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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2000-02-07 MinutesMINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ADJUSTMENTS A regular meeting of the Board of Adjustments was held on Monday, February 7, 2000 at 3:45 p.m. in Room 111 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain, Fayetteville, Arkansas. ITEMS CONSIDERED ACTION TAKEN Approval of the Minutes BA00-1: Lake Hills Church Approved Tabled MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Michael Green Thad Hanna Bob Nickle Marion Orton Larry Perkins Michael Andrews STAFF PRESENT STAFF ABSENT Tim Conklin Janet Johns Dawn Warrick None • • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 2 Approval of Minutes Perkins: The February 7 meeting of the Board of Adjustments is now in session. The first item of business is approval of the minutes for the meeting of November 1, 1999. Are there any changes or deletions to those? None being heard, please enter those in the record. • • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 3 BA00-1: VARIANCE LAKE HILLS CHURCH, PP255 This item was submitted by Joseph Rogers of The Benham Group on behalf of Lake Hills Church for property located on Highway 265 south of Williams Dance Studio. The property is zoned A-1, Agricultural and contains approximately 3.5 acres. The requirement is for a 20 foot side setback. The request is for a 10 foot side setback (a 10 foot variance) on the north and south property lines. Joseph Rogers, Charlie Sloan, and Jon Allen were present on behalf of the request. Staff Recommendation Staff recommended denial of the request. Board Discussion Warrick: As the agenda states, this is a piece of property approximately.3:5:acres. It's zoned agricultural. The applicant has previously been approved by the Planning Commission through a conditional use to place a church on the property. At this time, they have a site plan with a proposed layout. In order to accommodate the proposed layout they are presenting, they are requesting variances on both the north and south sides of the property. On the south side, there is a required 20 foot setback and they are requesting a 10 foot setback. You have a copy of the site plan in your packet and I have a larger one in front of you if that is easier to look at. We tried to highlight some of the information. On the north side, the side setback requirement is again, 20 feet. In addition to this 20 foot on the north side, because of the height of the building, there is an additional 2.5 feet required which makes the total setback 22.5 feet. They are proposing a setback of 12 feet and 2 inches which results in a variance request of 9 feet and 10 inches. That additional 2.5 feet is based on the height regulations for the A-1 zoning district. Any property that exceeds 15 feet shall be setback from the property line of any residential district an additional 1 foot for each foot in height over 15. Staff is not recommending this variance request. Basically, we feel as though you're looking at a variance request which we cannot meet the findings that we are required to meet to recommend approval. If you'll look on page 1.4, under Special Conditions, which is finding number 1 that we have to make that, "Special conditions and circumstances exist which are peculiar to the land, structure, or building involved and which are not applicable to other lands, structures, or building in the same district. Staff is unable to make that finding due to the fact that the site is undeveloped and is over 3.5 acres. There is no severe topography change in the area where they are proposing development. There is no existing structure that the applicant would have to work around in order to place a structure on this site. On item number 2, we were also unable to make the finding that a literal interpretation of the provisions of the zoning regulations would deprive the applicant of rights • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 4 commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same district under the terms of the zoning regulations. A literal interpretation would not deprive the applicants of developing their property. The resulting actions do not result from the actions of the applicant. We were not able to make that finding. The conditions which have resulted in this variance request have been imposed by the applicant based on the desired building and site design proposed. Granting of the variance requested would not confer on the applicant special privileges that are denied by zoning to other lands, structures, or building in the same district. We were not able to make that finding. Granting this variance would confer on the applicant special privileges. Finding 5 is really not applicable. There weren't any nonconforming uses considered with regard to this request. Conklin: The City of Fayetteville is not opposed to having a church built on this property. The Planning Division did recommend a conditional use and did recommend the rezoning to R -O back in April. The Commission did not approve that request An R -O zone does allow 10 foot setbacks. As a result of the rezoning being denied by the Planning Commission, they have come back to the City and asked for a variance. Ms. Warrick read to you the findings which have to be made under the ordinance. I went over the findings with the applicant. When you have a tract of land that is over 3.5 acres