[0:03] Good evening and welcome to the City of Dublin Board of Zoning Appeals meeting being held at 5555 Perimeter Drive.

[0:10] The meeting can also be accessed via the live stream video recorded on the city's website.

[0:15] We welcome public participation including public comments on cases.

[0:19] The meeting procedure for each case this evening will begin with a staff presentation followed by an opportunity for the applicant to make a presentation.

[0:27] The board will ask clarifying questions of staff first and then the applicant.

[0:33] The board will hear public comments from the podium.

[0:36] Each speaker must provide their name and address for the record.

[0:40] Following public comment, including those submitted by email,

[0:43] the board will deliberate on the case prior to rendering a decision.

[0:47] Judy, will you please call roll?

[0:50] Mr. Anderson.

[0:52] Here.

[0:52] Mr. Linville.

[0:54] Here.

[0:54] Mr. Murphy.

[0:56] Here.

[0:56] And Ms. Dale Sondra and Ms. Tysnick are absent.

[1:01] It appears so.

[1:03] So as the first order of the evening,

[1:08] we will have a brief executive session to adjourn to

[1:14] with all present board members and our board council

[1:19] to discuss matters of personnel,

[1:22] consideration of public official appointments. Is there a second? Second. Mr. Murphy. Yes.

[1:33] Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Linville. Yes. So moved. I will take a brief recess

[1:39] will adjourn for the moment.

[1:46] Okay. Well we've concluded our executive session

[1:49] but seeing how we have, in addition to the board this evening, well, Judy could you please

[1:57] call roll again? Just for the attendance.

[2:05] Mr. Anderson, Mr. Linville, Mr. Murphy, Mr.

[2:13] Here.

[2:19] Moving on to the election of the officers. Is there a motion that one of you would like

[2:28] to make?

[2:32] Yes, I'd like to move to elect Patrick Murphy, Chairman. Is there a second? Second.

[2:42] Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Linville. Yes. Mr. Alessandra. Yes. Ms. Murphy. Mr. Murphy, sorry.

[2:54] It's fine. Yes. I

[2:59] leave out anyone.

[3:03] And we will move to elect Garrett to the vice chair for one

[3:19] Yes.

[3:20] Mr. Enfield?

[3:22] Yes.

[3:23] Mr. Anderson?

[3:24] Yes.

[3:25] Mr. Murphy?

[3:26] Yes.

[3:27] Okay.

[3:28] We will move on to the acceptance of documents and approval of minutes from our last meeting.

[3:36] Because we have two new members to the board who were not here or present during that

[3:41] meeting, you may simply abstain from accepting the minutes as you are present.

[3:47] But yes, Judy, can you please call roll or rather, is there a to accept the documents into the record to approve minutes from the April 24th, 2025 meeting?

[4:01] Is there a second? Second. Please call roll. Yes.

[4:05] Mr. Murphy. Yes.

[4:07] Mr. Anderson. Yes.

[4:09] Mr. Linville.

[4:11] Epstein.

[4:12] Mr. Sondra.

[4:13] Epstein.

[4:15] And we will now move on to the swearing of witnesses and staff.

[4:21] Anyone intending to speak or to address this board on any of the cases this evening, please

[4:26] stand and raise your right hand and answer in the affirmative.

[4:33] Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

[4:38] in your testimony to this board?

[4:42] And we will move on to our first case this evening, that is case number 25-053-V for

[4:52] the Zobel residence request for review and approval of a non-use area variance to allow

[4:58] a deck to encroach into the rear yard setback.

[5:01] the 0.22 acre site is zoned PLR that's planned low density residential district

[5:10] post-preserve and is located at 6809 Holbein Drive. Presenting for the city

[5:20] will be Zach Council Planner 2. Zach. Great thank you and good evening. Before

[5:27] For you tonight is a variance application for DEC, as mentioned, for the Zoolow residents.

[5:34] This is a non-use area variance for these types of applications.

[5:40] What is being requested is usually a deviation from development standards.

