Jun 24, 2024 Zoning Board of Adjustment on 2024-06-24 5:30 PM

cool technologies probably can we record on teams or something just so we have it i have an audio recording going on my phone i'm fine with that it's still a public meeting okay good job thank you sorry sorry about that all right so thirdly does the conditioner feature which creates the need for the variance result from the property owner's acts in this case uh yes the property owner the original property owner constructed the building in the location it is where the entrance is where it was uh placed by the decision that property owner and the current property owner purchased it or leased it knowing that the entrance was in that location the single-family zoning districts were located where they were at that time our regulations were in place at that time so staff has to determine in this case the need for the variance is created by the result of the uh it is a result of the property owner's actions the fourth point that we consider is if you were to determine as the zoning board of adjustments that all three of those criteria actually were met as opposed to staff's conclusion then you would also need to determine that you were granting the variance not only not solely for personal convenience for financial hardship or reasons unrelated to the property uh now in this case there are reasons beyond solely convenience financial hardship or reasons unrelated to the property for which variance could be granted if all three of those previous criteria were met as discussed the topography of the property does impact where you can have an entrance and therefore the ability to have a lit sign above that entrance and there are benefits to having an eliminated sign above the entrance in terms of directing customers to your door that aren't solely related to the convenience property owner however again in order to approve zva would need to find differently than staff has that all three of those prior approval criteria were in fact met so with that as stated staff is recommending denial of the variance request however should you find differently from staff we have provided the decision that would need to be come to in terms of how the variance could be granted consideration with that that is my presentation i'm happy to answer any questions excellent thank you thank you for your presentation um so do any board members have any questions for staff question so the distinction between single use or single family and multi family like what i guess sort of confusing to me um is the ordinance just for single family or is it for multi-family so the ordinance what the ordinance says and i'm sorry i should have explained this more carefully was single family zoning districts or single family uses so in this case we have districts that are technically zoned only for single family within our code they're considered within that category of single family zoning but due to things that have happened prior to those aren't being put in place those properties which are zoned for single family are occupied by multi-family apartments so thank you i should express that more clearly so i think the ones on the hill yes the ones in your are technically zoned single family yes yes yes and just follow so staff's interpretation was that based on the language the intent seemed to be primarily directed towards single family uses but also for residents in general and so the point is those buildings their entrances not necessarily facing towards the side the is that a west facing that's on carol that can't that is approved for the illuminated signage that it's carol side is a yes right the other side or the manager side is approved for a non so we can still have a sign just kidding yes and both signs are approved right now at this moment including oh sorry including the illuminated sign on the main entrance the illuminated sign facing carol is approved okay the sign facing west oak is approved as a non-illuminated silica okay thank you for the distinction are there any other questions for the say staff okay um all right thank you again for your presentation will uh will the applicant please present any evidence or are you supporting your request okay thank you hi okay yeah oh my name is dina durgam here with ssc signs and mining to propose a illuminated sign on the main entrance for plains capital bank our our main point our need for the illuminated sign is we're putting an atm right below where the front entrance is and for us to have luminaries i think it's important to for safety um me growing up in the same in this area and going to umt i think there's a handful of safety measures email sent out to make sure we're taking extra measures and i know researching looking at atms it's always important to have adequate exterior signage around the atm and that's also important because we have as you know visibility issues with those trees in the main entrance they don't want to you know get rid of these trees they want to keep them there so the only thing we can do to maybe keep it more safety measures around the area is to propose a illuminated sign to create more exterior light for people who come at night to use the atm that feels safe around them and um yes sorry any questions and it's the same kind of photo that um sean opposed actually took this photo and where you see the um stairs their driveway is still i would say like two feet down so this is them walking out to the mailbox so they wouldn't see the sign at all even if they like you said even if they walked up there is some trees they might see it but it won't cause any obstruction to them i believe and according to the bank administration institute most dangerous hours of atm are from 7 p.m to midnight so us proposing a sign illuminate sign in that area will keep customers safe you know able to use atm and notice and it's not visible like i said not visible at all the tree we blocking most of the light from the sign and the neighboring houses are very long driveways so i walked all around here and like he said there is across the street multi-family they also have multiple trees blocking it's really really hard to even see the front of the entrance at that point for plains capital bank and another issue we want to kind of talk about is they have a competitor um state bank has the bigger advantage their sign i mean their building is huge and their sign is visible from the street from any location they come from plans capital bank depending on which street to come down it's really really hard as you can tell even this the east elevations you can barely see it's walking throughout the side and the front so having illuminate sign