I'll call to order the meeting of the Ellsville Board of Zoning Appeals for January 14th, 2026. Kayla,
would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
Roll call, please. Here. Okay, the first item on our agenda is the election of the officers for 2026.
Okay, I forget.
Do we have to do a roll call or can we just say aye? Roll call, please. Okay, roll call. David Drake?
Yes. Travis Conyer? Yes. Pat Wesolowski? Here. Caleb Plummer? Yes. Matt Sebo? Yes. Okay. Do we have
a nomination for Vice President? I'm gonna make a move to nominate Pat Wesolowski. Second. Roll call, please.
Okay does anyone have a conflict of interest with any of the items on our agenda for this evening? Seeing
none we have no old business. The first item of new business is
petition for variances from development standards to reduce the minimum side yard setback to zero and
remove the requirement of a right-of-way permit for rear loaded homes in phase one of the Harmon Farm
subdivision. Case number BZA 26-1. Before I start with the new business, do you mind approving the minutes,
please? Oh gosh, I skipped over that, didn't I? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes for December
10th, 2025.
All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Now back to case number BZA 26-1. And I'll
have to be honest, I really don't understand what that means. That whole paragraph. Oh, okay. So Petitioner
Harmon Farms
somebody then I can't share screen share. So petitioner Harmon Farms LLC is requesting two variances
from development standards specifically to change the minimum side yard set back to zero and to remove
the provision for the requirement of right away permits for rear loaded homes from a private alley.
pertaining to development standards variance for zero minimum side yard setback. Harmon Farms is located
in a commercial one zoning district. Developer has obtained a special exception through the BZA to allow
single family detached and attached homes. C1 zoning requires a side yard setback of 10 feet. Harmon
Farms has received primary plat approval for various lot styles.
Some of the lots have varying side yard setbacks to offset the homes from the center of the lot, and
a lot of those setbacks have been amended through the Board of Zoning Appeals. With regard to removing
the requirement for a right of way permit for the rear loaded homes accessed from a private alley, upon
completion of the subdivision when it is turned over to the town of Ellisville,
The alleys and Harman Farms will not be brought into the town of Ellisville Street Inventory. All alleys
and Harman Farms will be managed by a Homeowners Association. The town will not be responsible for any
repairs, cleaning them, plowing snow or anything. Petitioners, engineered by Nathaniel and Associates
has provided a narrative which is attached to your staff report.
In taking action on all variance requests, the Board of Zoning Appeals shall use the following decision
criteria when making your decision. General welfare approval would not cause any significant problems
in relation to public health and safety. Adjacent property, the development standard variances will
not affect adjacent properties in a substantially adverse manner. Variances will improve the design
of the development
Practical difficulty, the strict application of the UDO sections referenced in your staff report will
enhance the different types of housing approved by the plan commission and variances previously approved
by the board of zoning appeals. Compliance with the comprehensive plan, the variances from development
standards will enhance mixed use residential in the village center concept as outlined in the comp plan.
Financial hardship, the current status of the development does not result in financial hardship from
a condition peculiar to the property. However, it will result in financial hardship as it will require
the primary plat and standards approved for the development to be amended resulting in significant expense
and delay to the developer. Compliance with other town codes. Properties currently in compliance with
all other town codes.
Your action has the Board of Zoning Appeals shall be in the form of approval, approval with conditions,
denial or a continuance. Your action will be the final action on the variance petitions. Staff
recommendation, the purpose of the variance is to provide relief in situations where the land or current
condition offers resistance to meeting a particular zoning regulation through no fault of the occupant
of the land.
Therefore, based on the above analysis and criteria, it is a staff opinion that the variances meet all
requirements and the criteria and therefore recommends approval of the variance requests. The board
may approve the variances if, after testimony and discussion, it finds that the request meets all six
of the stated requirements. If the board denies a variance, it shall state which requirements have not
been met and petitioners
representative is present for any questions you may have. Okay. Did you say there was something from
the petitioner describing this? Cause I don't see that. I thought there was something in the packet
and I may have forgot it. So I will ask.
