10-09-2017 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday,October 9,2017 7:00 o'clock p.m. 12. #17-3968 SHARRATT DESIGN AND COMPANY OB/O FREDERICK AND PATRICIA JOHNSON, 1565 ORCHARD BEACH PLACE(PID 07-117-23-0026)—VARIANCE—Continued McDermott stated if he was evaluating this as a financial advisor and 11 red flags go up,he would just say this does not work. McDermott stated he would encourage the City Council to put the community first and vote this application down. Richie Anderson, 3205 Crystal Bay Road, asked if this lot has a sewer stub. Walsh indicated it does. Anderson asked if the City has minimum building sites. Curtis indicated they do not. Anderson asked if they are telling him that a person cannot put a building on this lot. Anderson indicated he has two lots,one being .33 acres and the other being .35 acres,and that he does not want this applicant showing up at his place telling him he can't build on those two lots. Anderson stated it does not make sense,and that if they want to adjust the house,they should be able to build on the lot. Anderson asked if they can build some type of house on the property. Walsh stated that is what the City Council is going to discuss. Anderson stated in his view the lot is buildable with the right house. Pat Cleveland,4315 North Shore Drive, stated she is in agreement with the comments her neighbors have made and that in her view there are too many variances being requested,which shows that this is not the proper use of the property. Cleveland stated she thinks it could be a dangerous precedent for the City Council if all these variances are allowed and that when they built their house,they respected the regulations. Cleveland stated in her mind the property owner made a bad investment and the burden is on the purchaser to look at the current regulations when they are purchasing a property. Given the number of variances,most people would not purchase it. Doug Waldoch,4215 North Shore Drive, stated if you look up and down the shoreline,you see trees,but on the other hand,if you look across West Arm,you see shoreline that is not in Orono where there are many, many homes with no buffer from the lake. Waldoch stated he believes what they have in the neighborhood reflects the City's plans and regulations that have been in place and it looks the way it does because of that. The opposite shoreline is a definite contract. Lisa Wysocki, 1555 Orchard Beach Place, stated her grandparents purchased the property in 1958 and that her mother has lived on this property since 1958 as well. Wysocki stated since they have been here the longest,they have a lot of history with the property. Wysocki indicated the Deaconess Hospital and the Lutheran Brotherhood owned all of that land from the top of Saga Hill down to the S-curve approximately 100 years ago and that they were involved in platting this land and that this lot was originally platted as a commons lot. Wysocki stated when she was young,the nuns would come and fish and that she remembers them telling her that that little house was actually a common meeting area consisting of a three-sided open air structure. The garage that was on the property was actually a 3-hole outhouse.Wysocki stated she wanted to correct that for the record. Page 10 of 23