20-02 and
20-03
we will be reviewing those cases
and we will also review
a written decision for the board of
appeals case
2020-1 board of education of cal
cowboy county beach elementary school
replacement project my name is jaris
spencer
i am the chair of the chesapeake beach
board of appeals
tonight is being conducted virtually
each member of the board is
participating
remotely the hearing is
being live streamed and will be
published on youtube for those
persons logged on to this meeting
or the call you will have an opportunity
to speak
and ask questions and comment for the
record
at the appropriate time
i will ask for your comment
so let me take the roll call call of
members
uh and call this hearing to order
david ferguson are you here
uh yes i'm here kelly stewart
are you here
jody whom star are you here jan
rutke are you here yes ma'am
okay let it be recorded that we have a
quorum
also with us sharon hume
who is the town clerk and secretary of
the board of appeals
frederick sussman who is the attorney
for the board of appeals
and christopher jakubiak
which is the town planner and zoning
administrator
first we will hear case 2020-02
to consider the application from calvert
property partners
llc who is the owner and free sample of
real property known
of 8207 elm lane
for a 7.5 foot variance to section
290-19 of the town
of chesapeake beach zoning audience or
ordinance to allow a new
house to encroach 7.5 feet
into the required 15 foot front yard
and a variance to section 20-17e
2 to allow encroachment
into the required 25-foot non-tidal
wetland buffer
of up to 1863
square feet plus
area of site disturbance
second we will hear case 2020-3
to consider consider an application from
francis a
and stephanie m white owners and fee
sample
of real property known as 8203
elm lane to allow a new house to
encroach
7.5 feet into the required 15
foot yard and a variance to section
20-17e 2
to allow encroachment into the 25-foot
non-tidal
wetland uh buffer uh plus area
uh on site excuse me
to allow encroachment into the 25 foot
non-title wetland buffer plus area
of sight disturbance
before we begin with testimony
i will ask mr sussman to swear in
everyone who intends to offer comments
and testify at these evening
at least this evening's hearings
on either case number
20 20-2 or
case number 2020-3
so if you wish to speak to the board
this evening
on these matters please prepare now
to be sworn in sessom
thank you madam chair everybody who
intends
or thinks they may want to speak on
either case tonight
please raise your right hand and
repeat after me do you
solemnly swear or affirm under the
penalties of perjury
that the testimony you are about to give
and the responses
and statements you are about to make
will be the whole truth
and nothing but the truth uh please say
uh yes
or no yes yes yes
well the record reflects that a number
of people i believe it was five or so
uh indicated uh that they intend to
speak
and take the oath by saying yes i did
not hear
uh any no's so i will assume that
everybody who's going to speak tonight
has been sworn
and agreed to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth
thank you madam chair okay
now i'd like to ask the board secretary
sharon hume
to confirm that both
hearings were properly notified
and advertised as required
by town code
yes uh the property owners were notified
by letter dated
august 14th via certified mail
both properties were advertised in the
local newspaper for three consecutive
weeks beginning
august 14th and both properties were
posted
august 12th
thanks sharon this document is now um
forwarded for recording as
now let's begin with the application i
turn to the
town planner for a summary i will ask
mr jacobiak to summarize the request
in case number 20-20 2020-2
after we've had an opportunity to ask
his questions i will ask the applicant
to introduce those members
who will be all offering testimony
and to present the case on the ordinance
once we've heard the applicant's case
variant
sorry once we have heard the applicant's
case for the variants
we will hear from anyone who may wish to
testify
on behalf of or in opposition to
the variants mr jacobiak
and applicant will be given the
opportunity to present
any additional comments on the
application
then i will close the testimony on the
variants
in case 20-2
2020-2 after we
are finished with the presentation of
evidence
and the public comment on variants
the board will formally begin out the
liberation
and decide on the matter
typically the board's decision will be
subject to the council to the board
preparing a resolution that documents
the board's decision
and the reason for that decision
after the board has conducted the
deliberations and actions
in case number 2020-2 the board will
proceed
in case number 20 20-3
in the same manner
if there is no objection from the board
i'd like the applicant's application
and town planner staff report
entered into the record as exhibits
okay miss jacubina please correct
variance application
uh thank you i would prefer to
share my screen that's possible
yes okay can everyone see my screen
yes okay good um
what you see in front of you is just a
copy of the
staff memorandum dated september 2nd
and um madam chair and members of the
board my apologies for
not getting this to you sooner um
i'm glad i got it to you yesterday but
in light of the fact you may not have
had much time to read it i thought i'd
spend a little bit more time than normal
introducing the case
let me start by
showing you something i think is
interesting here
can everyone see that photograph
yeah okay this is a drone photo that
we've among many
that have been taken
of the town and uh
and used in part for our comprehensive
planning work
but i wanted to point out to you on this
map
or this image where the lots are and
just give you a sense of the
character of the neighborhood and some
of the
environmental issues issues that are
quite obvious
see my cursor moving up and down
maryland 260.
yeah i want to direct your attention to
that okay so follow me down
elm street this is elm or elm lane
sorry and it effectively dead ends here
as a public street
and i'm not quite sure where precisely
it is and i wouldn't be able to
show that on this photograph but it dead
ends and then it becomes a private
driveway that leads back
uh to mr gary coldsmith's house which is
in this area these are the existing
houses
the kind of the pattern of development
that has existed there for quite some
time
and this general area here
is where those two lots that are subject
to tonight's discussion
will be located or are proposed to be
located
the first one that's on the docket 8207
uh is roughly here you can see this
little
bump out of asphalt um
that's well i'll show you later but on
the site plan that little bump out actually looks like
it's in the front yard
of the house that's being proposed but
so this is roughly the location of the first applicant's proposal
you can see this kind of natural
corridor here there's a wetland in there
and there's
trees and um and you can see also how
this
low-lying topography drips drops back
down to
the marshland and those who are familiar
with chesapeake beach will know that
what we see out here in terms of
marsh swamps wetlands uh
once covered all of this area so
all this area including calmest field or
certainly most of it
parking lots it's all filled it's all
made land and we know
that nature is reclaiming it slowly but
surely you can see some pockets of water
wet spots popping up
and uh we also know that the flood zone
100 year flood zone comes right up to
that drive that i just mentioned uh
may not cross over it just yet but it's
right there
so all this area is subject to flooding
in the in the current um
scheme of things so that's where we are
we're we're challenged by a number of
environmental issues here tonight
and i just wanted to give you that
bigger picture
later why don't i do that now
i wanted to point out where the
flood zone is since i mentioned it
if you follow my cursor again
um goodness um
oh here's elm going up and down elm
uh lane now and the lots that we're
concerned about tonight are
located right here this blue hashed line indicates
the flood zone the 100 year flood zone
and the dark indicates open water
okay that's the existing condition
uh based on uh 2014
fema floodplain mapping what um
the comprehensive plan is in part
studying right now our work on
comprehensive plan
involves study of sea level rise
and how the natural conditions in
chesapeake beach will change over time
if current trends continue and the
current trends take us up to
um uh 2.1 feet of
sea level rise elevation in the
chesapeake bay
region um by the year 2050 which is you
know effectively 30 years from now
um so over time
this is kind of the new scenario um that
we
expect again let me locate
the elm lane for you again it's on this
map it's here
a lot the lots we're talking about are
located here
they're shaded in blue now
okay um this is the edge of
predicted open water the dark blue level
area
is open water and what you
see in the various other shades of blue
are various
um levels of predicted flooding
so the 100 year flood which is the
one percent exceedance probability
um one percent chance a year for
you know flooding event that's the light
blue
and now that comes up and covers
you know kellum field quite a bit
the darker blue is the 10
annual exceedance probability which
means in each year there's a
10 chance of a flood
event and you can see that that area now
comes up over the driveway that i was
referring to that leads to mr
coldsmith's
place and it comes up elm lane a little
bit
and it actually covers a bit of the site
maybe all of it of what we're at least
part of it of the property that we're
talking about
that's wetland that exists now those
properties
isn't connected tidally just yet in any
physical way but with sea level rise in
the rising water levels
the this natural stream here begins to
reassert itself and this all
kind of comes back into action as a flood zone an area that's likely to
flood now i want to highlight that this
is based on maryland department
of planning and maryland climate
commission actually involved
with that is managed by or staffed by
the planning department at the state
uh and dnr and mde uh it's a predicted
flooding events of predicted um sea
level rise that's based
on other science but it's 2050 that's
the projection
this is not today this doesn't exist now
uh
at some point between now and 2050
the various data analysis that's done
would suggest that this
is a real risk and so for for a
comprehensive plan that really provides
a good understanding of where we want to
position
land use where we want to avoid uh and
also
where we want to how we want to make use
of this information
to boards like yours to consider this
information in your judgments now of course a house
that exists here for 20 or 30 years before
this situation happens
may be perfectly fine but you know most
houses last longer than that
and we want to build sustainability into
chesapeake beach so i wanted to go
through that
summary um uh for you now back to the
staff report um
the applicant and i uh or the
applicant's engineer and i had a chance
to talk before
the final submittal was done and i
encouraged
him to move the proposed
building site forward on the lot
to get it closer to the front builder
line or the front
get it closer to the street as a way to
minimize the amount of building
and building activity that would take
place in the wetland buffer
the buffer is not the wetland the buffer
is the 25
foot area around the
wetland it's there to signal that
something environmentally sensitive
exist and we should stay away from it
and
it also signals the fact that wetlands
move and migrate and change just like
the
images i showed you suggest they might
and the future is likely to see
that wetlands evolve and change over
time so that buffer
gives us a little leeway and a safety
margin of safety
so the um the applicant is
calvert properties partners llc
the proposal is to locate the building
seven and a half feet from the front
property line
rather than 15.
