 Welcome to the Board of Zoning Appeals members, staff, and guests. We ask for your patience during this virtual meeting. Multiple staff members are behind the scenes to make sure all applicants and citizens are able to communicate with the board at the appropriate times. Board members and applicants are participating via Zoom. Some are using video and all are using their audio. I will unmute applicants when their cases are called. Everyone, please just be aware of your audio and be mindful of anything in the background of your video that could cause distraction. The public has the ability to participate in a number of ways so they can watch the city TV. They can participate by sending statements via email, call in by phone or log into publicinput.com. To stream the meeting, you can go to youtube.com slash user slash Columbia SC government or if you go to the main Columbia SC.gov page, there'll be a red ticker at the top of the screen. By email at COC board meeting at Columbia SC.gov. That email is being monitored during the meeting up until the time we go into board discussion with the case. By phone, you can call 1-855-925-2801. And you'll be prompted to enter in a meeting code. The code is 7-914. And once you call in and enter the 7-914, you'll have a few options. You can hit star one, which allows you to listen to the audio of the meeting. Star two allows you to record a voice message. That'll be read into the record. Just please make sure you speak clearly and leave your name and case information. And star three allows a participant to be placed in a queue to speak live when prompted. If you would like to speak live, you can wait until your case is called and hit star three. You're able to hit that at any time. That way staff monitoring public input will be able to see which specific case you're wanting to speak for. You can also stream at publicinput.com.cocboza.apr2021. So, and again, just if you're participating by phone while also watching on your computer, go ahead and mute the audio on your computer so that you're not getting playback issues with the audio. And there is a delay with the audio between Zoom and the live recording. So if you notice that we pause every once in a while, it's just to allow the audio to catch up. And I'll go ahead and do roll. Mr. Dinkins. Here. Mr. Gregory. Here. Mr. Primus. Ms. Stevens. I'm here. Ms. Spinner. Here. Mr. Gignard. I'm here. We have a quorum. OK, applicants with requests before the Board of Zoning Appeals are allotted a presentation time of 10 minutes. This time should include but is not limited to an overview of the project, case history, and any pertinent meetings held regarding the request. This time also includes all persons presenting information on behalf of the applicant, such as attorneys, engineers, and architects. This time limit does not include any questions asked by the Board of Zoning Appeals or staff regarding the request. Any member of the general public may address the board in intervals of three minutes or five minutes if by a spokesperson for an established body or for a group of three or more. The applicant will then have five minutes for a butthole. The Board reserves the right to amend these procedures on a case-by-case basis. The Board uses the consent agenda to approve non-controversial or routine matters by a single motion and vote. If a member of the Board or the general public wishes to discuss an item that's on the consent agenda, that item is removed and placed on the regular agenda. The Board then approves the remaining consent agenda item. First up, we have the approval of the March 4th, 2021 minutes. Next was item number two on the agenda, which was 1730 Hollywood Drive. We did receive some neighborhood correspondence on this, so we put it in here just to remind me to remind you that this case is actually going to be bounced to the regular agenda. The next case is 919 True Street, Unit H, special exception to permit a beauty shop. Case 2021-0035, a special exception at 2315 Taylor Street to permit a public dormitory. Case 2021-0037, a variance at 1417 Maple Street. This is a variance of less than 1% to the maximum lot coverage for an addition. In case 2021-0040, this is a special exception at 3905 West Belt Line. Unit 22, to permit a banquet hall slash event space in the general commercial district. Does anyone wish to have a case removed from the consent agenda prior to the Board vote? I will have Erica and Andrew looking at public input to see if we've got many emails or states. Rachel, I was having a little volume difficulty. You said the pool case is on the regular agenda now, the background pool. Yes, 1730 will be on a regular. Okay, good emails that have come in. So we'll see if we have anyone on the line to speak. At this time, we don't have any callers that wish to speak. Thank you, I'd like to ask for a motion regarding the consent agenda, please. The consent agenda subject to staff comments. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Okay, motion passed. We're going to use the following format for the regular agenda. So staff will introduce the case. Applicants have 10 minutes to make a presentation and to go over their request. The board can ask questions at any time and the public will be allowed to participate again via email, voicemail, or phone comment. The applicant will have an opportunity for a rebuttal after public comment and then for discussion. I went ahead and just put it first on the regular agenda case 2021-0032. This is for 1730 Hollywood Drive. Special exception to permit an above ground swimming pool. If the applicant is on the line, they're welcome to unmute themselves and go over their request with the board. I am available. