04-22-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, April 8, 2019 7:00 o’clock p.m. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 9 of 12 Julie Lensing, Applicant, stated she has lived in the house for almost four years now and that she loves the lake, the Dakota Trail, and would like to stay living in the house. She has come to a point where there are some difficulties that have arisen. The laundry room is located in the garage currently, which requires taking a laundry basket and going down one-half flight of stairs, out one door, and then through another door to gain access. Lensing indicated she is getting older and that it will get more difficult. Lensing stated the other item is that she is getting married next month and between the two of them they have six adult children. Those adult children are going to start having children soon and that she would like to have them come to visit and be able to spend the night periodically. As the house currently is, the number of beds is very limited and that she is proposing a bunk room with two sets of beds to accommodate more of her family. The third practical difficulty is the closet in the master bedroom. The current closet has a two-foot opening and that is it, which means the closet space is very limited. The addition would put the laundry room up on the main level, would provide four more potential beds, and also provide a small walk-in closet. Lensing noted she is talking about an 8’ x 18’ addition. Lensing indicated they have looked at a lot of different options and that this plan is the best they can come up with given the small lot. The addition will be built over a current patio and line up with the deck. There was some discussion at the Planning Commission that if the addition was any smaller, bunk beds would not fit in there. Lensing noted her neighbor supports this addition. The Hennepin County Rail Authority has approved a temporary permit for the construction and the maintenance. The architect will also be able to change the plans to comply with all of the concerns expressed by the Orono building code official. In addition, a small shed on HCRRA’s property will be removed as part of the project. The addition will make the house much more livable and enjoyable. Walsh pointed out functionality of someone’s house has never really perceived as a practical difficulty and that he would have a hard time finding for that. Johnson noted there is some existing hardcover there and that the applicant is talking about improving upon that hardcover. The question becomes what responsibility the City has for not allowing a structure right up to the property line. The applicant has done a lot of work to mitigate what will happen in the future as far as maintenance but that it comes down to whether there will be a problem in the future. Walsh stated if someone wants to put some Spancrete down on a weekend and call it a patio and then ask to build a structure there over the existing Spancrete, it raises the same type of situation. The practical difficulty has to be inherent with the land such that they would not be able to do such and such. The City Council has told people before that the Council is not here to design someone’s house. The Council will tell applicants what they are allowed to do, but that it is up to the applicant to decide how to design it. Seals asked what the other homes in the neighborhood look like in relation to the HCRRA property. Barnhart indicated there are no houses that close as to what is being proposed here, but that on Crystal Bay Road most of the lots have required some type of variance. Almost all of the rear yard setbacks in the neighborhood do not meet the required setback and they range anywhere from 5 to 43 feet. A variance to the rear yard setback in the Crystal Bay is not uncommon. In this situation, Staff would have