HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-BZA-1975-11-03 BOARD OF 70NING APPEALS, CI`?'Y OF TTL'ACA, CITY HALL, ITH.^-CA., N7r
vn^y, NTO�, M7P •z, 1975
At a regular meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals, City of
Ithaca, held in Common Council chambers, City Fall, Ithaca, Near
11'ork, on November -7, 1Q75:
�nFSrr?T "eter Tlartin, Chairman
rregory T�asprze.k
John Bodine
C. Tlurray `Tenln'arter
L'dison Jones, Building Commissioner,
Secretary
Christine Smith, Recording Secretary
E1va Tolman
r BSEnTm "d mar ^�Steiger
Chairman -Vartin opens meeting, listing members of hoard present
and stating that one member is absent and it takes four votes one
way or the other for an appeal and anyone wishing to hold their
case over to the nett time in hones of having a full Board present
may do so. This Board is operating under the provisions of the
CityCharter of theCity of Te and. of the rovi cions of the
?or_inr- Ordinances; the Roa.rd shall not be bound by strict rules of
evi�!ence in the conduct of this hearing, but the determination
shall. be founded upon sufficient legal evidence to sustain the
same. The Board renuests that all participants identify themselve
as to name and address, and confine their discussions to the perti_. -
Ant _fasts of the case under consideration. please avoid. extraneou
material t.Thich would. have a delaying effect.
"pneal No. 1100: Appeal of Omega Tau Sigma of 200 Iiillard ?'ay for
an area variance under Section 70.25 Col. 1? in
a n-2 district under the Zoning Ordinances of
the City of Tthaca.
no . ?�O TnT, L'?Tr?: I lure at 12. �Iunters Lane, Tthaca, New York. I'
an alumn. us of Omega. Tau Sigma at' 200 ''.'illard "Tay. ''rank Martorana
who is the President of the active chapter there at 200 Willard ?1'a, ,
is with me tonight. Before I start out I do have some drawings of
our added addition that we'd like to present to you tonight for a
variance since we are infringing on this 2_0 foot setback, so if I
could hand out one of these to each one of you. The quality of th
paper here isn't the greatest but hopefully it ZTi11 show. The
fraternity of Omega Tau Sigma has considered this for the last yea
or so and. has gone to a contractor and also to an architect which
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these drawings have been made by this architect. ?^'e have worked
before with Stewart & Bennett and Stewart and Bennett has looked a
this, ok'd the plan itself and I'm here on the behalf of the alums i
to see if we could. get a variance for a building permit and then I
Till return to the alumini with the answer from this Board at our
next meeting which Thrill be in January to report on this and from
that standpoint "re will initiate action for a. building if a variance
�.,ras given. The first part of the drawing as you see it and even
before I even get to that possibly all of you are familiar with
?°'illard ?�!a.y and you do get an education looking up all of this
material. Iwasn't familiar with 1."illard ':say even living at the
house as an undergraduate, I always thought I T,ras on University
Ave instead of T'Tii lard '°:rny and here we are coming across Ste-t�rart
Avenue up +o*,-arils the campus dorms if you can see here and ""illard
F�?air is of course, the two way street that goes doi,:7n and connects
i,;-ith ?Jniversity. T?n.iversity is the one tray street that comes up
into the University itself. S.Ie sit on the corner here at Tr'illard.
T'Tay. -t this 'point, I think that you all remember that you make
a right hand turn or a left hand turn to go dorm into the tolmn,
you look directly into Omega Tau Si�ma, actually right into the do r.
'_"here is a hedge row that runs right along the sidewalk in this ar a
and up in front of the house. The addition that we are talking ab ut
is planned now on this drawing as coming here on the south side of
this building and there is of course where we infringe on the 20
foot setback code. We originally had looked at it from the stand-
point of building back into the lot on the opposite side, the port
sine. There is a parking lot now that we utilize for the active
members that live in the house. The access of this building i%rhich
is proposed as additional dining room space and also a recreation
room. If Tire rrent from the north side, it does not make a con-
venient connection to our dir_in�, room. '"!^ere is a large kitchen
between this area and really the access to it is not that satis-
factory as to the south side. 71:re ti,rould also loose a great deal of
our parking which 7.1,re do need to get off the street. If we go to
the west of this �-rhich is towarT's the lake, the lake is dote
here, we run into a topographical 7roblem. A would have a. rapid
drop there, at this point, about 12 foot immediately behind this
porch. This is a porch area., the small_ area that is on there, if
you turn to page 2 we are looking at this south view of this
building and you can see how part of this drop-off starting and you
can see the porch that is on the back over the top of the building
and if you look at the rest elevation we are looking at page 3,
we are looking at the addition as it is planned. The one story add-
ition with a walk out deck at this point. T'll show you some pic-
tures of the house in a few minutes as it exists now and where thi
addition would be put on. "e did have Stewart and Bennett look at
the idea of possibly carrying this on further and the double and
possibly triple our estimates for the same space of coming out on
the south side because of the topographical decline in that area
and the possibility too, of trying to reinforce the good of the
foundation in this area seems to be Quite a impossibility to them
or a serious expense. Line wise as far as the essethic part of th
house, we feel and :Stewart and Bennett did and the architect, that
it would give more balance if we do come out to the side rather than
running linearly with this house at this point. The structure tal_ -
ing to Stewart and Bennett and the moneys that we would have
available to build this, would be of concreate block construction
and a brick veneer would be put on the outside of this to go along
with the stucco house that this is. This is a Stucco finish on
it and a the roof, one of the old types orange the roofs and it
is covered T,•.*ith ivy. We will show you some of this in the pictureE .
