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Regarding the house under construction at 3501 Downers Drive Property is zoned R-1 Surveyed area of site is 9908 s.f.(83 x 119.37 avg.).This meets requirement for lot area to be at least 9000 s.f. and 75 ft.wide. Building height is not to exceed 25 ft.Initially we were about 5 ft.higher than this,but we had the architect flatten the pitch of our roof to meet this requirement. Side yards are to be a combined 15 ft. minimum with no side yard less than 5 ft.Our home has a 5 ft and a 10 ft setback,meeting the 15 ft minimum. Allowable lot coverage in R-1 is 35%, in this case 3,468 s.f.Our home's footprint is 2,320 s.f.(incl garage).The driveway will be 28 x 41 = 1,148 s.f.Total 2,320+1,148=3,468 s.f. The floor area ratio is not to exceed.3. In the case of our home.3 x 9908 s.f.=2,972.40 st allowable on floors not including basement.Our_home has 1326 st.on the first floor and 857 st on the second floor plus a bonus room that has 730 st fora total of 2913 st for a floor area ratio of.29,meeting the requirement. Our problem lies in the fact that the building inspector is including the garage area in his allowable calculations of floor area ratio.Nowhere in the zoning regulations does it say that the garage area is to be included in the ratio.If the garage floor(785 s.f.)is included in the floor area ratio we would be at 3698 s.f. or.37.This is the reason that I filed for a variance to allow me to finish the bonus room.I had spoken to the inspector previously about this inclusion of the garage and he.told me that this was his interpretation of the zoning.However after filing the variance, I have studied the zoning ordinances and discovered the below listed definitions which I believe clarifies the situation. In Section 1605.01 Subd..31.the floor area ratio is defined as"the ratio of the maximum permitted floor area of the principal building or buildings to the area of the lot on which they are located or to be located." The garage is defined in 1605.01 Subd.33 as"an accessory building the primary purpose of which is-to house automobiles."Therefore,by definition,the garage floor area should not be calculated into the floor area ratio because the garage space is considered "accessory"rather than "principal".If our home were built with the same above grade square footage with a detatched garage,the floor area of the garage would, by definition,not be counted,nor should it be in this instance.The garage floor area is already being used in the lot coverage calculation and we conform to the allowable lot coverage of 35%.If the garage floor were to be considered"floor area of a home",the wording would have to be such as to include this space in the ratio. A reasonable person would not consider the garage area to be floor area.When one speaks of the square footage of a home's floors it is considered to be square footage above grade and excluding the garage.