If you look at some of the other states that are a little bit closer to the more traditional, the East Coast, the West Coast, they tend to have much larger units. I'm thrilled that we have as much as we do. And as we saw a few minutes ago with Christian and the youth and the great things that they're doing, you are doing the same thing in a different way. So congratulations. Thank you. Stephen, thank you, Phil. Thank you, gentlemen, for your service. Thank you for having us. Hope the golf tournament is great. If I get out there and maybe caddy for a few holes for you, I will. And I'll do some push-ups for Steve. And I'm Paul Chartier. I'm not going to show off and do three. I'll just do a couple. We'll see you next time on Heart of Gold. And get started with the August meeting of the Board of Adjustment. A couple of housekeeping items. Please turn off your cell phones. If you need to take a call, please do so out in the lobby. I'd like to swear in everyone that is going to speak today. Would you stand up and raise your right hand? Do you agree to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. You can be seated. Mr. Emmons, before I read the agenda, are there any withdrawals or postponements? The staff is aware of one. The applicant is in the audience. would you come up and introduce yourself yes mr chairman members of the board staff i am christopher clendenin with the law firm of murphy and clendenin i'm here representing lex properties llc today i believe that's number one on your agenda we're requesting a one month one month postponement of this hearing okay you think we can get these things resolved and in the next month Well, we have met with the staff this week. We are working on some resolutions. We've requested fire and EMS to evaluate one of the variances, and I believe that we definitely can get some resolution to this prior to the next board meeting. Very good. That sounds optimistic. Does the board have any questions of the applicant? If not, then surely entertain a motion to postpone for 30 days. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move we postpone the Lex Properties, LLC, 2015-52 for 30 days. Very good. I got a motion by Mr. Glover. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Gross seconds. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? You got your 30 days. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The next item on the agenda is Julian Robert Eskridge, the applicant here. We're just sounding the agenda right now, and is there any opposition to this case? Staff has recommended disapproval, so we're going to hear your case in just a minute and hear from you. The Hope Center Recovery for Women. Is the applicant present? Is there any opposition to the Hope Center Recovery Program? No opposition. St. John's Lutheran Church, is the applicant here? Very good. Is there any opposition to St. John Lutheran Church? There is opposition. All right. I believe that's it. We've got a fairly limited agenda for change today. and a very limited board as well as we've got a lot of people out of town. And I mentioned about the cell phones. Yes. Well, the first one with no opposition, that's the case we'll hear first, and that's a Hope Center recovery program for women. Would the applicant please come forward and state their name for the record? Mr. Chairman, as he is coming forward, the staff has received one letter of support for this application. I'll pass that out to the board members now. Okay. Give us just a second. Sure. Thank you. said we already had a chance to take a look at that again sir your name for the record please my name is kevin warner with carmen i'm here representing the hope center today Very good. Well, the staff has recommended approval subject to two conditions. Do you agree to abide by those conditions? We do. Very good. Does any member of the board have any questions? If not, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move we approve C-2015-45 Hope Center Recovery Program for Women's Appeal for a conditional use permit to expand the existing rehabilitation home in a planned neighborhood residential zone at 1524 Versailles Road for the reasons recommended by staff subject to the two conditions. Thank you, Mr. Glover. We've got a motion. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Gross, seconds. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Very good. Good luck with the project. Thank you, sir. You all do wonderful work. The staff has recommended approval for St. John's Lutheran Church with opposition, so we're going to hear that case next. I'd like for the applicant to please come forward and state their name for the record. Mr. Chairman, as they are coming forward, the staff, I would like to go ahead and get out of the way. There is one correction to the staff report that the staff needs to make. i'm going to put up on the board the one correction on that was that the in the original staff report for the 2009 case there was a proposed condition to consolidate the properties but during that hearing and that's where i missed it during that hearing the board did not put that condition on there. As such, the staff is recommending approval of this case with the first five conditions and recommending that we delete condition number six, which was a carryover of that. Your recommendation is to delete number six? Delete condition number six as it's printed on your staff report and in the agenda. That was a... I missed it. So noted. The staff has recommended approval now subject to five conditions. I'm sorry, sir, your name for the record? My name is Todd Ernst. Again, they've recommended approval subject to five conditions. Do you agree to abide by those? We do, yes. Very good. I know that there's some folks in opposition, and we'd like to hear them. And so if you'd take a seat, I'd like to have the opposition come up and state their case for the record. Thank you. Thank you. Folks, we're waiting for whoever wants to come up and say something. Come up and please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Julie Reasonweber, and I own property at 2701 Southview Drive at the corner of Southview and Pasadena on the eastern edge of St. John's. I've taken some images you can't see very well with the lights up. Thank you. One point that I want to make strongly with these images is that the impact of the building or buildings, since it will be done in two phases that are proposed by St. John's, is influenced by the topography in the area. I noticed that the staff review of this case in the staff report did note that. I think that they say it's one or two feet. In places, it seems to me more like it's three or four. So what it feels like will happen in the end is that a building that is 35 feet high at the ridgeline will actually be kind of towering about 40 feet over the Southview properties on the eastern boundary. And I'm showing you here a view standing right at kind of the corner of the St. John's property on Pasadena at the eastern corner overlooking the fence that is with me as well as, you know, at my house, at a portion of the house. here shows the slope of the ground at that location and again a closer view of the slope of that ground there's a pole in my yard that holds a bird feeder and looking from St. John's to my house you can see that there's about four feet of the pole that you cannot see given to the topography. That's the view from my yard towards St. John's. And again, the light conditions are making this really difficult, but I've shot here from the southern edge of my property looking across at the property line of 2705 Southview with St. John's, and they've actually terraced that to hold back the ground slope there. Just to give you another kind of sense on the ground of what we're dealing with, here is a view toward that property at 2705 and the next southern property. And these three properties along the eastern boundary that have addresses on Southview are the ones that are going to be the most, I think, greatly impacted by this building proposal. So it's a matter of the topography, but it's also somewhat a matter of scale. our houses, our small little houses are 1,200 to 1,500 square feet. This proposed building is going to be around 10 times that. So my concerns as a property owner adjacent to the church, and let me just say that I don't have any particular problems with St. John's. I think it's great that they're expanding. They seem to do wonderful things and have great stuff going on there a lot of the time. My problem is specifically with the location of this building on their property, which aesthetically we're all going to be looking at a blank brick wall. While there is some screening proposed, it's very difficult to mitigate that in any meaningful way due to the topography, the height of the building and the utility lines being there. And the utility lines are going to seriously restrict the height of any plantings that can be done to screen that wall. On the west side of my property, as well as others on the east side of St. John's, that 35-foot building or 40 feet from my ground surface is going to leave my backyard constantly in shadow, pretty much. So I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about it blocking out the light, which affects my landscaping and everything else. I noticed in the staff report that they have one of the conditions was not to put lights pointing at the bordering properties. There are currently lights that are on at night on the side of the church, which are left on all night and which do shine into my windows. So I appreciate not wanting to point lights at my property. But there's going to be a 10-foot area, as proposed, between the wall of the church and the property line. And if that space is not lighted and it's dark, I wonder what kind of a corridor it's going to make. Is that a place? It's generally a pretty safe neighborhood, but if there are people who see opportunities, they may take them. So I wonder if that's going to create an opportunity. I'm concerned about what the very close proximity of this large brick wall is going to have on my property value, which I was not able to do research about that. Had the timing been different, I might have been able to get some of that accomplished. But even if it doesn't adversely affect my property value, I'm wondering about my ability to sell. I would think twice, personally, before buying the house I have now with the condition that is proposed. And I wonder how many people would be happy to buy my house once that church is built. in the end what my largest problem with this is is that by placing the church the new church where it is proposed to be placed the impacts that i've outlined on the south on myself and the other southview neighbors are going to be permanent for what is a temporary condition for the church. It seems to me that, and from attending the neighborhood meeting which the church had a week or so ago, that the primary reason for the placement has to do with leaving the current church standing and their ability to use it while the construction is underway. And while I understand that tearing that building down before building the new church would be inconvenient and have some adverse impact on the church, that would be temporary, whereas we on Southview are going to have to live with the big brick wall for a very, very long time. In the end, I'm wondering about just reading over the zoning ordinance, there are already conditional uses in place, and some of those conditional uses speak about the amount of child care. The proposed expansion wants to add the ability to care for 70 children at a time. And that's nowhere near anything that seems to be outlined in residential zones in the zoning ordinance so far as I can tell. And this is a big matter of policy and interpretation. That's your job as the Board of Adjustment and the planning staff's, not so much mine. But I do have a little bit of experience with planning, and I just wonder how much can you continue to expand conditional uses before it becomes kind of a problem. So that's what I have to say. Thank you for listening. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you. Sir, you were wanting to come up and say something. Hi. My name is Daniel Hudley. I live at 2709 Southview Drive. And what I've been looking at is basically what my fellow neighbor on the corner has. because outside, what it'll be, it's outside my family room where I watch TV in my fireplaces and I get to see part of Pasadena and stuff. That's going to be nothing but a brick wall. I do have trees and some shrubbery around my, in the back, so the people from St. John's can't stare at me while they're having their meetings, while I'm sitting on my back porch. But in my opinion, my property lines, my property value is going to go down. I won't be able to sell the house because who would want to buy a house where the view out the backyard is going to be a big brick wall? I mean, this is that and whatever trees I have are going to be perishing because they won't be able to get enough sunlight. I won't be able to have a vegetable garden anymore because that will be done. I have to grow my vegetables out in the front yard where I can be able to actually get sunlight. And with this phase one and phase two going on, I don't see why they can't borrow or get a loan of a church where they can go and worship and stuff like that until the other one's done and be rebuilt in the same spot where the existing is. because right now they're being 10 foot off the property line if they're going to put shrubs at five feet six foot high when the UK Kentucky utilities come in to trim the tree lines which they do about every three years they won't be able to get a boom truck back there they won't be able to get a wood chipper back there they're they told me their ease are going to be one foot four inches off the building, that's another 16 inches. It's going to cost the consumers a lot of money for having people go back there by hand to trim the trees for the power lines back there. And I'm sure it comes out of taxpayer money or Fayette County money or whatever when they come and trim the trees. I'm sure Kentucky utilities don't do that for free. Tell me where your house is located, sir. I'm looking at the site map that was submitted with this application. I'm not sure which house is yours. Is it right if I approach? Yes, sir. I'm just trying to locate you on the map. I'm going to be right here. This is going to be my house. I'm going to have a third wall going all the way down. I'll be the third house off the corner. That's how I'm going to a Goldstone Road. And my house is right next to the church's office. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you, Mr. I guess it seems to be a reoccurring theme about this wall and I want to hear from the applicant. Is there anything else, Miss family, that you'd like to offer? No. Is there anybody else that wanted to speak? I'd like to ask the applicant to come back up here if he if if he would and it's in and address some of these concerns. I'm sounds like you all. Yes, sir. we were talking i do apologize sir yes sir yes opposition uh comes up come up please and state your name for the record and and and if you have something new to add we're welcome to hear it but we've already heard about the topography and the and the size of the wall and that seems to be a big issue so do you have a little something new to bring? My name is Dennis Moore. I own the property at 577 Lamont Drive, which is on the, I guess, the south end of the church. And I could echo everything that you've heard to this point. It's a brick wall. There's people down here, the land here, land here, church on top of it. Let that go because you've heard that. So the only concern I would have other than that is parking. I now look out the back. I see open land, grass, and then there's parking like 40 or 50 feet away from the fence. If this is approved, they're going to put parking within, my understanding, about 10 feet from the fence. So I'm going to look at cars now out the back. I don't see anything where they're saying they'll put trees in, put sound barriers up, or the block of view. I do know that, well, I won't go into that. I would just like to see if this is approved, that they have to put some type of break in to keep the sound down from the kids, from the school that they want to put in. Kids play, and kids will be kids. I mean, we expect it, But we need to have some buffer between the property, the cars and the kids. Really, basically, the only thing I can add to it, but I do. These people on Southview, they are hurting. It won't hurt me that bad, but it does hurt them. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments. I'd like for the applicant to come back up and address some of these concerns. and the wall seems to be the biggest issue that we're listening to today and obviously we're talking about topography and lighting and so forth and certainly the size of the addition. Can you address that for us? Yes, sir. I'm going to put a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little Yes, sir. Yes, this is this is standing along the east property line looking back towards Lamont Street. This shows some of the vegetation that's currently there. And if you go to the next one. That's a view towards Mr. Hamlin's property from the church parking lot. So there is significant vegetation there. and this is an overhead perspective from the intersection of Pasadena on the right and Southview on the left, so it's looking sort of westerly southwest. The church, this one is further back down Southview looking northeast. You see the property line, the dark line in between. The full build out is shown there where the sanctuary, which is the main space that is actually pointed from southwest to northeast towards the intersection. In designing this, there were a number of things that we took into consideration. One was placement on the site and we looked at about eight different orientations, different iterations of how the building may be placed on the site. We were trying to be as sensitive to the neighbors as we could prior to our meeting that we had with them last Wednesday. But this also shows that with the phase two build out the fellowship hall, which is the longer space closest to you, that wall is about ten feet tall before the roof line pitches up to the main ridge over that space. So along the property line, we're at a minimum 10 feet off of the, well, at the setback line. We may be in excess of that by the time it all ends up. But that wall has some windows on it, and it is only 10 feet tall. We're looking at materials of brick and stone for the church. It's not a metal building. We're trying to give it some relief along that eastern line also, where it steps in for where the offices are and then back out and in again. So we've tried to be neighborly about this, tried to give it good design, aesthetics, and volumetric considerations. How tall is the brick wall going to be when it's constructed? Along the fellowship hall, it will be 10 feet. The peak of the sanctuary, which is the highest point, the ridge will be about 33, 34 feet. But again, it does point northeast to southwest. Mr. Ersk, I don't see the wall on the submission unless it's this dotted line. Am I not reading this right? maybe staff can help me interpret. Oh, back page. May I approach? Oh, I see. Yes. I think I see. Does that only run the distance of the building? Yes. Or does it follow that yellow line all the way through? The yellow line all the way through. The lower right is the fellowship hall. Yes. That will be 10 feet. 10 feet follows all the way around to the sanctuary corner, so it jumps up a little bit there to about 14, 15, and then it pitches up to the center of the sanctuary. I don't see much green space on this property. It looks like you've taken up the whole property with either parking lot or building space. I'm sure the staff has given some consideration to drainage and water runoff and such, and I'm sure your architect has as well. I just wanted to bring that up to make sure that somebody's thought of that. and I'm not sure which way this property drains, quite frankly. It drains along the western line up towards Pasadena. Okay. So about where the parking starts, the grade starts to fall down towards that western property line. Am I to understand that the parking lot has been there or is there already? There is a parking lot. It is not in this configuration. And it's, as was mentioned by the gentleman that lived on Lamont, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of space between where cars will be parking and the church's property line. And I understand there's no screening planned for that back area. Is that right? Well, staff's recommendation was a three-foot hedge along Lamont property line with trees every 40 feet. And the recommendation was also a six-foot hedge line along the eastern property line with trees every 40 feet. Sir, I'll let you come back up here and speak in a second, but I can't let you speak from the audience. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody get any questions for the applicant? I'd like to hear from staff and talking about the screening and so forth. It does seem that three feet is what's proposed or what the conditions is recommended between that parking lot and the neighbors. i do have a powerpoint prepared but most of the pictures in my powerpoint the board has already seen with the others so i'll just kind of go straight to the aerial photograph just a top town view of the existing church as it is today. The eastern property line, which is where most of the discussion has been, the staff is recommending in that particular instance along the three residential properties, a six foot tall hedge plus a tree every 40 feet. And as you've seen pictures of the existing, there is vegetation there already. it's a bit of a hodgepodge there's some honeysuckle and other types of things that have grown up and there are some existing trees there the staff would recommend in this particular instance that a that a new six-foot hedge be planted so it would be consistent along that buffer and trees be planted so that you would be able to account the existing trees that are along there but a minimum of one tree every 40 feet the subject property is zoned r1b and the single-family homes along Southview Drive are zoned r1c those two zones are both single-family residential zones and there is not any required zone to zone screening so the screening that we are recommending as a part of this conditional use is above and beyond the minimums that are required by the zoning ordinance along the back property line or the southern property line is the is the area that is currently a field. The church right now has the existing building up front. It has a paved parking lot, essentially in the middle of the property. And then it comes back to an accessory parking lot, which has a dry vial and has some gravel, where it's got overflow