can you know invite customers knowing that this is a bank that there is an atm there they're able to use it and 24/7 and feel safe as they approach that location so i just want to kind of conclude why lighting is kind of important a little bit of lighting can make a big difference it could give a company an edge over the local competition we want to make it possible for customers to see the business at night time to help create an inviting atmosphere if your business is new it can also help to reassure some customers that you're not applied by night organization and we are here to stay so that's kind of concluding what we're kind of going for more of like safety measures for people at night um yeah thank you for your presentation um do any board members have any questions for the applicant uh yes i have a question um because of safety and i walk that area all the time i have family living on oak so i'm very familiar with driving and walking it and all days yeah and how would an illuminated sign on the building add light why not just put lights on the building there is any parking lights every day but i think standing in front of the atm having light right it it creates more light shown so if someone walking by like someone's walking on the street they can see you or but lights on the building right i mean so i mean you're doing signs i understand that and that's not anything else right i'm not sure that i'm seeing the safety part of it so could you explain that a little bit more um i mean i get where your point is maybe to add external lights but i don't know the extent of property and where they can have these lights and where exactly the lights are i think just having we already have a sign up there i think just having the light sign light i think that creates an adequate light right around the atm except putting you know multiple lights all around the building i mean you have the front building i have the side building both illuminated plus the parking lot so that creates all around i think light all around the building all around the exterior ends of the atm so they have lights all around even on top i think that creates more of lighting all the way around for them okay i saw another hand raised uh member i was wondering on the atm do you know where it's going to be in location to the bank the actual building yes it's actually yeah it's already there so um it's going to be oh i'm just had the drawings up it's going to be i think it was on a previous yeah yeah i was gonna say you can pull it up so i checked with the you know client they're gonna have like parking lights i just know that general air is very very dark even with those lights around i think it still creates really a lot of darkness a lot of trees which i think shadows it and makes it darker than it should be but so it's right actually in it's right on the outside of the bank correct on the left side of the correct correct yes so i can go right here see this word this uh green areas they have a wall it's all in there now we actually did this around today so should be up there to be able to see if you drove by tomorrow morning should be in place so yeah so do you know if they have any exterior lighting already planned for that atm they the atm has just so i know the atm so this area on the atm if you can see which is placed down that's the only area that would really light okay and that's on the closet that's not gonna create enough light for i feel for us to feel there and feel safe going up there especially as we said at night time and you know beyond the hours of seven when crime is a little bit higher than normal so thank you uh i have a question for you in your previous slide that you had up you were saying the light would be very negligible from far away but then you're talking about a safety concern which it seems like you could have one or the other but if you're not going to see much light out of that illuminated sign i don't really see how there's a real safety issue involved when there will be additional lighting in that area could you explain how it can be both yeah i think that more ties into visibility too like i said there this area is filled with trees i think just it sign to be lit people know that it's a bank it's open you know what i mean i think having the sign sign lit up i actually can see on the on the on the roadway when people coming up the street what you know they can't see that because it's first of all signs not lit up it's blocked by a tree so i think just having that sign lit up they can see oh yeah it's you know it looks like it's a bank it looks like you know there we can see you know i think without having light they're not illuminated you can't tell that's a sign there at night it's really dark like so it's really dark in that area i think just having that sign lit you can people know it's a bank that they're coming to a bank and they're not questioning it that makes sense all right are there any other questions for the applicant i believe that sorry that first day banking reference i don't know is that an illuminated i think it's those are not illuminated like the first day bank that you mentioned the crosswalk adjacent i think both of those are not illuminated as well so there's a street yeah i don't know the other bank that you reference yes there's no limited but they you know they have their own a huge most the tallest building in the area so i think that i mean they have visibility i think that but we're in in issues with if you don't have visibility for the trees we can't like you said we can't move the and they're making another entrance for them and on top of that we have you know we we take it to the side i think that's the most thing even when i went out there i walked all the way around it's those streets don't do justice those look a lot more yeah they're more even more covered in person and they're all the way around i know that we have when i went up there i could barely see that sign and i'm standing like down the street so i think had not limited sign people you know walking up the street like you know at nigh or anything they can see that this is a bank and that it's open and there's an atm there's more inviting right now when it's dark i don't feel like people be feel invited to come to use the atm that won't feel safe i would feel not safe there wasn't adequate light around like the atm especially in a dark area where there's bunches of trees so i remember ray i think yeah i'll just add on there i drove around last night looking at banks in the area that are in similar situations so independent financials on carroll facing out towards r3 on the other side they don't have an illuminated