Michael that's okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna have him sorry about that. I'm gonna have him explain it anyway
But do you want me to pass it around for anybody else to look at? Okay, sorry about that so before we
get to the petitioner does anybody have any questions for If we okay this they're gonna take care of
everything that's the street department
How about the water and sewer, if something happens there? They'll be responsible for repairing the
street. The homeowners association law? Yes. And then the other question I have, if the alley, if we
don't have a sit back, is the- I'm sorry, if you don't want it. If we don't have a sit back, okay,
if we, they're gonna have an alley in the back, am I correct?
Will it be feasible for fire trucks and whatever emergency vehicles to get down it? Yes, the fire department
has had several meetings on site with the engineer and developer, as well as in tech review and the
fire marshals also looked at it and they've determined their equipment can get through the alleys.
So we won't have any say so over that property. Not over the alley. I mean, how about over the water
and the sewer and removal of snow and trees come down and. So they'll have to make any repairs to those
items that may be in the alley. In the alley. They'll be responsible for that cost, yes. Well, that's
where all the water,
like the water and sewer is coming through through the alleys? We'll have to ask AJ about that. I just
don't remember off the top of my head. All right. Thank you. Sure. Okay. AJ, why don't you come up here
and can you explain what this is actually intended to do because I'm still a little clueless. So my
name is AJ Willis. I am the project engineer for this particular project.
Yeah So I guess where I want to start is with those alleys So basically the alley widths we worked with
the fire department to set those widths based on What they needed to serve those
those areas with emergency vehicles. So we do have two different alley width sections. One, some of
the alleys are 12 foot wide, some are 16 foot wide. But every alley has a 20 foot, basically it's a
private right away essentially. That right away will be maintained and owned by the HOA. And it's only
for these private alleys for the rear loaded homes. I think almost all of the utilities on site are
routed in the
public right away, so actually within the streets right aways. We do have one sanitary sewer that runs
along one of those alleys behind the townhome section. We do have a sanitary sewer easement through
there, so if any work ever needed to be done, the town of Ellsville would have access to that if they
needed to get to it. So those alleys also have a
basically they're defined as ingress, egress, access, and utility easement. So that allows for all those
repairs to occur, but it will be the responsibility of the HOA. So the UDO, when it talks about driveway
permits, it states it's any, let me find it here, all new expanded or modified driveways onto local
roads must obtain a permit from the town.
All these rear loaded homes are only asking for the variance for the rear loaded homes that connect
to the alleys. They don't actually connect to a local road. So the reason we're kind of requesting this
variance is to make the you do a little bit more clear on that. And since you know we're not actually
connecting to a local road with all those driveways it's just kind of a step in the permitting process
that's not really needed for
connecting to essentially a private road. And then to talk about the setback, so that setback variance
only applies for the side lot lines. There's still a front setback from the public roadway and then
a rear setback from the alley. So we have a 25 or 20 foot wide easement essentially for the alley and
then there's an additional building setback
on the rear of that property. This variance would only apply to I think it's 10 lots in the interior
of the subdivision. Essentially what it's doing, if you have a 40 foot wide lot, you're able to shift
the house right onto the property line and then you double the setback on the other side yard and then
there's a maintenance easement
on the adjacent property to allow that homeowner that has their building on the lot line to maintain
their siding. So the reason we did that with, when we started this project, we worked closely with Town
of Elstville to kind of bring in a bunch of different types of housing, not just standard front load
single family. And this was, what it's basically called is side loaded homes. Essentially what you're
doing is you're taking the front yard and putting it
on the side of the house. In order to really make that a successful development, you kind of have to
increase that side yard width. And the way to do it without changing the lots, basically the lot sizes
would stay the same as a standard lot. You just shift the house over which that creates that increased
width on the side yard to kind of create that front yard aesthetic. And I'm more than happy to answer
any questions.
