- So I'd like to call the meeting to order. Miss Nestor Jelen, if you'd kindly call the roll. Sure. Skip daily. Yeah, Pamela Davidson here. Guy Lofman here. Jeff Morris here. Margaret Clements here. OK, there are five members attending in person at quorum and Miss Nestor Jelen. Do you have an announcement for the people in the audience? Yes, so.
- I think there's two things. One is people are welcome to sit closer towards where you would speak at the podium if you have any issues seeing or hearing us during the presentations. The second announcement is that we have an agenda posted in the hallway. Some items that are not on the agenda are scheduled for another hearing on September 8th. So tonight we will be hearing VAR 2544A through D, the Tobias second Sanders
- So if you have anything beyond that that's not on the agenda for tonight, it's been moved to September 8th. So if anyone is in the audience for something other than the Sanders variance requests or the
- variance requests the meeting date has been changed just to let you know okay with that being said would you kindly introduce the evidence sure i'd like to introduce the following items into the evidence the monroe county development ordinance as adopted and amended the monroe county
- zoning ordinance and subdivision control ordinance as adopted and amended. The Monroe County comprehensive plan is adopted and amended. The Monroe County Board of Zoning Appeals rules and procedure is adopted and amended and the cases that were legally advertised and scheduled for a hearing on tonight's agenda. Is there a motion to approve? I move to introduce the evidence as you've just outlined and specified. Second.
- Moved and seconded to approve the introduction of evidence. A vote yes is a vote to approve. Skip Daly? Yes. Pamela Davidson? Yes. Guy Loftman? Yes. Jeff Morris? Yes. Margaret Clements? Yes. Motion is approved five to zero. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve tonight's agenda as posted. Second.
- It's moved and seconded to approve tonight's agenda as posted. A vote yes is a vote to approve the agenda. Pamela Davidson? Yes. Guy Loftman? Yes. Jeff Morris? Yes. Margaret Clements? Yes. Skip Daley? Yes. Motion is approved, five to zero. Okay, we have no administrative business and we have no old business, so we're jumping right in to new business. I assume that Tobias Sanders Avenue
- I'm going to ask do you prefer that these cases be grouped together as one or do you prefer that they be heard separately so there's the Tobias second.
- have the option to have them grouped together. Or to have
- And if they're grouped together, Mr. Myers will do the presentation. You'll have one 20-minute time period or 15-minute time period to represent what you wish to have happen and what you're doing with regard to the entire project.
- or you could group them separately, one for the 1,000 square foot size limitation, one for the five acre lot size requirement, one for the one acre contiguous buildable area, and one for the maximum residential density variance. So I leave that up to you in terms of your preference. Are you Mr. Tobias or? Yes.
- Okay. He's here. He just gave me a nod to combine them all. Okay. So Mr. Myers, if you would kindly review and help us understand this and go over it in detail with us, we'd be grateful.
- Just really quickly, Margaret, I am going to remind since we have a lot of new faces in the audience, just the rules of procedure quickly. So I just have a few slides just to remind everyone of how the night will go and what the order of events are. So first off in Article six, we when we do receive a case, it receives a docket number. It'll be placed on the hearing agenda.
- or by consecutive numbers unless otherwise ordered by the board or coordinator.
- And then just a few conduct of hearing rules. So the chairperson will introduce each case and will read or have read the initial staff report. People speaking for each case will be encouraged to step up to the podium, give their name, address and comments for the record. The time limit for individual responses is three minutes unless the chairperson motions to change the time limit.
- The appellant or petitioner shall first present the facts and arguments in support of the case. Comments and questions from the board members may be interjected during the presentation for clarification of the subject matter. Comments from organized groups, committees, and individuals in support of the merits of the case shall then follow. Comments from those in opposition shall then be heard.
- The appellant or petitioner shall then receive a reasonable time period for rebuttal if there is remonstrance. There will be no time for rebuttal to the rebuttal. To maintain orderly procedure, each side should proceed without interruption by the other side. After the public hearing is declared formally closed by the chairperson, the board will consider the petition at which time staff recommendations can be made.
- Before we begin, Mr. Myers, I'd like to introduce VAR-25-44A through D, and this is the Tobias Second Sanders Avenue Accessory Dwelling Unit, 1,000 square foot size limitation variance. The Tobias Second Sanders Avenue Accessory Dwelling Unit, five acre lot size requirement,
- variance the Tobias second Sanders Avenue eco area to regarding a one acre contiguous buildable area variance and the Tobias second Sanders Avenue eco area to maximum residential density variance concerning one
- four acre parcel in Perry Township at 1742 East 2nd Sanders Avenue. Now Mr. Myers, if you would kindly review these cases with us. Thank you. So the petitioner for this variance is requesting four total design standards variances. Two are to the detached accessory dwelling unit standards that are part of, and the other two are from the environmental constraints overlay area two standards.
