BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING
MAY 18, 2010
7:00 P.M.


I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m.


II. ROLL CALL

Members Present: Dave Okum, Jane Huber, William Reichert, Robert Emerson,
Lawrence Hawkins III, Jim Squires and Robert Weidlich

Others Present: William McErlane, Building Official

   
III. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE


IV. MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF 20 APRIL, 2010

Mr. Squires moved for acceptance the April 20, 2010 Board of Zoning Appeals Meeting minutes, Mr. Hawkins seconded the motion; with six “aye” votes and
Mrs. Huber abstaining, the minutes were adopted.


V. CORRESPONDENCE

Chairman Okum: In your packets we received the City of Springdale Zoning - 2010 S-11 Supplement; you will want to get that inserted into the text so you will be up to date.


VI. REPORT ON COUNCIL

Mr. Hawkins gave a summary report of the May 5, 2010 City Council Meeting.


VII. REPORT ON PLANNING COMMISSION

    Chairman Okum gave a summary report from the May 11, 2010 Planning Commission Meeting.


VIII. CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT AND SWEARING IN OF APPLICANTS


IX. OLD BUSINESS

No items of old business were presented at this meeting.


X. NEW BUSINESS

A. Chairman Okum: The first item on the agenda, the owner of
811 East Crescentville Road is requesting a variance to allow a salon to be operated at the residence. Said variance is from Section 153.486(G) “Home occupation shall not include barber shops, beauty shops…”

Mrs. Amy Thompson: My name is Amy Thompson and this is my husband David Thompson. (At this time Mrs. Thompson passed out folders to each Board of Zoning Member containing projections of what the exterior of the home would look like with the salon as a separate entrance; also showing the sign for the salon; copies of the salon service list for hair services; and the floor plan of the home.) I will only have a Salon License from the State Board of Cosmetology for a hair designer salon. There would be no manicuring, pedicure or massage services. The floor plan shows that all we have to do is erect one wall to close off the half-bath from the family room to adjoin it to the room off of the garage and that would then make it its own private area in the home and the laundry room with the water heater and the plumbing and all of that in the room behind where that room is so that we have easy access to that.
I would put in a PTAC unit for heating and air conditioning so that it would draw ventilation and exhaust into that area that would be separate from the home. It would basically be a self-sufficient area that would meet all of the parameters of State Board of Cosmetology, as well as the City of Springdale, to be its own area of the home.

(At this time Mr. McErlane read the Staff comments.)

Chairman Okum: For purposes of the record we will open this up to communications from the audience.
(No one came forward and this portion of the hearing was closed.)

Mrs. Huber: I move to grant a variance from Section 153.486(G) so as to allow a beauty salon to be operated out of a private residence located at
811 East Crescentville Road; the Code Section states that “home occupation shall not include barber shops, beauty shops, salons, etc…”
Seconded by Mr. Emerson.

Chairman Okum: Is this space storage area and it could never be a two-car garage?

Mr. Thompson: It is off to the side, but it is only 12’.

Mr. Emerson: The computer generated pictures are plans that you plan on doing before you go into business?

Mrs. Thompson: Yes, I would have to, in order to be approved by the State Board of Cosmetology; it would all have to be completely finished before I could submit an application to the State Board.

Mr. Emerson: That salon and the separate bathroom will be completely blocked off from the rest of the house and you will have a separate entrance into the salon and there will be no way to get into the house from the salon?

Mrs. Thompson: Yes, correct.

Mr. Hawkins: Would there be anybody else working there besides you?

Mrs. Thompson: No.

Mr. Weidlich: The area on the right-hand side, the long room, is that your family room?

Mrs. Thompson: Yes.

Mr. Weidlich: How will you access that area?

Mrs. Thompson: It is a split-level home, so when you come into the entrance you have the stairs that go to the family room.

Mr. Squires: Mr. McErlane, if you look at the computer generated copy and Item “D” under 153.486, are they expanding off-street parking there?
Mr. McErlane: They are obviously providing some kind of paved surface to get over to the door.

Chairman Okum: So the driveway pad will not change you will just have a walkway to that door?

Mrs. Thompson: The driveway already accommodates four cars; two cars up and two cars wide.

    Chairman Okum: Are you looking to do a wall there or not?

Mr. Thompson: A retainer wall, if we need it; that area is not quite 4’, so I don’t know if we would need a retainer wall. She will have only one client coming in at a time so there is plenty of parking for that situation.

