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Home My WebLink About2001-03 TOWN OF DRYDEN ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS March 6, 2001 AGENDA : ( 1 ) Mawdsley and Mier 4 ( 2 ) McCall MEM . PRESENT : Chairperson Charles Hanley , Stuart Berg , Oers Kelemen , and Nick LaMotte . ALSO PRESENT . Henry Slater, John Mawdsley , Sharon Mier, Michael McCall and Cindy McCall . LEGAL COUNSEL: Randy Marcus #*# ***RR#R#R# *# R**RR#R**#*# R**RR# R#*R*#**RR# R*# R****R **# R*RR*#**Rk* RR#***#* Minutes for August 2000, September 2000, October 2000 and February 2001 were ® approved as amended. ( 1 ) John A. Mawdsley and Sharon R. Mier Chairperson Charles Hanley opened the hearing of John A. Mawdsley and Sharon R . Mier of 470 Beam Hill Road , Freeville who were asking the Zoning Board Of Appeals for a variance that would relieve them from the Dryden Town Zoning Ordinance Article 7 section 703 . 1 which requires a front yard set back of not less than 70 feet from any structure to the center of the road . Chair Hanley read the applicants file into the record and opened the floor for discussion at 7 - 45 p . m . J . Mawdsley : We don 't have much room to maneuver in terms of where we can locate the extension . It' s as far from the road as we can make it . N . LaMotte : Am I correct that their location is a seasonally dead ended highway ? H . Slater: It is considerably beyond where they live . N . LaMotte : In other words there is no through traffic. H . Slater: Absolutely not. S . Berg : What is this " borehole" indicated on the map? J. Mawdsley: That is water supply . 0. Kelemen : The loft will only increase the vertical profile of the house by 2 feet from where it is right now is that correct? J . Mawdsley : Yes . The maximum height of the existing home is about 15 feet. With the loft it will be about 17 foot . 0. Kelemen : How far beneath the road are you? J . Mawdsley : It' s about 15 feet at that point . So the loft will just project somewhat above the road . There are quite a lot of trees between the road and the property. C . Hanley : Anyone else? R. Marcus : A small note of clarification . In the applicant' s response to item number 1 , it is stated that there is a need to move the bedroom wall 6 feet closer to the road than the existing wall . On the sketch that you provided and on the application form it seems to reference moving the wall 2 feet closer than the existing wall . 2 r J . Mawdsley : The existing bedroom wall is 4 feet set back from the line of the house. S . Berg : 2 feet closer to the road than any part of the house was previously . J . Mawdsley : Yes . But the road moves away so it' s debatable whether it is any closer . Certainly 2 feet closer than the existing wall . S . Berg : At most. C . Hanley : Everyone okay? Chair Hanley closed the hearing portion at 8:00 p. m. and instructed the applicant's that they were welcome to stay for the deliberations or contact Henry in the morning. FINDINGS A. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER AN UNDESIRABLE CHANGE WOULD BE PRODUCED IN THE CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD OR DETRIMENT TO NEARBY PROPERTIES WILL BE CREATED BY THE GRANTING OF THE AREA VARIANCE THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS .- The house is situated below the road by about 15 feet on a narrow flat piece of land with a stream and steep bank on the far side of the house . An existing variance allowed the construction of the family/dining room to be built about 10. 15 years ago within about 45' of the road centerline. The main extension proposed is about 66' from the road 3 7 • centerline and will have very little impact . There is a need to move the bedroom wall to accommodate a new corridor to access the new extension resulting in a wall 2 foot closer to the road than the existing wall of the house. As the road is bending away from the house at this point it is still only about the same distance from the road centerline as the closest point of the existing variance . The wall is only 12' long below the road and so will have little or no impact on passing cars . The house is barely visible from the nearest house or the road even in the winter. Motion : S. Berg Second: N. LaMotte In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 B. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE BENEFITS SOUGHT BY THE APPLICANT CAN BE ACHIEVED BY SOME OTHER METHOD , FEASIBLE FOR THE APPLICANT TO PURSUE , OTHER THAN AN AREA VARIANCE THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : The main extension is located as far from the road as the site will allow: the stream behind the house limits further m movement away from the road . The shifting of the bedroom wall is necessary to allow access to the new extension and to retain a bedroom of the existing size ( only 16 ' X 12' ) _ Due ® 4 Y • to these facts and the existing topography the Board finds that this is the only feasible method to pursue . Motion : S. Berg Second: 0. Kelemen In Favor: 4 Opposed: 0 C. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE REQUESTED AREA VARIANCE IS SUBSTANTIAL THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : The change from the pre-existing 16 feet of non -compliance up to the 18 feet of variance is not substantial . Motion : 0. Kelemen Second: N. LaMotte In Favor. 