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to review everything. I guess we're aware of one objection to our request for a special exemption to the permit on the above ground pool at our home located at 1730 Hollywood Drive. In response to the statement that it's an above ground pool and it'll create an ugly eyesore, we would just like to remind the board that it's in our backyard, which actually happens to have a four foot brick wall on the driveway side and also a six foot tall brick wall on the other side. So it is actually not visible and will not create any distraction. And then also in response to the statement that visitors to the above ground pool will exuberate the parking situation. This is for family personal use and we do have off street parking. So there would be no impact on people driving by or the visibility of the pool. I say also, I guess in closing, I want to just, we've been, my wife and I have been residents of the Hollywood Rose Hill neighborhood for 10 years. And also I've served on the neighborhood association in the past and that we, the neighborhood is something that is very important to us. And we just like to, we do care about the neighborhood. Thank you, Mr. Lewis for your presentation brief. But to the point, I'll be honest with you, I didn't even know that you had to go in front of the Board of Zoning Appeals to have an above ground pool, to be honest with you seems pretty straightforward to me. Do any Board members have any questions for the applicant? None here. None here. Briefly, it looks like you got a four foot high brick fence at the end of the driveway and then a 52 inch tall pool. Is there going to be like a deck around the pool up high? No deck, it would have a, I guess a ladder. That you could climb in and out and also the ladder that we have chosen has, you can flip it up and have a locking mechanism on it. And then also, I mean, during this, when it's not in use, it could be pulled out. So we did not have any plans on putting the pool or a deck around it. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Rachel, I know we had one letter regarding this matter that you provided us. Do you need to read that? Or is that just part of the packet? No, I'll reference them. So we did receive the letter of opposition yesterday. Let me get the names of the individuals so we can just have on the record the names of who sent in the letters. Because then I forwarded you all the follow-up from the applicant today. The letter came in from a Margaret McGee yesterday and that was provided to the board. That was a statement of opposition. And the applicant responded today and also provided a letter of support from Patrick. And I'm sorry if I say this last name wrong. Saucier, so that was a letter of support received today. So there's been no other written comments provided. Rachel, I'm having a little bit of a hard time hearing you. Is it on my end? Can you all get Rachel good, everyone? I can hear Rachel just fine. I can too. It's on my end because I'm having a hard time hearing you as well, Catherine. Okay. Do you have ear buds? I don't have any here with me. Normally I don't have a problem at all. I don't know what's going on. Have you selected original sound or tried toggling back and forth? Do you have an option? I haven't done anything different than I normally do. Can you all hear me at the same level as normal? It's fine. Okay. Well, anyway, I can hear what you're saying. I can make it happen. I was just curious if everyone else was also for recording purposes. But if you go up and you can see where it says turn on or off original sound, just toggle it and see if one sounds better than the other. So you may have inadvertently toggled it. I don't know. I'll make sure to project. So are we up to the point where I can ask some questions like from Rachel? Do you all want to see if there's any public and other? Yes, please, please. Just Erica, is there anybody on the phone? I don't see any new emails that have come in. No, we don't have anybody on the line. Okay. Well, I guess this brings us to our board discussion. Is there any board discussion? Let me ask. Yes. I have a few questions, I guess. I did live behind a swimming pool at one point in my life, and it was very annoying, actually. So I can see that. But I guess that was an in-ground pool. So it doesn't, I suppose this only applies. They only need to get a special exception if it's an above ground pool. Yes. Okay. And they talk about how they're not going to put a deck around. But once they have approval to have an above ground pool, they could subsequently put a deck around it. Or would that require some additional issue because of lock coverage or something? The deck on its own wouldn't trigger lock coverage. So that would just be a basic deck permit. So I mean, they potentially could get a deck around it at some point. Okay. And so if, for some reason, students decided to rent the house. I was thinking about, yeah, these are really nice people right now, but what about in the future? The future homeowners could be some students and they decide to have a party. I suppose the remedy for an unpleasant situation would be to call code enforcement for noise or the police for noise things. So, all right. This approval would stay with the property. Right. Just on the owner. Right. Right. Correct. So while these might be perfectly nice people, that doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't be a problem in the future. But at the same time, if they wanted to dig an in ground pool, they could do that without having to come to us at all. Correct. That would be permitted outright. So the issue might be the perceived drop in property values, like sort of mobile home issues, that sort of thing where it's considered to be trashy to have an above ground pool or something that would hurt your property value. Is that the rationale behind it, do you suppose? Or does anyone know or? Our code is from the late 70s. So I don't know. I don't know what the rationale was for. And the new code is between the two. What about the new code? It remains a special exception in the new code as well, just as a carry over. Okay. Well, I'm glad we spent a lot of time getting a fancy new code that we still don't know why it's there. All right. I don't have anything further, I guess. I mean, I would say that it's there because there can be aesthetic issues and just making sure screening, I think is most likely the reason why there's extra requirements. So basically, I mean, above ground pool is permitted, but just like with any special exception, it's something that's permitted. But depending on the area, it just needs to get a closer look. Okay. So they put in above ground pool and then the new people and the new owners decided they wanted to build a really high above ground pool. They wouldn't have to come back. Although why you'd want to, I don't know. So a diving pool, above ground diving pool. Anyway, I can't come up. I'm having trouble figuring out why somebody would be upset about it beyond what