and and by virtue of that
the structure is moved out of the buffer
i'm this line that i'm coursing through
now
is the buffer
everything on this side is within the
buffer everything on this side is
outside
here is the wetland itself
the wetland the line of the wetland
everything on this side of the
line is wet wetland everything here is buffer okay um
so the purpose of the ordinance is to
move building activity
out of the buffer um
if the applicant was building within the
wetland that would be an entirely
different situation altogether
and would require a number of other
permitting agencies being involved in
this discussion
so in my
staff report as i typically do i i just
went through each
of the various standards i
called out various factors and facts
in this particular case it's just a as a
matter of correction
the applicant's proposal actually
suggests that there's going to be
2 400 square feet of disturbance
and um and i will just ask that
the applicant discussed that to make
sure that we're all
locked in on what the proposed
disturbance is but i think it's 2048.
the one of the conclusions
i'm putting forth for you in this memo
is that you may
wish to approve this and i don't see
a lot of downside to approving it
provided that there's some care is taken
about how the building is built and
constructed
um in other words that this the
long-range planning we're talking about
in these environmental conditions
are addressed and thought about when
that building is constructed
so i suggested here that a
model that uses piles or some other
technique to keep the building
up out of wetland so and flood zone as i
mentioned so these buildings can exist
on this property
for a long time and so the town doesn't
have to
uh work with the property owners
decades from now to purchase their
property in their house
which is actually a proposal that the
planning commission is considering
uh now generally uh as a strategy
for addressing other issues in town
there this pattern of ex wetlands moving
and floodplains rising
uh has presented itself in other places
in chesapeake beach and we are
[Music]
facing the future of having to deal with
moving people out of harm's way or
watching their properties
uh continue to deteriorate so
that's um that's a quick summary of this
particular proposal
it's uh roughly seven and a half feet of
a variance
um the from the front yard
the front lot line the applicant still
will have
2 400 square feet of uh
encroachment into the buffer uh so that
reflects
that would be a variance as well so
there's two variants decisions
to be made tonight thank you
are there any questions from the board
of mr jacobia presentation
uh dr spencer this is david ferguson i
have a question for chris
um i am not familiar with elm lane
uh i mean i know where it intersects uh
260 but i've not driven down it
so i'm not very familiar with it but in
reading uh public comments we received from mr
coldsmith
i'm wondering about the width and the
construction
of the pavement of elm lane uh
sounds like there's maybe some question
of uh
parking space and if and if we grant the
variance to seven and a half feet in the
front
will there be room for off street
parking
and if there is no off street parking
will that
present a a problem for
uh you know trash vehicles and other
trucks that need to get up and down the
street
or emergency vehicles in that case
okay good questions um
here is elm lane
uh this is a google earth image yes the
date is 2020.
the image date is october 18th
2019 down there uh okay
yeah um
is is it a fall too lane is it a full
two-lane
street or it essentially is until you
get down to
where the first lot is that's the
subject of our proposal is located
at this point it feels like a one-lane
street right it's fairly narrow as you
can see
um i'm certainly
applicant will have more detailed
measurements but if he just threw this
on
we got 14 feet maybe between 12 and 14
feet
roughly um up here we have a little more
space
let's measure that
15 feet i actually think it's bigger
than that um
well you know this is this is what it is
i'm just doing it okay um but this is that
parking area that you're referring to
these cars that are parked here i
believe belong to someone in the
neighborhood
but these are not this is not the
intention as we understand it this is
this wasn't designed for a parking pad
for
neighbors uh this was designed for a
turnaround
so if you're traveling down you realize
you're in a dead-end street
and you can't go beyond it you feel that
the road is getting narrower
uh you you think well it's time for me
to turn around you can pull into a
three-point turn and
head back up
i don't know and i've checked with the
public works chief
on this he doesn't know either exactly
when this
was constructed
but it is within the municipal
right-of-way
as far as we can tell meaning that the road is much wider now the physical
land where the road is located is much
wider
than the pavement but so this exists
today
the i see on the plan that the applicant
has
that this goes away this is essentially
is the front yard
of the proposed residence
um so that's a a matter we need to
discuss uh tonight um but that's
you know that's okay well that that's
even more complicated than i realized i was just concerned
about you know granting the seven and a
half foot variants and having the
front of the structure seven and a half
feet
from the street and the street being too
narrow to park on
where is there going to be parking for
the resident okay so
i'll i'll refer you to the site plan for
that but before i do that
remember even if the house is built on
the front property line
there is still quite a bit of space
between that front property line
and the existing street this through
the street is narrow but the
right-of-way is relatively wide
so it'll feel like a grass strip
essentially between
the front door and the street
and it won't be
as extreme as your as you can imagine so
let me just
flip to the plan
[Music]
so here's the house here's the property
line this dark line
um this says remove paved
and i will get confirmation tonight i
believe that means remove the pavement we just saw from the
overhead photograph
right but again the street is
i believe this is this see this cl
that's the center line of the street
and we know that street is very narrow
and the edge of that street is roughly
right here okay so you can see the distance is still fairly big
between the house and the actual street
even though it's
close to the front property line which
means that the town owns this
as far as parking this is the this is
the driveway that's being proposed
um the apron you know you come in and park
right right
and i would imagine there's enough depth
there for two cars to be parked
um on that now of course a share of that
is within the town's right-of-way but
that's not unusual
you have to access your property and and
there's typically an apron that's
built within the municipal right-of-way
to access
a place to put your car
okay
thank you chris this is jan breckkay hi
jan
hi there um i'm curious the pavement that's to come up that's i
assume that's the
parking pad so to speak that is south of
the
uh fire plug is that right
it's and that the the turk
it's this i don't know where the fire
exactly so
and that pavement currently belongs to
the town and it'll be the town's
responsibility to remove the pavement
[Music]
no um i don't think the town would take
on responsibility for that the town
would have to approve it
um and whoever did the work would have
to do it according to
town specifications okay
but the town i doubt the town would want
to engage itself in doing something like
that
directly
so the the turnaround that's currently
being used
as a parking place
that would the town have any
responsibility to
enhance sign it um
repave it anything like that i mean did
the town put it in i assume
well it i i'm assuming the town put it
in
but i couldn't certainly say that the
town would have authorized it or been
involved in its installation if it
didn't actually do it the work itself
um there are there's a law about
um doing improvements within the town's
right-of-way
and it's typically an item that gets
reviewed and approved by the town
engineer
and sometimes these things could go to
the mayor and town council
for specific approval but
this thing has predated me and predated
the
public works chief and we've uh and he
actually
went back to see if he could find a
record of that um
and he wasn't able to and i i don't
have any more information about it than
that
okay okay um let's let's hear from the applicant on the
matter
if you're here
good afternoon good evening folks my
name is bill watson
and i'm speaking as the person who
designed this psyc plan
and on behalf of my uh client and
applicant
for the record again my name is bill
watson that you can call me that but
my formal name is william r watson i
reside at 11215
oakwood drive dunkirk maryland 20754
my cell phone is
six 443-532-0866 i have
uh am a registered professional land
surveyor
have been in this business since the
summer of 1970
longer than some people have been alive
and i still enjoy doing this type of
work
um this lot
is known as lot 31r block a of the
wickersham subdivision
that subdivision was recorded in 1911
not 20 but 1911 and the show on the
platinum is workers from subdivision
in 1994 a replanting was done
by the then owner homes america
to combine several individual lots
into one building or actually two
building sites
and in the process of doing that
combination
the rear alley that alley to the east
had been abandoned in part or the part
that was abandoned that was adjacent to
their lot was added into the lots
and also part of friedley avenue which
is the
unopened street to the south
of the second lot which we haven't
gotten to yet
was added into that second lot so the
lots
were enhanced somewhat
the zoning as in the staff report is
residential village with a 15-foot front
8 foot side and 20-foot rear yard
setback
critical area landing's classification
is iba
or intensely developed area
and again as i say i'm i'm answering the
two clients here
i'm working directly for barrick
associates where i'm a sub-consultant to
death
and toby olecki is on the line
listening in and will be taking over
after me
to fill in some spots that i may
not cover direct associates did a lot
stakeout
had the wetlands uh delineated
and then located those wetlands and
provided the
topographic survey all to me to do the
site design
the wetland delineation was done by
kenneth walls
of bay environment inc and that was back
in january of this year
that delineation was confirmed
by a lady by the name of mikko camp from
the maryland department of the
environment on january 16th to 2020.