3 Opposed: 0 D . IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE PROPOSED VARIANCE WILL HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT OR IMPACT ON THE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OR DISTRICT THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : The extension will be no closer to the stream than the existing building . No trees will have to be cut down to accommodate the extension . The extension is to be built a foot or two higher than the existing house as the land rises ® 5 Y slightly on this side . No great excavations will be required . Therefore there will be no adverse effect. Motion : S. Berg Second: O. Kelemen In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 E. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE ALLEGED DIFFICULTY WAS SELF- CREATED THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS ' Based on the necessity for the expansion of the home and the limitations of the property the difficulty was not self- created . Motion : S. Berg Second: N. LaMotte In Favor.' 3 Opposed: 0 THIS VARIANCE IS AS EXEMPT / NON -EXEMPT ACTION UNDER SEAR SECTION 617 . 5-c-. 12 Motion : Grant Variance: S . Berg Second : Nick LaMotte VOTE : YES : ( 3 ) Oers Kelemen , Nick LaMotte , and Stuart Berg . NO : ( 0 ) ABSTAINED : ( 0 ) DECISION : VARIANCE GRANTED 6 ® TOWN OF DRYDEN ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS 0 MARCH 6, 2001 AGENDA . ( 1 ) Mawdsley and Mier ( 2) McCall MEM . PRESENT : Chairperson Charles Hanley , Stuart Berg , Oers Kelemen , and Nick LaMotte , ALSO PRESENT : Henry Slater, John Mawdsley , Sharon Mier, Michael McCall and Cindy McCall , LEGAL COUNSEL : Randy Marcus A** #*# #*AAAAAAAA*# **# *# A *AA*# A*AA# #*##* AAAA*# A***# #*#AAAAAAA* R*##*# A## AAAAA ( 2 ) Michael and Cindy McCall Chairperson Charles Hanley opened the hearing of Michael and Cindy McCall of 457 Lake Road , Dryden who were requesting further Zoning Board Of Appeals consideration of the proposed further division and sale of 8 . 125 acres , while leaving 1 . 970 acres with current lot improvements and the 27 feet of public road frontage . Chair Hanley read the applicants file into the record and opened the floor for discussion . R. Marcus : It' s pretty clear that the board focused on the size of the lots when granting the first variance. Given that , the focus tonight should be appropriately the same . Also , in Mahlon' s letter, reference is made to allowing conveyance to a third party versus allowing conveyance only to a neighbor. I will remind you that you can i condition your variance grants in any reasonable way . Such as the possibility of conditioning the consent to allow parcel c- 1 to be divided off and it becoming part of the adjacent property . O. Kelemen : How about use? R. Marcus : You can condition use too . C . Hanley : Mr. McCall I want you to understand where we are going and what we will need to hear and what the basis of the decision is. So is there anything you want to say or expand upon . M . McCall : We talked to Mahlon Perkins . We originally had an agreement between us that Mr. Perkins was 100% going to buy the property adjacent. We didn't hear from him for some time so I finally called him to find out what was going on . He said he was sorry but he couldn't buy it from us . S . Berg : This is c-1 you wanted to sell right? M . McCall : The back lot , yes . He said he couldn' t buy it from us because he didn 't have the money for personal reasons. That put us in a situation because we were coming in here under the terms that our neighbor with the adjacent property was going to buy it and that was a nice thing as far as I looked at it . We have been discussing what we are going to do . It' s a piece of property that if you let us sell , will have to have right of way to it . So we have concerns ourselves about that and we do want to continue to have it be maintained like it has been . So if we were to sell it to someone else we would go with a proposal like you are talking about where , whoever buys it will have to use it for haying or some similar purpose. As far as what Mahlon says about 2 • health codes for septic systems or whatever. This property that we would like to sell , wouldn 't be the place for a septic system anyway. If we have to put one in we will have to put it on the 2 acres that out house is on . Our well is behind us and our septic is out front . It' s my understanding that you can 't have them in the same area . C . McCall : The reason we didn' t buy this smaller piece of property (c-3) to make it a bigger lot in the front is because he didn 't offer that until afterwards . We had discussed that it was a possibility . We would then transfer some of the land at the same rate. We didn't realize until recently that he wanted to trade even up our 8 . 125 acres for his . 6 acres . So that is why we canceled that . R. Marcus : So the way things stand now he is not going to be buying this parcel ? M . McCall : He said right now he couldn't do it . He said he is still very interested , he really doesn' t want someone else to own it as you can tell from his letter. Our point of view is that we need to sell this and we would sell it to someone else if we could . I would still like Mahlon to buy it. There is no agreement at all that Mahlon will buy it from us . S. Berg : What about on the other side ? Vogel ? C . McCall : We haven 't checked with them because Mahlon said he was interested . M . McCall : He farms all three properties in the back . When I approached him about buying the land he said that he wanted to buy all three parcels out back. His intentions were to own all of that . He was very surprised and happy that we called him that day and said we were looking to sell . 