and 185 feet wide at the west end where they want to place the • building. Staff is unable to make those findings. Especially the finding that the applicant has a need for the variance. The use for a church has been approved since April. They will need to apply and go through the large scale development approval process. Staff is more than willing to work with them to get their church built at this location. • Nickle: If the Planning Commission had zoned it R -O, what would the side setbacks be? Conklin: They would have been 10 feet. They denied the rezoning so currently it is zoned A-1. There is a zoning request for P-1 which also has a 20 foot side setback. Looking at this and trying to determine whether or not staff could support it, we always consider the buildable area of the site. When you have a 185 foot wide lot, there are some design changes that in my opinion could be done to make it fit. Also, I looked at how development has occurred in that area. There has been a subdivision of land directly to the south of this area It is zoned residential and you would have houses backing up against this property. The setback in R-1 is 20 feet for a house. That is of concern to have a church that close to potentially single family homes in that area. That's all staff has I'll be happy to answer any questions. Hanna: How long ago was Williams' zoned R -O? Conklin: I think it was rezoned in the early 1990's. Hanna: Why would they zone William's R -O and the property right next to it they wouldn't? • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 5 Conklin: I was at that Planning Commission meeting. The concerns that were expressed were the introduction of additional commercial and nonresidential development along Hwy. 265. Nickle: They can't rezone it specifically for a church and a church only? Conklin: Typically, the City doesn't encourage that. People have offered Bills of Assurance and they have restricted it to a certain use. Nickle: It looks like the property line has an access that comes back. That's not in the property so I assume they have some kind of easement. Warrick: I understand there is a shared access agreement between the two properties. Conklin: We will be discussing shared parking with the Williams Dance Center. Orton: What is the advantage of the P-1 for this property? • Conklin: From the city's viewpoint, under A-1 it requires a conditional use permit for a church. When they applied for a conditional use, they gave us a site plan and a floor plan and we normally limit that approval to what they are proposing. Under P-1, they would be able to have the church without any conditions such as matching the site plan and number of square feet in the building. The applicant can probably better tell you why they are applying In my opinion, it allows greater flexibility for them and they would not have to go before the Planning Commission if they did want to expand. Green: Mr. Chairman, since the architect and the Benham Group is a good client of my firm and we have worked on potential projects in that area, I think I have a potential conflict of interest and I shall abstain from discussion and voting. Perkins: Is Mr. Rogers present? Rogers: Yes. Perkins: Sir, do you have any input on this appeal? Rogers: When you talk about the property not having circumstances or conditions that are unusual, the staff commented that there is not a topographical change on this property. I would disagree with that. There is considerable slope on this property. That is one of the main reasons • why this building is arranged like it is in terms of the site plan. In order to get into the property from the highway and get the proper slope for a parking lot to allow car doors to open and shut like they are supposed to and in order to do that it requires a tremendous amount of adjustment • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 6 and what you see in the site plan is a retaining wall. This is higher on the south end and slopes down to very little on the north end in order to facilitate the drive. On the back side, essentially, the southeast corner, that retaining wall is about 6 feet high. I designed the dance studio next door several years ago. We did a tremendous amount of cut and fill to level that property. The back was hollowed out, flattened out and it drops into a huge retaining wall. The church doesn't want to do that. They are limiting their structure and parking as close to the front of the property as possible. That leaves basically the entire back half of the property as a buffer for the property to the south and east. In terms of the use of the property with the topography, it does have a very strong effect on how you use the property. The church's intent is to utilize it in the best way possible. My understanding when they requested the R -O was there was no objection at that point to the 10 foot setback. The issue was that at some point they thought that might be used for offices. The setbacks were not an issue at that point. Nickle: Do I understand that under this conditional use, that if this property was sold in 10 years, it would have to remain a church or apply for another conditional use or ask to rezone? Conklin: They would be limited to a church or another use as allowed under A-1 zoning district. Nickle: Any other use other than a church or something allowed in A-1 would be brought back to the Commission for approval Conklin: Correct. Nickle: That would