I've said. So I mean, the issue with like a deck built around it, like you see sometimes to give like sort of an elevated platform at the height of the top of the pool edge, then because it's four inches above the height of the brick wall at the driveway side, you then you got people hanging out four feet or four feet, four inches above the ground. That's why I said question because to me, that's a little bit more obtrusive. If there's a deck built around it where people are hanging out, elevated above the height of the fence, you know, as far as the, you know, the impact on the neighborhood. And the deck could be built subsequently. Okay. I'm struggling with not, can we require some better landscape screening on the four foot side wall with that to alleviate some concern from that side or be agreeable to that? A little hard to hear you, John. Would the applicant be agreeable to installing some landscape screening, some taller bushes or something to that four foot side, four foot wall, what side is there? I would have to look into that. I think I'd also be happy with just, I don't know if there's wording that says no deck permitted around it or at the same level or same height about it, because that is not our long-term plan is, our long-term plan is not to keep the pool there, is to actually put an in-ground pool. And I think since it is a brick wall, I'm not sure what type of items would be sufficient. I mean, you could build the brick wall up a little bit higher. And at the same time, I don't know if putting lattice, yeah, but that might, you know. Aren't you, isn't your insurer going to require a certain fencing, secure fencing to keep kids from falling in? Yes, and that's where the round that's gated and bricks or basically there is a wall behind it so they can't get access to it. So for me, it's sufficient? Yes, okay. Yeah, and I mean, if you all have concerns about a deck, you can place conditions about a deck. That's the main concern. I'm ready to make a motion. That sounds good. If nobody else wants to talk about it, let's go ahead and do it. We approve subject to staff comments and provided that if any deck is built, that it should be screened with, it should be screened so that no deck should be built. It's easier. He said not playing a building one anyway. Provided that no deck should be built. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay. Okay, we have a motion to second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Next case is case 2021-0034. This is a variance at 34 Churchill Circle. It's a variance to the minimum front yard setback for a porch addition. This parcel has a curvature along the front. So instead of having the typical front primary and secondary frontage, it just has one long primary frontage. The applicant, I believe, is on the line and they are welcome to discuss their request with you. Yes, hi. I'm Denise Rowe. Thank you for listening to me this afternoon about our house. First of all, we have talked to all of our neighbors around us and once the sign went up, we had a lot of people inquiring as to what we wanted to do. And of my knowledge, we haven't received any kind of objection to what we want to do. We've also sent some photographs of what we wanted to do, including a perspective of what the porch would look like. Currently, our house has a five-foot stoop with a front door and a stoop. And my husband and I were both retired, would like to add a small porch to be able to put a couple of rocking chairs on it in order to enjoy our front yard. We bought the house two years ago. It was a 1954 bungalow. And since then, we've done quite a bit of work on it to enhance the neighborhood. We've painted it. We've had trees removed. We had the foundation fixed. We put gutters on. We did a lot of outside work. There's what we're proposing to do. That's a better picture of it. You would come down a couple of steps. So it's almost like a semi-short patio because we didn't want to have a rail necessarily. And we know that there's requirements for it to be a certain amount of distance from the ground. So that picture was the closest one I could find of what we wanted to do or would like to do with approval. Originally, we wanted a much larger porch. And that one's a little bit bigger than we're asking for. But when we started working with how met a home design, that's when we found out about the curve and the variance since we live on a curve. So the Palmetto home design is the one that drew the graft for us. And if you look at it, the porch we're asking for across the front meets the requirement of the 25 feet. But when you get to the corner on the right side, that's where it's coming up four feet short. So it's really just a little corner of the porch because of us being on a curve and not necessarily the whole porch. We have reduced the size originally, as I said, we wanted to be much longer. But when we found out about the variance, we shortened it. But you can see from the graft that the corner, which is the front far right, is where it goes over four feet from. So I can't meet the 25 feet right there on that corner. And that was after we had a survey done and found out about the 25 foot variance setback. I should say setback. I'm using the wrong word. So that's what we're asking for is to be able to expand the porch. If we go any smaller than what we're asking for, because we've reduced the size to try to get into the setback, I'm not sure we can get two rocking chairs on it. So that's our request is for that setback variance. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Roll. Thank you for the presentation. Read through your variance request, and I think your answers are detailed and accurate and make sense to me that curvature of the roadway there really does handicap you. Normal situation. If this was just a standard rectangle a lot, you wouldn't even be here in front of us. I understand your request. Without being sad, are there any questions for the applicant? All right. Good. Sounds pretty straightforward. Do we have any public input regarding this matter? I don't believe so, but I'll let Erica just confirm that for us. We don't have any callers on the line for this case. Thank you. Okay. Well, unless someone wants to bring up some board discussion, certainly entertain a motion. Prove subject to staff comments. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Anyone opposed? Okay. Good luck with it. Looks good. Thank you very much. It'll be a great addition to the neighborhood. Great. Thank you. Next case is case 2021-0036. This is a variance at 1801 Taylor Street. It's a variance to the minimum parking requirement for physical fitness. If the applicant is on the line, they are welcome to give us an overview of their request. Hey guys, it's Connor. I'm Liz's husband. Basically, we have been leasing the property July last year, July 2020, and we're leasing one suite. It's a two suite property. And now that we're wanting to move into the other side as well, because we're growing the gym, we need the space. And we're moving from 1600 square feet to 3000 square feet. Code said basically that we needed five parking spaces for every 1000 square feet occupied space. And there's only 10 at the property for a 3000 space for a 3000 square foot space. Therefore, you know, we're asking that the other five basically be utilized by the city parking that surrounds the area. If we look on Taylor, you can see right out front, there's a parking spot. There's a couple more down Taylor and along Barnwell as well. And basically we're asking that those city spots be the ones that make up the remaining five that are required for the code. Okay. Thank you. Connor, let's look at your application. And let's go through a few of the criteria here that we're asked to judge this case on. You could just walk us through that. You don't have to read them all word for word, but just want to get a little more of that on the record. Yeah, let me pull it up real quick. I had it pulled up. Thank you. Which section? You could just start with just say, you know, question one, just your answers to one. I'm really kind of curious in your answers. We can all read what the questions are. But yeah, so basically with the requirement of 15 parking spaces for us to occupy the whole space, we, you know, obviously we'd be willing to change the parking lot, but it's non-conforming. So we don't really have the option. The space is still great for us because we don't really need 15 parking spots. We do like small group classes of eight people at a time. And so with the trainer on site that's coaching, really, we only ever need nine spaces at any given time. We do also provide personal training that's usually on a one to one to one to two basis. So you know, if personal training and group classes are going on at the same time, I guess at that point we'd be more than 10. And that's why we want access to the city spaces. We also have a very non-formal, more or less verbal agreement with Midtown. I'm not trying to tie them down to anything by any means. The neighboring church to utilize some of their parking spaces when we need to. That's kind of like an overflow. They've granted us access to three of those spaces. But again, I don't have that in writing, I don't have a contract with them or a lease or anything like that. They're more than happy to allow us to use that on any given basis, except Sundays, of course. The insufficient number of parking spaces is the only thing prohibiting us to growing into the space. The big thing is there's already a demand for us to occupy the entire space. People are signing up for memberships. People are signing up for personal training. You know, it's right down the street from Prisma Hospital. We have doctors that come. We have lawyers next door that are interested. It's like a great addition to the community for us to be in this specific building instead of actually going to the other side of town. It's really the only gym that offers the services that we do in our area. There's a CrossFit gym a couple of blocks away, but you know, we're really different from them, as you can imagine. We're more of like a boutique style strength and conditioning training. So I think that there's some significant credibility there for us remaining where we are in some meeting the variance, if that makes sense. It does. It does. What are your hours of operation? Oh shoot, my life gets there early. It's like we want to start having a 6am class. So, and I remember putting this in the application, a lot of our business is done outside of, you know, your 9-5. We have personal training starting in the you know, 5am to 6am range. And then group classes, we want to start at 6am until I think our last group class will be at 8.30 to 9.15 or so. And we will have classes throughout the day. I'm not trying to make it sound like we won't be running business during the day. Our goal in growing is so that we can run business 12 hours a day. You know, and maximize the like the use of space basically. But yeah, to answer your question, you know, as early as 5am, as late as 7.30, you know, at night. What about Sundays when the church is in there? Yep, no, nothing on Sundays. And on Saturdays, currently we have a class in the morning. It's, we kind of have some tentative plans to have like a second class up till around lunchtime, you know, 11.30 or so. But I don't want to work on Saturday and neither does my wife. And so we don't really want to offer weekend classes. But we have like, again, the demand for it. So we're trying to like, we're trying to like let the people have like, on Saturday mornings, so to speak, but we're not going to run classes on Sundays while the church is going on. Okay, well, thank you, Connor. Appreciate your presentation. Thank you very much. We have questions for that. Any more questions? All right, doesn't sound like it. How about any public input, Rachel and Erica? I don't see any emails. So we'll see if we have any callers. At this time, we don't have any callers on the line. All right, thank you. Okay, thanks. Well, I think we'll move into forward discussion. Looking at, you know, everybody, when we're looking at this overhead aerial shot that you see now, I see at least six painted parking spaces along Taylor Street. They're probably more maybe seven or eight. So as everyone's seen, over the last couple years, this is certainly a common request we get. One of the most common requests that we get is a reduction in parking requirements in these downtown areas, which I think a lot of us agree is a good thing. So like to hear what some of the other board members think operating a lot right now, and they wouldn't be on weekends or whatever is nice, but that obviously is subject to change