06-14-1999 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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r ■¥m 12/14/98 KEITH WATERS & ASSOCIATES, Inc. DESIGNERS & BUILDERS 6216 Baker Road Suite 110 Eden Prairie, MN 55346 City of Orono 2750 Kelley Parkway P.O. Box 66 Orono. MN 55323 (6l2)974-0004 fax (612) 9744)005 www.keithwaters.com License Number - 0001508 statement of Hardship for 885 Ferndale Road Hardships have been created by five existing and unalterable conditions that are unique to this site. The first condition that creates hardship is the location of the existing house on the site. Although the house was originally sited in a way that properly used the site, it does not conform to current zoning regulations. In fact the existing house lies entirely outside of the buildable area allowed by current regulations. Therefore, any modification or addition to the existing house requires a variance for sideyard and lakeshore setbacks. Since the existing home lies outside of the buildable area as defined by current codes and regulations, it creates a “broken application"; i.e. current regulations don’t address or apply to it directly. Therefore staff, planning commission members and City Council will need to apply “common sense" when ruling. Please note that the neighboring home is sited in a similar manner. The second condition that creates a hardship is the existing topography. The house was originally sited on a ridge near the lake in order to take advantage of the view and to assure that high water levels would not endanger the home. Siting the home anywhere else would have meant looking into the ridge instead of at the lake, and would have meant that a portion of the house may have been at or near the floodplain elevation. One result of siting the house on the ridge was that the garage had to be built on the low flat area below the ridge. Entrance to the house from the garage is currently through the unfinished basement. In order to provide better access to the home we intend to raise the floor of the garage by approximately 5’, thereby bringing it nearer to the level of the existing laundry/mudrciom. Part of the back wall of current garage lies on the property line. Staff suggested that we move these 2 bays of the garage off of the property line and align them with the rest of the line. We will be using the space above the garage in order to add required bedrooms to the home without adding any hardcover. Likewise, we plan to enlarge the owner’s suite by expanding over a portion of the existing main level plan that is currently only one story high. Please see the proposed plans. G:\PROJECTS\CURRENT\WOODHOUSEWARIANCE.DOC I