ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011
Members Present: Ms. Marteney, Mr. Baroody and Mr. Tamburrino
Staff Present: Mr. Fusco, Ms. Jensen and Mr. Hicks
APPLICATION DENIED: 85 Lake Avenue
Mr. Baroody: Good evening. This is the Zoning Board of Appeal. Before we start Mr. McFarland, we have a couple of issues to address, we are a seven-member Board and we need four for a quorum. One “no” vote and it will not pass. You have the option to table it until next month or to go forward tonight. That’s your call.
Mr. McFarland: I’d like to continue.
Mr. Baroody: Okay, thanks. Before we begin, meeting minutes from last month, are there any deletions or deletions?
Ms. Marteney: No.
Mr. Baroody: Okay.
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85 Lake Avenue. Applicant: Michael McFarland, area variance for temporary carport on driveway.
Mr. Baroody: Mr. McFarland would like to come up, state your name and tell us what you would like to do. Please speak into the microphone.
Mr. McFarland: My name is Michael McFarland. I live at 85 Lake Avenue in Auburn. I would like to get a variance for my property to put up a temporary carport, the dimensions of which are 24 x 10 x 8 feet tall. The reason I would like to do this is because the existing building I have at the back of my property is not accessible by the driveway. It ends about thirty feet short of the building, the structure. The people in the Codes Department are calling it a garage but I consider it more of a shed because all of the garages I’ve seen have a driveway that leads right directly to it. I’ve got that strip of grass which would be quite expensive for me to have it paved so I could have all-year access to it. It’s on a severe slope and it will be difficult for traction during the wet winter months. Also, it’s going to cause
some severe rutting when I’m driving on grass which would be a large expense for me to repair in the spring. I have to fill in the ruts with soil and then re-seed it. So, I have the expense of either extending the driveway or taking care of the damage that would be caused by driving the car on the wet ground over the wet months in the spring and now.
Another reason that I would like to get a variance is that I could have…it’s about a hundred feet back to where this building is. That’s extra I’m going to have to plow. It’s not close to my house at all, it’s a long way to walk back there from the front door and I don’t have a back door so from the front door it would be a long distance to walk back there, the time and with the snowplow the gasoline I would have to take to plow that extra difference. With the carport it would be only 45 feet away from the curb and that would save me a lot of time for plowing and use of gasoline.
Another reason that I would like to get this accepted is that it is not a permanent structure going on to the property. It will come down April 15th, after the end of the snow. It will not leave a lasting effect on the property as a permanent garage would. I will have it down and when and if I sell the property, it will look the way it looks today. The carport is not a permanent structure. The property will revert to the way it is right now.
Also, because the way the driveway slopes down to the street, it’s only eight feet tall, it’s going to have quite a low profile from the street because of the slope of the driveway, not much of the building will be visible from the curb.
Also, it being right on my driveway, it’s not near a property line at all so there’s no, I don’t think there’s anybody that would complain about it being too close to the property line. So, that’s why I would like to get the variance to have a temporary carport erected on the property. Thank you.
Mr. Baroody: Any questions from the Board?
Ms. Marteney: If you say it’s temporary, are you going to come back next December and ask for it again?
Mr. McFarland: Yes.
Mr. Darrow: That’s something else we’re going to ask our counsel.
Mr. McFarland: We put it in that it can only be erected and in place from November 1st through April 15th.
Mr. Fusco: My question is what’s the game plan on where it goes in the summertime, in the spring and the fall.
Mr. McFarland: I’ll put it into the structure I have at the back of my property. It folds up into a box that’s really not much bigger than this podium and that’s where I’m planning on putting it. It will be out of sight, it will be in the storage building.
Mr. Fusco: So that were this Board to condition its approval on the temporary carport being housed in the garage during the warm weather months and it not being on the property when you sell it so it doesn’t bind subsequent buyers, you’d have no problem with those two conditions?
Mr. McFarland: No, no problem at all. But that brings up the question, you bring up a good question, do I have to come every single year to ask for a variance?
Mr. Fusco: I think were we to condition it such that Mr. Darrow placed it that it would not be present from April 16th to November 15th and condition it upon you placing it indoors in those months because it folds up, I don’t see any need for you to come here every year.