3 • O. Kelemen : So what we are looking at tonight is with or without Mahlon what you want to do is be allowed to separate your land into two separate parcels and do with it what you may down the road . M . McCall : Exactly. I wish we had known Mahlon was going to back out . C. McCall : We don ' t want anyone building back there though . M . McCall : We feel the same way you and Mahlon do about that . We don 't want to sell it and have someone bring in a trailer or something . We want it to stay as farmland . I don 't know how you make those provisions. But that is how we want it to stay . That is why we thought we would take advantage of the fact that Mahlon already farms it. Why not let him own it? C . McCall : He doesn' t rent it from us or anything he just farms it. ® N . LaMotte : So you ' re not getting any return at all out of that? M . McCall : No and he sells his hay. S . Berg : So you ' re asking for permission to subdivide and sell that back lot. M . McCall : Just that and nothing more . S. Berg : So c-3 isn 't involved tonight? M . McCall : The reason it is on here is because we haven' t had a chance to have a new map drawn up . Originally we were going to trade some land and sell Mahlon the remainder. N . LaMotte : If this permission were to be granted with the stipulation that parcel c- 1 is not to be built upon then essentially you ' re locked into selling to Perkins at some 4 • point down the road for a dime or a dollar or whatever. No one else has access to it unless the Vogel family would be interested . M . McCall : If someone wanted to buy it and farm it I would give them right-of-way over our property . R. Marcus : You can' t really create a variance that will create a land locked lot . That would violate your subdivision requirements. I think the only way you can grant this variance is if you were to condition it on it being added to an adjacent property . That is how I read Mahlon' s letter. Obviously none of us knew that the deal with him had gone by the boards for the time being . I think what Nick is saying is that if the Board grants a variance tonight and Mahlon is undecided as to whether he will buy it , you are giving him a fair amount of additional leverage because if the restriction on the variance is that it has to be conveyed to an adjoining owner , Mahlon is going to come back and say it isn't worth very much . M . McCall : What we will do is rent it then and not allow him to use it at all . C. Hanley : You said he already hays the other two lots and he has access because he wraps around . So it' s not like he uses that part for access . C . McCall : He would have to go around us to get to the other side , but it is still his way in the back . M . McCall : If we don 't get the variance tonight , we are going to rent it to someone . It could even be Mahlon but we are not going to sell it to him for less than the price we sat down and talked to him about. r 5 • S. Berg : So what you are really looking for is acre by acre equal trade of c-3 for a piece of c- 1 and then have him buy the rest . C . McCall : That is the original agreement . N . LaMotte : If we were to grant them the variance tonight would their option of renting that go to Board? R. Marcus : I don 't really see it that way. The kind of condition that you would have to put on this variance is a little different than the conditions that you have put on variances before . Typically when you put a condition on a variance you are saying the applicant can do what they are asking but once they do what they are asking it must be limited in some way . The only way I can see you doing this is to say that the applicant can sell parcel c- 1 to someone else if the someone else is an adjoining property owner ® and therefore parcel c- 1 becomes part of the adjoining property. The variance doesn ' t come into effect unless that condition is satisfied . O. Kelemen : Is that because it' s land locked ? R . Marcus : Yes . C. Hanley : Which does give the potential buyer the driving hand on the price. R. Marcus : Back to Nick' s question of whether we prevent them from renting it, the answer is no because the variance will never become effective unless the parcel is sold . M . McCall : So we are doing the up front work for something that could never happen . • 6 • S. Berg : At the time you put in the application you thought it was a done deal and all you needed was this approval and you could sell it . M . McCall : Exactly . C. Hanley : How did you decide on how to split c- 1 and c-2 apart? C . McCall : The way it was already mowed and kept . We went to the back of what is our mowed lawn and there is a ditch and the hay field . M . McCall : Mahlon came over and we walked it and discussed it and I asked him what his opinion was and where he would like it to be and we decided on a spot . C . Hanley : You presently have what for road frontage? M . McCall : About 27 . 7 . 