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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-03-20 - Minutes• • MICROFILMED 15 S BLOCK AVE SUITE 105 MINUTES CONSTRUCTION BOARD OF ADJUSTMENT AND APPEALS (CBAA) MARCH 20, 2001 A meeting of the Construction Board of Adjustment and Appeals was held on March 20, 2001 at 4:00 p.m., in room 035A (Downstairs) of the City Administration Building, Fayetteville, Arkansas. MEMBERS: Dennis Becker, Matt Bodishbaugh, Thomas Campbell, Mike • Tramill, Butch Green, Jim Key, Tommi Perkins, U. E. Lutrell; • OTHERS PRESENT: Mason Hiba, Yume Rudzinsla, Steve Cattaneo, Bert Rakes, Jan West; The meeting was called to order by the Chair, Matt Bodishbaugh, at 4:00 p.m.. Bert Rakes called the roll., with a quorum being present. Mr. Rakes explained about what was happening with the board membership. He stated that they were between the nominating committee and the Councils approval. When the Council hears the nominees, Matt Bodishbaugh will be presented as an alternate and Thomas Campbell presented as a full term member, a five year term. That should take care of the membership until 2002, at that time Dennis Becker and U. E. Lutrell would re -apply for new terms. Matt Bodishbaugh explained that we would need a minimum of three votes to vary technical provisions and a minimum of four votes to vary the Building Officials decision. Matt questioned if there was anyone present that would need to abstain from voting. There was no one abstaining except Thomas Campbell because he is an alternate member. Mr. Bodishbaugh then called on the appellant, Mason Hiba, to present his case. Mr. Hiba introduced himself as the owner of Mason's Leather Boutique, presently located at the Northwest Arkansas Mall. Mr. Hiba stated that ever since he had moved to this area the old Campbell Bell building had been one of his favorite buildings. He now has the opportunity to have his shop in this building because he believes that downtown Fayetteville is coming back as a business area. Mr. Hiba realizes that with every project there are problems and that his present problem is with the bathrooms. He stated that he is making a store that is primarily for ladies, ladies clothing, shoes and accessories. Mr. Hiba further stated that the store is only 2000 sq ft and when you sell ladies shoes you have to have a large storage area in the back for shoes. Almost all of his customers will be ladies, the people working there will be ladies, and if a man does come into the shop he would have use of the accessible unisex bathroom. If Mr. Hiba has to add the extra bathroom it would take away not only from his storage space but his display area, all for an occasional male customer. • • • • • • Mr. Bodishbaugh stated that Mr. Hiba's statements made sense, along with the application that he had made for the appeal. Mr. Bodishbaugh also noted that there was no one else from the public for questions or comments, since that was the case he asked Bert Rakes to give the board the Building Officials perspective of the appeal. Mr. Rakes stated that he wanted to thank Steve Cattaneo for putting the appeals package together and if Steve did not mind he could present the Building Officials position. Steve stated that it seemed rather straight forward from the first page of the mail out of the appeal. The Arkansas State Plumbing Code requires separate facilities for each sex in Section 7.21.3 with exceptions. Exception 3. Permits unisex restrooms when the total occupant load is fifteen or less. The Arkansas State Plumbing Code does not contain a definition for "occupant load". The State Director of Plumbing Section has left this decision to each jurisdiction based on its adopted codes. The Building Code defines "occupant load" in Section 202 and provides Table 1003.1 to determine the maximum occupant load by use. With this information the Building Official issued a Plumbing Policy and Procedure dated Aug. 21, 2000. This Policy has been consistently enforced. Steve also mentioned that he knew that Mr. Rakes had done a lot of research on the Policy and Procedure and had also used the Standard Plumbing Code, Table 407, and the International Plumbing Code, Section 402.3, both support this method in determining the minimum occupant load and separate facilities requirement. Mr. Cattaneo concluded that using these codes and methods the Building Official had determined the occupancy load for this situation. Mr. Bodishbaugh asked what the code definition, the national code, for occupancy. Mr. Cattaneo answered that the code state one person per thirty square feet. The architects representive, Yume Rudzinsla, stated that approximately 150 sq ft was taken away by display area, 125 sq ft is taken away by three dressing rooms and the vestibule, leaving about 1200 sq ft of actual retail space. She continued that even some of this space was taken up by built up shelves. Steve Cattaneo laid out the floor plans of the space so that the board members could better visualize the space. Jim Key said that he had made a rough estimate that a stock room would be 500 to 600 sq ft, Ms. Rudzinsla agreed with this assement. Mr. Key further stated that this would leave approximately 1500 sq ft and counting the 275 sq ft for dressing rooms, display area and vestibule would still leave 1200 sq ft of actual mercantile space. Mr, Bodishbaugh asked if the code made any difference between employee restrooms