah so yeah thank you very much yeah just memorizing those yes then yeah no trust me you know and remember rr but yeah rr is easy right in this railroad but it's not but for for those that you know we're we're familiar with in 2019 we updated the development code we had what 27 28 zoning districts we when we did the update to the development code we narrow it down it's still a lot but it's not less than what it was before so you know considering how much we have to memorize this is a lot easier so um i talked about lot you know dimension so this this is the section that talks about it so you have a little bit more um you know standards so i'm not going to go through all of this but i just want to make mention that you know it talks about minimum lot dimensions a number of principal buildings or uses per lot it's all identified under that section for example for single family you can only have one single family home on a single family lot if that is the the use that's that's permitted under that um alternate standards and uh in cluster development so if there is a need for cluster development for a subdivision that section provides a little bit more uh information on how that is done uh i don't think it pertains to you i think what what i the reason i'm showing this to you is the table that i showed you is what most people vary from however there are other section or standards in the same sub chapter three that allows for people to lessen their setbacks because you know it's spelled out in this section under setbacks so for example um minimum measurements of setbacks it provides all of that information i'm trying to find a one here so there's there's these different ones so if you're saying well what if i have a front porch and i know it's hard to see the front porch allows you to encroach into the front yard setback to a certain degree if you have other things like like like balconies and fire escapes it gives you the ability to encroach into those setbacks because we know that that's something that's going to be needed the main items under those setback requirements are really the building structure right but anything offset from that maybe a bay window some of the other things that here that we see can encroach into that setback primarily because what we've done is we identified it here under this uh this section which is the table three seven a we talked about you know there's visual clearance required as well the one i wanted to focus on is the building height i think that's something that we've seen as well here at the zoning board we just went in the past this basically illustrates what that building height again i'm going to scroll real fast to a section and you can see the building heights are spelled out here for each of this each of the zoning districts so each of the each of the zoning district has a maximum building height you know 55 for the sc 100 uh for the hc which is along highways uh go general office most of them are located along the highway so those are 100 feet tall maximum uh li and hi uh 75 and 140 and then pf is 100 um so those are the maximum building height so someone wants to come in and wants to build in the hi 145 well they're gonna have to come to you guys for that variance um and so that's why that's why it's important that you you know where that area of the code that that is what they're trying to vary from and we do have a definition of a building height provided here obviously we don't see a lot of this in in den but you know if if you're looking at um i guess a hip roof or a gable roof it's married from it's measured sorry measured from the the the ground level up to the midpoint between the uh the roof line and the e so that's where it's measured um for flat roofs is basically measured at the top of the flat or at the top of the roof and the ground level so again this provides you some idea of what what is how it's measured how buildings are measured and then again mainly the thing here i wanted to point out is really the building height that's what we we the board with the board so important adjustment sees most often that's it so setbacks a lot um um building coverage and then maximum building height is typically what you will you will see as part of a variance um we haven't seen a lot of those i think the reason being is they're following the rules right or they're finding a way to make it happen yeah so then we're gonna want you all to get it right in first place yeah he um you can send us that one too right yeah well sarah loves it just get there on the um different zone it has been reduced a lot hasn't it yeah we uh we haven't had any cases recently most of the ones that we've seen have been an appeal to the administrative decision right and hailey can you know attest you know a lot of the ones that we do see um will work with them to find a solution and so not to say that you know this board the reason why this board hasn't been meeting in a while because we don't have anything to bring forward i mean so we didn't expect for a good time but we thought it was important one to to you know collect a chair advice here and provide you with some additional training for some learning members and a refresher to some of the existing members but as we get those applications you know we process them and um if we can't find a solution then the option is to come to the zoning board of adjustment i think i think one more thing i want to make me too hillary and i were talking i think for the most part everybody is very familiar with um some of the procedures as far as the mediating itself um there's a lot of its role and i think when you first uh started you either had some training but uh if um if anybody else has any um needs or wants for any type of training uh please let us know do we even have that kind of training for a long time concluding items should i be this or just is that just toilet plate that's what i mean yeah just ask if there are any yeah there are any concluding items or comments for the good of the order sometimes but uh if not i'll entertain a motion to adjourn second thank you all in favor say aye aye and then it is 625