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Item No: 5A Meeting Date: September 18, 2013 Type of Business: Public Hearing City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: Heidi Heller, Planning Associate Item Title/Subject: Consideration of a Variance to Allow a Six-Foot Tall Fence in the Front Yard of 5048 Greenwood Drive; Planning Case VR2013-004 Introduction: The applicant, John Ellis, is requesting a variance to install a 6-foot tall fence in the “second front yard” of his corner lot located at 5048 Greenwood Drive. The property is located at the northeast corner of Greenwood Drive and County Road H. Since two streets border corner lots, they have two front yards. As such, the City Code requirement for front yard applies to two sides of the property, which means that corner lots to have additional limitations. The Zoning Code indicates that no fence in front of the front line of a building in a residential district may exceed four feet in height. The applicant recently purchased this newly constructed house and would prefer to have a 6-foot tall wood fence for screening from County Road H, and thus has applied for the variance. Discussion: According to the Municipal Code, Section 1103.08, Subdivision 3, fences of a height greater than 48 inches (4 feet) are not allowed in the front yard of a property without a variance. The Zoning Code also establishes a sight triangle that limits all obstructions within the area at the corner of intersections, measured thirty (30) feet from the point where the property lines meet at the intersection of two streets. The proposed fence would not be located within the sight triangle. Variance Considerations: For the City to approve this variance, as with any variance request, there needs to be demonstrated practical difficulty associated with the property that makes a literal interpretation of the Code overly burdensome or restrictive to a property owner. State statutes require that the governing body (the Planning Commission) review a set of specified criteria for each application and make its decision in accordance with these criteria. The City has set these criteria in Section 1125.02, Subdivision 2, of the City Code. The Code clearly states that a hardship exists when all of the criteria are met. The individual criteria and a staff comment about each are as follows: a. The variance is in harmony with the general purposes and intent of these regulations. The property at 5048 Greenwood Drive is a corner lot, which is not in itself unique; however, the applicant seeks permission to have a 6-foot tall fence for the purpose of privacy and screening from busy County Road H. This property is also very close to Sunnyside Elementary School which in itself creates a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and there is a Metro Transit bus stop in front of this house. There will also be a new sidewalk along this side of County Road H within the next two years. The taller fence would provide privacy and security for this property.