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Whitbeck PC Report October 15, 2003 Page 3 2. The literal interpretation of the provisions of this Title would deprive the applicant of rights commonly enjoyed by other properties in the same district under the terms of this Title. 3. That the special conditions or circumstances do not result from the actions of the applicant. 4. That granting the variance requested would not confer on the applicant any special privilege that is denied by this Title to owners of other lands, structures or buildings in the same district. 5. That the variance requested is the minimum variance which would alleviate the hardship. Economic conditions alone shall not be considered a hardship. 6. The variance would not be materially detrimental to the purpose of this Title or to other property in the same zone. 7. The proposed variance will not impair an adequate supply of light and air to adjacent property or substantially increase the congestion of the public streets or increase the danger of fire or endanger the public safety or substantially diminish or impair property values within the neighborhood. Hardship Analysis The applicants submitted a statement as to their hardship, which is included as follows: “Linda and I have several reasons for wanting to add on to our garage as in our submitted plans. The first and foremost is that our house has no basement for storage or workspace area. We have three vehicles, so we would like the garage space to enclose all of our vehicles and the additional space [5 feet] on the end would be to house my tools and shop. We have a mature Oak tree behind the garage that if we were to shorten the garage by five feet t his would also move the attached shed five feet closer to that tree and might put the tree at risk from the construction or the grading. The garage sits at the rear of the lot and even at its present size the view of it from the street is partly covered up by the house. The addition is being added to the side behind the house, therefore the visible presence of the garage will not be be changed as seen from the street side.” Staff has reviewed the seven “hardship criteria” identified in Chapter 1125 of the Zoning Code and responds to each as follows: 1. As to exceptional or extraordinary circumstances, staff would agree with the applicants that the absence of a basement certainly establishes the need for additional garage space. Adding a third stall to t he garage makes sense and the only way to do this, because of how the garage was constructed, is to add ten feet on to the south side. The factor which can be described as the defining practical difficulty is that the applicants have sufficient room for t he expansion however are limited to adding only five feet because the existing garage is already 30 feet wide—the minimum needed for a new garage stall is ten feet.