06-24-2019 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, June 10, 2019 7:00 o'clock p.m. Walsh stated the Council can discuss variances all day long, but until a specific request comes before the City Council, they would just be spinning their wheels. The City Council can talk discuss philosophically what the City's practice is, but that the Council has discussed cleaning these up. Seals commented she does not believe the Council has actually sat down and discussed it and that she would be in favor of discussing it at a work session. Printup noted the Comprehensive Plan has a section that talks about the fire lanes. Walsh stated the DNR also says you should reserve an easement for utilities. Seals stated she is fine with voting on it at some point, but she would like additional discussion about it at a work session. Crosby indicated he is on the fence and that he is fine with a work session to try to come up with some type of consensus. Rief stated other properties related to the fire department are being brought forward at the next work session and this could be one of them. Printup commented this situation is similar to Chevy Chase who were claiming a ditch was a park and who is to say that those neighbors are not going to request to divide that. Walsh stated you have to evaluate the request on its merits. Printup stated he does not want to open up a can of worms and that the City has had cases where there is public property where some have argued it has been beautified. Johnson stated this is an applicant who headed in this direction, at least in part, based on Staff direction that this is one option, and that he wants to be sensitive to that. If this was not on the lake, you could get rid of this easement right away, but because it is, he can understand why there is some pause. Johnson indicated he would like to hear from the applicant. Stephen Paidosh, Applicant, stated their objective was to remove the existing residence and build a new home on the property. The home was originally built back in 1962, and that he is not sure if there were fill issues at some point, but the foundation has settled. The windows have been corrected from time to time, and if you try to structurally fix the foundation, all the windows would need to be fixed again. Basically one of the issues they ran into was in relation to wanting to relocate the public street access to Park Drive. There is an incline on the driveway that faces north, and when something faces north, salt is not as effective and the driveway becomes snow packed. The relocation of the driveway requires an easement and a variance to access due to a utility pole and a stop sign to get onto County Road 19. If the driveway were relocated, it would come out too close to the stop sign, which would probably be an issue. In working with an architect, an L-shaped house was designed with the garage facing Park Drive to give them a straight shot to the road. There is actually a tarred area from when they put in the drainage ditch a few years ago and the home on the other side of the proposed vacation uses that. Page 10 of 20