sign on that side of the building first aid bank doesn't sierra bank kind of between oak and hickory doesn't and american national trust which is just down the road also does not have it on the side of the faces in towards residential county so just wanted to add that data point appropriate totally appropriate next time let's wait for deliberations but you're good are there any other questions the board has for our applicants okay thank you once thank you once again for every presentation thank you guys of course now that the applicant and the city have presented their testimony evidence and arguments is there anyone who wishes to speak regarding this variance if so please come forward and state your name and mailing address you have four minutes to address the board unless otherwise specified by the chair okay after hearing all the testimony evidence and arguments and questions and and answers as well as hearing from all those desiring to speak in support and in opposition to the appeal i will entertain further questions from the board for any of the parties or speakers and sure if i may yes the next step is to move into the deliberation phase where we're not really taking any more testimony so for the cleanest of approaches we're going to ask that any questions you would want to direct at sean or the applicant yes now and that once we enter the deliberation phrase they use pardoning questions will go to hayley and myself so last call yeah any uh any questions before we move on to the deliberation the only question i have is we still be able to go through both of their presentations just the materials themselves just not absolutely okay okay so now um i guess in a hearing none i now close the public hearing uh the board will now deliberate inside on the various requests upon the completion of the board's deliberation the board shall render an unbiased decision on the record and and supported by reasons in finding a fact and in considering the appeal of this board shall consider the facts and information the agenda backup including the staff's written analysis of the variance the applicant's narrative the testimony presented in the public hearing and the board's board consideration and evaluation of the requirements of the applicable standards from the code of ordinances the the board may either grant the variance the board shall not grant a variance to any applicant solely for personal convenience financial hardship or other reasons unrelated to the property if the board grants a variance the variance shall be granted only to the extent that is reasonably necessary to the remedy of the hardship the board may impose conditions relating to the use of the sign for which a variance is granted if the board grants a variance the decision shall state that all conditions for a variance were met specify the degree to which the regulations are being varied and be signed by the numbers voting in favor of the variance and the second option is to deny the variance if a variance is denied the decision shall state the conditions for the variance which were not met all decisions of the board granting or refusing a variance shall be reduced to uh writing and signed by the chairperson okay um i guess it's a deliberation in motion in your deliberation i consider the basis for the request and staff analysis for the criteria for approval of the variance a reminder uh for whoever is making the motion uh robert's rules uh which have been adapted adopted by the city council estate motions are to be in the affirmative form of the question being considered by the board making a motion to approve does not mean the person making the motion is an agreement with the motion and the board member is not required to vote in favor of a motion made by them all right uh is there any motion right discussion oh do we need motion in the discussion it's up to the chair we can discuss and then make a motion um okay i think having a discussion then a motion would make more sense can we pull up the slide that you showed that yes can i ask a question i'm not sure the the i think the question about safety i mean or the point about safety is a is a good point is there i don't i don't recall seeing anything like that in any of these criteria how should we think about that the safety components yeah that mentions you with the light a little lighting the right right so um as the board's council um i would say that where you would weigh that um would be remembering that this is about um a sign first but then you can decide whether some of the benefits of having illumination and depriving them create hardship another question for council uh during previous deliberations of this board on the uh the prior meeting um we were told that granting that particular variance would in effect create a license for variances of that type in the future does the same apply in this case i.e. if this various variance is granted that are you talking about the cua pools yes okay this is a little bit different so cua pools was um actually appealing an administrative decision and so in that instance if the board had said staff you got it wrong um because of reasons that um decision would become how staff interpreted that piece of code going forward here this is different here this is a very site specific evaluation of a pretty narrow request and you have three criteria if you decide that they're there then um it could be appropriate to grant the variance the variance only applies to that sign on that property and does not change how the sign code works going forward following that up um would a grandfather in if it's that sign that building and the bank sells and it becomes another no so it's just that sign that building this instance and the reason for that is because our sign code doesn't have a uh relocation provision basically so the plains capital sign would be removed and the in and out burger sign would need to be added okay and it would have to go through the whole thing okay all right let me let me ask you a question uh to me it seems that the lit sign is more of a convenience issue nowhere uh you know in what we're looking at it as a reason to approve it it seems generally it's a convenience for people using they team machine which i certainly understand that but as far as the safety issue is involved i think that somebody that goes to the expense of building a building and as as far as long as it is would be addressing safety issues before it gets down to a internally lit sign that if if this was to me a true safety issue if this would be addressed a lot earlier in the in the prospect of hey we have a real safety concern here we need to address this before