[5:45] And what's being looked at by the board here and what staff has provided analysis on is

[5:51] looking at any evidence of practical difficulty or special condition to make meeting the

[5:56] develop the standards challenging or impractical. So some of the considerations are shown on

[6:02] the screen. Most of them are on the property, but you can also be looking at specific context

[6:07] of the building that may apply to the specific request. So there's a determination of approval

[6:13] or disapproval that are required tonight in the event that the applicant would prefer

[6:18] to table the application. That's also something that could happen. And if it

[6:22] that we can certainly discuss what that looks like.

[6:25] So this site is 0.34 acres in size,

[6:29] zoned a PLR, which is a planned low density

[6:34] residential district for post-preserve.

[6:37] This site does back up to an open space reserve

[6:40] to the south as well as several properties

[6:43] on the south side of Holbein Drive

[6:46] backing up to that space.

[6:48] So this property is a corner lot

[6:50] with frontage on both Holbein Drive and Royal Plum Drive.

[6:54] This lot is one of the largest lots in section three

[6:57] of the neighborhood as it is approximately 149 feet wide

[7:00] at the rear property line and 120 feet deep.

[7:05] But although that it is one of the larger lots,

[7:07] it does have additional restrictions

[7:08] because it has frontage on both two public streets here.

[7:13] So there's two front building setbacks

[7:15] that really limit the location

[7:17] of where that building can be.

[7:20] This property does also have slope from Holbein Drive to the north and it slopes to the rear of the property approximately 10 feet.

[7:28] And you can see some of that here in the existing conditions, some of the photos that have been provided.

[7:33] So here you can see the rear of the house. You can see that this is a two-story house with a basement walkout

[7:40] based on that slope from Holbein Drive to the north.

[7:44] There are two sets of doors. There's one on the main level, which I'll say is that central, the middle level,

[7:49] and then there's the walk out. So currently, as constructed, this house does have an egress

[7:55] stairway that is able to get to the backyard and that's something that's required. I will

[8:00] say that this does encroach into the rear yard setback, which at least today would not

[8:05] be permitted if someone were to come forward with that in its current state. But that's

[8:10] just the existing conditions here and that egress is required. And again, you can

[8:15] just see some of the conditions you can see. So the rear of the yard, this open space reserve,

[8:19] there's a walking path back there, but there are no homes within several hundred feet to

[8:24] the south of this property.

[8:30] A few other things about the site itself. The front of the home

[8:35] is approximately 31 feet from Holbein Drive to the north, and the rear of the home

[8:40] is located approximately 33 feet from the closest part of the building to that rear

[8:44] property line. The area where the deck is proposed, which is highlighted in green, that

[8:49] it backs up to that main level door, which is setback 37 feet from the rear property

[8:54] line. So what's being requested tonight is a deviation from the rear yard setback requirement.

[9:02] That setback requirement is 30 feet. They have kids requesting a 20-foot setback, so

[9:07] encroaching 10 feet into that for this deck. So the deck's approximately 13 feet

[9:12] deep extending into that rear yard and 15 feet wide.

[9:17] If this were to be denied by the board tonight, the applicant would be required to meet the

[9:24] development standards, which would mean they would have about 7 feet to build this deck

[9:30] and then the egress as well to get out of that main story egress store.

[9:38] So just some things to consider with that.

[9:39] I won't go into the applicants reasoning behind the variance, I'll leave that to the applicant,

[9:46] and that's also been provided in your materials with their applicant statement, but I'll move

[9:51] forward into the criteria.

[9:55] So the first set of criteria, the three criteria shown on the screen, all three are required

[10:01] to be met for a variance to be approved.

[10:03] staff has reviewed this application to the applicable criteria and have found that all

[10:09] three of these have been met. Primarily what staff has looked at when you look at the first

[10:13] criteria here. Staff does acknowledge that there are similar conditions as you look at

[10:20] a lot of those properties along the south side of Holbein Drive in terms of a budding

[10:25] the open space, the grade change to the rear of the property, and then the main

[10:29] level egress out of the home, but this is really only a unique situation to a handful

[10:36] of properties in this section as identified by staff.

