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Item No: 5A Meeting Date: October 3, 2012 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 4-foot Driveway Setback at 8155 Red Oak Drive; Planning Case VR2012-005 Introduction: The applicant, Ryan Meyer with JRM Estates, Inc., property owner of 8155 Red Oak Drive is requesting a variance to allow the driveway to have a 4-foot setback. The City Code requires a five foot setback for driveways without a variance. Discussion: 8155 Red Oak Drive is a 51-foot wide lot with a very small existing home. The City Code requires that interior lots be a minimum of 75 feet wide, but there are a few in the city that are narrower. The applicant recently purchased the property and plans to demolish the existing home and build a new one. There is an existing single car garage on the south side of the lot which the applicant plans to keep and there will be an attached garage on the rear of the home. The applicant would like to keep the driveway in the existing location since it lines up with the existing garage and the new street apron, and there is a large tree that would have to be removed if the driveway were moved further north. Also, since the lot is much narrower than most, in order to meet the setbacks for living space (10 feet) and have a 12-foot wide driveway, the house is limited to 28 feet wide. The Zoning Code states that the Planning Commission may issue a variance to provide relief to the landowner in those cases where the Code imposes practical difficulties to the property owner in the use of the property owner’s land. This is true for all variance requests. State statutes require that the governing body review a set of specified criteria for each application and make its decision in accordance with these criteria. These criteria are set forth in Section 1125.02, Subdivision 2, of the City Code. A variance may be granted only in the event that all of the following circumstances exist: a. The variance is in harmony with the general purposes and intent of these regulations. The zoning code requires minimum driveway setbacks for aesthetics and to provide separation and some sense of privacy between neighbors. The required setbacks typically can be met, but this lot is 24 feet narrower than is required which is causing the difficulty. The existing house was built in 1938 and the driveway location has likely existed with a 4-foot setback since then. b. The variance is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan supports improvements to properties, and certainly encourages new home construction.