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Item No: 5A Meeting Date: October 7, 2015 Type of Business: Public Hearing City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: Heidi Heller, Planning Associate Title/Subject: Public Hearing - Consideration of Variance Request to allow for Reduced Front and Side Yard Setbacks at 2474 County Road H2; Planning Case VR2015-008 Introduction: The property owner, Jason French, is requesting a variance to permit a garage and living space addition to his house at 2474 County Road H2 to encroach five feet into the required ten-foot side yard setback. The variance is also requesting that the new garage be allowed to have the same front setback as the house, which is less than the minimum required. The owners want to build a new attached garage and expand the second floor of the house over the garage. The new garage and second floor would have a five foot side yard setback, which is acceptable for the garage, but the living space setback requirement is ten feet. The addition area would also be brought forward slightly to match the existing front line of the house. Discussion: The French’s house is a small 1 ½ story style with a detached 1-car garage that was built in 1950 on a 0.35 acre corner lot. This property has a non-conforming lot width and front setbacks on both street frontage sides: - Minimum corner lot dimensions are 100 feet by 100 feet – the applicant’s property is 74 feet wide by 208 feet deep; - Minimum front setbacks for structures is 30 feet from the property line – the house on this property is setback 19.8 feet from the County Road H2 side and 9.4 feet from the Irondale Road side. The applicants like their neighborhood and want to improve the functionality and livability of their home by building an addition with an attached 2-car garage and expanding the second floor of the house over the garage. The current garage is set back 6 feet from the side property line and the new garage would be set back 5 feet in order to maximize the amount of room next to the house. Needed square footage can be added to the main floor by placing the garage at the 5 foot setback, but structurally and aesthetically, it doesn’t make sense to have the second floor 5-feet narrower than the first floor so that it can have a 10-foot living space setback. The front setback for the house is non-conforming at 19.8 feet rather than the required 30 feet. The Zoning Code allows non-conforming structures to remain as-is and be maintained, but the non-conformity cannot be expanded on without a variance. The non-conformity for this property would increase since the new addition/garage would increase the footprint at the reduced house setback.