parking. And then there's green space to the rear. The staff has not recommended any additional required screening on that. The zoning ordinance requires for the parking lot screening, regardless of zones, any parking lot has to have the perimeter screened with either a fence or a hedge that is at least three feet tall and a tree every 40 feet. The staff felt that that would be appropriate to require that along the parking lot in that instance. The staff would also point out that as we were reviewing this proposed application, yes, there is ample green space on this site. This site, I believe, is about four acres. And the, or is it two? I can't. it's about four acres. It has been here for quite some time, at least the late 50s, early 60s at a minimum. And the church definitely does have room to grow on this particular piece of property. The proposed expansions and the proposed additional parking spaces do not require any dimensional variances. Everything that they've designed are within the minimum requirements of the zoning ordinance. That certainly does not discount the fact that this is a conditional use, and the site plan is a part of the application, and the board can make changes if they feel that's appropriate. I hope that summarizes very quickly our staff report. If you want me to go into more detail, I could go through the PowerPoint presentation. Jimmy, I have a question. Ms. Reason Weber, who first testified, was concerned about what I interpret to be a wall shadow. I'm not sure whether she was talking about the 10-foot wall on the property line setback or the building itself. It seems like the building is probably the closest to her property. A 10-foot wall with a 10-foot setback means a 45-degree sun angle. So when the sun is at 45 degrees in the west, it's going to start to shade the eastern property line. Was that taken under consideration? The staff did not do a shadow study with this application. No. It just did not. something that we did with this application. Was the staff concerned about the height of the building corner shading Ms. Reasonweber's property? We didn't look at it in terms of the shadow that it would cast. The staff too, and you can tell in our staff report, our primary concern about the proposed expansion was was for the property and along this eastern property line. After reviewing the application, after reviewing everything, the fact that the property does sit up a little bit higher than the subject properties, we were, we did take into account that this is primarily a one-story addition for the rear and that it would be technically a one-story, but a very tall one-story building for the main sanctuary. As we were looking at everything, that's where we ultimately came down to the recommendation of recommending the additional landscaping as a means to buffer that. We didn't want to recommend a hardscape, putting up a fence and really kind of blocking off this. I understand that. It didn't seem appropriate, but softening that with vegetation did seem appropriate. And how tall is that sanctuary at that corner? I'm just kind of curious about that. At which corner? Sorry? Which corner? The eastern corner. That is 15 feet at that corner. I wanted to also point out that the orientation that you see on the screen is not north-south. No, I understand. We're talking about the east side, south side, and such. It's not exact. I mean, if you rotate the image to true north-south. Sure. It's about a 15 or so degree angle. I understand that. And the ridge, the main ridge, points largely south-southeast to northwest and northeast. so it's not what i'm trying to say is the the highest point of the building is not casting a large shadow okay but for the intersection thank you is there any other questions for the app there you can have a seat if you would in this gentleman mr moore i believe wanted to make a comment thank you sir you can't if you want to make a comment come up to the come up to the podium please the only comment I wanted to make was I keep hearing talking about a wall and I I'm talking about the side of the building there's not going to be a 10 foot wall I think I think we're talking about the side of the building is that what we're talking about all together there's no wall No walls, just the side of the buildings everybody's talking about. And then the property here where the yellow line ends, that land actually slopes down to the south and east. Now, it's not a large area, but when you take four acres of mostly green space today and you put three and a half acres of building, because there's going to be a lot of water there. Now, they can say it runs west if they want to, but that one area will not run west because I looked at it. It's a four-foot drop across there. That's all I've got to say. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Would someone from the staff? The applicant might want to answer that, but according to their application, they are going to put underground detention underneath the parking lot So the stormwater will all go into a detention basin that's underneath the parking lot. And then. Mr. First. Right. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. The fall happens outside our property line. The four foot slope. On the east side of the property happens outside of our property. So from our property line, the first half of the property moving from east to west is fairly level, but there is some fall to it towards the west. And then midway through the property, the grade slopes off. Is it going to be designed so that the water from the buildings and the parking lot are going into that retention basin? Yes. Okay. So there won't be any runoff onto the neighbor's property. That's correct. With the grading and everything else. That's correct. Okay. I don't understand the concept of under the parking lot detention basin. Explain that to me, somebody. I'm going to let Mr. Clements answer that. He's with our Division of Engineering. Yeah, so how that would work is they'll have basically rock with voids in between it, or more likely. And there'll be space in there to store any water during the event of a storm is one way it can be done. And there's a few different ways to do underground storage of the stormwater. They can do vaults as well, but that's less common. I don't know what the plan is. I don't know if you'd be able to speak to that. We haven't gotten into that part yet other than the initial study that there is an area that would allow for adequate retention of stormwater. But it is similar to what Mr. Clements was talking about, where it would be crushed stone to a depth of, I don't know, 8 inches, 12 inches, or whatever it is. that any runoff from the building and the immediate area would be collected and run over to that retention area. The retention area on the west side or the northwest side? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Does anybody have any other questions for the applicant? Anybody else from the opposition have anything? Yes, ma'am. Ms. Reason Weber. I have two thoughts. First, about the light and the discussion that we've had about the light and the height of the building and the shadow it's going to cast. My house on that corner does not sit toward the front of the property. It sits kind of behind the midline. So from that corner of the proposed new sanctuary to the back of my house, maybe about 25 feet. I don't have a really deep backyard on that eastern side. So that's going to impact how the shadow falls. the other observation i have and maybe you know maybe it's just a question and it's a problem that can perhaps be dealt with um you may have noticed in the images that i showed that there's a lot of brush going up along that fence line when i bought the property in 1997 there were trees and those were cut down at some point i don't know whether the church had that done or that was something KU did. But the brush is really difficult to battle, and the church has been trying to battle it. This year, of course, it's worse than usual because of all the rain we had early on. So the reason I'm saying this is because with a building 10 feet from the property line and a six-foot hedge somewhere in that area on the property line, there's going to be this very narrow two- or three-foot-sloping gully that's full of this growth. And how does that get managed? Because if it's not managed, it's constantly invading my property now. I mean, I wage a constant war on it. So, I mean, vegetation can be dealt with, but it's just a question that I think the proposed mitigation might make that situation a little bit more difficult to deal with. Thanks. Ms. Reason Weber, before you go, we're sympathetic to the opposition's concerns. We're also sympathetic to the applicant's desire to develop their property as they see fit. But what's your solution to this controversy? And have you all talked about ways to accommodate the people on the southeast side and the south side? Have we? Or has the church? Have you all together talked about it or have you talked with the church about it? In the neighborhood meeting, we talked with the church, and people were basically asking, why does it have to be cited here? and you know my sense and of course the church can speak to this directly about I haven't been involved in the decision making process I didn't see all the plans that they've gone through and all the various phases of decision making that they've gone through but it does seem to be basically because the church existing is in the position it's in and they want to leave that there while they build this. And quite frankly, as much as I sympathize with their desire to grow, at that meeting I didn't hear very many answers. And I didn't hear very much willingness to discuss that sort of thing. Well, you can understand their desire to leave the existing church there. I can. Yeah, I can. I mean, it's a difficult dilemma. I readily admit that. Thank you. Sometimes, yes, sir. Ms. Hurst, you want to come back up here for a moment? Thank you. I'll try to make this the last one. But after the meeting that we hosted for the neighborhood last Wednesday, we did look around to rental properties to see if that might be something that was feasible. What we found is that for white box, just shell space in like a retail strip, rent for about 10,000 square feet would be roughly $6,000, $6,000, $7,000. So that's per month, and that would be an outlay that we would have on top of removing the building and starting a construction loan. The other thing that came into play was we would have to shut the preschool down, which is another component of the ministry of the church. and having that shut down for about a year, a little over a year, year and a half, the patrons that have their children there now, we feel would not return once this facility was to open. We feel we would lose that ministry and that revenue stream. So we did explore it after the meeting somewhat. We haven't had any formal meetings to discuss the findings, but that is something that we found. I also did a study, just a visual graphic, of a cross-section of the site showing where the new building would be in relation to some of the homes on the adjacent properties. If I could put that up. so that's the that's miss reason weber's home set back from the property line which is the solid line vertically so i just wanted to pose that real quick thank you ministers does anybody else have any other questions yes sir you want to come back up for well with the expansion of the church when i bought