'fir. Lein set up and showed a. number of slides pertaining to the
fraternity house and the topography of the lot for the edification
of the Board Members.
M. 171M: ^rP there any questions on any of those pictures?
177. '"'^T - You've described the practical problems of putting
the addition on the other side, would you avoid the setback proble
if you did that or wouldn't you find yourself in the same position
of encroaching on the required setback whichever way you went.
L,.
That is not clear to me.
-no . LFTY: I'm '"_lot sure, if I COL?1CI '�a.Ve that blman I TtiraS using. . .
TOP V!-r-77T\T; The basic lot size itself would not conform with the
current zoning so that. . . . . . . .
r ?0r77ActUalli• i t is a deficient lot for a fraternity right
today.
M-17 . r,^pTTN: Yes.
DT? . T_FTF- If ?pTe -vent on this side, you are tall;inm about at this
time where the proposed side is over here to the. . . . . . . . . . . .
W71 MA"rPTN: you �.,ent into the par'ring lot, you, could do it.
n^. LT'TnT: T think that we would be legal at that point except. . . . .
MP. MAI'TT7: Tn terms of setback
n7. L71Y: Yes.
WrO . ?'R�.PTTM: You would still have a deficiency size lot but you
i-could be able to deal with the setback problem.
M. T'1 qP7)7!1T'• uO?.r large is the lot it total?
nn . L7T"?: That T'm not too familiar. . . . . .
TM . r�"-.---r. ?_0,500 sci. feet we are told by the planning board .
DP. LPTM: Tt is an odd shaped lot anyways. It's deceiving to loo
at the back lot line here, it doesn't look like we have that much
room with the topography the way that it is but T could be wrong.
T'm looking at three hedges along here so maybe we own further dolff
that hillside than what I think we do at this point.
nT' . A.Aam—T.DT: _^:re there further nuesti ons from members of theBoard?
n nc. T-TOTLPT^T\T: TTo•,-:r many people are you currently serving in the din_
ing room?
nR . T7T7: Dight now our current problem is not an everyday proble
TaTe have 17 members that live in that is all that we can have live
in ?.rith the fire code and the university code for the house that
they say ?,,e do have. They do eat in daily and. their contract is
such so that they do eat in. 90 the dining room a.dec?uatell% tares
care of that. We do have 75 a.cti�Te members. These are the stu� en s
that belon7 to the fraternity are do7,,m there in probably in a
t,,eekly situation or rossibly � times a month. They also use the
5
house recreational wise too. So it does become a problem at that
point. Our dining room comfortably if we .set it all up will hold
50 comfortably. ?rre have put ?� in there I think, which is very
close and difficult to serve. ?''hen the alumi ni come back which
we always have an annual meeting in January, alumni ,weekend a.nd
usually some fall functions 7,Te basically turn away almost all them
because i*e do not have the room a.t that time to work `-rith them.
T^7A 1^.�ve a.lot of alumni that a_re on staff that do go ID
their
to be Trith the students and so .re could utilize this room for many
things as _far as recreation, meetings and our dining room faciliti s.
I ?ro�ald say that probably 7 times a month we would utilize it to
Ll-
full capacity. This has been more an idea of the alumni, than thA
active members who are of course, much for it but financially coul
not swing it. Tt T,:ras the alumni that brought it in, the idea of
trying to get this extra room end possibly add better lines to the
house.
r"RS, u0Ln�N: Thank you, you have answered my questions.
VMU . MARTIN: Any additional questions? Does that conclude your
presentation_? Anyone %rho wants to speak in favor? Anyone in
opposition? That concludes our hearing in this case.
h
BOI"T) Or, 70NING nP-A T S, CITY OF ITHAC A r ��rr,(•Trm rSTL! S�'�STO�T
NOVA' 7-IRTR 3, 1 -075
"?"'T, 70. 1100
Yr. Kasprzak: T_ move to Brent the area variance. Yrs. 'Tolman:
I second th'e motion.
77TT)TrJCC Off' 7ACT
1) Proposed addition encroaches on the front ya_rd., the second front
yard appro~r-imately half the distance bet` -een the t�%ro intersect-
ions.
2) Plans have been made to limit this to nne story height, t,Thich
ma'fes the addition n reasonable proportion to the overall
structure.
3) No adjoinin- lots or op - lots are oriented so tb-at the-r
face the subject property.
4) -Xistir_T landscape and. proposed 1and.scaring Isere statPd as =gin
attempt to keep the total building in aicha.racter similar to
that which noT:r e?Ti sts.
5) Testimony sho ed that the slope of the lot, made eAdition to
• the west imnracticnl.
Vote : Yes - 5 n?o - 0
Apnlic +ion has been granted..
7
r r n M T n T r !! m T Q >T
TrITmTgTTTS",TTTFis T)(_) (71771717-Ptha-t T took the minutes of the
POQT?n Or, 7OIM—TrIT ^.PID7U,7, CTT ' OV TTHAC y in the matters of Appeal
No. 1100 on November �, 1075, at city TTall, r;ty of Tthaca, Yew
York that T ha�re transcribed same and the foregoinry is a true
$ - o
copy of the transcript of the minutes of 4he meeting end +h-)e
T✓'xecutive Session of the Board of Toning -^_ppea.ls, City of Tthaca ,
on the above date, and the ::hole thereof to the best of r_ly ability
i
r
_ Christine Smit _
7-ecordin- gecretartr
Sworn to before me this
�$ day of NovCM, _
No
JOSEPH A. RUNDLE
Notary Public, State of New York
No. 55-4507134
Qualified in Tompkins Count
Term Expires March 30, 19 