[10:40] So the main level egress requires a means of exiting the building to access the ground

[10:45] level of the property and with the limited space that really minimizes the amount

[10:49] of amenity space that is available and able to be constructed per code at this home.

[10:56] The home setback, the closest, it's one of the closest to the rear property lines along

[11:01] this side of the street, which does minimize the available area for the deck.

[11:05] And then all these conditions would contribute to a special circumstance applicable for this

[11:11] lot.

[11:12] Additionally, the criteria for the applicant action and action, and then the impairment

[11:17] of the intent and purpose of the requirements, staff has found that both of those are

[11:21] met with this request.

[11:23] And then two of the four criteria on the screen have to be met, staff has found that all four of these criteria are currently being met.

[11:32] With that playing staff is recommending approval of this variance for the 10 foot encroachment. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[11:41] I have any questions for staff.

[11:44] Yeah, Zach.

[11:46] Could you put the, your guys' review of criteria A back up again.

[11:54] Now, word says these conditions are unique to only a handful of properties in the neighborhood.

[12:00] So you're talking about how close that setback goes to the back of the house.

[12:06] Like if you go back to the picture of the house, sorry to make it the one with the

[12:11] red and the green.

[12:13] So like there's that little sliver of white in between the house and the setback.

[12:17] Is that like these houses along that road, that's how these houses are and the rest

[12:22] of the development is has some more room or yeah so there has been of the

[12:31] properties here one of these southern properties on the south side of Holbein

[12:35] did request a variance back in 2014 for a deck and that was approved by the

[12:41] board at that time all other decks that have been constructed out there

[12:44] meet the permitted development standards they had a little bit more

[12:48] space to work with as well. So in this case, what staff looked at was just the minimum

[12:55] amount of space between where the door is located in the rear property line, so about

[13:00] 7 feet, understanding that the width that you need of egress in the staircase to get

[13:07] out of there, but also having a menable space at that deck, we found that to be

[13:12] a challenge with the current conditions of the building and the lot. So that contributed

[13:18] to our understanding of this.

[13:21] Okay, then while I have you, one more question.

[13:27] So is it not recurrent because of this is only an issue

[13:32] with those certain set of houses?

[13:34] Is that why the city thinks it's not recurrent?

[13:39] Are you referring to B2?

[13:42] Yeah, because it was a little conclusory

[13:46] so I just wanted a little more.

[13:47] Yeah, so typically with this criteria, what we'd be looking at is, is there an alternative

[13:55] measure that the city needs to take to be able to fix these issues?

[14:01] So an example would be if there were multiple properties in a neighborhood that had the

[14:06] same problem, is a variance the appropriate process to go about handling that or is

[14:13] it better handled through Planning and Zoning Commission and an amendment to the development

[14:18] standards? In this case, we found that because this is such a limited application, that it's

[14:26] not a recurrent issue in nature, so we felt that the variance would be the best avenue

[14:31] to fix that. Is that?

[14:33] Yep.

[14:33] Perfect.

[14:34] Thanks.

[14:34] Yeah,

[14:41] I have a quick question, too.

[14:42] Back to criteria A3,

[14:50] you said that the, or found that the, that

[14:58] the.

[15:01] Sorry, I'm just reading my note here.

[15:05] You said no adverse impact to the surrounding community.

[15:09] And because there's no, is this because there's no, like, there's no other property behind,

[15:15] another house behind this property, just a big open park?

[15:20] So that's why it's not affecting any, that's why it meets that criteria,

[15:24] because there's no other buildings right behind this house?

[15:27] Yeah, that's one of the primary reasons we would find this criteria met is because it's

[15:31] not impacting or it's not encroaching closer to an adjacent property.

[15:36] It's open space that will never be developed for a single family home or any other use.

[15:41] So we found that that's meeting that requirement as it's not impacting any real property.

[15:47] Okay.

[15:47] So it's not impacting any other home property, basically.

[15:54] Correct.

[15:54] It's just about okay, thank you.