we dump x amount of dollars into building and we're not able to do what we want what are your what is the dentons uh philosophy on this on safe on safety uh it's not in there is one of the main concerns or something we should be okay so you've asked a really good question and i'm going to hedge you a little bit because the precursor to your question was um something for you to say and not for me to have an opinion on um healy do you have any development code insight say that the development code in relation to site design standards like how something is landscaped or laid out does lend itself more towards those safety considerations the sign code not so much um i'm not aware of any provisions in the sign code directly related to safety other than like i said some of the some of the intent of the code speaks to preventing visual clutter that would like block the view of motorists and things like that that would be public safety related on the roadways yeah so it's mostly public safety within that area whereas the contention of um the reason is before the board is that there's an inherent safety that having this line that's what the document has stated okay and um staff's case is that um it's we they're not seeing how that those three criteria have been accomplished okay that's a good question um and chair um if you feel like discussion has softened up go ahead and ask for a motion okay um i guess there was one thing i wanted to add i actually well when i was running errands i was actually kind of in that neighborhood so i decided you know what i'll just park by the like the building across and just take a walk around and um i and i did and actually um if you can pull up the picture of like the front of the bank as is currently under construction yes actually that actually that that picture right there actually um so i actually uh walked around and it doesn't it kind of looks small in that picture but that um i guess the leaves of that tree are actually quite they kind of block a lot of like the front top and i actually kind of i walked around i walked i didn't go into the apartment complex because that's a private property obviously can't have i can't trespass for the sake of the board um but i did a walk the perimeter facing oak street and i did see that from no matter the angle i sit at at least from the opposite side i can see that the leaves of the tree kind of blocked that front top and then of course i walked to the uh i guess you would call it the left side of the building too and i did see while there were a couple of apartments that could potentially see that sign most of the ones on that side are obstructed by trees on the apartment side um and only to talk about the leaf and the leaf cover the tree cover right wintertime that's true and until you don't sorry you don't know um if that tree's gonna live that is true because we just stormed we lost three huge trees in our house that is true and actually on the plains capital um presentation there was from carol actually there was a view from carol of both both sides sort of what or was that your yeah if we might have that one as well and share if you want to acknowledge yeah okay um after you made i submitted a exhibit with all angles of the of the um yeah yeah yeah yeah right because you know i'm driving down all the time yeah i mean my thing is on this one's specifically coming from carol we're on carol here is that south on carol or whatever yeah you had south yeah i don't really think the illuminated sign is going to draw from that angle personally i think actually side facing carol is more visible and it's not this is not great here just the location is a great sight line to be honest with yourself okay yeah that was the picture okay does anyone else want to add anything to the deliberation okay um so uh next i guess we are let me see a question uh for staff would i so are we motioning for the granting of variance or should we discuss this part of it yeah that's up to the board um if someone feels so moved to make a motion and if it gets a second then there can be further discussion of the merits of the motion okay it does need to be an affirmative motion is that correct i think that's what we have right that's what it said it would need to be right so for to satisfy my lawyerly heart of procedural goodness let's phrase it in the affirmative so let's go ahead and phrase the motion as if we are going to approve it and if that motion fails um then that functions as a denial it's clunky but um technically the motion for the approval of the variance okay um does anyone would anyone second that motion i just want to make sure yes that's what we were looking for to to enable some discussion so that we can make so that we can take action to vote on it yes you're not required to agree with the motion okay um i'll second that motion okay excellent for purposes of about three after the purpose of the vote and so that we're clear to make sure we know specifically what we're voting for um so when we're voting to approve of this variance that would mean approving of the illuminated sign on that being within 200 feet or less than 200 feet okay um all fit uh all for those in favor of variance can we do further discussion oh sorry yeah go ahead we can go back um i i think i'll be voting uh in denial of this i believe that this can be properly remediated through uh maybe enhanced parking lot lighting um as well as the fact that this is a problem that was material to the building before the purchase was made and additionally the fact that there's several other banks right in this corridor that are all in compliance with the signage ordinance okay um all right very well um further discussion is there any further discussion uh regarding this variance okay um all all right for those all in favor uh go ahead raise your hand say aye okay uh all who are against this variance go ahead raise your hand say aye okay six against okay so the request of the variance is denied okay next on the agenda is concluding items are there any concluding items before we close the meeting i guess if there's none from the before um we do have a couple of other items pending for you also i wanted to um generally see if we'd be like are you all available for the standard july 22nd meeting that's on your calendar or is that date um if it's particularly problematic for anyone just want to make sure we know in advance so we can survey the group to try to find an alternate date in july yeah i'll be here if we need an alternate i think we should work okay thank you all okay excellent uh hearing no items uh other than the one that we just had uh i adjourn this meeting at 6 21 p.m all right