01-14-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

MINUTES OF THE ORONO TRUTH-IN-TAXATION/CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, December 10, 2018 6:30 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 17 of 19 which was communicated to that surveyor as well as the applicants a number of times during the first process with the creation of the lot and during the Dunkley’s application. During the building process there was some confusion about the roof and the homeowner, surveyor and Staff walked through the sightline on their property and not the sightline on the newly created lot. Curtis stated it has been a moving target the entire time because the application has gone from a lot line rearrangement with an incorrect sightline shown, to a combined lot with an incorrect sightline, and now to a plat with different property lines and an incorrect sightline setback on the survey. Staff notified the applicant as soon as it was realized there was some discrepancy and it was corrected. Curtis stated the property is now shown with the correct setback; however, the applicant’s plan changed to a further encroachment another 15 feet forward. Walsh stated that is a different conversation and that the Council will now discuss the variance being requested. Walsh stated the code never takes into consideration how much time someone spends in planning or how much money is spent, and it never takes into consideration how much someone likes their plan or how much their neighbors like the plan or don’t like the plan. All that matters to the City Council are the facts and whether there is a practical difficulty or not. If the City Council finds there is no practical difficulty, the variance request is denied. If a practical difficulty is found, the question becomes, what is a reasonable accommodation that makes sense to that practical difficulty. Walsh stated he cannot think of anybody with a meandering shoreline that asked for a practical difficulty where the City Council did not approve the variance requested or some form of it. Even this Council has preset building pads because of a meandering shoreline, such as on Mooney Lake. The intent of the code is to stop people from building in front of each other, which works great when the shoreline is straight, but where the code fails is where someone is real close and someone is far away, such as on Highwood. As a result, there is a practical difficulty for the people in the middle because of the distance from the shoreline and so they typically receive a variance. The code also fails when there is a shoreline that starts rounding. When a sightline goes through someone’s house, it defies common sense because you cannot block a sightline that does not exist. Walsh stated from a code review committee standpoint, the code works sometimes and sometimes it does not. Walsh stated this is probably one that needs to be fixed when there is not a straight shoreline. In speaking with the City Administrator, he indicated other cities have different language where they take averages, and that this code should probably be put on the City’s list to deal with as it relates to the uneven shorelines. Walsh stated from his standpoint, because this is a meandering shoreline and there are sightlines that go through houses, it is a practical difficulty. A reasonable accommodation would be to take it from the closest point between the two houses where the yellow line is because the applicant on many occasions said, if that is the line, they would be good. Walsh stated it is not a huge amount either way, but in his view that would be a reasonable accommodation since the applicant has indicated that would work for them and that he would make a motion to that effect. Walsh moved to approve the average lakeshore setback variance based on the yellow line on the exhibit for Application No. LA18-000086, Paul Vogstrom on behalf of William and Sue Dunkley and Eric Vogstrom, 2710 Pence Lane.