once they get the exception. They can decide that they want to have some day classes. I think about city yoga and how they were this tiny little business, and then they became very, very, very popular. And they had some trouble with parking. But I think the market will take care of that. I think that they'll have to figure out some if they if that does happen, that they expand so that they have to worry about things, they'll have to figure out how to get spaces. But there certainly seems like there's plenty of parking in the area. And I think we just don't need to be requiring more. It doesn't look like there's any shortage of parking in the area. Yeah, I agree. And I'm glad to hear that these folks are expanding. I think this area means the differences like this. And you know, the building was built in 1971, and maybe because we're a little different then. And so I don't see any reason not to. This doesn't seem to be that much of a request to my opinion. I mean, it is a gym after all. Ideally, they can walk a block. Yeah. That's what I mean by market. I think market forces are going to mean that, you know, if it turns out that they're wildly successful and people don't want to walk very far well, then they'll have to figure something else out. But that's going to be more of a market problem than anything else. Ready to make a motion? Yeah, I agree, Captain. Yeah. I'll make a motion. Okay. I move that we approve this variance request of it. Second. Okay, we have a motion in a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? Good luck with it. Connor looks like a good, glad to see you all expanding. This should be really, really good. Good luck. Thank you guys. We appreciate it very much. And I'll just mention before I get going, I saw that there's a couple applicants still on from the Consent Agenda and after, if your case has already been heard, you're welcome to sign off. You don't have to stay on unless you really want to. The next case is 2021 0038. This is a special exception at 2638 two-notch road or a portion of 2638 two-notch road. It's a special exception to permit self-storage warehousing. The applicant, I believe, is on the line and can unmute themselves and go over their request. Can you hear me, Rachel? Rachel, can you hear me? Okay, great. Sorry, I have muted myself. Yes. Well, no, it's been great vacation, so let me get situated here. Can you pull up the site plan, Rachel? There we go. Okay, so welcome, board members. I'm Hoy Burnett. I'm civil engineer working with a group that is attempting to develop the Midland Shopping Center on two-notch road. I also have John Powell who's done some renderings architecturally for, if you'll notice, the site plan I guess kind of straight up north of the page is the portion of the existing building that is we're proposing to get redeveloped. So that front portion of the facility that is long been vacant and abandoned, we're proposing to renovate into climate-controlled self-storage. And one of the factors in choosing this as a redevelopment opportunity is that the parking count and parking demand for self-storage is significantly less. And if anybody's ever driven by the facility or the shopping center, it is basically a sea of asphalt. And so what this does is gives us an opportunity to redevelop the shopping center because of reduced parking requirements, adds an infusion of new life into this, I guess, long forgotten shopping center. And so we're proposing to do inside climate-controlled, which would be very much hidden, don't really look like it's climate-controlled. And in the rear there's a proposed to be, I guess, outdoor climate-controlled, but it is very much hidden. It's down a steep grade. It's behind several buildings. It's down a long driveway. And so, you know, I wanted to go ahead and address, I guess, the elephant in the room, so to speak, which is one of the questions that talks about a proliferation of blank uses, which we do have kind of the typical self-storage next door to us. But what we're proposing is, on the street, storage that you won't be able to tell is storage because it'll be inside, and then self-storage in the rear, which you won't be able to see. So I just wanted to go ahead and address that because I know that'll be a question that the board wants. And I do have John Powell a lot. I hope he's still there. He can kind of go over real quickly in 30 seconds or so his renderings that show what the building would look like in a renovated state. John, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. And thanks. Before you, Rachel, if you'd go back to the site plan just to clarify, one thing that's not in the renderings is actually Bay Hoyt has set up the parking. You'll see a number of green spaces, sort of in the middle of the site, the long, narrow strip. There'd be a green space also up towards two-notch. And so a great deal of the work being done is actually site improvements, removing a lot of the asphalt and improving that considerably. The renderings were based on the existing asphalt being there. And so as we moved to the renderings, I just wanted you to be aware that there's a lot more landscape going on that would be shown in these renderings. If you know this building, it's vacant in pretty much all of the area that Hoyt mentioned is being renovated. And so if you switch the next elevation, that's the view of the building as renovated from Trenum. There's an existing parapet that wraps that corner that we're going to resurface. And then on the left hand side, there's a very old mural on that wall. They were actually going to open up that wall so that you can see into the building a little bit and provide a drop-off canopy, that sort of thing. As you move the next rendering, I'm trying to remember what order they are. Again, you see sort of that asphalt. A lot of that is actually green space in the revised design. So parallel to the building would be parallel parking spaces and then only one row of parking beyond that. So the bottom right corner where you see parking now, that would most would be green space, which would be a huge improvement. But you can also tell from this running the way the building steps down the site, it drops away from two-notch as you move from left to right in this image. But with that grade change, we actually change elevations inside the building too. And so as you look at some of the