Mr. Hawkins: You would have no means of going from inside the house into the garage; you would have to go outside and go around to access the garage?

Mrs. Thompson: Unless we put a door in the laundry room to the garage, because the laundry room is behind where the storage area is, so we could cut and put a door there to have access to go through.

Mr. Thompson: We have to do that because the State Board of Cosmetology requires that it cannot have access to the house.

Mr. Squires: Do you have to have special plumbing for this?

Mrs. Thompson: Just to put a shampoo bowl in, I would have to extend. The shampoo bowl plumbing has a trap in the pipe under the shampoo bowl that catches any hair that would go through to prevent any blockage to any of the plumbing.

Chairman Okum: Mr. McErlane, the businesses that are currently permitted to utilize this home occupation, are what; accountant, architect, artist, engineer, lawyer, musician or physician?

Mr. McErlane: The ones that you just named are under home professional offices and then there are home occupations that talk about furniture repairing, computers, radios, tool sharpening, and office space for businesses. I would say the majority of the cases we run across would be offices for businesses.

Mr. Weidlich: You mentioned putting in a ventilation system, would that be out a side wall?

Mrs. Thompson: It is actually heating and air-conditioning in all one unit and it would be mounted on the same wall as the door is so it would draw directly from outside as well as ventilate directly outside.

Mr. Squires: As I understand, it is up to us as a Board to either “aye” or “nay” the request for use of a beauty salon at 811 East Crescentville Road; all the particulars including the sign and the exhaust fan come from the Building Department?

Mr. McErlane: There is a restriction on signs for home occupations in the Zoning Code but there is also a requirement by the State Licensing Board that they have a sign.
Chairman Okum: Is there a contradiction?

Mr. McErlane: No; not unless they can’t fit their name in 3” block letters on a 2 s.f. sign.

Mr. Squires: As far as the exhaust fan and the insulation that is Building Department; we don’t bog ourselves down to that many details.

Mr. Emerson: What about a variance that is time sensitive, two years or three years?

Mr. Squires: There is no such thing.

Chairman Okum: If you ask the Law Director, the answer is “no”.

Mr. Hawkins: Has this Board set any precedent regarding any requests like this?

Chairman Okum: Yes, a dog salon for washing dogs; that may be the only time sensitive thing that we have. That was prior to the Law Director saying that we can’t put time / date limitations.

Mr. Squires: To answer: dated August 1, 1990 Wooden Lamping memorandum says “Variance is limited to individual property owner are not variances but are personal licenses. Time limited variances appear to circumvent the definition of the Zoning Variance and thus are also probably invalid.”

Chairman Okum: In this particular case, I think that the spirit of the action in our Code, there are uses of home occupation situations where people do come into the home for purposes of some exchange.

Mr. McErlane: For example, we do have a photography studio that is a home occupation. You could have a counseling office or a doctor’s office as long as the doctor had his wife assisting him, or somebody living in the residence assisting him. So you could have customers or patients coming to the home, as long as you didn’t attract more than two at a time.

Mr. Squires: Mr. McErlane, are there other people in our City that have done this?

Mr. McErlane: I am not aware of barber or beauty shops; we do have one dog grooming business that was granted as a time-limited variance.

Mr. Weidlich: Should we modify the variance to define the services that she is going to provide so that they cannot provide manicures or pedicures and different things down the road?

Chairman Okum: I thought of that but as long as they meet State Code and health regulations and they are inspected, I don’t see a reason that we would want to. This is permanent and it does go with the property forever.

Mr. Weidlich: This question is for the applicant: what is the frequency of inspections from the State Board?

Mrs. Thompson: At least 6 months to a year; they are spontaneous. There are five different kinds of salon licenses and I have the actual application, the only one I will be going for is a hair designer salon license.

Mr. McErlane: If the Board has no problem with other services being provided, as long as the applicant is meeting the State’s requirements.

Mr. Reichert: It appears on your services that it is going to be for both men and women?

Mrs. Thompson: Yes.

Mr. Reichert: I see the men’s service comes with a shampoo, is there a health procedure reason for that?

Mrs. Thompson: I have been doing this for fourteen years and I have found a lot of men come in usually right after the gym or right after cutting the grass and it gives a much better haircut if the hair is freshly shampooed.

