04-24-2000 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

#2563 - Sketch Plan Comments March 17,2000 Page 5 In practice, the City has commonly treated lot line reanangements between two developed parcels as a Class I subdivision, not requiring a plat (which adds to the applicant’s costs) even when the resulting lots have not met zoning district lot area and width standards. This practice has been a relatively efficient method for persons to transfer an excess portion of their property- to an abutting neighbor. In most if not all cases, however, such "Lot Line Reanangement Subdivisions" have not allowed a conforming property to become non-conforming as a result of selling off a portion to the neighbor. A Class II or III subdivision, requiring a plat, is virtually always required when creating new building sites from a single parcel or group of parcels. The only exception is when the resulting 1 jts are each 20 acres or larger, such as the Steve White subdivision further west on Bayside Road. It is uncommon to take three or more tax parcels and convert them into just two lots;, although on West Lake Street an owner of four adjacent ta.x parcels was allowed via combination and lot line reanangement to end up with two substandard building sites where two developed lots with existing homes had already existed. In that case, it could be argued that the owner had rights to two lots established by the existence of two homes and the prior payment of two sewer assessments. Analysis of Filbrandt Situation Filbrandt could conceivably create from his 26 acres, two lots, one with the existing home and one undeveloped, each having 300 feet of frontage on Bayside Road, but one would fall short of the 5-acre requirement, which automatically requires a variance, making this a ‘flexible zoning’ situation and therefore making it at least a Class II subdivision requiring a plat. Section 11.03, Subd. 14(A) states under the heading "Special Requirements for Plats" as follows: "A. Zoning Regulations. Every plat shall conform to existing zoning regulations and subdivision regulations applicable at the time of final plat approval. Variances shall not be approved to increase the overall subdivision density above the minimum lot area requirements of the applicable zoning district and this Chapter." The minimum lot area requirements of the RR-IA zoning district are 5 acres of dry buildable land, of which two acres must be contiguous with the identified building site (so the three required additional acres must be within the lot but could be separated by a wetland). This gives Filbrandt some potential use of the northerly portion of the site if he can acquire enough dry buildable to result in 10 dry acres total.