02-21-2023 Planning Commission Minutes

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION February 21,2023 6:00 o'clock p.m. very pleased with the outcome. I had a great conversation with one of the neighbors this weekend. You're talking about a big burden to the homeowner who is a victim and all of this, and you're talking about more of a burden to the neighbors,more construction. If there was a practical difficulty for ignorance and incompetence, I can point to where that would be,but that's not in there. And so I would ask you look at the harm and the good. Tell me what is the harm?You know, if I would have come to you guys, originally asking for a 17.3 foot setback versus 19, I made a pretty good case for the 19 foot setback, I built a beautiful home in a 70-foot wide space, so I think you probably would have approved that too. And so what is the harm of 20 inches, especially when the culprits aren't going to be the people that pay the price for this? So the harm versus the good. The good is if you can approve it,the homeowners are happy,the neighbors are happy,you don't have another innocent party bearing the cost of somebody else's mistakes. And the harm if we yank this all out, everybody's going to not feel great about this. What's the benefit of those 20 inches?That's the hard thing for me. So I'm asking for like a super common sense approach to this, because ultimately the choice to deny it is a whole lot of harm, and I can't find the good. McCutcheon asked when the problem was caught?Was it during the framing inspection? Ms. Kromenhoek said the mistake was not noticed at the framing inspection but later. The stairs were always supposed to be in that location, it just would have been 20 inches to the left. And if you turn the stairs and make them go across the back,there's a beautiful window there and a big glass sliding doors (below the deck)that the view is now of stairs. If you try to just move it eight inches or the 20 inches, you're going to be digging up all of those footings, all of the concrete landings,you're going to have to re- support it while you're doing that. It's not just a move, it's actually pretty complicated. Mr. Bard is ultimately the person who lives in the home and he had nothing to do with this. I want to make this as easy as possible for him, and of course, for myself, so that's why I asked,what would be the harm in giving that 20 inches? She added the neighbors are very happy with the new construction. If you're familiar with what was there before,the neighbors are thrilled with having a beautiful home in their view. Of course,they didn't love the construction period, no one ever does. I think they'd be pretty heartbroken to know that we will be back and tearing up his yard,which we've hydro seeded,just to do this. Libby asked when there was a certain state of completion and a certificate of occupancy. Ms. Kromenhoek said the home was completed in April, and a temporary certificate of occupancy was granted. It's complicated. Obviously,we have a builder that disappeared from the entire situation at the end, and my partner disappeared at the end. And so I didn't find out until November or December. And huge kudos to the staff for helping catch me up on what the problem was and what I could do to try to get through it. So I just became aware in December, and actually, Mr. Barr just became aware in November. And we've been working together to try to figure out how to get through this. Libby said he has been involved in building processes and this is not the first time I've heard of something like this happening. Rather than the rudely inconvenient reconstruction and demolition of something like this, it would be a material fact knowledge issue that must be made evident in perpetuity. He said future residents would need to be made aware of this material fact so there would be transparency. Page 14 of 19