[16:00] And the 2014 variance with the Holbein Drive property.

[16:06] How, do we know how far into the rear setback

[16:09] that deck encroached?

[16:13] I can pull that up, just give me a moment.

[16:15] Sure, no problem.

[16:17] Do we have any other questions in the meantime?

[16:27] I don't know if this is for the applicant

[16:29] or if you know the answer to this

[16:30] while you're doing that.

[16:33] I'm just curious.

[16:34] on this red and green drawing, where is the,

[16:40] I guess I might have seen it on another picture,

[16:43] but is the door for this deck,

[16:48] is it right there where you put in the arrow, okay?

[16:50] It's right where the cursor is.

[16:51] It's not marked on this graph at all,

[16:54] so I just wanna make sure where that was, thank you.

[16:59] Alright,

[17:28] so the 2014 case, which is case 14-055V was an encroachment of 6 feet into the 30 foot rear yard setback.

[17:41] It looks like the deck that they had was 10 feet by 20 feet.

[17:52] Thank you.

[17:54] any other questions for staff?

[18:00] At this time, we ask that the applicants please approach

[18:05] the podium.

[18:07] When you get there, there will be a button that you press when the microphone

[18:12] turns green. Yep, you got it. Okay. Please state your name and address and you may proceed.

[18:18] So I'm Mark Zobel. The address is 6809 Holbein Drive.

[18:24] Thank you. You may proceed. I'm sorry, I could not hear you.

[18:28] Oh, I'm sorry. You may proceed with your presentation.

[18:31] Zack, first of all, thank you, as mentioned, for all of the help on this.

[18:35] I don't have a lot of due information to add. It's a pretty thorough process.

[18:40] You're just restating. This will enable us to better enjoy our residents more personally

[18:45] and improve the aesthetics of the neighborhood as well as the value of our home.

[18:49] The key thing, Mr. Linville as you were talking, there's nobody behind us, which obviously gives

[18:56] a lot of expansive space so that kind of mitigates the need for the rear setback, which is because

[19:02] there's no property behind it. Additionally, we did reference one of our neighbors who

[19:06] has built a deck, so there's some precedent here as well. And finally, the staircase

[19:12] that the builder built back in the day when they were building the house already encroaches

[19:17] is back in there and isn't the most attractive thing in the universe. So putting something

[19:22] in there that is a little bit better aesthetics than what that represents is one of the reasons

[19:28] that will improve the value of our home and the neighborhood. And lastly, you know, am

[19:33] I homes at the time we were not aware of a setback variance that was not disclosed

[19:37] to us? I think that's one of the criteria on B if I remember correctly. And that

[19:43] That might have certainly impacted our view of the house at that particular time.

[19:51] That's it.

[19:52] Okay.

[19:53] Any questions for the applicant?

[20:00] I guess generally, can you sort of describe, but the, so we see the stairway and stuff

[20:05] that's there currently.

[20:06] How will the deck look compared to that, like how does that look going to be different?

[20:10] So you may approach just a point, or just look over your shoulder, I guess, on your

[20:14] computer screen.

[20:15] So if you look at the left most part of the house a little bit to the left Zach where the gutter is, the downspout.

[20:23] So it will run from that point to this corner, if you will, where our bump out is.

[20:30] That's the 15 feet. So it'll be symmetrical with that.

[20:34] And then if you think about the egress staircase that you're looking at right now, it's going to extend roughly that same distance.

[20:42] obviously be on the second level instead of the staircase with the staircase

[20:46] then being on the south side cascading down. Could you show the side view

[20:52] looking west as well? Keep going please.

[21:00] It will literally be the same as our

[21:03] next door neighbor, one adjacent house to us where the staircase is kind of

[21:09] viewable from from the back of the house. There's not enough room for a

[21:14] staircase on either side without having it kind of stick out.

[21:18] Sure.

[21:20] And the doorway on the bottom part, how do you reconcile the

[21:26] upper door and the lower door?

[21:30] It's a walkout basement, obviously, with some windows.

