07-22-2002 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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0 MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, July 22, 2002 6:30 o'clock p.m. 07) #02 -2791 DA VE AND JODI RAHN,1385 REST POINT ROAD - VARIANCES - Continued reasonable. Gaffron stated that it is up to the Council to decide where he has met the reasonable standard and because the City has been inconsistent within the past few years with what it did the past 15 years before that, it was difficult in his mind to treat this as something that happened two years ago when there were commitments made on it five years ago. Rahn asked how the City could look at he and his neighbor's lot, which is a couple of hundred s.f. less than his, and say that he was not being held to a higher standard than they were. Mayor Peterson asked for clarification whether the project had started out as a rebuild or a renovation. Gaffron noted that this started out as a renovation and came back in as a rebuild. Rahn stated that, what it boiled down to, was that there was not much left worth saving, and the foundation would have required a great deal of engineering. Gaffron stated that it was concluded at that time that there was no other place to put a house, so they were told to go ahead and finish it off rebuilding it in the present location without a garage. A year later the City was asked to allow them to build a detached garage out of the floodplain on the hill with a short driveway that minimized hardcover etc. Sansevere asked if the applicant was still operating under the misinformation. Gaffron stated that they were. Since then, now that they have learned the floodplain is no longer floodplain, he has proposed a new driveway and new garage, that in the City's mind replaces what was approved in 1998, but he is not willing to remove that in exchange, due to storage and value it has to him. Gaffron pointed out that the question remains, is the applicant over in hardcover and are there things that could be removed. It would be consistent to remove things that are considered excess hardcover. If the Council concludes that the 20X20' garage itself is not excess hardcover, or although precedent setting, he could mitigate the impacts of runoff from the garage structure by letting it soak into the low spot in the ground that doesn't get directly to the lake but gets filtration before it gets there, then there is some logic in leaving it there. Sansevere stated that he was grappling with the fact that the garage was put there based on information about the floodplain. Now with new information, the applicant is trying to relocate near the house, where it would have appropriately been put originally, had they not believed it were a floodplain. • Rahn stated that he was correct. PAGE 17 of 35