her approval states quote wetlands
at the subject site will be classified
as emergent
non-violent wetlands and any
permanent impacts to wetlands will
require
mitigation and i address that mitigation
uh and permanent impacts in a couple of
places
in my presentation it should be noted
that the vegetation
in this wetland area on the site is
predominantly fragmites
which is well known to everybody as an
invasive species
the town is located northward of the
town
where the site is located northward of
the town dress coils
site which by virtue of the burns
surrounding the site
will cause the runoff from this lot to
take a longer route to fishing creek and
ultimately today
thereby giving the existing vegetation
more opportunity
to filter the runoff a critical area
responded
on august 14 to a request to give their
input on this application
and stated that they do not have any
jurisdiction over the town's local
zoning setbacks
nor does the critical area commission
have jurisdiction over impacts
for non-title wetland buffers so
given that with background as mr
chikubiak stated
we have a need for two variances the
first is the front yard setback
to be reduced from 15 feet to 7 and a
half feet
and the second is to allow disturbance
within the
25 foot wetland buffer
now i'm going to try something i hope
works i'm going to try to
bring my drawing
of the site up
if you bear with me for a moment because
i'm going to be zooming around and
hopefully it'll be
a little bit easier for everybody
has a series of lines popped up on
anybody's screen yet
different colors okay thank you yes good this
is a background
component of this site that i
use to calculate all the various impacts
um there's just so much going on that i
put this
off to the side so to speak and did not
show it on the drawing
a lot of them in a table fashion regular
fashion
the purple line that i'm following with
my cursor
and i realized when chris was doing this
part
the screen was a bit slow hopefully
you're seeing my cursor
follow around yes we do and
now on a white line crossing the short
section of a blue line to a green and
back to purple
that is the 25 foot wetland buffer
and you see a little starburst
type pattern that would look like some
plants
within that which is in and of itself
3422 square feet
that is the our excuses let me correct
that
so the wetland buffer is 3391 square
feet
up here at the top within that is a
piece of the driveway
shown in blue
and maybe a half of the house
shown in white
the driveway has 362 square feet
in the buffer the house
has 387 square feet
in the buffer those are the permanent
impacts to the buffer assuming that this
site gets built according to this plan
through euros approval
the green line represents
the outline of a silk fence
which is used to prevent settlement
from going too far away from a
construction site or construction area
during
a rainstorm in some places
as chris noted in his stamp report
such as in this area the silk fence
actually if i were to show the
computation i did it earlier
there's about 1.66 feet right at this
location where i'm kind of sliding my
cursor back and forth
and a little bit larger down here
the purpose of having the soap fence
where i've got it
is to in this location
keep it from getting into the wetland
which is this large area
to the north and east or to the right
and top of the
slot while
giving as much room as possible to do
the grading
to shape the lot and make drainage work
on the lot similarly with the house
which this is the part that's within the
um
25 foot buffer we're seeing the house
floor elevation at elevation nine
the ground elevation in this area i
believe was something around
three or four um
[Music]
so it's actually 6.4 on the site plan
down in this area here so we've got the
house
ground level floor set um at 10
excuse me rather than nine uh just short
of four feet above the ground
in this area so there's some shaping to
be done
although with a proposed crawl space
there's not a lot of shaping of the
earth to be done
other than just to be sure that the
rainfall that hits the ground
runs away from the house and doesn't
wash out alongside the house
the downhill side of the house is where
i've got the person now
that probably will be where a large
amount a larger amount of grading will
occur
just to accommodate putting in the block
foundation getting the footings down to
an elevation where they can be placed on
solid ground
probably there will be some small amount
of stockpiling in this area
other of it could be stockpiled inside
the foundation area
or possibly even over in the
southwestern or bottom left corner
the
impact of this hearing
really boils down simply to if the
buffer impact is denied this lot becomes
unbearable which i don't think anybody
wants to see happen
so we need to find a solution
that minimizes the impact to the
greatest extent
in the staff report mr jacobiak
suggested having the house
on either piles
or at least greatly elevated
tony had tony alexa fulton has talked
with the applicant
and they are not opposed to that um
obviously brings more cost in but they
see the benefit of getting the house
a little bit more up into the air and
having less
potential for uh damage to occur
and the result of a flood and this area
will flood
it did it during isabel and possibly
other hurricanes
but that was an unusual situation with a
wind-driven
hurricane with high water or high rain
blowing the bay up into the inland areas
those of you that were in the town at
the time may remember
how badly the senate's restaurant was
underwater
so those things are unusual
it's not indicative of the flood hazard
maps
which presently show no flood
area on these lots it's shown as an x
which means not impacted by floods
so if we put the house on piling
i think that helps to
minimize the grading although i haven't
had the opportunity
to study that on this plan it
allows for the possibility depending on
how high we put it up in the air
of having the parking under the building
but that is stuff that needs to be
flushed out at the time of the building
permit application
the criteria
that the zoning ordinance sets out five key questions that need to
be answered
you know in an affirmative that the
board needs to agree with
and the first is that
um granting these variances is in
harmony with the general purpose and
intent of the comprehensive plan
zoning ordinance and all department
regulations
i believe it is and for a couple of you
ms spencer chairman chairman spencer and
mrs repke
you know that i used to be a predecessor
to chris in this very role as sony
administrator
the second criteria assessed is that
it's a
use as a single family resident that is
permitted
in the residential village district
nothing
being inappropriately nothing is being
inappropriately permitted
there are a couple of special
circumstances which apply to the land
which are peculiar
in this lot and don't generally apply to
most other lots within the subdivision
these are first the lot is only 9 135
square feet
and again remember that's after the
addition of a piece of alley to it
of that 7 451 square feet
is contained within the non-tidal
wetlands
and the 25-foot non-tidal wetlands bar
of that is almost 82 of a lot
so we're working with 18 of a moderate
sized lot
maintaining the 15 foot front yard
setback will cause more disturbance to
the buffer
whereas the goal is to minimize that so
that's justification for pulling the
house closer to the street
by seven and a half feet and again
denying the buffer
impact would make a lot unbuildable the
hardship for the development of this lot
is that the house is only a modest
three-bedroom house
a smaller wood house would have a
two-bedroom or less bedrooms
in the neighborhood where three bedrooms
are typical of a single-family home
due to the wetlands this site is really
only about a third to a half usable
as compared to any similar lot
applications of requirements with no
variance
will eliminate that usability proposing
amendments to the applicable ordinances
would constitute a type of spot zone
which also would be
it be innocuous so we're faced with
interpreting the ordinance and making a
call to decide whether to grant these
two variances
the fifth and final of the requirements
is that the granting of the variance is
necessary
for just about any use reasonable order
rise
of this lock and should be considered
the bare minimum
which will give some use back to this
lot
and because this is in a critical area
there's additional conditions
even though this is not a critical area
of the um variants i thought that it
might be beneficial to go through those
and due to the conditions and
circumstances that i've previously
described
for this lot these lots will be denied a
minimal or reasonable
and significant use of the entire lot
without the requested variances
the literal interpretation and
application of the town's critical area
program
would deprive the applicant of is
commonly enjoyed by other properties in
similar areas
within the critical area of the town
granting these variances will not give
any special privileges to this lot
that would be denied to others
approving these variances will not
adversely
in my opinion will not adversely impact
fish
wildlife or plant habitat in the
critical area
and are in harmony with the general
spirit and intent of the town critical
area program
maryland's critical area law and como
net regulations so with that
i'll entertain any questions that
anybody wants to fire at me
or otherwise i'll back out
and mute myself and turn it over to tony
to embellish our head to my testimony
are there any questions from the board
to the applicant
mr jacobiac do you have any questions
for the
applicant of comments on the
presentation
i um
well i'd first like to say that
it was one of the most candid and
thoughtful staff reports i've heard from
a consulting engineer
representing client in front of a board
of appeals in a long time
exactly i really i have to send a lot of um appreciation
to
bill watson for that uh excellent job
i mean he not only did he describe
the um the hardship that's being faced
by the applicant
here but he described the actual
conditions
that are there and didn't minimize
them at all and i was very thoughtful
professional presentation
the idea of placing this um building on
some stilts or something to elevate it a
bit
appealed to me because the the the
effect of
it has on minimizing grading and keeping
it safe and secure for the long term
um but then ultimately that's something
that you and
members of the board of appeals will
reflect on i suppose and
of course there are other issues that he
at play here too that
the citizens in the neighborhood may
raise
so i have nothing else to add unless you
have questions for me
okay we'll hear now hear from the public
sharon has anyone signed up to speak
on the variance application give me uh
madam chair i believe that there's
another uh
speaker from the applicant
is there well my name is anthony olexon
i'm the civil engineer and owner of
barrett associates here in prince
frederick maryland
um you know i i agree
and appreciate everything that that bill
put into this
um in realizing that this was going to
be a challenging lot that is
why we reached out to him um to make
sure that we found a
good solution and i think i just wanted
to reiterate a couple of
things that he mentioned is you know
it's a very constrained lot
um in the placement of the house and
um the layout of the lot and trying to
provide parking and all the other
requirements were
with the intention of one staying
out of the wetlands themselves into
minimizing any type of impact uh to the
buffer
so you know that along with
um mr jacobiak's maps and kind of some
discussion that we had before about
you know setting the finished floor
elevation on this house
was something that we absolutely
considered um
you know with a two foot sea level rise
uh being projected i guess in 2050
uh you know it's not within a flood
plain right now
so it's reasonable to think that the
floodplain elevation
of where it is today and where it would
be in the future would raise to about
the elevation four or five so
we're trying to maintain as much
reasonable
lift of the house as possible to keep it
in compliance with
future considerations for sea level rise
as well as fema requirements um
for not flooding the house or the first
floor elevation as well
so um i just again wanted to thank bill
for all the effort that he put into this
and just kind of reiterate you know
there's been a lot of thought and a lot
of
um intention behind how this has been
laid out
in a way that allows the lot to still be
usable
chairman chairwoman spencer may ask a
question of um
yes here
yes yeah um anthony can you tell us
the dimensions of that parking pad how
deep it is
how many cars can locate on it
and anything else you can say about that
uh for the dimensions uh bill if you
could take the dimensions off of the cad
drawing that you have there
um we can give it i know the intention
was to have at least two parking stalls
there
um for uh for the
this home
this is bill watson again tony thank you
um chris bear with me i'm going to pick
a couple of dimensions
tony is absolutely correct that
the parking pad which is
20 feet long on a lot and
20 feet and a quarter wide on the lot
is intended to provide for two all
street parking spaces as required by the
zoning ordinance
so it's 20 feet wide you say
that's correct typical parking space is
18 by nine
so there's a little bit of flexibility
in there uh
for for less than perfect driving into a
parking space
okay thank you you're welcome
if i may um just in case something
happens and i disappear
we're beginning to get a thunderstorm
over here in dunkirk it's moving down
and