[21:33] We may or may not in a future meeting apply for a variance down there,

[21:38] but right now we're just trying to get that second story to begin.

[21:42] And then, obviously, you can still walk out of the walkout basement.

[21:47] It's just you have a covering above you, if you will.

[21:49] Okay.

[21:50] I just wanted to get a visual there, but yeah.

[21:52] Sure.

[21:52] Any other questions?

[22:00] Are decks common in your neighborhood?

[22:03] Very common.

[22:04] And right down the row, I think it's seven for seven.

[22:08] There's seven houses before the new development that Virginia Homes is building.

[22:12] I think everyone there has a deck.

[22:14] I do know on the royal plume side,

[22:17] Every single house on that side has a deck as well.

[22:20] Okay.

[22:30] Any other questions for the applicant or would you like to engage in our discussion or discussion?

[22:38] Okay.

[22:39] You may have a seat and we will commence our discussion.

[23:07] Without any additional questions for the staff or the applicant, do we have any public comments?

[23:14] We do not.

[23:14] No.

[23:15] Okay.

[23:15] Yeah,

[23:40] so I agree with everything the staff had discussed in criteria A, including the

[23:52] special circumstances. It sounds like there's only a few houses that have this setback that

[23:57] close to the house, and the fact that all that open area is behind it. I was looking

[24:02] at the map and it looks like there's not a lot of houses with that as well. So usually

[24:07] that one I think in my eyes is the toughest and I think it passes it. I think two is, I

[24:13] agree with what the staff has written. They did not necessitate it because any of the action

[24:19] are in an action of the applicant. And then I also agree with three for the reasons they

[24:26] put in the report. I also agree with everything in, would that be criteria B? It says criteria

[24:35] except for number four, but because I agree with one through three, I'm not going to go

[24:44] into that right now.

[24:51] Any other comments, questions, any clarity needed for the?

[24:58] No, I tend to agree with the staff as well.

[24:59] I think all of the A criteria have been met.

[25:03] I think the fact that there's the green space behind it and it's not going to block

[25:07] anyone else's view and that there's precedent for this in the area, makes

[25:14] sense and I have no other questions at this point.

[25:19] Brad, do you have anything

[25:20] you'd like to add?

[25:25] No, I've had some clarification questions about

[25:32] about A3 but I think they've been answered. This is kind of a high

[25:38] visibility area because the it's on the corner and two streets and the path from

[25:44] the park and all that so yeah this I think is an improvement over the

[25:50] staircase as you mentioned and as long as it I agree that it's met all the

[25:56] required criteria as well.

[26:00] Okay yeah I believe we're all sort of on the same

[26:05] sort of on the same page here.

[26:08] I'm inclined to agree as well with the city's assessments of the situation.

[26:15] I do believe that the criteria are sufficiently met as to grant the variance as requested.

[26:26] One thing also of note is that the reserve

[26:33] development standards are fairly open, and

[26:37] I think given the fact that it's a deck that doesn't block the aesthetics, the overall flow

[26:50] So the area is also noteworthy in that it doesn't lessen the view, it doesn't hasten

[26:59] any sort of navigable properties of the land itself.

[27:07] So with that, I believe we are ready to move.

[27:13] So, with regard to the motion to approve a non-use area variance to the post-preserved

[27:21] development standards, I won to allow a deck to encroach 10 feet into the 30-foot setback.

[27:29] Is there a second?

[27:32] Second.

[27:33] Judy, could you call the roll please?

[27:35] Mr. Denville?

[27:39] Yes.

[27:41] Mr. Murphy?

[27:42] Yes.

[27:42] Mr. Anderson?

[27:44] Yes.

[27:44] Ms. Dale Sondra?

[27:46] Yes.

[27:48] It is so moved.

[27:49] Your variance is granted.

[27:52] Okay.

[27:53] Any public comments since then or are you with no nothing further for this board?

[28:05] We will adjourn for the evening.

[28:07] Thank you very much.

Jun 26, 2025 Board of Zoning Appeals

Agenda

Transcript