other renderings, you'll see other entrances. And these are each designed to be separate aesthetics geared towards separate floor levels within the building. So the intent is to kind of capture the idea that there are separate smaller spaces broken down by the very gray change that's made necessary by the site sloping away. So one thing I'll just point out, you can kind of see trees over the top of this rendering. That's pretty accurate. What is on the other side of this is, as White mentioned, another sort of storage facility, very different looking one, different style. It's an exterior access storage facility instead of this interior access to climate controls storage area. But between the two is sort of a wooded hill. And so there's a lot more green space around this than you might expect, given the way it's approached now. So we're excited. We'd love to see this property be available for more uses right now. It's pretty vacant and it's been vacant for a long time. And I think this would be an opportunity to use more of the site for something that would activate Trenum and Covenant as it comes through. So excited and look forward to your feedback and any questions you have. Thank you, John. Appreciate that very much. Hoyt, this is Gene. Are you going to come in front of us every month with a request? I'm guessing? Probably. Okay, just wondering. Seems like you're quite a freak of fire. But anyway, all joking aside, it looks like a really good project. I realize the request here is for the many warehouses. But you've got a lot of other buildings on this site plan. So this is just a portion of a larger development, I'm guessing. Is that right? Yeah. And I know you guys can't hold us to this. I mean, it's zone C3. This is something that we've collaborated with the developers that are looking to purchase this. And this is kind of what we've come up with conceptually. I'm really intent on adding one of this open common area. Of course, anything we do, we're going to have to meet new city landscape requirements, which will be a vast improvement over. It's literally asphalt from property line to property line, as it currently sits. So they're really excited about, you know, kind of giving some life into this. It's close to Forsakers. It's close to downtown. So they kind of see it as a little bit of a hidden gem location wise. So we're glad to answer any other questions you've got. I think John and I have covered pretty much everything. I think you have too. As always, your application is extremely thorough and does a very good job answering the questions, not just details about the project, but actually answering the questions. So I don't have any questions. How about other board members? I agree it's thorough. I have nothing to ask. Yes, thorough and quite an improvement from what's there now, the sea of asphalt. So no questions here. Absolutely. Okay. Do we have any public input regarding this matter? And I want to apologize. They've just decided now was a great time to do landscaping around my condo. So I'm sorry if you hear a lawnmower in the background. We had received some calls prior to the meeting, but I don't know if they're on the line. Erica can let us know, but I do not see any written comment that's come in. Rachel, we do not have anybody on the phone. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, I'm guessing we won't have much board discussion, but do any board members want to add anything before we make a motion? I think it's kind of funny that we're getting some of these storage facilities and shops. It's like now everyone's bought everything. Now they've got to find somewhere to put it, but that's that's neither here nor there. It does look like a vast improvement. And I think it will animate that area. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, I'd like to make a motion then that we approve the special exception to permit the mini warehousing on the site subject to staff comments. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any want to pose? Okay. Great project, y'all. Good luck with it. Looks very good. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody. Appreciate it. Y'all take care. Next item on the agenda is case 2021-0039. This is a variance at 915 Pine Street. The variance to the maximum lot coverage requirement for a new single family dwelling. The applicants are on the line. They can unmute themselves and go over their request. Good afternoon. My name is Julius Thomas and my wife Megan and I are hoping to build our family of growing girls and I'm only got a new home. We've been in the area since 2004 before we had children. Our house is 917 and we currently stay in and now we've outgrown that and need some more space for three growing girls that are 14, 12, and five. So a lot is very narrow. In order to fit a home that would meet our desires and requirements, we're asking for the variance of maximum coverage for the footprints so we can build up higher and hopefully that we can go ahead and get started on this project to improve our neighborhood and help ourselves. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Thomas, thank you for your brief presentation, looking through your responses here. You know, this is quite a jump you're asking for. Are you going to be able, I don't know, I guess this may be a racial question too. So with a 54% lot coverage that you're proposing, would you be able to meet the minimum setback requirements for this property? It is within a design preservation district so they actually encourage structure to fill up closer to the street. It minimizes the front setback so it's not 25 or 35 but the side and rear setbacks will be required to be met in the district but it does push it up for but this parcel, this development would have to go through DDRC review as well for the new house. And I see your house plans here look nice. What would really be helpful at least to me in voting on something like this would be see some sort of a plot plan or a site plan. Has that just so we can see how this sits on the lot? Has that, do you have that Mr. Thomas? Are you that far? Oh yeah, we've submitted a site plan. Is it just not part of the packet Rachel? Because that would be helpful really. The drawings that were submitted with the Board of Zoning Appeals application. I see the house plans. What I'm specifically asking Mr. Thomas is it