raining um if i get cut off because of
the power tail
i'll be back as soon as i can
i am also hearing thunder here at
chesapeake beach
um well
anyway let's let's let's move on
okay
now let's hear from the public is there
anyone here
has anyone signed up sharon uh to speak
this evening
uh i only got comments from gary and i
believe
gary cole smith is on the on the meeting
i am okay
i would like to okay gary
uh gary cole smith 8200 elm lane
chesapeake beach
uh my driveway starts at the end of the
street
i bought this property in
uh 20 years ago
at the time i bought the property the
town engineer i don't remember his name
uh he was the engineer and uh zoning
administrator at the time but
uh you all probably remember him uh he
actually went over to north beach
for a while this was prior to the
current town engineer or the current
zoning administrator uh i discussed with
them before i bought the property
uh several things because i was
concerned about the dead end street in
the driveway that didn't end at the dead
end street
and we talked about the requirements of
the zoning
uh i think most of you are aware that
i've
been involved with zoning issues for a
long time in chesapeake beach
uh anyway the discussion was
several on several fronts there was
runoff uh
and the right of way for runoff
from the street of helm lane into the
wetlands
or non-tidal wetlands uh there was also
discussion on
the runoff on the east side of elm lane
that
occurs all the time and floods that that
side washes sediment
onto the parking space that had been
provided for
uh sadie uh in her at her home at the
end of ellen lane
uh so there is a real issue with
a a t turnaround which that paves the
areas you see down here
now uh it wasn't created for it was
created to
make vehicles be able to turn around
town vehicles
uh trash trucks uh
visitors who you know came down and
didn't realize the turn there was a dead
end
that industry has to have some means of
turning around that area was paid by the
town chesapeake beach
uh it was repaved by the town of
chesapeake beach just recently and jay
knows that
because he paved it so i don't think
there's any discussion
really true discussion about whether or
not there's the town utilizes the full
right-of-way
with at the bottom of the street uh
sadie
lawson's lot which was sold to her son grew up there
has always had parking provided by a
town the original
uh subdivision had 50-foot wide
right-of-ways
and i discussed this at length with
several people
including gerald donovan uh back when i
bought the property that
they had fifth foot right away for the
street because they had off street
off property parking because the lots
were so small because it was a
uh whatever you call it
a a town that was built here for
uh visitation or whatever recreational
purposes
so anyway uh all that being said we have
a grandfather's lot on the opposite side
of the street of this place that gerald donovan and and people prior
to me
had prepared a parking space for uh in
the course but they with what they
ballet viewed the prior
planning of that area uh that space is now in this plan shown to
be gone away
there's a fire hydrant on that side of
the street roughly near there and
that's the reason why the turnaround is
farther
north than than where it probably should
be a this official t turnaround
and no science has ever been put up to
stop parking there so people have parked
there
uh when the notices went up or when the
polls
the new poll relocation happened people
realized that they you know they didn't
have a real
true right to park there they parked
other other places
except for the lawson property who has
no place to park
because of their grandfather a lot so
the the utilization of the right-of-way
for any purposes like going away taking
the paving away so that there's no
turnaround anymore or
utilizing it as part of their driveway
or whatever it is a non-consideration for the existing
neighborhood i mean vehicles do do the
trash trucks people need to turn around
uh that's my first com real issue with
the
with this plan uh the second real issue
i have with the plan
is that the reduction
in front yard setback would not be
necessary and i've looked at this myself
i'm i'm a
commercial builder myself i looked at
this property myself
uh back when the property was up for tax
sales
numerous times i looked at what i could
do there and i i thought
every time about building it on stilts
just the simple impact that you had a
issue
with uh non-tidal wetlands
now when i look at this plan
uh first off the any utilization of
the the talents right away has to be
approved by the mayor and town council
and nobody's made an application to do
that so i don't know without that approval you could not
regret various anyway
uh because you'll be taking away part of
the streets right away
uh if
the the planner and developer
were to look at utilization of stilts
and raising the structure up in the air
and parking underneath i think you could
actually use the property
effectively for housing as intended
without impact to the buffer
and impact to the front yard setback
so i i i think that was not fully
uh thought through uh it was like easier
to apply for a variance than just to
design to match a lot and the final
thing i really want to say is
this thing was re-platted
and it was replated during a time when
all all these things were known and all
the property was one
was when one ownership at that time and
it was in one ownership
and all those joint properties were
together would make a legal lot
you don't have a right for a variance
and someone subdivided it and
made it into two lots that were actually
unbuildable so they created their own
problem
in i think was it 1994
in the replanting uh so i i i really
uh at i'm i i am really against this
as is fans right now if they were to
redesign it put the house on stilts not
impact the front yard setback create a
means for
turn around address the
parking issue for uh the
house of the end of the road lost his
home on the end of the road
uh i could i could uh
i would not be an objection but uh that
they haven't addressed any of these
things
and i actually don't see where they've
adjusted off street parking
directly on both lots that are up for uh
these two variances uh the the property
i'm talking about that has
was grandfathered and does not have
parking and it has no way of creating
parking
is 8202 elm lane
it used to be the city lost this
property uh
it's now calvin lawson and his wife's
property
uh so uh they're all those things need
to be addressed before i think you can
even consider
granting either one of the two variances
are up before you for those two
properties
thank you for your time
is there anyone else
on this call that would like to speak on
this matter or ask questions of the
applicant
if so now is your time
okay does the applicant have any
cross-examination
of any of the previous speakers
uh yes madam chair uh this is anthony
olux and again i
you know like to address i guess a
couple of
the comments that mr cole smith made
the purpose of the variances that we are
requesting in this case is in order to
minimize impacts to the wetland buffer
[Music]
the as mr watson mentioned nearly
84 of this lot is encumbered by the
buffer itself
the house was located in a situation or
in a location to keep it out of the
wetlands
uh and you know
looking at shifting it further back
would would just
create more of a disturbance to the
wetlands buffer
uh really that's you know i think the
crux of
what it is that we're asking for as part
of this waiver
are the two waiver requests is to
find a solution here that would minimize
those impacts
and the owner and
their builder representative are also on
this call today and they can kind of
you know i like to give them the
opportunity to talk if they'd like
um you know raising it up on stilts is
our own pilings is something that we're
considering uh moving forward i think it
takes a little bit more but
even with raising it up uh the area
that's going to be underneath of the
house
will still be graded would still be
considered a permanent impact to the
buffer
uh so the design that we're showing here
in the location that we're showing here
with the reduced setback um
is the minimal amount
of impact and that's necessary
in order to keep this as a usable lie
regarding the work within the
right-of-way and the removing of the
pavement
and the turnaround uh you know i agree
with
mr coldsmith is saying is is that
something that we need to work out
with the town engineer
and with work within their public
right-of-way
uh but i do not believe that impacts
what we would be requesting with this
waiver
uh just for the simple fact that there's
nowhere else
to place the house without being in the
wetlands themselves
do either mr jacobiak or the applicant
have any
final comments
if no
i will close this this part of the
meeting
uh and we'll turn our attention to
deliberation
on the variance application in case
number
2020-2.
chairman yes may i
uh address the comments that were made
on my addre
one of the requirements for our variants
is that it cannot be self-created
and unfortunately the original owners
in 1994 created part of this problem
because as the ordinance read back at
that time you
had the opportunity to combine lots and
create a legal lot
and met the requirements of the zoning
ordinance
and instead they subdivided and made two
illegal lots
basically so i i you know
i wasn't going to bring that up because
i i thought that was like kind of
underhanded but
it was 1994 and these ordinances all
went in place
in the 80s so it is self-created in that
respect
um
let's see uh when you park under the
house
even though you're impacting uh the area
under the
house with imper previous the impervious
area is actually above the house the
roof line
so you're not creating any additional
impact
in what the footprint of the house is if
the parking is under the house
so you put on stilts and you create
parking under the house
you're not creating any additional
impact so i i disagree with that
statement
and uh as i said before i think that
before you can grant a variance for
anything that in respect to
the uh
front yard setbacks you have to address
the issues of the street and the town
would have to
first of all allow the the redesign of
their their uh right away
they usually read utilization of their
right of way and that requires the the mayor to approve
it
and that has not been done yet so this
plan
that they have you know it could be you
can approve it contingent to
those approvals if you were to so desire
uh and the same with water runoff on the
east side of elm lane uh i don't know you we had like a
conservative rain the other day and
probably no one knows but me because i
drive up there every day
is that but there's an incredible amount
of runoff on the east side of the road
that's never been addressed
and the uh former uh
talent administrator uh james parent and
i had
he had actually visited out there with
me about that and i have talked to
um jay about the same same issue is that
there's an incredible amount of runoff
on that side of the road and there's no
there's been no adjustment that and the
way you have it drawn right now
water coming down that side of the road
would run into f
at a seven and a half foot
uh front yard setbacks water coming down
the road would have no place to go but
run into that house
that home so that that really needs to
be addressed the
runoff on the east side of elm lane has
never been addressed
and it's not addressed in these plans
thank you for your time
i'd like to now hear from
the board there any comments from the
board
doris i i have a observation
yes um
i drove down elm street today
and sat in my car and and uh and sort of
scouted the area and relative to
water runoff i i can only imagine by
looking at that lot that that would be a
huge
problem so i i agree with mr sussman
that somehow
that water is going to come down at that
you know at a tremendous force coming
down
lane uh elm lane which is very steep
in the beginning off of bayside road so
i would think that there needs to be
some significant uh
that the applicant needs to address that
significant problem
um you know before before we could look
to approve it
okay any other comments
yes madam chair david ferguson here um
regarding uh mr cole smith's
assertion that this was a self-created
problem by subdividing a large lot into
two smaller lots
are either of the applicants
for these two cases uh
2020-2 and 2020-3
are either of those applicants
the owner of the larger lot
that subdivided it back in 1994
and i don't know if anyone here would
know that
but mr coldsmith may know who who owned the
property
and subdivided it but it seems to me
uh mr sussman that
the current owners unless they were the
owner
that subdivided it the current owners
are not responsible for
that uh subdivision
mr sussman yes well i believe i heard
and somebody can correct me
that homes for america owned the
property
and then uh subdivided it uh by a rock
consolidation
into those two watts back in 1994. and
i believe you're correct mr ferguson
that these
uh the current owners if that if that's
the case
uh are not necessarily uh
responsible for any uh
failure of the rot to meet current
standards and i'm not even sure
that it was the real subdivision that
caused the problem
uh the current problem i think at least
with respect to this particular lodge
you know we've seen how the topography
and the uh environmental conditions
impact
the development there's been no evidence
thus far to show what
the overall
parts look like and also whether
a house could have been built or could
be built
with less impact on the environmental
conditions
have the property not been subdivided
into two rods
back in 1994.