Mr. Reichert: I didn’t see any times on here, is this basically going to be run during the day or into the evening hours as well?

Mrs. Thompson: I currently work three days a week, Monday afternoons, Thursday days and Saturday days.

Mr. Reichert: So you don’t plan to have evening hours?

Mrs. Thompson: No, I think the latest appointment I take is 7:00 p.m.; so I am usually done and cleaned up by 8:00 p.m.

Mr. Squires: Under Item #3 on your application; please explain in detail how you would be deprived of using your property in a manner currently enjoyed by your neighbors? You said, “As the way the Zoning is set now, any of our neighbors could easily have a home-based variance and multiple professions without having to request a variance.” I take issue with that.

Mrs. Thompson: I meant they could have a home-based office and work from home without having to apply for a variance; such as Tastefully Simple, selling Avon, Home Interiors, Pampered Chef.

Chairman Okum: The request is for a hair salon or a beauty salon?

Mrs. Thompson: It would be a hair designer salon.

Chairman Okum: We will go with what the State calls it; we will be consistent.

At this time Mrs. Huber polled the Board of Zoning Appeals Members and with 6 “aye” votes and 1 “no” vote the request was granted.

Chairman Okum: Your request is granted for this use based upon all the other requirements that are set by State and Local.


XI. DISCUSSION

A. Chairman Okum: Many months ago we worked on a revised application.

    Mr. McErlane: The primary thing we were trying to accomplish was to get the Duncan Rules in here somehow without confusing the applicant. The first four pages are pretty much what the application says today with the exception of the section that says photographs, currently it says “if it will help your application, provide photographs to help clarify your request to the Board”; so we are requiring photographs. If you go to the 5th page there are a couple things that are emphasized on there and it includes a list of the Duncan Factors, with regard to what is supposed to be reviewed with regard to granting a variance; all this really does is list it for the applicant to know what considerations the Board is going to be looking at with regard to their variance request. There is also a statement on here that says the costs are not a factor in making a decision for a variance; I wish we could emphasis this a little better on the application.

Chairman Okum: We can make them bolder and larger type.

Mr. McErlane: We added a few questions to our current application; the intent was to incorporate the Duncan Rules and expand the application a little bit.

Chairman Okum: Are we going to split it out and do a commercial application and a residential application?

Mr. McErlane: No.

Chairman Okum: I think that this will hopefully help. I think it is good.
Mr. Emerson: I think one major disadvantage that we have is we can drive by a piece of property and if they have a privacy fence up we can’t see anything in the backyard. The requirement for the pictures and whatever they can give to us is a major help to us.

Mr. Weidlich: I would like clarity on Item #2, where it says “is there anything about your property make it impractical to comply”; should it say “is there anything about your property that make it impractical to comply”?

Mr. McErlane: Yes. I can add that.

Mrs. Huber: Are they still notifying the residences within a certain amount of distances?

Chairman Okum: Yes. We do 200’ on each side of the property.

Mr. Reichert: Do you think it would behoove us to make the applicant provide “a minimum of three photographs”?

Chairman Okum: I think that is a great idea.
After we receive an application, does a Staff Member go out for an inspection?

Mr. McErlane: Not typically, no. In the instances when we have had photographs in the past, we have made the copies.

Chairman Okum: Mr. Reichert, I think that is a good idea; let’s try a minimum of three pictures. I use Bing and Google for aerial pictures.

Mr. McErlane: The Cagis website has been upgraded in the last six months; it has aerial photos and six different aerial photos from prior years to see how much it has changed over time, a street map, a property map, a topography map. You can take the property map and filter it in with the aerial photo; it allows you to move the scale across so that the aerial photo comes in clear.

Chairman Okum: If you would, please send us that link to the Cagis website.

Mr. Reichert: Do we need a motion to accept this revised application with amendments discussed tonight? If so, I so move.
Mr. Weidlich seconded the motion; all Members of the Board of Zoning Appeals signified by saying “aye” and the revised application was approved with changes.


XI. ADJOURNMENT

Chairman Okum: I will accept a motion for adjournment.

Mr. Emerson moved to adjourn and Mr. Hawkins seconded; all members of the Board of Zoning Appeals present signified by saying “aye” and the meeting adjourned at 8:06 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

________________________,2010 ___________________________________
            Chairman Dave Okum



________________________,2010 ___________________________________
            Secretary Jane Huber