my home i thought there was a little church that's fine but right now what i'm looking at is going to be a commercialized church you know if they're going to expand double their occupancy of the church in the daycare center well what does that leave us when i go to sell my home i'm going to lose probably twenty thirty thousand dollars if i can even sell the home because personally i really don't want to sit out there in my backyard on my back deck and enjoying a nice little uh fire or something and have to look at a wall. They do have a retention pond on the other side. Why couldn't they slide the church on the other side and leave the existing church there and reverse the parking lot? We can ask them that question. I think it's a good question. Thank you. Mr. Hurst? Mr. Hurst, while you're coming up, I just want to express my view as we as a board, all of our all of our meetings are public meetings. We don't discuss these cases in private beforehand or after. It's all during. So our opinions are public and current. I'm not comfortable with this plan. And I know the staff has proposed to approve it. I understand the problem of the church with the existing building right in the middle of the front part of it. But I just, it just looks so imposing. And it just seems like such a burden. I understand that there are only three property owners on that east side, but I'm not sure I'm going to be willing to vote in favor of this today. I would recommend further study, and I know I hate to suggest postponing matters that professionals have looked at and professionals have reviewed, but as a citizen of the community, I'm just not ready to vote to approve this yet. So I would like to see further options, I guess, is my concern. That's just my personal point of view as a member of the board. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Hanley had mentioned about living in parking. Is that something that you would consider? That's something I've actually looked at already since that meeting last Wednesday. What you see along the west side is the plan just flipped. Parking and building are flipped. The rectangle-ish shape in the middle is the existing facility. In order for the new sanctuary to be built, the existing one would have to come down and force us off site for a year and a half. Also due to the grade of the land, it's down from the western face of the existing building to the drainage ditch. It's down roughly nine feet. and that would obviously add foundation wall and that cost. In addition to making the site drain properly where the natural tendency is from east to west on this part. So you're saying if you flipped the parking lots, it was suggested that you'd have to tear down the existing structure and... That's correct. Be out of business for... The concern we had with that also was that there would be a lot more traffic along the neighbor's yards and we sort of felt that the building would act as a buffer from that. What if you put the sanctuary in the what would be southwest corner instead of the fellowship hall? I looked at that also, and I can pull that plan out if you need. No, you don't need to pull it out. I just want to know what you... But it's set back so far from Pasadena that we feel we would not have any visibility. which is something that any church around here is, you know, they see that as a good thing. Plus your parking would be in the front. Parking would all be in the front, right. Yeah, people would see the parking and not the church. I understand the concern. Well, Mr. Hurst, I think we've heard enough today as far as from the applicant and the opposition. And I'll tell you, some of these decisions, as Mr. Glover had indicated, were a volunteer body here. And we are prohibited from discussing these kind of cases. And I have so much empathy for the neighbors because this is going to, it's a very imposing renovation and new construction that you have. And I don't know from, it sounds like, with the other options that they've all been explored, I will have to say this to the opposition, that certainly they are able and legally can expand their property as to what they propose to us today. And some of these decisions that we make are extremely difficult because on occasion it's just not a real win-win situation. And if I'm you all, I have grave concerns. But also, in looking at the applicant, I think the applicant also has every right to develop their property to the highest and best use, as long as it conforms within our planning and zoning laws as well. And so I share Mr. Glover's concerns. I think we're all concerned with the development and the expansion. I'm not for tearing down the sanctuary and displacing the church and the kids and so forth. And I'm going to support this today. And I'm only one vote, but I would like to move forward with this. I think we've heard enough testimony. I cannot speak for the board, because it's a very challenging situation for the neighbors and certainly for the church. And this is one of those decisions, Mr. Glover, that is really, I think, concerns all of us. But I think that after I've heard the evidence and what's been presented, it's something that I'll be supporting, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I do have a question of the board, or maybe of counsel, legal counsel. What's the, we have a minimum quorum today. What do we need to pass to approve a measure? Do we need a majority of the board? What's the, is it, surely it can't be unanimous. We need a majority vote of the four of you present. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I will, the chair will, yes. May I add one more thing? The preschool presently operates in the basement of the existing facility, and therefore we are not able to become accredited, an accredited program, and that was another driver for moving it to grade level. Thank you, Mr. Harris. Thanks very much. at this time. The chair will entertain a motion. I move that we approve C-2015 hyphen 51 St. John's Lutheran Church for a conditional use permit to construct and occupy a church expansion with associated changes in the parking and play area and to increase the number of children in the existing child care facility from 30 to 70 in single family residence R1B and R1C zones at 516 Pasadena Drive and 2713 Southview Drive with the recommended conditions 1 through 5 of the staff. Thank you, Mr. Gross. Is there a second? Is there a second? Mrs. Lee or Mr. Emmons, if it fails for lack of second, does that make the vote null and void? No, sir. I think Ms. Jones, the board can possibly consider another motion. You can't have a motion that you can vote on without a second, but you could entertain a different motion. Say that again? You can't vote on a motion without a second, so it fails automatically with no second. So you're going to have, you can make a different motion. With the failure of the motion, I move that we postpone this matter for 30 days for further consideration. I'm sorry, not postpone, continue the matter for 30 days for further consideration. I know we've heard a lot of testimony. We've heard a lot. We've seen a fair amount of exhibits. We have the application and the submissions with that. We have pictures and proposals. But like I said before, I'm just not really comfortable yet with the application as proposed. And so my motion is to continue this matter for 30 days to see if there can be some way of perhaps persuading me or other members of the board to a particular point of view. Not only that, Mr. Glover, I think, too, that there needs to be a little bit better communication between the neighbors and the applicant as well. And I think with the sensitivity of this issue, I would agree to continue. I'm not in a position to make a second. That would have to come from the other board members, but I would not oppose it. And I'd just like to say I agree. I think there's a way to come to some agreement with your neighbors together to work out these issues maybe a little better than what has been addressed here today. Yes, I think screening, I still think there's not so much a, I think there's an opportunity to somehow work through just a few of those issues, whatever they are, whether that's a couple feet, whether that's some better screening, but something that works better for both parties. Is that a second, Mr. Needham? Yes, I'll second it. We have a motion to continue. by Mr. Glover, a second by Mr. Needham to continue for 30 days. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? We're going to continue this for 30 days and hopefully we can reach out we can have some sort of better understanding and condition because I think, you know, Mr. Hershey, see we're all very concerned and we want to do what's good for the neighbors but we also want to do what's good for the church and your kids and your parishioners as well. So let's see if you all can't meet again and resolve some of these issues, and we'll be back to see you in 30 days. Thank you. In the course of the next 30 days, what is it specifically that we need to be doing aside from meeting? I would, if it were me and I were the applicant, I would be calling the architect again or engineers and seeing if there's some other proposal. but I'd also be meeting with the neighborhood to see if they had some concrete proposals that might be acceptable to both the church and the neighbors. And I mean, I'm neither an architect nor a pastor nor a neighbor, quite frankly, nor a member of the church. So I don't have any concrete proposals. I just, you know, we're just, we sit as a voluntary board and I just, you know, I just, I'm not comfortable yet with what I've heard so far to approve this conditional use. It is a, conditional use is a, is a, is a use that's outside of the zoning requirements for a piece of property. So it is permissive to this board to grant or deny conditional uses. That's why churches and other entities like that come before this board. And as you can see, we take our duties pretty seriously. I'd like to see you all come up with some solutions. Sorry for the delay. We appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming, and I appreciate your patience. We have one case left before us, I believe. Julian Robert Esteridge, would you please come up to the lectern and introduce yourself for the record. Hello, my name is Julie Eskridge, and thank you all for the opportunity to address the board. I wanted to talk a little bit about what we're trying to do and the reason that we're trying to do it. I know that the staff has recommended to deny our claim. However, the reason that we're wanting to stay is because we're recently remarried and we have four kids total. And we love the neighborhood. I moved in the neighborhood when my kids were entering elementary school, and they are now in middle school. And I loved the character of the neighborhood. We moved from an outlying suburb, and I wanted to be in a walkable neighborhood. I wanted to be close to everything. And it reminded me, quite frankly, of the neighborhood that I grew up in. I grew up in a very small town in West Virginia, and it just brought back a lot of good memories. Excuse me just a second. Could someone shut the door out there, please? Or ask them to move away from the door? Sorry about that. That's okay. And so, again, we love the neighborhood. We love the proximity to everything. My kids walk to school. They walk home from school. They've made friends in the neighborhood. And when we first moved in, it was a very college, renter-heavy street, just