what you have before you what you have
before you are
two applications for variances for the
construction of hot of watts
on two construction of homes on two
watts
that are by all accounts and of
themselves
a lot today it's not a situation where
the lots were subdivided
into uh well let me strike that so i'll leave my
comments where they were
i'm chairman may i yes please
the original property owner was homes
america that
gentleman transferred the property to
his himself
at some point or his estate and then the
property went to his family
as as someone member of his family so
the property was
in ownership by the same person when it
was subdivided and created the problem
and then however how it got it's still
within the same family
unit i don't know the actual uh
relationship but at least unless unless
the
these have changed uh the my review
prior to this
hearing was that that is a
family um
buy it or whatever i don't know it's all
within the same family
so it's an inheritance i guess or a uh
a trust that that i think they did
so uh i don't necessarily agree with the
uh
with the attorney's uh opinion on that i
think that that
it was it is and was family uh
property and i don't i they
town has some responsibility in that
because that's when they allowed that uh re-subdivision
uh that you know the constrictions were
still there at that time so
you know they have the they have the
right to build on the lot but they have
a responsibility to live within build it
within the means
that the law allows and it's not
certainly not utilization of the
existing right-of-way and it's certainly
not
uh encroachment on
these restrictions that they already
knew was there
thank you
madam chairman this is bill watson may i
try to clear up some of the
misconceptions here
yes you may thank you
in 1994 holmes america was the owner of
these lots
and at that time
rickerson's subdivision consisted of a
bunch of 25 foot by 100 foot lots
this site lot 31r and 32r
consisted of a handful of those 25 by
100 foot or larger
lots the zoning ordinance
is silent on the term replay
and it got started being bandied about
uh while i was owning administrator but
this was something prior to me when john
hoffman was the
host the administrator of the town
engineer
this obviously went through the planning
commission jim barrett
as the chairman of the planning
commission signed it
he went to all other agencies including
the health department even though it's
on public war and sewer
and it went to record um
no um subdivision really occurred
all that occurred was grouping lots
into building sites and
using one new line of division
along the center line of a sewer line
which
made only perfect sense to have that run
down the division line between
two building sites so that you don't
have somebody trying to build a house
over top of an existing sewer
and you may or may not be aware but that
sewer line has been very problematic
over the years
so if anything these
watts as we call them today 31
32r have been made larger they were done
through proper review and approval by
the planning commission of chesapeake
beach
and do it recorded in the land records
they were not a subdivision where you
take
a single piece of property and create
multiple pieces of property
they were combining multiple pieces into
lesser pieces that's the idea of
replanting
thank you at this time
um i'd like to hear
um if there's more from the board if not
um
madam chair this is prince sussman
yes sir yeah uh may i know it's a little
bit
out of order but may i ask mr jacoby
asked a question about process
yes you may uh mr takubiak
with respect to the issue about
stormwater management
and stormwater runoff is that something
that would typically be addressed
at the building permit stage
yes um after this project were
if it were approved it would come to me
as a a
site plan application it would be
reviewed by me and the town engineer
if it were approved uh it would
obtain a zoning permit and then a um
an application would be made for a
building permit
so these types of impacts would be
evaluated
by professionals at that time before any
permits were issued
and with respect to the use of the
public right-of-way
is that something that also would be
evaluated
at the time of building permit
absolutely
in fact what we do now is whenever
there's a proposal for
the addition of any improvement
in a right-of-way like a driveway apron
we refer to the town public works and
town engineer
and i can assure you that this would be
referred
to those uh individuals right away once
it
arrived at on my desk
thank you
okay um is there any more discussion
from the board
i i have one more question for mr
jacobiak
uh dave ferguson here
along the same lines uh mr jacobiak the
uh removal of the pavement
that is currently the turnaround from
that right of way uh
in front of this this property
um that um
would also need to be approved as part
of the building you know
application the uh permit application
in the sense that it's located in the
municipal right-of-way
and it's work being done in the right of
way yes it would have to be approved
um i um you know the town
doesn't have its own streets and roads
ordinance
we adopt the calvert county road
ordinance
and in the calvert county road ordinance
there is discussion of a t
turnaround as a
solution to dead end streets and new
subdivisions
but even reading that one would suggest
it's not required
at this level however the town engineer
may say
we need that we need to see it on this
plan or we need to see
how this public improvement
would be the loss of the public
improvement be mitigated
by the person removing it right so it's
quite possible that this would be an
issue and a concern and a condition of
final approval
by myself as zoning administrator but
it's going to take review by
the town engineer uh and some discussion
about
traffic flow how often is it necessary
is there
does it warrant a turnaround
you know those can we manage it in
different ways does the driveway that
the applicant's providing provides
sufficient
means for someone to pull in and pull
out which is quite typical on a dead-end
street
at low volumes like this so all those
discussions would be
had at that time
it seems to me that you know that is
something the town will have to deal
with
i agree and uh you know that's
going to be a whole different matter um
but i i certainly think it it needs to
be addressed for that for that
neighborhood
actually appreciate mr coldsmith
bringing it up because
it really wasn't apparent to a lot of us
we don't get there very often
and uh it didn't show up in a first
cursory review of the aerial photography
then all of a sudden
boom there it was and it it predates all
of us
so um you know it's not used often
except for parking which wasn't its
desired intent
but we're concerned about it and would
want to make sure that somehow it's
addressed i don't know what the solution
is
but in fact if the board of appeals
provided guidance to us in a decision that we would act on
it and
even provide reports back to the board
if it was necessary
yeah i i'm ready to entertain the motion
i have one question madam chair
well actually several uh this is frank
white fw contracting i own the second
lot
uh first law is owned by one of my
customers and the second lot was owned
by me for
a second customer
and we had an email today about the
possible raising of the house and
i don't have a problem with that
whatsoever
uh if we raise it and there's parking
underneath
i'm willing to work with the town on
that i don't have a problem with that um
the property was actually bought by
homes america the wife
herself uh extremely lovely woman very
hap very nice
person uh so we bought the hat we bought
the property based on
our customers because they love the
street they love the neighborhood they
love the town and
where they want to live and
of course we had a scurry around today
based on the email
we got today based on placing the house
forward backwards
raising it just so many things at the
last what
four hours before the meeting and i
don't have a problem working with
that at all um as far as the parking is
concerned
the the parking that's there now um
again it's supposed to be a turnaround
not parking
and the picture that was shown earlier
shows three cars and there's typically
five cars there um so
when i bought a lot before the one lot
my customer bought the other lot
uh i scoured the neighborhood to find
out who owned the property ruined the
cars
to sort it out and the neighbor directly
across the street
that doesn't have a driveway he
apparently owns all the cars
um and i told him we'd have to work with
him trying to sort it out because i
didn't know
who paved it who didn't pave it i was
trying to sort all out i've got several
houses in north beach i'm building
i was told from the neighbor that
the town paved it but then the town told
me
he paved it so i don't know who paved it
um
i thought it was just a part a spot for
him to park
but now i realize that this is supposed
to be a turnaround well
if there's five cars parked there for
starters
and even if i move the turn around to
the end of the street
who's to say four or five more cars
won't park there
so who who's going who's going to
enforce that um
i have no problems working with the town
on this
along with barrett uh this is why i
hired them
um and again we're just trying to
build a home for people that's pretty
much it um
well thanks a lot uh appreciate it um
we're closing uh the comment period now
and the board needs to go into
deliberation
at this time
thank you
would like to go first
madam chair david ferguson here uh
you know it seems to me that the owners
of the lots
are uh you know working with their uh you know engineers and and
developers to try to find a way to
work within the wetlands setback
and the uh um
set back from the street and from the
town right of way
um and you know i was impressed by mr
watson's presentation and the work he's
done on
looking into the the drainage and the
wetlands and the silt fence and
you know trying to preserve the
environment
and i also appreciated uh
um uh
i'm sorry your your name is steph on the
screen uh
stevenson i think but anyway i
appreciated your input
um that's my stage name it's okay okay
and i appreciate it and by the way i you
know i've never really done this
viral video thing but uh i don't mind
saying i look pretty good on here i
don't know about you guys but
well thanks anyway and so uh
you know appreciate the willingness of
the applicants
to uh uh you know build on pilings
or you know do what they need to
mitigate the environmental impacts
my only concern with the application
before i had it explained to me was the
seven and a half foot variants from the
setback
because i thought it was going to put
the front of the house seven and a half
feet from the street
uh which on a very narrow lane uh
you know i think is inviting problems
but since there is
that's actually a seven and a half foot
setback
from the 50-foot wide uh town you know right-of-way easement
uh so you know that's of a little less concern to me now so i think uh you know for me
uh i think i could be willing to approve
the uh the variance uh to the setback
and to the
wetland buffer uh with a condition that
the
homes be built on pilings uh
and that there be off street parking
provided
and uh also that
they work with the town to address the
turnaround
issue on the street so that's that's my
input
you're muted sorry am i moving
i'm unmuted now um
i i thought better about things uh about
the variances being asked for when
chris made it clear that stormwater
management
um you know and that kind of thing is
going to be addressed at a later stage
that's not something that if i
understand correctly
that we need to address or make as a
condition
is that correct chris
well uh madam chair this fred sussman
may i speak for a moment all right let me just make this
observation with russia and members of
the board
if the board is inclined to
uh grant or ask me to prepare a
resolution
to approve the variances then what i
would do is
uh prepare a series of proposed
conditions
for all of you to review and consider
based upon what we've
heard you know uh tonight during the
hearing and then
yeah you can see whether you're
satisfied with conditions whether you
want to erupt eliminate any or add any
but at least that will give you
something to look at
and uh uh it will be more than just
an approval being approval subject to
abcde
okay that that makes a lot of sense i'm
more comfortable with that i think
are you willing to make a motion to that
effect again
i'm sorry darris are you speaking to me
yes
are you willing to put that in the form
of a motion
uh madam chair may i help out
always thank you yeah uh
you based on what i just heard uh you
may want to entertain
a motion from a member of the board that
the board
direct counsel to the board to
prepare a resolution to grant the two
variances and along with
uh conditions that council may recommend
based upon the evidence and testimony