be one reason it might be more appealing from the Planning Commission standpoint that they didn't want to allow a free range of uses under R -O. Conklin: On conditional uses, the Planning Commission normally places conditions to insure the adjoining residents that they know where the building is going to be placed; where the parking lots are going to be located; and, any other condition they feel is appropriate. Nickle: That's more of a control mechanism on a future use. Conklin: This has been approved to allow a church to go there since last April. Nickle: Have they been through plat review with a large scale? Conklin: We don't have their large scale. We've been working on the issues for the • variance. For the record, they disagreed with my initial recommendation. I have offered them this venue to see if there are conditions or circumstances on this property that the board would consider to grant them a variance. That is why they are here. They realized that I would not • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 7 recommend for it because the ordinance requirements were not met. I want to give the applicants the opportunity to state their case and let this board make their decision. Hanna: Are you asking for a variance for the entire length of the property or just for the width of building that is highlighted. You are asking for a 10 foot setback on the north side. Rogers: We have talked about that. We're concerned about the area where the building is. You could limit the variance to the portion where the building obstructs. Hanna: How far back does the Williams property go? Rogers: Williams property goes way back. I don't know exactly. Conklin: We have a site plan that show that. Hanna: The reason I asked that is I wonder if the neighbor would be willing to have the structure built a little closer if it were to move farther from the south side. To have a 15 foot variance on the north and a 5 foot variance on the south instead of splitting it equally on the north and south side. The concern is not Williams. That structure is already built. Sloan: Originally, we bought this property to within 10 feet of this building. Because of some issues concerning the sewer connection which was 400 feet away, we went to the people who own this property and bought another 50 feet. There is a portion of this that contains a lateral field for a septic system. There was discussion about how to tie ontoto city sewer. It was much easier to go across the street than tie onto the septic system. We bought the extra 50 feet. We met with Jim Meineke who is the owner of Williams and he said he didn't mind if we came onto his property in terms of the access. I would doubt that he would have a problem if we needed to build close to his property and not do so much on the south. That is the blank side of his building. I can't really speak for him but I think that would be a possibility. Rogers. What we've shown is a retaining wall which is basically ground level here. It's about 6 feet high by the time it gets to the back. This comer of the building is only 14 feet tall. By the time you get back here, this building is only about 8 feet out of the ground. Part of that was to try and balance this in terms of cut and fill and hold the building down and keep it accessible in terms of handicap and so forth. This is the only relatively flat spot. It's wooded. That is why we kept it as far forward as possible. Nickle: Where is the high point of the building? Rogers: The ridge is the high point. It's 17 feet 6 inches. • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 8 Nickle: Are the height requirements the same in R -O and A-1 for additional setbacks? Warrick: R-0 requires additional setback of one foot for each foot of height in excess of 20 feet. Conklin: We measure the height based on the highest point of the structure to determine the setback. Ntckle: Had this been rezoned R -O, would the height not be an issue for additional setback? Conklin: I don't believe so. Nickle: I'm trying to separate why the Planning Commission turned down R -O and if there were other reasons than to control future uses of the property and issues that would have appeared in terms of the height requiring extra setback. It would not have been an issue. Conklin: They didn't have a site plan. I don't believe that we discussed the height of the building during that time. Perkins: What are the concerns you have about turning the building 90 degrees. There wouldn't be any issues then. The terrain is not really an issue whether you go east or west on the footprint of that building. Rogers: There were two concerns that we had. They wanted to orientate the building on the property in terms of visual impact from the highway. The other is the way it is intended to be used in terms of handicap people. I'm at maximum slope for this structure in terms of minimum civil engineering practices. There are problems with that. Perkins: Are they insurmountable? Rogers: Nothing is insurmountable. How difficult they would be and how expensive it would be, I could not say. Allen: I'm the pastor of the church. Some of this architectural stuff is beyond me. As I said at the Planning meeting, a big concern was that if this was zoned R -O, it would be a more valuable piece of property. They were concerned that we might turn around and sell it and they could put an office complex or something in that would conform with R -O. Despite our assurances