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Mayor and City Council March 20, 1998 Page 4 3. To move the home site back to the road does not make sense, because then the view to the lake would be adversely affected by the adjacent homes, and the house would look out of place both from the lake and from the roadside. 4. My clients, by adding some holding ponds to their property, are making sure that the surface water runoff in any event is treated better than it would be with the normal development of the home, which would not provide for holding ponds on the site. 5. Much of the surface water runoff on this property now and in the future is from the public road, which water is passing through the property, untreated presently, and that water and the lake would be benefitted from my clients' proposed treatment ponds that otherwise would not be built, unless the City wished to acquire an easement over the property and build those ponds. 6. As my clients will demonstrate, they could move the driveway to a new location which would then result in no need for a minor variance. However, in doing so, my clients would need to fill over the existing paved driveway, regrade the area from the street to the house, remove several large trees and the electrical pole. The lights from the cars exiting that driveway would shine into the home across the street. All of the above adverse effects could be eliminated by using the existing paved driveway, which necessitates a minor variance. 7. Granting of a variance would not set an adverse precedent, since this fact situation, as noted above, is readily distinguishable from other situations. 8. The legislative history is, as I recall, that variances within reason should be granted liberally because of how stringent the 25-percent limitation between 75 and 250 feet of the lakeshore was. 9. The State standard is 25 percent applied to the entire lot, which would allow hardcover of substantially in excess of what my clients are proposing. In Rowell v. Board of Adjustment, 446 N.W. 2d 917 (Minnesota Court of Appeals 1989) the Court interpreted the State mandated variance test which applies to cities in a very flexible manner. The Court clearly allows and promotes such flexibility. For example, the Court stated: 15264BDM "The first requirement is that the property cannot be put to a reasonable use without the variance. This provision does not mean that a property owner must show that the land cannot be put to any reasonable use without the variance. In such a case the constitution would compel a variance regardless of the statute.