1 know the original variance was given because of parcel size , but we were hoping that because the front parcel doesn't change that it would be given more consideration . We aren 't changing the physical front area . C . Hanley : This proposed c-3 had been set up only to give you 125 feet of road frontage . M . McCall : Exactly . C . Hanley : Your present driveway goes over to Vogels land ? M . McCall : It' s a shared driveway. C . Hanley : Anything else anyone wants to add ? M . McCall : I understand what you ' re saying about it being adjacent to Perkins land . So if that ' s what your variance comes out to be then we understand . If we can't sell it to Mahlon our other intentions are to rent it out . r 7 S . Berg : Let' s say we grant this variance contingent upon it being sold to an adjacent property. So there isn't a land locked parcel . What happens if they never sell it and 5 years from now they want to sell that house and property? Does the variance go along with it at that time ? R. Marcus : Yes , S. Berg : So who ever buys it would be able to sell it . So they have time on their side . They don't have to sell it to Mahlon . They could still sell the property as a whole and 10 years from now maybe the person who bought it may be able to sell it to Mahlon at that time . It' s not contingent upon the next 60 days and of something happening in a matter of time . R. Marcus : That's right . iN . LaMotte : What were the numbers that you and Mahlon were figuring for the lots? M . McCall : We were going to sell it at twelve-fifty an acre . That' s the number that Mahlon came up with . It was about what we were thinking too . It came to 10 , 000 and something I can't remember exactly. Mahlon came back and said that his . 6 acres were worth as much as my 8 . 125 acres and he wanted to just swap even up . We have had an appraiser come and tell us what out house is worth with the property out back , without it and without the property but with c-3 . We called the appraiser and told him that Mahlon wanted to swap even up and he said there was no way he could sell ( c-3 ) for 10 ; 000 , C. Hanley : We can' t create a non -conforming lot. So we have to put that kind of condition on it . To me that makes it tough to sell this property to only two people in the • 8 • world one on one side one on the other side. It seems to me that we would be devaluing the property. S . Berg : But without the variance they can ' t sell it period to anyone. N . LaMotte : I agree with you that maybe 10 years down the road they want to sell it and the buyers are not aware of these circumstances so he buys the whole thing . H . Slater: You can have it recorded on the deed . N . LaMotte : I think we would seriously diminish the value of the property. C. Hanley : I don 't see how we are helping you financially . That' s the part I guess I ' m missing . M . McCall : It would help us financially if we did sell it . But we need to be able to sell it. That' s the problem . C . Hanley : I understand that . I ' m just saying that the prospective buyer is going , "good luck buddy. Here' s 5 bucks call me when you ' re ready to sell . " M . McCall : Part of the problem is that we initiated this , paid everyone and thought we had a buyer then 2 weeks ago Mahlon calls and say he doesn' t have the money right now. We are already in it up to our knees . C . Hanley : I guess I ' m worried about Nick' s point that if you try to sell your whole property later on and there is this variance it sees like we have de-valued the entire parcel and actually cost you money . H . Slater: You ' re not required to exercise the variance , it ' s just there if you want to . C . McCall : They wouldn 't be able to do anything else anyway . This is the only variance they could get. Chair Hanley closed the hearing section of the McCall application. After getting a quick sense from the Board Chair Hanley moved on to findings. FINDINGS A. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER AN UNDESIRABLE CHANGE WOULD BE PRODUCED IN THE CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD OR DETRIMENT TO NEARBY PROPERTIES WILL BE CREATED BY THE GRANTING OF THE AREA VARIANCE THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : Given the condition that the parcel designated as c- 1 be added to an adjoining parcel , no change in the character of the neighborhood would be created . Motion : S. Berg Second: N. LaMotte In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 B. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE BENEFITS SOUGHT BY THE APPLICANT CAN BE ACHIEVED BY SOME OTHER METHOD , FEASIBLE FOR THE 10 i APPLICANT TO PURSUE , OTHER THAN AN AREA VARIANCE THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : After due consideration the Board could find no other feasible alternatives . Motion : S. Berg Second: N. LaMotte In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 c. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE REQUESTED AREA VARIANCE IS SUBSTANTIAL THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : Since the designated parcel c- 1 has historically never been treated as an integral part of the larger lot we find the area variance is not substantial . Motion : S. Berg Second: N. LaMotte In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 D. IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE PROPOSED VARIANCE WILL HAVE AN ADVERSE EFFECT OR IMPACT ON THE PHYSICAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OR DISTRICT THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS : See A . Motion : O. Kelemen Second: S, Berg In Favor: 3 Opposed: 0 E . IN CONSIDERING WHETHER THE ALLEGED DIFFICULTY WAS SELF- CREATED THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FINDS AS FOLLOWS ' The difficulty was self-created . Motion: S. Berg Second: 0. Kelemen In Favor.- 2 Opposed: 0 Abstained: 1 THIS VARIANCE IS AS EXEMPT / NON -EXEMPT ACTION UNDER SEAR SECTION 617. 5-c -. 20 CONDITION : A motion was made that the variance be effe ctive at such time as the parcel c- 1 is sold to an adjoining property . Motion : S . Berg Second : 0 . Kelemen VOTE : YES : ( 3 ) Oers Kelemen , Nick LaMotte , and Stuart Berg . NO : ( 0 ) ABSTAINED : ( 0 ) DECISION : VARIANCE GRANTED 12