Any questions? That's interesting, I was just wondering is that alley, the primary use for that is for
utility and emergency use? No, so the primary use for that is to access the rear-loaded homes. Okay,
that is their access. Yes, yeah, so they're, instead of having garages on the front of the building and
connecting to every driveway connecting to a public road. We were able to limit the driveway connections
on the public road network, which kind of limits the impacts on those local roadways by designing and
constructing an alley behind the home that will serve the garages that are in the rear of the property.
Good work. Is that whole project gonna be
H Homeowners Association Yes, they're it's gonna be a pretty complicated one Just because you're gonna
have a overreaching one for there's basically gonna be An overreaching HOA that covers all the residential
areas and then these the rear loaded homes will probably have their separate HOA covering
the alleys, and then the town home areas will have another HOA on top of that to kind of control that
stuff. So yeah, everything's gonna be covered. There will be an HOA for the entire subdivision. The
commercial will also have some type of something similar as an HOA to manage it as well. The homeowners
association for that whole division, subdivision?
Will that be under one individual or one unity? Or is there gonna be homeowners association here and
you contact Joey here, a homeowner over here, you contact Sam? Yeah, no, they'll be all kind
of interconnected. It just will be the language of kind of the rules and regulations will be different
for, you know, the town home area as the single family area.
When I moved here before, wherever I lived at, which I'm not going to tell anybody, but they had a homeowners
association and you couldn't get nothing done. And it sticks in my mind, you know, there's a large piece
of property out here. What, I guess I asked Denise, what recourse do we have if there is something that
we want that should be done and it's not?
So, you know, we have our UDO to rely on. We have code enforcement. We have an MS4 inspector for stormwater.
So we have remedies in place. They still, even though they have an HOA, they still have to follow all
of our codes. So we have remedies and also the court system. Okay, thank you. Sure. Anything else for AJ?
So my opinion on these that I've said several times is as long as it's not something that's gonna come
back to bite the town later, if he's developing his own thing and has certain ideas, that's kind of
up to him. I will say, we've had several, several meetings with both the developer and AJ and sometimes
separate and
My goodness, I can't even tell you how long his design process was in establishing a village center
and what he wanted here and what he wanted there and the mixed use residential. So he's also worked
with a design firm for that. So great care has gone into what's going to be creating a very nice subdivision. So,
It also went through tech review with a lot of the items AJ discussed tonight, but it's just been a
process to get through all the variances. And, you know, he's visited you several times at plan commission
as well. So. Okay. Any more questions? Any comment from the public?
Seeing none, we're ready for a motion. I will make a motion that we approve the petition for variances
for PC or BCA case 26-1 as submitted by the staff. Roll call please.
Yes. Travis Conyer. Yes. Pat Weslosky. Yes. Taylor Plummer. Yes. Matt Siebold. Yes. Thank you.
Motion carries. Next item on our agenda is a petition for a variance from development standards to allow
a septic in an agricultural zoning district at 4601 West McNeely Street. Petitioner is Michael Ripley.
It's case number BZA 26-2. Thank you. Second and last on our agenda
Tonight is petitioned by Michael Ripley requesting a variance from development standards to allow septic
and agricultural zoning district for 4601 West McNeely Street. Petitioner has obtained primary plat
approval from the plan commission for two minor subdivisions at 4601 West McNeely Street. All lots meet
the required minimum of two acres for an agricultural zoning district.
The unified development ordinance is inconsistent in the use of septic systems. Under AG utility standards
in the UDO, only municipal water and sewer are required. UDO section, I won't say all the section numbers,
but with regard to building permit states, no building permit shall be issued for a structure that is
served by a septic system unless the septic
permit has been issued by the Monroe County Health Department or the health offices has authorized an
approved system. Then under the utility section of a UDO, it requires a connection to a public sanitary
sewer when the subdivision boundary is within 300 feet of one. Ripley minor subdivision, the Ripley
minor subdivision, his first minor subdivision is approximately 420 feet from a sewer connection.
