[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[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] 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.