our block, the 700 block. We've seen since then a lot of young families move in, and there's a lot more kids on the street. There's a lot less frat houses. We had one almost directly across from us that we watched party after party after party. And since then, we've seen, for the most part, every single house now on our street is either a young family or a young couple. which has made us very happy. I originally moved in as a part of the UK's Live Where You Work program, and that allowed us, again, to be very close to the university, and that was why we chose that neighborhood. But we also chose it because it's very affordable. And we are very cognizant of the fact that this is a neighborhood with a lot of charm and a lot of history, and that's why those restrictions are in place, because there have been a lot of people who have come in and put on a lot of really ugly additions. That is not at all our intent. We are simply improving what is already there, basically. We have a porch that we would like to just glass in, and we also have a one-car shed, which it is today. It's falling down. It's in very bad shape, which we would like to replace with a two-car garage with a living space above it. And so that's where we've gotten into some issues because we want to have additional living space above the garage, which would be used primarily for my husband is working from home full time and we have no other space. We are tripping over each other with four kids. We do have four bedrooms, but one child does not have a bedroom. She is at college. So during the summer, she slept on the couch the entire time. She has nowhere to put her belongings. She's sharing a room with her brother, which has proven to be very interesting. And so, again, it goes back to some of the points that were made in the denial, which is that it doesn't impose an undue hardship on us. And that's a very subjective term. So with four kids, again, it is an undue hardship because we don't have enough place to put everyone. We don't have a basement that can be finished. We don't have anywhere else to go out. We're not putting on a large two-story addition on the back. It would be a garage space, which we currently do not have today. And so we feel like it's a very reasonable request. We were disappointed originally when we worked with the staff. Jimmy was very helpful and helped walk us through the process, and we thought we were doing everything that we had been asked to do. And so when it came back as a denial, we were disappointed. The second point that they brought back to us was that it exceeds the overall allowable square footage, which we understand that's why it's a variance and why it's an exception. But it is a fairly small exception. Again, these are existing structures, thank you, that are already there. We're not adding anything except for a one-car space. So, again, going back to the house itself, it's a Dutch colonial. We are surrounded by one-and-a-half-story to one-story bungalow-style houses. So it's completely different from most of the houses on the street. It's a different style. It's already two stories. So it's a bigger house by nature of how it was designed. So it's going to have a larger square footage. And it doesn't change anything as far as the character of the neighborhood because we're not changing anything to the front facade of the house. We're simply adding a garage that will show, from our perspective, if you can see that where the driveway is, that will show one side of the garage, but there's already something there. We're not going to be building a garage that is any higher than the house next to us, to its roof line, and it will be very tastefully done. It's not going to be what we've seen go up in a lot of the other parts of this neighborhood. The other thing I wanted to point out is when I moved into this house, it was in very bad shape. So over the course of years, we took this house and we transformed it from something that was basically falling down inside, had been left untended for a very long time, and we've transformed it into a beautiful home inside. We did lose a bedroom when we did the renovation, so it was originally a five-bedroom house, and we took it down to a four-bedroom because the bedrooms are, quite frankly, very small, as is the case in most of these older homes. It's a stunning place. People really like it. It's very welcoming. And so we feel that we've added to the value of the neighborhood just by bringing this house back up to where it should be. It's increased substantially in value itself over the years. And what we're doing is trying to increase the overall value of the neighborhood. We're not looking to detract from it whatsoever because that doesn't serve our purpose. We don't want to move. We don't want to sell the home. we want to be here for a very long time. Our kids have looked at going to UK. We want them to be able to walk to UK and be part of that neighborhood so they can not have to worry about that. But unfortunately, if we can't get this to where we need it to be, it is a definite possibility that we will have to move and we cannot afford to move across the street into Chevy Chase. It's just not possible. In order to stay in this neighborhood, we would have to find something of comparable size, and there's not a whole lot of options. There's actually not a whole lot of options in all of Lexington. A five-bedroom house is fairly difficult to come by in a lower range house, and so if you're looking at $500,000 and above, then you're in the market for a five-bedroom house. But for us, I don't owe that much on this house, and so I don't want to be forced to go into a different location where I have to take on a new mortgage or I won't be able to take on a new mortgage because simply the house is out of my price. So that is something that is an undue hardship on us personally because in order to go and for my kids to stay in this neighborhood, we would have to go into a different house. And we call this lovingly the poor side of Chevy Chase, which it is because our house values are about $300,000 less than Chevy Chase, which is right across the street. And so anywhere around us, we're simply priced out of the market. We can't or would not be able to go into a home across the street into the more expensive neighborhood. Some of the pictures that we've given you are of our house as it is today. As you can see, it's a Dutch colonial. There are several houses around us that have been improved. The one not directly next to us, but the one that's in the bottom left quadrant has recently been improved upon. And there are several other homes that have undergone renovation, has increased their footprint and their square footage. The house directly across the street from us just had its roof taken off. It was sold back in May. It was a young woman who finished her residency at the University of Kentucky. She sold the house, and they've now sold it to a rental agency. They've taken off the entire top of the house, and they're adding an addition. So we know what that's going to be, and that's disappointing for us, but they're doing it within the allowed square footage of what they can do. And so, unfortunately, that's what we don't want to see happen. We don't want to see any more people come in who will buy these homes up to rent out to college students. We want it to remain a family neighborhood, And it is coming back, slowly but surely. But if some of these restrictions are in place to keep out the types of renovations that would encourage rentals, there also needs to be a little bit of flexibility for people who want to stay in this neighborhood and have a fairly large-sized family. We should be hopefully allowed to add on to something within reason. We're not asking for a huge add-on or addition. We just want a little tiny bit more space so we can be comfortable in our home. Did you want to show some pictures? Can you go back to the slide that had the picture of the back, the stairs? And I think this is an important piece because I think when Julian started in this, obviously the top two, the shed has to come out. It's just an eyesore. It's not good for your property value. It's leaning right now. But in the lower right picture, if you'll note, there's actually two doors to go to the top of this house. I think at one point it probably was maybe rented out and they had a back staircase that kind of went up in. That's really not good for our daughters, number one. I want those doors out. But by taking that out, there's a staircase that will come out. The attachment, and you can't really see it very well in the picture there, but it's a roof screened-in porch. It's attached to the house. What we were proposing in this would be actually to take that footprint and square it up. It's got kind of an angled shot to it and kind of make it a little bit more usable. So from that perspective, that footprint from an eye perspective only looks better. The roof will go up to the wall of the house. It does increase the allowable floor space. So we recognize that's just why we're asking for the variance. But it does make the property a lot more family-oriented, in my opinion, by removing those stairs and the doors. So would this be a one-floor addition? Yes, sir. We'd leave it just like it is, maybe raise it up a little bit to kind of go across to the side of the house. But it would only just be a one-floor. Because there's actually two, both bedrooms and that second floor, they both have exit doors. And then there's an outdoor stairwell. And so I've wanted to take those out ever since I've lived in the home because they're not necessary. And they were put there. I'm not sure what the reason was. But, again, if the house were to sell today, it would be more encouraging as a rental because it has an outdoor exit. And our proposal is to take that out and just put siding up over top of the doorways. Does any other member have any questions for the applicant? Because I want to hear from the staff. Obviously, staff is, Mr. Glover, did you have something? No, I want to hear from staff. If you all would just have a seat and we'll let you come back up. Mr. Chairman, members of the board, first and foremost, I want to say that our staff recommendation of disapproval, we're not up here to argue with the Eskridge's, and we are very sympathetic to their desires to stay where they are. As the staff was reviewing this application, the thing that really came across to us is that we could not find any physical characteristics of this property that lent itself to any special circumstances that would lead towards justifying the requested variance. Up on the screen right now, and then I do have a very quick PowerPoint with some slides. What I've highlighted in yellow is the existing house, and you've seen the pictures of the stairs. What I've highlighted in orange are the proposed additions. So there are two proposals here. And the proposal one is the addition onto the house. and that's the other one is that they are proposing a two-story garage in the rear and on the second floor it would have a floor area. So as far as the overall requirements, anyone inside the infill and redevelopment area in this zone is allowed up to 2,600 square feet. In this particular instance, this property already has a 2,512 square foot house on it. So there is some room under the existing ordinances to put some addition onto this particular property. If you were just looking at the addition onto the house, those numbers would come