01-11-1988 - Agenda Packet City Council - regular meeting

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City of Orono October 22, 1987 Re: John and Lynn Waldron Prop:rty page 2 1951 Concordia Street proposing to cut a walk -out in the basement wall of our home and to add a deck above to accommodate exit from the er:isting rear door of the home and to aid in utilizing the backyat3. See attachment B, consistin(, of two sheets, which depicts the proposed changes. As the City is aware, the previous owners of the property, John and Susan Busse, made application for a walk -out in 1986. The City rejected that application, as I understand it, primarily because the applicant could not demonstrate any hardship nor benefit to the quality or quantity of runoff to the lake. Such is not the case with the present application. A hardship obviously exists due to the damage created by the July 23rd storm. In other words, in the language of the ordinance, "The plight of the landowner is due to circumstances unique to his property not created by the landowner." City Ordinance §10.08, subd. 3.A.2. We did not create the erosion situation ai,d the situation, althouc:, ?t occurred at a number of other properties in the City, is not a problem common to homeowners in the City. It is also clear that if the present slope reri,airs unchanged, the lake will continue to be polluted by the resulting runoff and further portions of the bank may slide. Even if one attempts to revegetate the slope as it is, the slopes are toi steep to adequately maintain vegetation and future erosion and sliding would be likely. Hardcover calculations have be-n made on page 1 of attachment B and show that the proposed changes would result in significant reduction of the hardcover from 19.67% to 7.2%, a 12.47% reduction. The largest part of this reduction is due to the fact that gutters were installed on the lakeside of the home as an emergency measure after the storm. These gutters catch the entire portion of the roof which was previously hardcover within the 0-75' area and divert the runoff directly to the waters' edge by means of r.on-perforated tubing. Since this runoff from the roof is clean, and the tube is not perforated, there is no resulting damage to the water quality from this runoff. This idea was obta?ned from the Hennepin Conserva- tion District. To the extent that the reduction in hardcover in fact reduces the quantity of runoff to the lake, our proposal meets this concern of the City as well.. Runoff to neighboring properties would not chcinge. In general, the proposal can only have a positive effect on the health, safety and welfare of the community, by protecting the lake from future pollution as a result of erosion and other. runoff. By adding a walk -out and deck to the property, the proposal will only have a positive effect on the values of the property in the surround- ing area. Attachment C shows some information regarding the setbacks