would be nice to see or really in my mind I think we have to see how this new structure would fit on the existing lot in order to vote on something like this. With such a huge increase, I don't know how we, how we as a board kind of ask another board member for what you think. I don't know how we're going to vote on this without seeing how it lays out on the new lot. I just checked with staff. We never received a site plan like the one that you're requesting. I guess I'm unfamiliar with what you're requesting. This is my my first time going through a process like this. So I guess I would need more clarification of what you're looking for. Yeah certainly. Basically I see your survey here. Basically what I think would be helpful for the board is to help us visualize how this is going to sit on this property is your house plan sort of superimposed on top of that survey. Okay. Because with such a drastic increase I mean you're asking for a huge increase and I certainly don't know that it's not appropriate and can't work but personally I can't visualize what it's going to look like without that. Catherine do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah I live in infill. It's four units that were stuck in at the corner of Devine and Henderson behind the Old Women's Club and people frequently can't even see my house. Yesterday the other day somebody was trying to find my house and they couldn't even find it because it's tucked back in so effectively at least I think it is that it doesn't look like it's jammed in and it met the we're in the University Hill architectural conservation district and so on. So it met everybody's requirements when it's done well. My concern is when I looked at this it was just hard for me. My house is up on a hill and so it's tucked in among in the hill and kind of vertically fit in. It was a lot harder for me to see how this would fit. It looks like some of those city dreams houses that were built in the early 2000s or is one of the houses next to it but they sure look like like they're the lots are bigger that this lot is very very small. I don't know that it's not possible to build a house that would be aesthetically pleasing and of course aesthetics goes into DDRC issues but I agree with you Jean. I think it's just very difficult without seeing more. On the other hand I can see that it's hard for the applicant to want to expend a whole lot of money getting architectural renderings done if we're not going to let him do it. The site plan or plot plan is very inexpensive. I mean we do those here at Cox and Beacon all the time. I mean that's a he's going to need it to to get a permit. I mean a couple of hundred dollars. I mean this stuff is very expensive. I just I think to your point you know the thing here is we don't know how it's going to look. Yeah or where it is located on the lot. If we're talking about a smaller increase you know I might not be as concerned with it but when we're you know adding 80% lot coverage or whatever it is 30 to 54 or whatever I think we need to see how it sits on the lot. And I think by analogy I would be looking at the at the house with the the front porch at the corner on Churchill Circle that we could visualize that and we could see that it really didn't seem like that big a deal. That's right. It helps the applicants prove their case. That's right. I just received let me look here. I had been trying to find from DRC. This is a hand-drawn basic one but let me see if I can stop sharing and then bring this up on the screen. Christina Poston who's over that area of the Senate. Hold on one second. All right. Do y'all see that? I do and that's that's helpful. Yeah that's what was sent and then here's Pine Street. Yes this was what was part of the DVRC submission. So could someone I'm looking at a very tiny laptop screen could someone just sort of walk me through the numbers. There's not a whole lot of detail to it Catherine. You can see it's a 96 foot approximately deep lot. Okay 38 foot frontage on Pine Street. So it's kind of a rectangle 96 by 38 and then you got a house that's approximately 74 deep of the 96 and then 28 wide of the 38. I think that's a 54 John. Well then they got 20 coming off. You see that it continues down to the 20 foot zero for the driveway. That's a driveway. I got you. Yes all right 54 of the 96 in the depth and then 28 wide of the 38 foot wide lot. So and I do just want to just claim this is subject to change just based on the if DVRC requires any design changes of where the house sits on the parcel etc. So but that would not change the lot coverage. Can we defer until DVRC rules? If you all want to they were kind of waiting to see I mean it was I think it can go in either order. So yeah are we done with the RC next week next Thursday. Yeah John you were getting on something you bring a good point. Yeah we all have very good questions and let's turn this question into a board discussion just yet in case we have any public input. So so we've got our site plan here. This is this is helpful. It's a site rendering site plan. This is helpful. All right. Does anyone else want to ask Mr. Thomas anything before we do see if we have any public input and then discuss it at length. Okay all right well Rachel how about some public input please. We see if we have any callers. So no emails have come in. I will see if we have anyone on the phone. We don't have any callers now. Okay okay great well now let's formally let's say move into board discussion and figure out what you all want to do about this. I don't know if we want to defer and get more information or not but just looking at the other homes along in this neighborhood. There are many other examples. I'm losing you. I said I don't there are many other examples in this neighborhood where the lot coverage is very similar. Just looking at aerials. Oh and I actually just got a message from staff that this site plan has actually changed a little bit. They have a front porch on the front of the house now. So it is actually 70 feet. You were right John. The front porch comes all the way to the road. So it comes closer. There's no front porch in our design. I think it was maybe a back porch screen and porch. Oh it was a back porch. Okay so that must be what it was. Okay yeah so I got 12. What kind of setbacks I mean what does it look like from the teeth on the street? Is there a I know that