11-16-2020 Planning Commission Minutes

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION Monday,November 16,2020 6:00 o'clock p.m. Commission has been consistently dealing with. He would be supportive of it going up to but not extending beyond the pillar. Kirchner moved, Gettman seconded,to deny LA20-000070,3145 North Shore Drive,Variance as proposed with a recommendation that the stairs extending beyond the front pillar be evaluated by the architect,homeowner,and builder for further consideration. Chair Ressler noted the motion is to deny and there was additional discussion that was supportive of the application as applied with the exception that Kirchner would like to see the stairs end no further beyond the pillar most lakeward. He added that he, too, is in favor of that. Of course,they do not want to amend an application by any means as that is difficult to do on the fly. However,he would be in support of that modification if that is agreeable to the Applicant before it gets to the Council. Mr. O'Connell asked process-wise, if they make that modification,they do not need to come back through this process again. Chair Ressler replied yes and that is why they would not table it because if they tabled,then Mr. O'Connell would have to come back. Mr. O'Connell said they have work to do between now and when the Council sees it. Chair Ressler said yes, and that allows the Applicant to continue on with the process. Erickson would not support denial at this time, he thinks this discussion relevant to this highly unique property with the lagoon and channel leads them to have a neighbor with an extreme setback and it is rare that they get that type of setback. He stated there is a very high uniqueness factor in this location which supports the practical difficulty. Erickson thinks the whole discussion points out the challenge they have in regulating average setback and they have had discussions on it before; last year they talked about changing the formula. In spite of all that,they still have a fair number of variance requests, and initially the Commission was tasked with trying to cut down on variance requests. The reason they have this problem as a City is that the shoreline is highly irregular in many places and the average setbacks works easy-peasy as long as there is a straight piece of shoreline. However,the more nature deviates from that, the more challenging it is for the Commission to fairly regulate what is built next to it. He thinks this is a highly unique situation where the neighbor is not complaining and a highly reputable builder who has been in this area for many decades, as well. For those reasons he would support as approval and if the motion remains as denial he will vote against that. Libby would tend to concur with Erickson, not to read anything additional into the narrative from the Staff,but he thinks the Staff looked at this from a perspective. While he strongly supports the uniformity of the City's ordinance and the use of the average lakeshore setback as a uniform denominator of how the Commission makes these decisions,he thinks that even though the lagoon is contiguous and is a portion of the lakeshore,he agrees with Erickson that the unique circumstances that the lagoon is separate from the primary lakeshore itself warranted the decision of the Staff to approve this. He would tend to support the Staff's decision before he would support any other Commissioner's recommendations. Chair Ressler clarified to Mr. O'Connell that he can take these plans to the City Council as they are regardless of whether the Planning Commission approves or denies. Ms. Curtis can help explain those options, as well. If there is a friendly amendment they wanted to make,they could have both sets of plans Page 10 of 23