up with a 2,729 square foot for the overall property for just the house addition. That's 129 square feet over what's allowed, or in other words, about a 5% increase. Where the number comes in, the 3,009, going from 2,600 to, not 3,009, 3,089 square feet, also includes that second floor of the detached accessory garage. It is proposed to be a two-car garage, and the variances that are before you today are not dimensional variances. This has been reviewed by the Division of Building Inspection. It meets all of the required setbacks. What is before you today is simply the amount of floor area, the total size of the structures that are on the subject property. One of the first questions, if we can switch to the PowerPoint now. Mr. Emmons, if I could interrupt for one second. on the staff report, it looks like they could do a 9 foot by 9 foot addition? Just mathematically, if they have 2,512 square feet, they have 88 square feet that they are allowed to build. A 9 by 9 addition is 81 square feet. A 9 by 10 is 90, so it's slightly over in that range of a 9 by 9 addition or a 9 by 10 addition that would be allowed by Wright. To start off with, the property, I started zooming way out and with the very recognizable blue track of the University of Kentucky track and field area. The subject property is located very close to there on Melrose Avenue. And as we zoom in, the property is actually very easily recognizable on an aerial photo because of the green roof. It's the only house that has the green roof on it. And you can see the subject property had already had the addition, which you're well aware of. You can see the shed behind and the driveway that goes to the rear. A few pictures of the property. All of my pictures are from the street sidewalks. The first picture on the left is just a straight-on view of the subject property, very similar to the picture that they have in the PVA record. As you walk over a little bit more and take an angled picture looking down the driveway, you can see the addition onto the rear of the structure. And then I have a series of pictures that are just pictures of other houses in the neighborhood. the you can see on the left you can see the house that is directly beside it to the left on the right hand picture you can get kind of just a feel of looking down the street and you can see the mature trees and primarily one-story houses on the street looking back at other properties you can the picture on the right shows the subject property and the property to the right next door. Also, I had already kind of talked about, but just wanted to go ahead and present that there are two parts to this request. There is the, it's one request for the total floor area that they are requesting, but part of that floor area is in the principal structure, and the rest would be in the remaining, the remainder of that square footage would be in the second floor of the two-story garage. Looking at the subject property, one of the very first questions that we asked whenever we were evaluating this during our staff meeting was, why is there a restriction on the size of houses within the infillum redevelopment area? And so we did spend some time in our staff report going back to the original study from 2000 that the residential infill and redevelopment study. And in that one, what we really found out, and I knew it, but I needed to confirm, that really what the floor area ratio or the 2,600 square foot maximum was designed to do, it was meant to aid in maintaining the scale of the buildings, especially in those older neighborhoods that are single family and two family residential. that were within the infill and redevelopment area. In looking at that, you know, going back to one of our aerial photographs, the subject property and where they are proposing the addition to their house, a good example of a type of development that was going on before this restriction was in place was on Sunset Drive. You had essentially a single-family home, and they built a house. For all practical purposes, they built a house behind it and connected those two houses with a breezeway and called it a duplex. They completely paved the backyard, and it was that type of development that was previously allowed that the infill and redevelopment tried to maintain the character of our neighborhoods. And at the same time that the infill regulations were put into place, it was recognized that there could be some instances in which it would be appropriate for the board to consider whether or not to grant a variance to that maximum square footage. And in doing that, because the zoning does not increase, granting a variance does not increase the allowable density, the base zoning does that. It does put the board in a position where you can consider that. We looked for other cases that the board might have looked at in the past. And the only two cases that the staff could come up with where the board has granted a change in more floor area ratio have actually been a bit of technicalities. in those two instances you had cases that were a fourplex and a triplex that were downgrading they were redoing the insides to become become duplexes so they were decreasing their intensity of the use but at the same time that the regulations kicked in that they had a lower floor area ratio because they were going from an apartment building to a duplex in those cases the the board did find it but we did not the staff didn't find that those cases were particularly relevant to the proposal today one of the things that the staff did then focus in on is the character and nature of the neighborhood so we looked at the 700 block of We looked at the 700 block of Melrose Avenue, and we looked at the PVA records of every single property that fronts on and has an address in that 700 block of Melrose Avenue. What we found was that this property is actually already the largest property on that street in that block. In general, the average lot size, not lot size, the average house size in that street, according to PVA, was about 1,500 square feet. And the subject building was, the subject's house was already at about 2,500 square feet. So the staff really did not find that granting this variance would be in character with the existing neighborhood. Lastly, we looked at, you know, and the staff makes a point that there is something that can be done on this property. Not granting the variance does not completely prohibit the property owners from doing any renovations to their property. In particular, if you were to take the second story of the garage away, that's still a very ingested in addition onto the house. Mr. Evans, let me stop you there for a second. So you're telling me that they could put a 9x9 edition on the back of their house, and they could rebuild their garage, but they just couldn't put a second story on their garage that would be considered living space. Is that what you're saying? I think so. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. Did I understand you? You're saying that they could build the detached garage as proposed, but without the second story? They can build a two-story, not a two-story, but they can build a two-car garage in the back. It would meet the dimensional requirements. It's that second story in that floor area that creates the problem. And I have another procedural question, I guess. if we deny a portion of the, if we deny the second story on the detached garage in the back, could we approve the proposed 14 by 15 addition to the house without setting a bad precedent, I guess, is my consideration. That is certainly up to the board. I would concentrate on the new information that the applicants presented today. at their hearing, I would definitely consider that just the addition to the house is only about a 5% variant. It's a very small variant in that particular case. If the board has further questions about any of that, we can definitely try and... I do have a question about the garage. For floor space, does it matter if there's plumbing or anything, or is it just the fact that they're just floor space is that what violates we actually our zoning ordinance has a very detailed definition of what constitutes floor area and i believe yes at the front of your staff report we put in we verbatim that definition of floor area in general without going into too much detail there are some things that are definitely counted as floor area there are some things that are definitely not counted as floor area. In particular, it's that kind of habitable space, you know, your ceiling heights of seven and a half feet and those types of things. It's not necessarily plumbing or anything of that nature. Another question is, do you know by chance, and you may not, is this addition to be used as a bedroom? I do not know the answer to that. And my second question is, do you know kind of what... Hold on just a second. The second question is, do you know kind of what the average space of a bedroom is? That I do not know, but I can see if we can collectively get that answer for you. I'm just curious whether if they would need that extra 5% only so it could be used as an average bedroom. Mr. Gross, if I can address your question. Let's ask the applicant what they plan to use the addition for. A 9x9 bedroom would be small, but wouldn't be a bedroom. That would be reasonably small. Yes, sir. So there's a couple of things there. So I didn't introduce myself. I'm Robert. I assumed you knew that whenever she introduced herself. But you think about a 9 by 9 was proposed, was allowed. If you take into consideration the 204 studs, the sheeting, the drywall, it actually is really more like a 710 by 710. We understand that a 9 by 9 is too small. We wouldn't. That's not the issue. I think what Mr. Glover has suggested, it's going to be very difficult for us to, in my opinion, to approve your second floor addition on top of your garage. And, I mean, we've got to reach some kind of a compromise somewhere. You know, Mr. Glover has suggested the 14 by 15 room off the back and going over 5%, 129 square feet. I'm not opposed to that at all. I think, though, really, when it comes down to it, you know, it would be setting a very, you know, a very dangerous precedent for us to allow the second story on the two-car garage. And I'm asking you, if you all, and I don't think that the board is in a position to approve that. But on secondhand, I would like to reach some kind of a, I agree with Mr. Glover that a 9x9 is too small. And what I'm suggesting that you all consider is a 14 by 15 edition, if that's something that the board would agree to, and build yourself a two-car garage. A two-car garage would be somewhat beneficial. It still doesn't alleviate a lot of the storage constraint problems that we have. With four kids, I work from home. There's no office space, so it becomes a problem. I would like to go to a slide, though, since Jimmy had his. If you go to number six, I mean, I think it's important to kind of look at the Sunset Strip area, the Hollywood area. If I look at a couple of the other ones, like down on the corner of Melrose, a house was just completed a couple of years ago that went to 3,600 square feet on our side of the street, not on the Taste Creek Chevy Chase side. If you look at across the other way inside of Hollywood, there's a couple of, I don't know if you can really see it. It's the one on the far right. The one beside that one actually built two structures and put it in a ground swimming pool. It is significantly bigger than what we have today. Mr. Ezra, with