and public restrooms. The code does not address this problem. So a public restroom is definitely going to be a requirement Mr. Bodishbaugh stated. Mr. Key questioned if there were any public facilities furnished by the landlord. Mr. Hiba stated that all of the other tenants had to supply their own facilities and the landlord did not supply any restrooms. Ms Rudzinsla stated that the shop that Mr. Hiba has in the Mall has never, even at the busiest time, had more than 10 people in the shop at a time. Mr. Key stated that the code allows for 30 sq ft per person and this includes any display areas, and Mr. Hiba has at least 1200 sq ft of floor space and this allows 40 persons for occupancy. Mr. Hiba stated that he never had that many customers at a time at his shop at the Mall. Mr. Bodishbaugh asked the members if anyone could see any way that the code would allow this space to have just one bathroom? Because if they could not they would have to make the decision if they were going to vary a technical code. Mr. Key suggested that they could limit the occupancy so that it would accommodate the code, stating that they could have no more than fifteen people in occupancy. He further stated that the code does allow you to limit the occupancy, although it was usually for egress purposes or fire related purposes, but perhaps this would be one way to solve the problem. Butch Green wondered what the difference would be if this were considered a business rather than mercantile? Mr. Key stated that for business the code says one person per one hundred square feet. Mr. Rakes interjected that the Building Official had looked at the problem every way that they could, but when you looked at a business occupancy with fifteen hundred square feet it is clear they need two restroom and the Building Official is requiring that. He continued that ever since they had done their research and made the policy, and they didn't just do research on it one time they had been through it several times, so everyone who comes in has to have two restrooms. Mr. Rakes said that Mr. Key had a good idea to limit the occupancy, normally we do not post an occupancy unless it is an assembly occupancy. Mr. Trammell stated that even though this was a shop for women, perhaps someone like himself and Ms. Perkins were shopping there, if there was only a unisex restroom and it was in use, what would he use? And having two restrooms does not necessarily solve this problem, because both restrooms could be occupied or just the mens and he would still not have a restroom to use. Mr. Bodishbaugh asked if there were any life safety issues or was it more • • • • a convenience issue. Mr. Key stated that what they were dealing with was precedence issue, there were a lot of business owners in the community that had to put two restrooms in and he knew a lot of business owners who would be coming before this board in the next twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six months wanting to have the same deal, aren't we creating more than we need to, we should be dealing with what the code says about the need for two restrooms for this occupancy. Mr. Green agreed that perhaps we should deal with only the restroom situation and not try to change the code as far as occupancy load for mercantile or business. He continued that if we vary the code for the restrooms you are varying it over-all. Mr. Trammell used the example of he and Ms. Perkins shopping and they needed a restroom, if one was occupied neither of them could use the others restroom, in this instance a unisex bathroom would be handy. Mr. Cattaneo interjected that the code said if there were six or more fixtures called for in the restrooms they would have to supply a unisex bathroom, and this would be besides the two restrooms required by the occupancy. Dennis Becker stated that the code calls for two restrooms for the occupancy, the occupancy is determined by the square footage. He continued that everyone could come in with the complaint that so much square footage was being used for storage, display area, etc., and then where would we be, the code calls for a certain thing and we should go with the code. Mr. Bodishbaugh stated that this brought them back to the issue that to grant the appeal we would have to vary the technical provision of the code. Mr. Green interjected they could post the maximum occupancy, and Mr. Bodishbaugh didn't think that was the best of ideas because of the code did not allow for this and the appeal process would become the norm, and that would be a bad policy. Mr. Green thought that they should be able to restrict the occupancy load not make a variance for what the store should be per square foot, but how would they enforce the occupancy. This was the concern of other board members as well. Mr. Hiba stated that at his facility at the Mall, he had never had a problem with anyone waiting to use the bathroom, even on his busiest days, and he only had one bathroom there. It was pointed out by Mr. Cattaneo that there were also public restrooms available in the Mall and this was one of the reasons that Mr. Hiba, having twenty eight hundred square feet in his Mall store, was allowed to have only one restroom. Mr. Hiba stated that the Mall restrooms were at the other end of the Mall and he had no problem with anyone waiting to use his restroom. Mr. Key asked if his restroom at the Mall was a public restroom or was it only