presented at the hearing
well i would certainly like to make that
motion
jody did you have any comments yeah
before jan gets started um uh before you
go with this
the conditions um i'm of the opinion
that conditions are not necessary here
um i think that the next step in the
process where
the building goes for its own goes to
chris as the zoning administrator and
the town engineer
uh sufficient and that they will handle
uh any any kind of conditions we put on
in this meeting here um i find thus far
that are
it's not really our responsibility as
the board of appeals to re-evaluate the
lot consolidation of 94. all of the
proposals put forward
by the engineers and planners i believe
are very reasonable given
the zoning of this particular lot
i do hear the uh complaint from mr
coldstone about
colt smith about the right-of-way and
the t turnaround
um but once again i don't i don't think
that falls
into the jurisdiction of the plan
propose us here today um
so i think i i would like to move
forward without conditions
on uh this particular uh issue but that
i will take other opinions on that
jody this is dave i i would have to
disagree with you on the conditions
uh because if we're going to
in particular on the the wetland buffer
if we're going to uh grant
uh you know a variance to that very important environmental buffer
i think there need to be conditions
you know such as uh you know
building on pilings when you consider
the uh 2050 uh projected floodplain that
mr jacubiak showed us i think it needs to be you know for the
house to be viable 30 years from now
uh you know in an area that will be
very likely subject to you know a lot
more flooding than it is today
i i think that needs to be a condition i
would hate to see
a builder build a a place
that in the future uh
you know science tells us is likely to
be flooded
i i entirely agree with you i i think
the incentive structure here is that
uh the builders and the owners and the
engineers and all the people with
expertise in this room
are not going to try and build a house
that's underwater 20 years from now
i don't want to tie their hands with
artificial restrictions
when we don't have the full lay of the
land so to speak
i think that's our job i think that's
our job to be sure
that they meet those conditions if we're
going to grant
a variance variants that putting in
pilings is the engineer's best
recommendation
given what they know when they get on
the ground and start building
um i'd like to leave it up to their
expertise to build a house
for their customers and clients that
last a long time
um and not necessarily try and guess
being that that is not
my area of expertise but i i do
appreciate your thoughts
and i'm not dismissing them i entirely
agree
um trying to plan ahead for things we
don't know
i think is where i get a little hesitant
i guess you and i are gonna have to
agree to disagree on that
well uh this is jan again uh could i ask
chris
to clarify for
us what's you know if we approve this
variance
what this builder now has to go through
whether it's stormwater management
whether it's you know anything
else related to this law because if if
that's going to be handled by somebody
else then it's not something that we
i said storm water management i really
meant everything to do with this law
the practice practicality of it um
if these things are going to be
addressed at a later time that's
i guess that's what i'm asking of chris
what is going to be
what specific things relative this lot
are going to be addressed at a later
time that we could
step back and say we approve it but yet
we would know that it would be
handled uh appropriately up the line so
to speak
um
these lots are in the critical area
so they're subject to a heightened level
of review
um because they're in the critical area
they will be subject to the
review by the county uh for grading
permits
and the county will review
the grading plans um
the the fact that
the applicants are considering putting
them on piles the building or the
building on a pile here
pilings suggest to me that the amount of
grading was going to be
a lot less which is something that i'm
pleased to see um and we'll look to that
to make sure that the grading
complies with um the the
stormwater management regulations and
sediment and erosion control regulations
that the the county administers so a lot
of these environmental reviews will be
done by the county the one thing that
was offered as testimony tonight was
that there's
and i think um ms redeke you picked up
on it
was there's water coming down elm lane
presumably from north right
and that this property may not even
impact that
but it may be impacted by it right so
the
applicant will certainly have a
an interest in making sure that it's not
flooded out
when water comes down that road and we
will too
um and we'll be very careful to make
sure that
the project is designed in such a way as
to capture divert or otherwise minimize
the issue
which may in effect help resolve it for
the benefit of
the entire community quite frankly um
although it's not necessarily their
obligation to do that
we certainly don't want water washing
out a lot
um so there's this physical um
regulatory steps will be taken uh
if this is approved by the uh
and if you if you make a condition that
it's on pilings then that's the point at
which we start
there's no further deliberations between
me and trying to enforce the requirement
that its own pylons
or the county review we start from
the standards you've established
and um well i hope that answers your
question
well chris it was your recommendation in
your report
that you know if the board approves it
that
it should be on pilings right yes that
was
the loan condition that i suggested and
um
because it allows the uh grading to be
done
much much great uh reduced which is the
big issue
we don't want grading in the wetland
buffer particularly when it's
so close to the edge of the wetland
itself so um
and that provides us space to introduce
um parking you know
there's less lot coverage on the ground
there's less construction on the ground
there's no uh basement or a crawl space
and grading up to it that's necessary
so maybe that because of that they can
accommodate the parking we need on the
property which
so helps serve these brother issues
maybe that rather than 20 feet it ought
to be 25 feet to make it easier to pull
in and pull out if you're
a visitor to the area you know so
there's a
i think putting on the pilots gives a
lot of flexibility to the design of the
site
all of the conditions would have to be
in the resolution correct
that's correct madam chair so
these conditions we had are not binding
in any way that they are
recommendations that that's what it
sounds like
no no well if uh the board
adopts the resolution with conditions
that those conditions are binding
uh now as i said before i can if you all uh can't come to a full
agreement tonight
on the conditions the resolution that i
prepare
can't propose conditions for you to look
at and think about
and continue your discussion another day
once you see the
proposed conditions uh if you don't want
conditions
and you want to approve the application
then certainly we can do it that way as
well
madam chair procedurally i think miss
rutkay
had made a motion uh and
i don't recall that that motion was ever
seconded
no i will second the motion uh mr
assessment
thank you
we now have a motion it's been second
i will entertain the vote
mr ferguson yes
sorry it's been a few minutes what is
what was the full text of
what the emotion was about
the motion was essentially uh that the
board
uh directs the test the council to the
board to prepare
a resolution that would approve the two
variances
and recommend to the board conditions
uh based upon the
evidence and testimony presented tonight
and again let me make it clear that
those are only
uh proposed conditioned uh from me
they're not finding upon you as a board
you may look at them and say
as you suggested uh jody no we don't
want
any of the conditions or you may agree
we want condition three but not one two
four or five
but at least it will give you something
to uh think about
as you continue uh deciding how to deal
with this
okay thank you
okay so you're
right i voted
you said approve
yes okay
um
attorney assessment do you need anything
further from us
in terms of preparation of the
resolution
no matter i've been taking notes and i
have uh all the exhibits
so i can uh go from here the only thing
for purposes
of uh the record keeping the record
clean
uh did you madam chair vote or intend to
vote on this
motion no no
okay no
doctors can i ask a point of order um
i know i'm not entitled to it but
there's something that i'd like to raise
as a potential issue
um when you read through the
roll call you mentioned a board of
appeals member
whose face doesn't appear with us
tonight
but i thought maybe she was trying to
enter the discussion
because as soon as you mention her name
her you know box lit up and is lighting
up now could you just ask if that member
can hear you
um and see if she's present in this
discussion for the record
even though we maybe may have a hard
time getting
a vote out of her at least we can know
if she's present
for this discussion
well maybe i will i forgot the member's
name because she's new um
kelly stewart kelly stewart are you on this call
i think that's her number there the one
that's lit up in green here
an unfortunately this is a problem with
this uh platform
we don't know but i just wanted to bring
that up to you for the record i don't
know how you would handle that mr
sussman but
i believe we have a member who can't
express her opinion but she can hear us
but she can't
voice her opinion well i haven't heard
uh she wasn't present at the roll call
and i haven't heard her uh if she is
president now
i haven't heard her attempt to join in
the discussion
so uh at first i'm concerned
she's not present if she is present
and want to be heard i think now is the
opportunity
for her to say something and we can
decide how to deal with it
uh after that
okay just i believe she was present at
the time the roll call i
in the sense that i saw the same thing
light up but
see that as a may i something i just
want to get on the record so
um we can honor her
participation in some way if she
requests
it mr mr jacobian
a roll call was me
yes i'm aware okay um
at this time um
i think we're ready to
begin discussion on case twenty twenty
dash
okay
case 2020-3 application
from francis a and stephanie white
owners and free sample of real property
known
of 8203 elm lane
for a 7.5 variants of section
290-19a
of the town of chesapeake beach to allow a new
house to encroach 7.5 feet into the
required 15 foot front yard
and a variance to section 290
17 e 2
to allow encouragement into the required
25-foot non-top
tidal wetland buffer plus
area of disturbance
okay um
can you see the screen my screen
yes okay thank you
um so
i i i'm not going to go through the
entire background like we did last time
this is 8203 elm
lane the house is shown here in this
rectangle the house is outside
of the buffer so it doesn't encroach
as a physical permanent uh entity
into the buffer however there will be
presumably some level of construction
activity
and candidly i don't know the extent of
that
but it will occur within the buffer
if you see this line here says lod
that means a limit of disturbance
and i believe well i'm going to leave it
to the applicant to make the case
but i know there's some overlap and some
of the level of disturbance
or limit of disturbance excuse me enters
into the buffer
um some amount here so there's the house
the setback actually looks like it's 7.2
feet here
um the this is the driveway
and the parking area um
and um
it seems like all the other off-site
conditions are have been discussed already in
context of 8207.
so i'll just the interest of time end it
there and if there are any questions
feel free to ask me
are you done chris yes yes
oh okay
we're not here from the uh applicant
hello again this is bill watson i'll
discuss with all of my qualifications
and so on and keep the
background information as brief as chris
did with his
um the only thing that i say with regard
to background
is that lot 32r which is the subject of
this case
is slightly larger than the first one
that we did
lot 32r is 11 570 square feet
so we're dealing with a little bit
bigger lot in large part
due to the addition of the avenging
portion of the old friedley avenue
now as chris pointed out
there is a pair of
intersections which occur where the
limit of work or limited disturbance
rather
goes into the buffer one on the
both are on the rear side of the house
one
is up near the existing sewer
easement line and one is directly south
of that
i'm going to turn my screen on again so
bear with me
keeps moving around on me
can you see the drawing
i cannot okay let me try that again
i forgot to hit the share button now can
you see the drawing
yes sir okay
the yellow rectangle
is the proposed house same as before 40
by 24.