all due respect, that case did not come before us, and that's really not relative. That's really not germane to what we're trying to come up with today. That's a precedence. And try to resolve this thing in a positive manner. Okay. That's a precedence. There are always exceptions somewhere. And we're sympathetic to your application. We're trying to come up with something that will suit. And if those examples that you are pointing out to us came before us today, we wouldn't approve them. We just would not. That was some other board some other time under perhaps some other zoning ordinance, but we would not approve something like that. We can only take these one at a time. But we are sympathetic to your proposal. What we propose to you, what the chairman has proposed is that we approve your 14 by 15 foot addition to the house, plus a two-car garage in the back of your property as proposed without the second story. That's all you're going to get from us today unless you go back and think of something else. But my guess is with this board, with the makeup of the board, that's all you're going to get out of us today. So is there any consideration of what happens over on the other side of the street, given today's environment? Does this go through this board, or there are no regulations in Chevy Chase? Mr. Gresker, I think the board's willing to work with you here, and sometimes you may want to take what you can get. At the end of the day, with all due respect, too, we can't address what's across the street. You know, you go in the pockets of most neighborhoods, and there are some things, Mr. Estridge, that are a little bit inconsistent. And we grant you that. And, again, I think that allowing a 14 by 15 room and a new two-car garage, I think, is going to be a good compromise for you. And if you don't want to take it. I mean, we take what we get, but with all due respect, you're subjectively telling me what we should have. What we're saying is the staff is what you can give to us, right? What is also allowed, actually what we're recommending is actually 129 square feet over what you're allowed. I understand. I understand. But we can still build the garage the way that it was planned relative to the construction. I actually get a little frustrated when I look at, I mean, if you can go to slide number one. I'm looking at spots in Chevy Chase within 100 feet of each other. And they've got construction that's going on all over the place. If I look at slide number two, it's the same type of thing. And this is a three-story addition across from the church and the school. It has a back garage that's almost 4,500 square feet. We're asking to expand so that our family can grow and stay in the neighborhood. We're not asking to make a monstrosity that would be something that would be ugly or different. Mr. Ezra, we're not disagreeing with that at all. Mr. Chairman, just to clarify the record, those properties across Tates Creek Road are not within the defined infill and redevelopment area, and we can put a map up for that, but they do have different zoning. So the properties that Mr. Estridge is talking about are not subject to the same level of code? In Chevy Chase, that area is not within the infill and redevelopment area. Across Tates Creek Road is. You know, even if it were, we can only take one of these at a time. We make decisions on the properties as they're presented to us. We understand that there are properties that are not approved, that are incompatible with the zoning and have not come before the board. And that's somebody else who has to take care of that. but we can't correct all of the problems with zoning violations in your application today, and we can't approve your application as it sits based upon somebody else's building that's outside the zoning ordinances. So we call them like we see them. All right. Just one more question. I appreciate you at least letting us do the bigger piece in the garage. One other question, just so that I know. Is there another escalation path outside of this? The board is the final answer, or is there another step? What you can do is the other option that you have, we are a quasi-judicial body, so the only recourse that you would have would be to file a lawsuit in circuit court. All right, that's what I thought. All right, thanks. We are working on some language to try to accommodate a compromise. We know that there are other people who want to speak, but quite frankly, I know that our chair would like to get out of here at 3 o'clock, and it's after 3. So unless you want the character of this to change, we could probably take a five-minute recess or something to allow us to work on language. Let's do. Let's take a five-minute recess. And normally we've been here many nights past 6 or 7 o'clock, and today is one of those rare days that I have a huge conflict, and I don't want to have to vacate my chairman position, and I want to get this thing resolved. So give us five minutes. We stand adjourned. I'd like to bring the Board of Adjustment. I think that there was someone in the audience that wanted to make a comment because the board, I think, is ready to move forward. Does anybody, did you have any comment that you wanted to make? And let me, if you do, are you going to come to the podium? Did you have anything on this case that you wanted to make a comment on, and if so, briefly? I'm a little at a loss here. It looks as though you're drafting a motion. I support the staff recommendation of disapproval. In that sense, I'm not an objector. I can see this house out our bedroom window, so I'm a very near neighbor. It's not clear to me whether it's the board's pleasure to hear from a neighbor. Well, if you'd like to, I'm not going to deny you an opportunity to speak if you'd like to do so. Good. Everybody in this neighborhood learns to do more with less. This is a traditional older neighborhood. It's got small yards, generous tree canopy, open porches, small houses. It's also very affordable, and it's close to everything. There's a fine line between being close to everything and a close-knit neighborhood and being in your face. And it's exactly these infill regulations that help to draw that line. In this case, the yards on this block, like on my block, which is immediately around the corner, the yards are about 600 square feet. The standard infill proportion gives you about a third of that in floor space. In the case of this house, about 2,200 square feet. As they said, it's a fine, tall Dutch colonial. There are six or eight in the neighborhood. It really makes a good use of its footprint. It goes up two stories. So you get a lot of space within the original house. And as you could see, it's been hugely enlarged already so that it comes at about 2,500-plus square feet of floor space already. This is the original 20s house and its addition. the infill regulations begin for this property, this area, they begin with a 35% floor space ratio. So if your lot area is 6,000, you get 35% of that, 2,200. But there's a recognition in the infill regulations that that might not be enough in certain circumstances. that might, if you will, regularly not be enough. So they add a maximum cap, an alternate maximum cap. If you compute your 35% and it doesn't give you enough floor space, you get to go up to 2,600 square feet instead. That's legal. That's the alternate maximum. Okay? So when a family with needs that we all sympathize with comes before you and says, hey, you know, here we have this house, the neighbors are looking at what was a small house, what was enlarged to 2,500 plus square feet. They're looking at a zoning ordinance that says, well, proportionally it'd be whatever, but you get an alternate maximum of 2,600 square feet. And what's before you is the question of whether to go 500 square feet more with a two-story garage. You don't seem inclined to do that. Or to go 150, 200 square feet more with a single-story enlargement of one corner where there's now a porch. Putting a garage basically covers the whole of the backyard. you're getting a house, and actually the particular addition they proposed with the porch would take out a tall tree, and canopy is valued very much in this neighborhood. The other thing it does, and the applicant mentioned it as a good point, and you can see it both ways, it could increase their property value and maybe lift all boats and increase everyone's property value. But the thing I heard about the applicant, what they were saying was, this is a great place to live. Really, the constraints we face here are opportunities. Everybody does more with less. They're saying it's a great place to live. It's inexpensive. It's close to everything. A realtor will usually tell you, I think, and you're better realtors than I, it's tough being the most expensive house on the block the biggest, the most expensive, whatever it's tough on resale so the question here is the sustainability the stability of the neighborhood and whether you really are fostering and supporting that with increased square footage over what I frankly will say that many, many homeowners in the 3rd District in this infill area believe that the 2,600-square-foot cap is already too much, the alternate maximum. It's way too much. Because once you carve out some more space for a driveway and housing cars and so on, you're left with next to nothing. So it's my belief that this property would be more attractive to the next family if it weren't larger and more expensive in floor space, but rather if it had a backyard. It happens that the tree that is there now that would likely not be there if they made that addition is the one that makes it not possible for me to see this house in the summer. Finally, I have to say, this is a tough one for you. You've had two tough ones today. And I appreciate that you're a volunteer board and you have a difficult duty here. And your duty is to uphold the zoning ordinance. There's been a lot of talk about extraordinary hardship. And what I see is that this is the ordinary hardship of everyone who lives in this neighborhood. And they live here by choice. And they learn to do more with less. We have two professional offices with enormous libraries that we've had to find room for in our house. We bought our house from a family of six. It has 2,000 square feet. There was a blended family of five right across the street. They had 1,700 square feet. There are many, many families of four, and many of them have made additions for growing families. You've learned, you've heard from the staff that the average house size on Melrose here is 1,000 square feet below the existing living space footprint of this house. So all these things come into play. And I will say one of the really neat things about this neighborhood, the economy of it, the doing more with less, the getting a cheap bargain when you're practically Chevy Chase. We don't really want to be Chevy Chase. But it means that we have an enormous diversity. We have burgeoning growth in young families, and we have an enormous diversity in families, nontraditional couples. There's a family down the street. They adopted three children altogether. All of these things are a little easier to happen when things stay within the rules and people are asked to do more with less. So thank you. Thank you. And I did not ask you, Ms. Clark, but please state your name for the record. My name is Amy Clark, and I live at 628 Castle Road. It's right around the corner. There's actually one more Dutch colonial between us. Thank you very