In the most recent Lot 4 of Ripley Minor Subdivision Amendment 1 is 1,700 feet from the nearest known
sewer. Under minor residential subdivision development standards, no public rights away, public improvements
or utility main extensions are proposed or required. Later this year, the Planning Department will request
an amendment to add septic, has a utility standard,
option in the AG Zoning District. It wasn't a code before we created the UDO. Petitioners, engineer,
Biden and Fanion associates has provided a narrative and I hope I put that in your staff report. The
criteria for the decisions for variances from development standards, general welfare approval would
not cause any significant problems in relation to public health or safety.
adjacent properties, the development standard variance will not affect adjacent properties in a substantially
adverse manner. Practical difficulty, the minor subdivisions consist of four lots each. The UDO does
not provide a mechanism for minor subdivisions to install sewers. The comprehensive plan,
A variance from development standards will enhance the planned neighborhood land use typology. Under
the comprehensive plan, the planned neighborhood lot sizes and intensity of development vary based on
housing type and is based on four dwelling units an acre. Ripley's minor subdivisions exceed the planned
neighborhood expectations with large lot residential and a minimum of two acre lots. Financial hardship.
The current status of the minor subdivisions result in financial hardship from a condition peculiar
to the property. The two minor subdivisions are derived from one parcel that is in the shape of a U
and in the center is a parcel with two homes, both of which are not connected to a sewer. Compliance
with other town codes. The property is currently in compliance with all other town codes. As stated
in the first petition,
Your action shall be in a form of approval, approval with conditions, denial or a continuance. The Board
of Zoning Appeals takes final action on all variance petitions. Staff recommendation, the purpose of
the variance is to provide relief in situations where the land or other condition offers resistance
to meeting a particular zoning regulation through no fault of the occupant of the land.
Therefore, based on the above analysis, it is the staff opinion that the variance meets all requirements
and criteria, and therefore recommends approval of the variance request. The board may approve the variance
if, after testimony and discussion, it finds that the request meets all six of the stated requirements.
If the board denies a variance, it shall state which our requirements have not been met
and petitioners representative is present if you have any questions. Any questions for Denise? So basically
the code would not have required them to come to the BZA previously. Somehow and amongst all the many
thousands of things in the UDO there's now a conflict
that they have to have either septic or sewer, one or the other, and sewer's too far away. Correct,
so probably in the fall is when I'll go to the Plan Commission to update the UDO. I already have six
or seven other items I need to correct in it. You know, we're under reorganization process right now,
so I'll have to wait till that's finished and then present it to the Plan Commission.
same thing with you, if they have three more lots sold. No, you can make it for that entire address,
if you like. That's what I'm thinking. Instead of a one by one, is there someone who can just give it
all four lots at one time? Yes, you can just make it for that entire
both parcels, the Ripley minor subdivision and the amendment one of the subdivision in its entirety,
yes. There you go, David. Does anybody need to hear from AJ or have any questions for him? Because I
think this is pretty clear cut. Okay, I will make him, there's no public, so.
I will raising your hand either. Okay, so I will make a motion that we approve the petition for a variance
from development standards for case number bza-26 to at 4601 West Meade lay Street. Can I make an amendment
that would do it for all right now? And that's my thought David is to have it all done at one time instead
of come in four times.
So anyway, I wanna make an amendment that it's all four lots. Or both subdivisions. Or both subdivisions.
Okay. And are you seconding the motion then? Oh yeah, I'll second. Okay. Roll call, please. David Drake?
Yes. Travis Conyer? Yes. Pat Wesolowski? Yes. Caleb Plummer? Yes. Matt Sebo? Yes. Motion carries. Planning
department update.
We will have a meeting on February 11th. Right now I have one petition. Okay, privilege of the floor.
Plan, commission, comments? We're adjourned.