2003 Planning Commission Packets

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Item No: 5 Meeting Date: December 17, 2003 Type of Business: Discussion City of Mounds l/iew Staff R� To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: Kristin Prososki, Planning Associate Item Title/Subject: Consideration of Possible Revisions to the Zoning Code to Allow for an Administrative Variance Approval Process; Special Planning Case SP-120-03 Introduction: At the Planning Commission's last meeting on December 3, 2003, Staff made a presentation regarding an administrative variance approval process. Staff has researched this option due to the number of variance requests that the City receives. The process for an administrative variance is similar to the formal variance process, except that Staff makes the decision in approving or denying the variance instead of the Planning Commission. This process is allowed only for variance requests within certain limitations, suggested by the Planning Commission and ultimately decided by the City Council. In order to qualify for this process, a hardship must exist and the same variance criteria will be evaluated for each request. Discussion: The Planning Commission was generally supportive of the administrative variance approval process. Based on direction given to Staff during discussion at the previous meeting, Staff recommends the following guidelines: 1) Limits and Standards — Staff recommends that administrative variances be limited to setback variance requests in R-1 or R-2 districts. In addition, staff feels it is reasonable to require that the requested amount be within 25% of the code requirement. Below is a table displaying possible percentage limits and how many feet a request could deviate from code. For example, if the Commission chooses to limit the requests to variances within 25% of code, a applicant could request that a home be allowed to encroach up to two and a hatf (2.5) feet into the side setback. 10% 20% 25% 30% 30 ft front/rear setback 3 ft 6 ft 7.5 ft 9 ft 10 ft (side setback) 1 ft 2 ft 2.5 ft 3 ft 2) Application Review — Staff recommends allowing the Community Development Director to grant administrative variances.