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. local area that uses this type of process. He is looking for feedback from the Planning Commission on what type of projects they would anticipate to be minor; what type of projects would be considered major, and major ones would be reviewed by a group above Staff level,whether it is the Planning Commission and City Council or just one or the other...they can design that process. Barnhart noted they have the control in terms of how they design this process or program so they can establish what fits,what type of project is included, what type of process of review,what the criteria are and whoever reviews this would apply to a project. He wants to talk about what a minor amendment is,which would be a project that the City Staff would approve and through the review and application of the criteria. The City of Mound uses a roof modification that increases the usable area within the same foot but without adding a full story, so that might be changing a roof pitch to add some usable space or change some dormers to create more usable space in an existing structure but are not adding on to the full structure. Another option is basement expansion within the structure footprint, for example, someone may have a porch and they want to dig down a basement level;that is not really impactful from a visual standpoint but is an expansion which would normally trigger a variance. Barnhart noted another option is a one story addition to an existing upper floor of a non-conforming structure that does not expand the footprint of the non- conforming structure. In this scenario,they have a single story house and are adding on a second floor that is less than 500 square foot,adding a relatively small upward expansion into the roof area. Chair Ressler clarified it is not adding footprint. Barnhart replied it would not be adding on to the footprint,but adding volume into a space that does not have volume now and the Commission has seen the number of variances. Another option is a one story addition to the footprint of an existing non-conforming structure that is less than 250 square feet...a small expansion. He noted the City of Mound uses these as a way to allow for relatively small modifications to an existing structure that maybe the practical difficulty standard might be a bit tough to match. For example, one might have a principal structure and want to add a 250 square foot room onto that; what is the practical difficulty. Again,he is speaking very generally on all of these but that is the challenge, how do they apply the practical difficulty standard for some of these relatively small changes when they likely have a principal structure already that is in use. Barnhart mentioned those four as the general context of what they are thinking in terms of the level of improvements and he would like to talk a bit about if there are other things they might consider. When thinking of setbacks, they think automatically about front yard,rear yard, side yard setback; historically, it seems the City Council has been very cautious about expanding into the lake yard and lately been very cautious about expanding in to the average lakeshore setback. He would suggest that if they want to adopt some sort of criteria,those expansions may not be minor expansions. Regardless of the size of the improvement, if someone wanted to expand into the lake yard that would not be considered a minor amendment and Staff would want the decision makers to make that decision,whether it is Planning Commission and Council, or the Council. He said another area they can create is what areas are they open to changes; he noted the variance on Stubbs Bay Road where the Commission approved a recommendation to move a new project into the side yard setbacks and there was already an exception for the front yard setback and this type of process could allow improvements into the side yard,but if it was a lake lot,not into the lake yard. The City of Mound does not include it but Barnhart thinks it would be appropriate to have some expansions of hard cover in certain areas. There is a provision in Orono's code that if they are non-conforming in hard cover,the applicant can relocate that hard cover elsewhere as long as it is not in the lake yard. If there is non-conforming hard cover in the lake yard, they cannot move it to another non-conforming location in the lake yard and that is something they can talk about in the future. Moving on to the criteria, Barnhart said the City of Mound uses five criteria when applying the variance. 1)Is the proposed expansion reasonable? And then they look at the impact for the neighborhood. 2) Is the proposed expansion unique to the property? These are somewhat Page 19 of 23