that we want to build our church there, that was a major concern. No one seemed to be concerned about 10 foot setbacks at that point. The reason we have asked for the P-1 zoning, is because churches are a conforming use in P-1 zoning. This footprint calls for the entrance to • • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 9 the building to be on the north side which is the opposite end of the property from the south where they might build houses Also, by using the footprint of the building this way, we will avoid doing what they did at the Williams Center which is basically taking out a lot of dirt and we want to keep it as close to the natural flow of the land as we can and preserve as many trees as we can. We had those trees surveyed and plotted. We had photos taken from the air so we can save as many of those trees as we can. We want to leave the land as park like as we can. Turning that building around would require a lot more driveways in order to have the entrance at this location. The P-1 certainly would preserve the use of this property. Nickle: Do you have anything showing the trees with you? Rogers: I don't have anything here. Allen: The way it is now is the way it's been for many, many years. We photographed in the winter with all the leaves off the trees. We have flagged trees for preservation. Doing it this way, the back half or more of the property will be untouched. Sharing parking with the Williams Center will save us from building a lot of parking which will let us keep more trees All of our parking with the exception of a few handicap spaces are next to the street. Perkins: This request to rezone to P-1. What bearing does any decision we might make have on that? Conklin: None. Warrick: The conditions would be the same with regard to setback requirements. Conklin: Any decision you make will not impact that rezoning request. Whether or not they get the P-1 zoning approved, they will still have to have your approval They can have their church at this location. Sloan: I'm the person who contacted them about this property and I'm also a general contractor. This piece of property came available originally when a friend of ours called us and said his family was selling it and it might be a good piece of property for a church. I contacted Pastor Allen and we liked the look. The seller said we had to take it or leave it and there was no time for rezoning or large scale or anything like that. We visited with Alett and said we would like to do this and I had talked to her in the past about finding a location next to a commercial property and share parking. We thought that would save for the church. That is the reason we purposely looked for a place next to a commercial property that has a parking lot and we immediately got a shared parking arrangement with the Williams Center. Our whole thing was not to destroy a whole piece of property. We didn't feel like it would be hard to get an R -O zoning. From there we started doing a quick layout to see if we could get a building to fit. We • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 10 asked Joe Rogers to come in and design the building. We want to keep a park like setting in back of this church. That was one of the criteria that Jon had when we were looking at property. We didn't want to do it in the middle of a big parking lot. We were trying to find a piece of property to have a park like setting. The P-1 is the only zoning you can get to have our church. That is a requirement from the financial end. It has to be something besides an agricultural piece of property. The big issue is the setbacks for us. We don't want total control. We just want to have a minimal impact. Nickle: I agree with staff's interpretation and how they made the findings. I think part of this has been brought about by the Planning Commission's fear of rezoning this to R -O and the potential for a change in use. Had they not had that fear, we wouldn't be working on this setback issue. I totally agree with the way they arrived at those conclusions. If it's just for that little shaded area, I don't have a big problem. How do the neighbor's feel? Public Comment James Renby, residing at 2817 Crossover was present. Renby: The assumption is made when you look at that property that the surrounding area is just agricultural and woods. There are neighbors on either side. The drawing that you have on page 1.10 is out of scale. The Williams Center property doesn't go back that far. The house that you see behind the Williams Center is our house. The way this was originally drawn for the Planning Commission, the parking lot for the church was much smaller and the building was closer to Hwy 265. With the new orientation, the church has flipped around. The handicapped parking would start near our corner post. There are two driveways immediately to the north of that. One is ours and the other is Sharon Hampton's. You can see Sharon's house from Crossover but you aren't able to see ours. My point is that everybody says it's zoned A-1. It is not zoned residential but it is a residential district. When they originally zoned the dance studio, it was under the pretext of putting an addition on the front and side of the Quonset hut. They got the rezoning. Then, they decided it was not feasible to add on and they decided to do a separate building. What we're looking at here is another circumstance where the original church that the Planning Commission was