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Item No: 5B Meeting Date: June 7, 2006 Type of Business: Public Hearing City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Mounds View Planning Commission From: Jim Ericson, Community Development Director Item Title/Subject: Public Hearing and Consideration of a Variance to Allow 2,468 Square Feet of Accessory Storage Space at 8135 Long Lake Road; Planning Case VR06-003 Introduction: The applicants, David Slabiak and Maria Merabella, have requested a variance to allow more accessory storage space than permitted in an R-1 Single Family Zoning District. The applicants propose constructing a new 1,620 square foot accessory building at the rear of their 29,620 square foot lot. There is presently 868 square feet of accessory space on the lot, thus their request would be for an additional 668 square feet of storage space over the 1,800 square foot maximum, or 37 percent more than what is allowed. The applicants have indicated a desire to store arcade games in the new building. The total requested accessory storage space requested is 2,468 square feet. Discussion: The amount of allowed accessory storage space on a lot is presently 1,800 square feet, an amount that exceeds many if not most first and second tier suburban communities. The present allowance was established in 2002, increasing the previous maximum from 1,400 to 1,800 square feet. (For historical reference, the 1,400 square foot maximum was established in 1998, before which time the maximum had been 1,264 square feet.) At no time in the recent past has the Planning Commission ever granted approval for accessory storage space in excess of the maximum permitted. Staff feels the 1,800 square foot threshold is quite a generous allowance in comparison to other communities and up to this point no resident has requested anything beyond the maximum. Variance Considerations: For a variance to be approved, the applicant needs to demonstrate a hardship or practical difficulty associated with the property that makes a literal interpretation of the Code overly burdensome or restrictive. Minnesota statutes require that the governing body (the Planning Commission, in this case) 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. The Code clearly states that a hardship exists when all of the criteria are met. The criteria are as follows: a. Exceptional or extraordinary circumstances apply to the property, which do not apply generally to other properties in the same zone or vicinity and result from lot size or shape, topography or other circumstances over which the owners of the property since the effective date hereof have had no control.