the white line that's curving
and i'm running my cursor over top of it
now
is the limit of the non-title wetlands
the green one uh excuse me the non-title
wetlands buffer
the green line that i'm now running over
is the
division between wetlands
and non-tidal wetland buffer
at the northern part of the property
there is
a impact
and that is 88 square feet
and the southern part of that area
there's a second impact uh oops
just of 33 square feet
so we've got a total of 121 square feet
impact
this is mainly for grading and sediment
control
once the project is complete assuming
that it gets approved to move forward
which i hope it will um
that will all be stabilized with grass
and you'll never know anybody was back
there grading in a year or two
the reason that there is even any impact
is that to put
non-total wetlands as close to that
house as
they are and off of the northeastern
most corner
the non-paddled wets
are only 5 and 45 100 of a float away
hardly room enough for equipment to get
out there and dig foundations
or at least that's what was in my mind
at the time digging a footer
and then doing the block work and then
getting outside of the building and
backfilling
the house now since
my client and barrett's client has
indicated a willingness to
uh consider putting the house on piling
or stilts
some of that will be minimized uh
perhaps even go away
because the amount of grading back there
will be
next to none so i could say
that subject to having an opportunity to
spend a little bit more time
looking at the grading plan and looking
at the design
of the house on stilts it's likely
that we'd be able to eliminate the
impact on the wetland buffer altogether
but out of a
an abundance of caution i would rather
leave that in the application at this
point
only so that it doesn't get lost
because it is rather small at 121 square
feet
the driveway is not in the bumper as mr
truviax said
it is on the lot again a 20 by 20
that extends out to the existing
education
uh and there's some area to the north of
the proposed driveway
that is labeled a removal of existing
paved parking
areas 251 square feet
um
i from my standpoint i can work with
either condition of
providing a turnaround elsewhere leaving
the pavement there
or something else that the board may
come up with but i would defer to my
client
to make the final decision on that
i believe that
the the pavement removal
is only um one
maybe two parking spaces if you jam them
in there tight
and could easily be replaced if my
client has the opportunity and the
desire
so i think i've covered the the
salient points for this site
which are very minimal amount of impact
to the wetland buffer
being out of an abundance of caution on
being able to give an equipment operator
adequate room to get around on the back
side of the house
to do a traditional foundation if we go
with a
piling different story i'd like to have
the opportunity to take a look at it
and with that i'll pause
put myself on mute and let members ask
me questions
or let tony um pitch in
on any additional points that he'd like
to make on behalf of our mutual client
okay hearing none i'll ask the applicant
to introduce
anyone who's offering testimony
this is anthony o'lex and again um
kind of building upon what bill was
mentioning there
is is part of the disturbance that's
associated within the buffer
is there in order to provide drainage
around the house
which with the last case was a concern
that is that is part of what we have
looked at at this point
um to develop what we believe is the
limits of disturbance and the impacts
into this
is in addition to providing room to be
able to work around the house itself
is creating a swale uh that directs
runoff um essentially from the northwest
corner
of this house and the other house as
well that's about
ranges from about a foot to two foot in
depth
compared to the finished floor elevation
of the house and directs the water
around each side
um you know so i guess that was a little
bit of what
you know i learned with the last case
and probably a point that i should have
made is
that that is part of what we have looked
at with this
um and things that we have taken into
consideration
uh and absolutely as we move forward
through the building permit process and grading
permit processes that we will also be
complying with
all of those requirements as they relate
to storm water management
sediment erosion control and any other
code requirement
um you know the
mr white who spoke uh that will be
building both of these houses and in
this case is the owner of this property
uh talked about is you know
i think we're absolutely willing to look
at the opportunity
uh to build the house on piles um it's
just you know something that just kind
of came up
today i think uh whether it's piles or
whether it's anything we would
absolutely be looking to make sure that
we're raising the house high enough
uh taking into consideration future uh
potential for flooding in
the somewhat near future uh
in all of those things it's there is a
little bit of
engineering judgment and calls and
things like that that we do need to make
as we work through that
um and try to figure out what the best
solution is
uh but i absolutely know that in any
case we'll be complying with any codes
and requirements and ordinances that we would need to in this case
and really what we've done and kind of
what bill alluded to
in this case is that we're taking a
little bit of a conservative approach to
make sure that there's enough room
uh to get the water around the house
itself
and provide you know room uh reasonable
room
for constructability uh but with the
front
setback reduction that actually you know
that was
recommended by mr jacobi app was that a
got us out of the buffer with the
structure all together
so the impacts that we're talking about
here in this case
with the uh front yard setback are all
temporary impacts to that buffer um
you know and that's you know i think was
it was a great recommendation especially for this
lot where it was
able to get us out of that so um
yeah i just wanted to kind of put that
out there that there are some of these
you know some of these details are the
things that we
have looked at so far um to to be able
to define
these variants requests and we'll
continue to look at them as we go
through the next steps
of permitting
okay uh madam chair may i uh
say something for a moment yes uh
given the way this uh hearing has
progressed
uh there were references uh during the
hearing on 2020
to this particular application and there
was some
uh testimony during the hearing on that
uh
2020-2 that would be relevant to this
particular application
i'd like to suggest that the board uh
accept and incorporate by reference you
know
all of the evidence and test testimony
uh presented in the hearing on 2020
death 2
into the record of this particular case
that way
if you need to you'll be able to rely
upon anything from
that hearing
okay comment from the board on that
hearing no objection
fine yes
so so directed
okay any more for the applicant before
we go to the opposition
sharon did anyone indicate interest
in uh given testimony
for all gangster 2020-3
i do um
uh the only comments that i received was
from gary cole smith and i believe that
he was
addressing both of the lots but gary can
speak for himself if he's still
on i'm chairman i am still on
do you want to speak yes ma'am
please do okay
uh again i want to reiterate that i
think that
with the use of raising the house
uh and the parking underneath
there is no need for the reduction in
setback
and i think that all the tile elevation
type installation lessens the impact
after construction of those houses
and i would not object to that but the
two the things i we have to regurgitate
here are
there still has to be a t turn around
there's no it can't have people come down we have the trash
trucks come down
once a week cycling truck comes out once
a week
a mailman comes out once a day uh
ups with deliveries fedex
amazon everybody comes down the street
to service the people on the street
and they need a place to turn around a
turnaround needs to be
entertained parking for the
grandfathered lot needs to be uh
addressed i mean these people cannot
help that that lot was
approved the law was approved by the
old subdivision plan and based on a
50-foot wide street
so that has to be addressed and the
approval
by the town of chesapeake beach is
required to do
anything in the right of way and i don't
know how that can follow
uh an approval by the of ovarian
when you have to you should know all the
requirement that all the requirements
were met
and it approved this the town did not
approve the use utilization of
that right away for any purposes that
this
variance addresses then
your approval was uh
you know that doesn't exist i i still i
think that we are good
doing things out of order i think that
first that you needed
that this this plan for this needs to
address
the type of foundations you have the the
stormwater
management of the street and the
approval by the town just a big beach of
you
any of the utilization of the public
right-of-way
and then and only then can you make your judgment that's my personal opinion
but i believe that's
the the town ordinances there is a town
ordinance that says
you must require acquire the mayor's
approval may earn tax house approval but
do anything in the right of way the town
chesapeake
beaches street so i i do believe
that that is definitely going to have to
be done prior to any approvals you make
now a quick i'll stop beating a dead
horse at that point and
the uh the fact that the this this plan
now has a
construction entrance off of a section
of elm lane that is not a two-way street
is too narrow it's only 13 feet wide
at that location and it enters is right
at my the entrance to my
driveway and uh i can i can see right now that there
will be issues with me getting in and
out
so it will impact the neighborhood uh so
i guess that
[Music]
if you if you could address those issues
uh i wanna make so very clear i'm not
against building on these lots
i i am very much uh in favor of it
i just know that they need to meet those
requirements and and
i think those requirements are
legitimate so uh thank you for your time
man sheriff
mr jacubia did you have any other
comments to me
uh no i have no other comments
okay
and we have no more speakers so at this
time i will close
the public i
have one question if i could
sure
it's based on well the question i have
simply
is let's say the houses aren't built
where is everybody turning around now
for one and two they're not turning
around on the space that's there now
because they're full of cars so i'm
trying to figure out where everybody's
turning around
i understand fedex and ups and the
mailman
and trash man everybody's coming down
the street but where's everybody turn
around now
that's what i don't understand and i
don't have a problem
i'm listening go ahead i'm chairman yeah
yes uh right now a lot of people come
down my driveway and turn around at the
bed to my house
which is not very convenient and it's
not very well
the the vehicles that are parked up
there as you said there are three
vehicles that belong to
his grandfather-in-law the other
vehicles
you probably see there are people who
live with the other in two of the other
homes
and occasionally they don't park there
the requirements for a t turnaround
are signage by the town chesapeake beach
that require
no parking that is to be maintained as a
turnaround
sometimes vehicles do have a difficult
time turning around there
in in in that is a a
issue for the town but the fact that you
take away
any possibility of
a vehicle being able to turn around
there and
have it in fact the driveway to a new
home
where those people may want to park out
in
front of the their homes uh it just
complicates the problem so yes that
right now there is a problem
and and i sent an email out to town
chesapeake beach telling them that what i want to see is i would like to see that the teeth turn around
remain
and be marked as it's supposed to be
with no parking signs
i completely understand that but the
thing is every time i come down there
there's four to five cards in there but
there is no marking there is no signs
and that's what i don't understand i i
just don't
know i'm trying to wrap my head around
it that's all i mean
madam chair can i try to address this i
think
so yeah um i think what we're talking
about is a lot of work that's going to
occur
with inside of the right-of-way the
public right-of-way that is there
that is going to be part of the
permitting process that we're going to
have to work through after this step
um if i remember right from the drawings
uh the wetland buffer does not really
encroach into any part of the right of
way
the buffer itself is on the lots of
themselves
um so if they're you know i think we're
absolutely willing to try to figure out
a good solution with mr jacubiak and the
town engineer
as we move forward um to try to address
any concerns that the town may
have about turn around or parking that
is lost
um in a reasonable manner but as far as
this request for variances or these
requests for variances go it really goes
to the siding of the house
on the lots themselves which