looking at had rental property in the church. I'm not trying to deny the congregation of this church. But, there are laws and rules. I think they ought to be applied. I can only speak for the north side residents. I would support the individuals on the south side as well. But, I don't have my home there. Amy Tu, whose family owns the property to the south was present. Tu: We were in attendance at the rezoning hearing. I agree with Jim. We have a dwelling in the agriculture zone, A-1. I think the issue is rules and regulations. Our government provides rules and regulations and only if there are over riding circumstances should these • • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 11 variances be granted. What we're talking about is the property rights of individuals. There are setbacks from the properties on the north and south of this property. If you take this to the most basic form, what you're talking about is the building on either property and accommodating building on these properties. By allowing a setback, you are asking for an exception that doesn't meet the special conditions or over riding public policy. Allen: We aren't asking for a 10 foot setback way back on Mr. Renby's property. That's not even an issue for us. As far as the property to the south, we're only concerned about a 10 foot setback on the width of the building and the highest grade. We would be willing to give up the 10 foot setback for the whole length of the property and accept the variance from the length of the building. It's not like this is a big 20 foot building. I don't know how to go about mechanically making that change but it would certainly suit our needs. Renby. I have seen several drawings and none of them match. I'd like to see something that is to scale. The drawing that I have literally shows the church sitting in different locations. The way I measured out the church and the handicap parking area and driveway are in different locations. It's just me pacing and measuring. Rogers: The drawing on the table is correct and is drawn to scale. Renby: That does not show adjacent property owners. The church and the parking lot are literally right in my front yard. Allen: So, you're concern is not the setbacks. You just don't want to see our church building basically. Renby: I don't know how to answer that. I don't know what the design is. The only protection I have now is setbacks. Allen: If we relocate where the building sits, it's not going to change what you can see. I understand what you're saying. Renby: I would still be against what you've presented here. Tu: Our concern is the future use of this property. Nickle: We can grant a variance just for the portion of the building encroaching in the setback. Tu: If you're giving a portion, you may as well give the whole thing. That is going to affect my property lines. It's undevelopable unless you do it like Candlewood Estates where you • Board of Adjustments Minutes February 7, 2000 Page 12 level everything out. You're talking about additional costs. Further Board Discussion Nickle: What I think is a very valuable point is that we don't know where the adjoining property lines are in relation to this. I would recommend that you get together a survey showing exactly where you're proposing this church. You're still talking about moving it now. Come back and say this is exactly where we want it and showing exactly where that is in relationship to the residences where we can make more sense out of this. I don't think it's fair to come here and tell us you might be moving it but you still want a variance. Until we know exactly where everything is going to be in relationship to the everything else. Perkins: That's my feeling, too. How does this Board feel about tabling this issue? Sloan: Let's do that and get you a survey showing that. Nickle: We need more information to be fair to everybody. I can see what your concerns• • are. Looking at this it does jive with what we're talking about. I think that would help the situation. • MOTION Mr. Nickle made a motion to table this project until additional information is provided to show the locations of structures, property lines, and topography. Ms. Orton seconded the motion. Perkins: I would encourage you to look at a location or design that you don't have to look at a setback variance. Conklin: I would like to request that you allow staff to work with you and look at your retaining walls to ensure that you have the room to meet the setbacks. Meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m. II !GI 199 Ill NUDES BACD- LAKE HILLS CHUecu I M. ANDREWS AEC a. AgS9.n_ C. BOYD SIN m . Gem T. HANNA B. NICKLE _ _ M. ORTON K. PERKINS APPe `TAT a Board of Adjustment Table of Contents 2000 Item Considered: BA00-1 Lake Hills Church BA00-1 Lake Hills Church BA00-2 Variance (Paves, pp 360) BA00-3 Variance (Sexton, pp 371) BA00-4 Variance (Mason, pp 484) BA00-6 Variance (Jones, pp 485) BA00-7 Vanance (St. Paul's Episcopal Church, pp 484) SA00-4 Sign Appeal (Baker Building LLC, pp 484) BA00-8 Variance (Coffey, pp 565) BA00-10 Variance (The Mill District, pp 523) BA00-11 Variance (Baldwin, pp 559) BA99-25 Variance (Wilson, pp 442) Discussion of Raley v. City of Fayetteville, Washington County CIV.98-1097: BA98-26.00 Date: 2/7/00 4/3/00 5/3/00 5/3/00 5/3/00 8/7/00 8/7/00 8/7/00 9/5/00 11/6/00 11/6/00 11/6/00 Action Taken: Tabled Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved Approved 11/6/00 no action