for employees. Mr. Hiba had never asked and as far as he was concemed that if someone asked to use his restroom, they were more than welcome to use it. Mr. Key wondered if there was some way to look at a posted occupancy, without having continuous appeals, by some modification of the ordinance that addresses this for all future type of applications. Instead of looking at changing the State Plumbing Code. Mr. Green stated that they could be considered mercantile and then change tenants who would be "grand fathered in" with this occupancy load. Mr. Key interjected that as he and Mr. Green had both suggested that limiting the occupancy load might be the best situation because then even if Mr. Hiba moved out of the store in three years and another mercantile tenant occupied the space they would be restricted by the occupancy load. Some members wondered how this would be enforced. Mr. Key stated that unless the new tenant moved in without any changes to the space technically the tenant would have to come back to the city for a permit. Mr. Green wondered if there was any way that the public would know that there was a fifteen person occupancy load. Mr. Hiba stated that they could post that anywhere that it was required. Mr. Rakes said that the occupancy load would be posted in the city records but if there was a problem, no. Ms Rudzinsla restated that so much of the floor is being occupied by tables and display areas that they did not really have fifteen hundred square feet of occupancy space. Mr. Key stated that the code took this into account and allowed for so much space to be taken up with display areas. He continued that an assembly area allowed seven to fifteen square feet per person, in mercantile they are allowed thirty square feet assuming that half or two thirds of that space is taken up by display, a table or shelves. Mr. Bodishbaugh stated that he liked the idea of improvising the situation, but what do we do when we have places all over town with different arbitrary occupancy loads, who would keep track of all of this. Would the Fire Marshall inspect, would the Building Official enforce it, or would we never get it enforced and we learn to live with the situation. Mr. Rakes said that if they were going to vary the technical provisions of the code they would have to find some way that this situation is so unique that it will never come up again or not happen very often. Mr. Bodishbaugh stated that they were left with only two options. Number one are we going to make people follow • • • • • the code or Number two issue a variance. Mr. Key said that before the question was placed before the board he had a question for Mr. Rakes. Is there any problem with posting a limited occupancy load in Mr. Rakes mind. Mr. Rakes answered that the occupancy would never be enforced, may not need to be enforced for this occupancy, but down the road there may be a problem. Mr. Bodishbaugh stated to Mr. Hiba and Ms Rudzinsla that there case had been very well pleaded but they had to make the decision to either enforce the code or make a variance. Udell Luttrell made the motion that the respective change that the appellant has put for our consideration to change the code be denied. Tommi Perkins seconded the motion. Mr. Bodishbaugh said that the motion the way he understood it was to deny the appleants request, was there any discussion before the role call on the vote. Mr. Rakes said that he would like to hear from the lady on the board Ms Perkins. Ms Perkins stated thatthe board members were here trying to make good sound decisions based on the code. Mr. Hiba asked why it was not the landlords responsibility to supply the bathrooms, why did he feel that it was only his responsibility to have restrooms for the building. Mr. Bodishbaugh stated that it was the developers decision and there was no legal requirement for him to supply restrooms for the building, in fact this would be an issue to negotiate when the lease is signed. Mr. Bodishbaugh restated the motion that the Board would deny the appleants appeal, that an aye vote meant that they agreed to deny the appeal, a nay vote would mean that they agreed to uphold the appeal. Let the record show that the motion was passed and the appeal was denied. The next order of business is if there is any old business, since there was none, they moved on to new business. The new business is to vote for a new Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for 2001. The floor was opened to nominations for Chairperson, Mr. Green nominated Mr. Jim Key. Tommi Perkins seconded the motion. Mr. Bodishbaugh asked for other nominations, there were none so he called for the vote. Mr. Key was elected unanimously. Mr. Green nominated Mr. Dennis Becker as Vice Chairperson. Mr. Jim Key seconded the nomination. Mr. Bodishbaugh called for the vote, Mr. Becker was elected unanimously. Mr. Bodishbaugh asked if there was any other business, Mr. Rakes stated that he was very pleased with the Board and that they were aware of the code and they knew the problems that the Building Officials have and he really appreciated the work that they did on this board, and the City had to be thankful for them as well. Mr. Bodishbaugh then adjourned the meeting at 5:00 p.m. • • • • 0017.5 e Best o0 ,Boa.,eA of' Mjuidtr w* ct.Appexils /14'Staab 4:20 aoo s7, Ve/Pa(Me.7_47.Th'e*e-Ver---- 1\�M—AYr o fl t sN'Bam., c�+-E 1 Mason //,lock_ �/ etre.. C 4 /7/t/r e ES