i believe has been cited in a way um
to minimize any impact to those buffers
whatsoever so
we'll um you know absolutely continue to
work through the process in the next
steps
um i know it's very common of any board
approval or planning commission approval
that you're you're required to get any
necessary permits moving forward and
comply with code
with the next steps that you are have to
take
with part of that uh i just as it stands
right now we've
sighted the house and we've taken
measures on the lots themselves
to try to minimize those impacts and
that's what these variants requests are
based on
does anyone else want to speak before we
stop the public comment and the board
begins discussion madam chair dave dave
ferguson here
um i you know listening to you know mr
coldsmith's
argument that the board shouldn't
consider the variance
until these uh issues with the
turnaround and the parking
are resolved uh
you know i this is beyond my area of
expertise but it seems to me
and and maybe between mr jacobiak and mr
sussman
we can clarify that seems to me that the
application for the variants needs to
precede
the application for building permits and
uh you know the the things that
then the town has to get involved with
as far as the right of way
and the turnaround and signage and so
forth
it seems to me that without approval of
the variance
the applicants cannot go forward with
building plans
uh and a request for a building permit
am i correct in that uh
from the town planner's response first
uh yes and this is a
the subject before you as a variance two
variances
all related to the building placement on
the lot i suppose that sometimes
other issues could come into the um
the discussion but here the location of
the parking
lot and whether the tap parking pad and
whether the town will require
uh a 16 foot uh throat for the driveway
or
18 or 25 or even may even require that
the parking pad extend further into the
site but not into the buffer but further
in order to give more space for so
there's no one parking
in an area where someone could come in
and use it as a turnaround
those are issues we're going to work out
i mean i can assure you we're going to
work it out
but that's not subject to the variance
request before you in my view
and yes any work in the town right of
way
does require town approval um and if
it's a changing street or adding street
or improving the street
adding new parking on the street
widening the street
uh and if someone wants to do it as an
individual private owner yes they need
they require town approval
and and often that approval requires
mayor and council approval but but
building a driveway
off of a public street does not require
mayor and council approval
um it's
if i may uh just you know add to what mr
tsukubiak said
first i agree with everything he said
and the second point i would make
is that uh if the applicant
is unable to procure all the necessary
uh town approvals and perhaps county
approvals to the extent county approvals
are required
to build the houses uh that have been
authorized
by the variants so they won't be able to
build them this is
precisely it is the first step in a
multi-multi-layer process
i'm sure may i
yes uh
actually the use you have
shown on your drawings that you're going
to remove
part of the street of chesapeake beach
that chesapeake beach
owns and installed i was present when it
was paid
the last time i wasn't president was
paid the first time it was paid when i
first moved here
20 years ago so the town chesapeake
beach owns that right away
and with without their approval the information that you have on your
various requests
is incorrect so that is why i'm saying
that what you are that there are certain
aspects of this various requests that
need to be addressed
prior to the variance being approved or
contingent upon the various beings
thank you mr kohl's mr cole smith uh
dave ferguson here uh the
only variances we are approving is the
seven and a half foot
setback and the uh encroachment into the
wetlands buffer
those are the only two variances that
this board is addressing
all of those other issues i believe will
be addressed
in the building permit process
you know later on hey i'm
madam chairman uh
the information that you have in front
of you is the information necessary for you to
make the determination for the variance
part of the variance that they're
requesting is the seven and a half foot
difference in the setback if i have if
we have a t
turn around in front of that house and
you it is only seven and a half feet
from the t turn around and i have a
garbage truck
and you all have seat garbage trucks
from the back wheel base
to the end of the dump of that garbage
truck is probably seven and a half feet
so if someone were in a garbage truck
and use the t turnaround and it was at
that
property's entrance or properties
uh property line and we utilize the
entire width of the right-of-way
then that garbage truck would probably
strike the structure
so i'm telling you it is very important
to consider
what we are doing in that street prior
to approving a seven and a half foot setback
allowance
thank you
before i go to the board for discussion
chris uh mr jacobia
yes can you cite again what will happen
should uh the variances
be approved conditionally
the um the applicant will
obtain your approval your resolution and
those conditions will establish
uh what they actually submit to you or
to me
as the zoning administrator um
a a detailed sally plan like
what you see here perhaps even more
detailed will be submitted to me
and to the town engineer and we will
review it
and it will also be reviewed at the same
time by
calvert county and
there are other issues that we even
haven't even mentioned there's critical
area mitigation requirements
for instance this property is probably
going to have to plant a lot of trees
uh and if they can't plant them on the
site they may have to pay a fee in lieu
of
planting the trees we may could
potentially require that part of the
driveway be
made of pervious pavers conceivably you
know there's a whole series of standards that
have to be applied and met
and i would imagine a thorough review
process just like we would give
uh any applicant even more so because
it's in the critical area
so the questions about what the driveway
is where it's located
uh what the maneuverability in this
street
is and what it ought to be for the type
of street it is
all those issues will
be reflected and i hear mr goldski
smith's concerns and i
share some of those concerns too but
those are ultimately
site plan issues and town issues about
how it wants to use its own
right-of-way but they will be
addressed yes
okay
at this time i think
the board needs to move into
its deliberation
and i'd like to start with uh
with you mr ferguson
uh yes madam chair um
i would uh
i i'm at the point right now where
these two particular cases
uh o2 and o3 are so similar
that i would like to make a motion
uh well i won't make a motion until
after we've heard from all the board
members but i believe
uh you know that this one looks
uh very much like the previous case and
that we should uh
you know ask mr sussman to uh to
draft a memo uh with
uh approval and conditions
uk
you're muted
so sorry uh i agree with mr ferguson these cases are
extremely similar i think all of us have
well certainly mr cole smith has brought
up some excellent points and if they're
going to be addressed
then i think we ought to have that
memorandum from
mr sussman and take a look at the
conditions and see what uh makes sense
or does it make sense
mr holm star i agree with both mr
ferguson and miss brooking
okay
uh david you're muted excuse me
thank you i uh i'm unmuted now
i was just going to say i will make a
motion
that uh the board
asked mr sussman to uh draft a memo
reflecting approval of the two variances
in this case
and proposing uh some conditions
including the one recommended by mr
jacobiak
that the building be on pilings
uh and others that uh you know
we may wish to consider based upon the
testimony we've heard
and provide those to the board for
consideration
i second the motion made and accepted
approved
and uh mr sussman
you will prepare the resolution
yes madam chair i'll prepare both
resolutions for the board
okay
with that
well now
i will now take a look at the resolution
i assume you have a copy of it
madam chairman i think i can go ahead
and sign off now i just wanted to thank
everybody for their time tonight
um i know there was a lot there
challenging lots so i appreciate
everybody's time and consideration
thank you thank you yeah thanks very
much
have a good night good night
uh yes thank you very much
thank you thank you too
okay we'll now move on to review of the
written
decision
uh for the board of appeals case
2020-1
board of education of calvary county um
beach elementary school replacement
project
at seventy nine hundred o bayside road
chesapeake beach maryland
has um all of the board members
received and reviewed the resolution
yes yes
sharon do we have required signatures
um what i'll do is i'll send the
resolution out
uh via docusign for everybody to sign it
if you approve it of course
any comments from board members
i only have one administ administrative
observation
and it may be an incompatibility of the
version of
microsoft word i've got but every page
number is
two we have ten pages two ten second
pages
um uh
mr ferguson the one that i was sent out
has every page separately numbered there
were ten pages
and at the bottom you know so that's why i said it may have been an
incompatibility with my version of word
i've got an older version
so mine has 10 pages okay
i'm assuming everyone else's does
jan yes ma'am mine does
yeah okay that's why i said it was
administrative
um i had one
i thought the the uh
everything was written up really well
i thought this was very well documented
and uh i didn't have any issues
with uh anything except uh
on the next to last page
the
near the bottom of the next to last page
uh
paragraph c says this variance is
subject to the time limitation
set forth in 290-32h of the town code
and then the special exception is
subject to time limits
sent forth in 290-12 i three
of the town code so i recall
a case not too long ago where we
as the board had to go in and reconsider
or grant an extension
because somebody didn't get their permit
didn't start building within the one
year time limit and
having 41 years experience is a
government
plan planning programming and budgeter i
know
this is a government project to build
this school
and our town code i looked it up
and and both time limits are
uh the the approvals
are valid for a period of one year uh
unless a zoning permit is obtained and
erection of the alter or alteration uh
is underway uh
and then there's also on the special
exception it's
one year and there can be two successive
extensions
of periods not longer than six months
each
so i'm just i looked back through all of
the documentation on the school project
and i didn't find a date
a funding year or a start date or when
they
intend to start construction so i'm
you know wondering if we're building
ourselves a box here
uh you know because this
uh variance is limited to
one year and is the school construction
going to be
sufficiently underway
and i don't know that we have any option
to grant them a longer period of time
because it's in the town code
so that i just thought i should express
that concern
and mr ferguson i think that you're
absolutely right uh
even if it was not in the resolution
it's in the town code and they would
still be bound by those time limits
uh and then if they're approaching the
end of them
and they're still uh not underway yet
they can come back to the board for an
extension
yeah so don't buy paperwork away we may
see this again
exactly well um
the clock will essentially start
once they come they have a year to come
in and obtain a
zoning permit right then that extends
things
again and i expect them in front of the
planning commission
imminently maybe even in september quite
conceivably
if not then certainly october um
and i have a sense that they're moving
pretty pretty quickly but i had the
exact same issue
concerned i thought about bringing it to
your attention then i saw
the the code doesn't allow us for you to
put a condition
in the approval to extend that and i
thought wow that would be a nice thing
to have the ability for the board of
appeals to
extend an approval as you grant it i
know some jurisdictions do that
yeah let us talk to the town council
about that right
maybe it's yeah worthwhile doing okay
that was my only concern i i know
you know that the not only do you have
the timeline for the permitting
and you know process and zoning but then
you
then you've got the whole government
budgeting process and nothing happens
faster
well that concludes
our hearings for today well madam chair
you need a vote on the resolution
i thought we did that maybe i'm not it
is time
everyone received their copy reviewed it
let me take the vote
mr ferguson hi
mr k hi
mr hoonstown hi
the resolution is accepted and
one side
will be placed in the record
and that concludes
our hearing unless there's something
else
you like to address anything else
thank you thank you thank you good night everybody
you