much, Ms. Clark. I think the board is ready to move forward. I think that we've heard enough testimony today. And is there anything in addition that you all wanted? I'm not going to, again, if there's anything new that you'd like to add, we're happy to listen. I'm not going to. I won't take up your time. I simply wanted to respond that we spoke to our surrounding neighbors, and we have letters of support signed by them. And we spoke to most people on the block. Some of them weren't home. We weren't able to catch them. The two people directly next door to us we've spoken to, they had no opposition. They said they didn't see an issue. The structures are already there. With all due respect, because we don't want to have any enmity in the neighborhood, she's never been in my backyard, so she doesn't know what the garage would look like. And, again, we've spoken to every single person on the side of our street who would be impacted, and every single one of them signed. So it's really a moot point as far as it impacting our neighbors. and the tree in question is actually a silver maple tree that has to come out. If it falls on our house, it will destroy the house. My stepfather is a landscape architect and has recommended for years that it come down. There's another large tree right next to it that will stay in place and won't be impacted. Thank you, Ms. Estridge. Ms. Clark, I don't want this to get personal. I don't want this to get personal, and I'll let you say what you want to do, but we're ready to move on here. And I will say I value very much the goodwill in the neighborhood, and that's why it's especially important that the board do its jobs so we don't have vigilantes and conflicts. The only thing I wanted to add, I actually took the opportunity to speak with Ms. Eskridge before the meeting, And because I had learned there was support, and by her report, it sounds as though the support is the house next door to her and several down the row and one across the street in the other direction. It doesn't include at least three houses nearest between me and her. It does not include all the adjacent neighbors or anything of that kind. Thank you, Ms. Clark. I really don't believe, though, if she had a great deal of overwhelming opposition to their request, they would be here today. What I would say is that I mentioned it to very few people, and they all expressed relief that the staff advice had been to recommend disapproval because they felt that they wouldn't need to come out. Well, I think what we're doing here, Ms. Clark, is we're coming up with a very reasonable compromise for the opposition and for the applicant, and that's what we try to do. We hear both sides. We hear the applicant. We hear the opposition. We hear the staff, and we try to make a value judgment by the information that we receive and that are inputted. And at the end of the day, what we try to do is we try to come up with a reasonable compromise for the applicant, for the opposition, and for the staff. And that's what we strive to do. With that said, Mr. Glover. Mr. Chair, first I want to say that I thought the comments and arguments on both sides, both the applicant and the opposition, were pretty articulate. And I appreciate your giving a full and fair hearing to both sides. I do have a motion I want to move to approve a variance in V2015-53, Julie and Robert Eskridge's appeal, to increase the allowable floor space within the defined infill and redevelopment area, but not in keeping with their application. My motion is to approve a variance to increase the allowable floor space area within the area from 2,600 feet to 2,729 square feet to build a 14 by 15 foot addition to the house. And to permit the building of a one story two car garage on the back of the property. Based on three reasons. Number one, the granting of the variants will not adversely affect public health, safety, or welfare of the neighborhood. Number two, the addition will not be visible from the street and will not alter the essential character of the general vicinity. And number three, the proposed additions to the property are within the dimensional requirements of the zone. I also move or include in that motion to disapprove the remainder of the requested variance for the reasons stated by the staff in their report. We have a motion by Mr. Glover to approve the 14 by 15 addition, and obviously they're allowed to pull a building permit for your two-car garage in the back for the reasons as stated by Mr. Glover. I'd like to ask if there's a second. Second. Mr. Gross seconds. Mr. Glover's motion, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thanks very much. Good luck with the project. And Ms. Clark, and we wish all the best in your endeavor. And I think there's also a lot to be said about being able to stay in the neighborhood and the schools with the kids and so forth, but we do have our limitations to what we can do, and I think that this is a fair compromise for all. Thank you. I saw, Ms. Jones, that we've got a... We have another administrative... another board item that needs to be heard. Would you like to address that? We do. You may recall a couple of months ago I shared with you an opinion that we got in the matter of Ephraim and Alami from the Board of Appeals, and they had directed us to make findings that were consistent with their opinions. You should have those in front of you. what basically we need to do since they have overturned the decision of this board that was appealed to the circuit court and then subsequently appealed to the court of appeals and have remanded it back to this board for action, consistent with their opinion. What you have in front of you would represent findings that are consistent with your opinion. What do we have in front of us? Do they not have it? Oh, okay. it should be one it should be a one page thing it should be um captioned with the case number any from alami alami and it has five conditions that that are consistent with what the court of appeals found and i think that you all need to make a finding about those in order to make the record consistent with what we've been directed to do by the court of appeals we don't need to to have another full hearing. We just need to make these findings for the record. Can you give us just a second? Okay, sure. Hey, do you have this? Okay. So, Ms. Jones, let me ask you then, the administrative review, and obviously according to the findings and so forth, Would this need to be put then in a form of a motion as well to approve the administrative review? How would that language? Yeah, I think you need to make a motion to make the findings that are on here. To accept the findings? Make a motion to accept the findings? And read them into the record in this case number. I think the language that is there will explain why you're doing it. Okay. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask our new members if they had any other questions before we moved forward, because this obviously was appealed and that appeal was granted, and so we need to move forward on this. Mr. Glover? I do have a comment, and we've got somebody at the podium who I think is ready to speak on this. I think you were representing the applicant when this came before the board first, weren't you? Yes, I was. Jake Michael for the applicants, Irfan and Vladimir Alami. I know that at least two of you probably have some recollection of this matter. So unless there's a specific question, I won't. I realize time is an issue, and so I won't get into details. I have been in communication with Ms. Jones, and I think that these findings adequately reflect what the Court of Appeals decided is the answer as a matter of law and that it's not that you all are condoning that or making any other decision, just sort of administratively, you know, cleaning up the record in the form of what we're doing, what the Court of Appeals said that the answer is. And the only other issue I wanted to point out, this refers to case number A2009-16. That was an earlier proceeding involving the same parties and the same issues, but the actual proceeding that was appealed and that's here now is A2012-53. Other than that, everything is the same. I think that's just a clerical issue. Okay. I've got it. And let me say this before. And I'm ready to make the motion. I kind of spring it on the new members of the board, but I do remember this case. And I remember going through it and hearing it and hearing all the arguments on both sides. I think I recall that I abstained from the original decision because I was uncomfortable with what turned out to be the decision of the board. but at the same time I understood why the board made the decision. It did. It went through the court. I read the circuit court opinion, which was short, and I read the Court of Appeals opinion, which was longer. I didn't read the briefs because I thought I had the essence of it from the Court of Appeals opinion. So I'm prepared to make this motion. We only have two members of the board that were present during that hearing in 2012, but I understand the issues. And if any board members had any question, after I make the motion, we can certainly talk about it. But here's the motion. And I move that we, in A2012-53, Efren Alami's appeal for an administrative review to allow a liquor store and drive-through sales window in conjunction with a nonconforming grocery store in a planned neighborhood residential zone on property located at 500-502 East 7th Street be approved based on these following five findings. And I'll read these into the record if that's recommendation of counsel. The findings are in accordance and compliance with the subsequent appeal to Fayette Circuit Court and thereafter to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, the Board of Adjustment makes the following findings and conclusions of law. Number one, the use of this property at 500 East 7th Street and the corner of Shopshire Avenue has remained the same during the time the Alamis have owned the property. Number two, the use of the property has consistently over the years been a neighborhood retail store selling grocery and alcohol. Number three, the window being used on this property for a drive-through window has existed on this property during its use as a neighborhood retail store. Number four, there has been no change of the specific use on this property at this location. And further, there have been no changes to the physical building on this property or the parking lot and drive aisles during its use as a neighborhood retail store. And finally, number five, based on the foregoing, there is no expansion of a nonconforming use on this property at this location, and the drive-through window use may continue so long as neither the use nor the physical building are modified from existing use and condition. Thank you, Mr. Glover. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Yes, I second that. Thanks very much, Mr. Neum. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? There you go. Thank you so much. I'd like to ask if any of the staff has got anything to say. No staff items today, Mr. Chairman. No staff items. Okay, Mr. Lee. Any member of the board have anything that they'd like to add? I would like to mention that our next board meeting is on September 25th, and that will be at 1.30, Mr. Glover. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be there. All right. Thank you all so much. We appreciate your time and patience, and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.