there were the city dreams houses look like the newer houses work to the south of it. It's roughly five and a half feet on either side between the house and the property line. But I think John Gregory was looking at the the aerials from the of the neighborhood. Yeah yeah okay that's good. Yeah okay yeah it looks like there's the you've got three houses too. I guess that's the south that are very similar and then all of a sudden you have a totally different completely different house right up on the on the sidewalk more or less. There's not a lot of consistency beyond those houses. How what I would want to know is how does this house compare to the newer houses to the south of it. In what way do you mean compare? Visually I mean they look like they're rather large and that they have a lot of coverage but they I mean if you brought like college street, palm street, walnut street, oak street. I mean a lot of these are just smaller lots of nature of the old neighborhood. It was surveyed out a long time ago and I guess that's where DDRC kind of comes into play. So my question is do we do we think as a board do we have enough information to make a decision. I mean it it would be nice to have a ironed out real site plan that we're voting on here in my opinion. I mean yeah I agree with you Gene. I'm kind of a bit baffled. Just such a such a large jump. I mean one thing if we were talking about a 38 percent coverage or the original 42 but we're talking about 54 percent lock covers versus in a 30 percent area. That's a lot. Rachel is this part of the overlay district? It is. It's within a historic preservation district but kicks it to DDRC for design review. It's in the historic lower Waverly. Okay lower Waverly. All right well we don't you know why don't we do this then why don't we let's maybe the applicant will make it easy for us. Why don't we ask him if he's willing to come back next month with a site plan and see what he says. What do you all think? I mean we don't have to do that but we'll just hardly ask him. Yes. That ain't keep us from voting in a way. Let's see what he says. Mr. Thomas I know you're still on. You've heard us. What do you think about coming back to us with an ironed out site plan showing us in a little more detail exactly what you want to do here? Well I'm okay with that because my I pushed my plans back a little bit but my family has been there for 17 years so far. A little a month or so won't hurt us too bad. Okay well very good. All I'm asking for so you're clear is just this how you've already got your house plan but for an architect or surveyor or engineer or someone to take your house plan and superimpose it on top of your survey or your flat so that we can see what you want to do visualize it a little better because this is such an increase that it just we feel like we need to see that. So thank you that makes it easy for us. So with that being said I'll let them make a motion that we defer this case until the applicant is able to provide us with a site plan and get back on our agenda. Second. Okay we have a motion and a second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay thank you Mr. Thomas. Thank you for agreeing to do that. Look forward to seeing you back in the very near future and we'll discuss this in a little more detail. All right thank you. That's all right. Take care. Thank you. All right so just the last matter of business Gene and I had spoken a few weeks ago about doing another kind of training work session. I was waiting to see if we would get our seventh member appointed. They did defer at the last humble meeting. They want to make sure that they pool from district one which is where George was so they were just gathering some more applications so I don't know if we'll have them in time for May. I just wanted to kind of pull you all. Did you all want to wait till we have that new member to do the discussion or do you want to just do it before the next meeting? I guess really Gene because you and I had talked about it. Defer to the rest of the board. What are we talking about? We're just going to go over. We did a training a year or so ago and it seemed to be helpful. So with new members just bringing everybody in to discuss processes, criteria, things along those lines. Who's new since that last training other than myself and Catherine? Hello I'm sorry excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt but my name is Annette Finch and I'm here with my business partner Eleanor Christian and we are 2021-0040-SE and you all didn't call us. Are you on West Beltline? Yes ma'am. Yes you were part of the consent agenda that was voted on in bulk at the beginning of the of the meeting. Well you all were approved. I am so sorry. Thank you guys so much. You all have a good one. Yeah it's just um yes John and Catherine are the new members since the last training. It almost makes sense to wait. We have a new chair now and a new vice chair as well so I mean there's been some shifting. Right. Let's wait. Yeah I think it makes sense to wait for the new member. Okay. Yeah so when we get the new member we'll just set up a work session and we can try to time it or we can do it before the meeting or because it's not 30 45 minutes I mean it's not going to be super long so we can either do it before a meeting or after a meeting so it's not taking another day away from you all. Rachel quick question since we're talking about future. Has there been any discussion yet you know when we'll be back in council chambers? I know you know people are getting vaccinated and virus numbers are looking better. Anyone at the city give you any feel for these types of things? No I haven't I haven't received any update on that yet. Just curious. We'll stop doing virtual though but I'll definitely keep you all posted as soon as I hear anything. Just curious. Okay. All right thanks. So but all right yeah I'll just sit on that the work session until we get a new member appointed so and I'll let you all know when that happens hopefully it's within the next month it would be great for us to have a full deck so. All right well thank you thank you Rachel. All right well do we have a motion to adjourn? No. Okay second. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Okay everybody have a great month. Thank you very much. Y'all next month. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks Rachel.