Mr. McFarland: Okay, I don’t know how that would work. Would that go in a…it’s not a contract that we would have.
Mr. Fusco: Well, it’s a decision. We’ll actually be rendering a decision tonight and it is a contract.
Mr. McFarland: Okay.
Mr. Fusco: It’s your contract with us.
Mr. McFarland: Okay, sure.
Mr. Baroody: Thank you. You can be seated.
Mr. Tamburino: I have one question of Mr. McFarland. Your neighbors, have you asked your neighbors if this is agreeable to them? Usually, sometimes they attach the neighbors…a document here saying how they agree that this is not going to…I agree to this variance. Have you talked to your neighbors about this on either side?
Mr. McFarland: No, I haven’t.
Mr. Tamburino: In this fence, you’ve got a fence here, I go up by your property and I can see the fence very easily so it looks like you can see the carport, it’s easy to see.
Ms. Marteney: You’re going to put it on the outside of the fence, not inside?
Mr. McFarland: Right.
Mr. Tamburino: So if you can see the fence, you can easily see the carport.
Mr. McFarland: Well, I didn’t say you couldn’t see it at all but I what I did say was that it would be a lower profile because of the slope of the driveway.
Mr. Tamburino: How many feet would you say it was?
Mr. McFarland: It drops three feet, I would say.
Mr. Baroody: Okay, you can have a seat. Is there anyone here to speak for or against? We’ll discuss it among ourselves.
Mr. Darrow: I don’t have a problem with a problem with it as long as it’s phrased that it must come down and it must be stored and cannot be on the property while the house is being marketed.
Mr. Tamburino: I have an issue frankly. Again, I have never seen a garage like that or a structure of that type, number one. Number two is if you put that up, now I have a feeling that the gentleman wants to put it up because he wants a garage, an affordable garage. He doesn’t want to brush the snow off his car and so forth. It’s really convenience. So, that could mushroom. We could see other people asking for the same thing. I could ask for it, you could ask for it. Before we know it we could have tents everywhere.
Mr. Darrow: We’ve had two of them.
Ms. Marteney: Those were legitimate.
Mr. Tamburino: Those were legitimate reasons, not for convenience. One lady had to treat a bad shoulder, one person had conditions which I could see. My big thing is esthetics for one and setting a precedent for two.
Mr. Baroody: There aren’t many properties that we have that are like that.
Mr. Darrow: I don’t think it’s really setting a precedent because every vehicle, it might be a little guiding but I don’t think it’s setting one because the characteristics of these vehicles and every applicant always vary a little. I can sympathize with the gentleman. I have three vehicles all winter I get to keep clean because I don’t have a garage. I can understand that.
Ms. Marteney: So can I. I guess I don’t see any strong reason to allow it. I just think it means that it becomes a precedent that for convenience sake keeps snow off your car to put these up and I do not find them appealing and I don’t think that Brian is going to send his guys out to police. I saw two of them today when I was driving around town. And people put them on the driveway.
Mr. Tamburino: They mushroom.
Ms. Marteney: That’s what I think too, without a real reason to have them and I think that the two that we approved recently were for very legitimate reasons. The health reason and the gentleman with 125 cats in his neighborhood or whatever.
Mr. Tamburino: Scratching his car up.
Ms. Marteney: Scratching his car up. He documented that that was happening.
Mr. Baroody: Do I hear a motion?
Mr. Darrow: I would like to make a motion that we grant Michael McFarland of 85 Lake Avenue a 90 square foot area variance over the allowable 150 square foot maximum for a temporary carport structure to be placed on his property be submitted in a plot map. It cannot be standing on the property between April 16th and November 15th. It cannot be on the property if the house is on the market. It must be stored in the garage on the premises in the summer months.
Ms. Marteney: Well stored. It doesn’t have to be in the garage.
Mr. Baroody: Do I hear a second?
Mr. Tamburino: I second it.
VOTE: Ms. Marteney: I vote no. While I understand your desire to have your car cleaned off, I think it sets a precedent for convenience sake.
Mr. Darrow: Yes
Mr. Tamburino: No
Mr. Baroody: Yes.
Mr. Baroody: Sorry Mr. McFarland, it did not pass. Anything else? Anyone have anything?
Motion to adjourn. Adjourned
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