- The petitioner was proposing to construct a primary residence, approximately 1600 square feet in addition, an additional unit of 1280 square feet that will be considered the detached accessory dwelling unit all on a four acre property with less than two acres of contiguous portable area.
- The petitioner has received a renewal septic permit from the Monroe County Health Department for the proposed new construction that does include three bedrooms, meaning that there is an improved septic field location. However, they do not have the detached accessory dwelling unit bedrooms included in this permit, so they are still lacking in this requirement. Access to the data and new residents will derive from East Sanders Second Avenue, a local roadway.
- And the proposed access currently in their site plan that we'll get to in a moment shows two driveway entrances, but conversations with the petitioner says that they are not set on having two driveway entrances. Having two driveway entrances would require permission from the highway department via a right of way activity permit. And again, they're not set on the two entrances. They are
- They will be following along with the conditions of the detached accessory dwelling unit that do require a shared driveway entrance for this particular use. So on the screen, we have a brief summary of the sites and their design standards that are required. So the position site is an area two of the environmental constraints overlay, which is also known as the Lake Monroe watershed.
- The petition site contains only four acres and approximately 1.5 acres of contiguous buildable area, that is area less than 15% slope, as well as following other buildable area guidelines with respect to the CDO. The petitioner does intend to install a shared septic system or individual septic systems. They're not 100% sure which format they will go with yet.
- The decision will be based on the recommendations from soil scientists, as well as the layout of the property and the structures that they want to place there. Overall, the Board of Zoning Appeals must approve at a minimum variances B, C, and D in order to permit a detached accessory dwelling unit on the petition site. Approving all four variances would allow them to construct a detached accessory dwelling unit that is more than 1,000 square feet of living space.
- Here is the location map in Perry Township, as well as the site conditions map. You'll see the red color here is for slopes greater than 15% in the environmental constraints overlay area 2. Now I have a few slides regarding defined words from chapter 850 from the county development ordinance. We have accessory dwelling units defined on the screen, as well as livable residential space.
- Livable residential space is defined as calculated as the space connected or a part of a residential dwelling that is heated and cooled. The definition excludes decks, patios, non-heated slash cooled three-season porches, non-heated slash cooled maintenance closets, non-heated slash cooled garage space, non-heated slash cooled barn space, crawl spaces, and non-heated slash cooled attics. It does include what is not limited to
- Habitable loft space, unfinished business, basements, accessible from the interior, staircases, dining rooms, bedrooms, heated and cooled storage areas, kitchens, sleeping areas, offices, bathrooms, closets, heated and cooled barn space, etc.
- I also defined practical difficulties here from Chapter 850 of the County Development Ordinance. So this comes in handy when reviewing the findings of fact with respect to the recommendations as well as the variance requests.
- Okay, so now on the screen is chapter 811-4C, which are the standards for an accessory dwelling unit for the attached and detached versions. I highlighted number two, number 10, and number 12 of those conditions that are not being met by this petition. So number two, we have for the forest reserve, agricultural residential, and conservation residential zoning districts, the minimum lot size is required to be five acres, and the size of the ADU slash
- DADU is limited to 1,000 square feet of livable residential space. The minimum lot size requirement for residential, et cetera, et cetera, that does not apply here because it's not in that particular zone. So number two, there are two variances being requested to this particular standard. VAR-25-44A is being requested to have a DADU over the 1,000 square feet of livable residential space because the petitioner is requesting 1,280 square feet.
- And then VAR-25-44B is requested because the petition site only contains four acres and the requirement is a five acre lot size for this particular land use. Number 10, I just had a note here stating that it is a requirement that they have a permanent connection to either an onsite sewage system or a sanitary sewage system.
- And as I stated in the beginning of the presentation, the petitioner does have an existing permit on file that we know that there is a site on the property. However, the total number of bedrooms that could happen on the property with respect to a single family residence and a detached accessory dwelling unit is not disclosed in that permit. So I kept that here on the screen as another item that is not being fully met.
- And then number 12, it states each DADU lot shall have a separate buildable area for each dwelling. And this one actually calls to the additional variances of VAR-25-44C and VAR-25-44D, which are related to the Eco Area 2, which I will now cover. All right. So Chapter 823-5B, these are the regulations for Area 2 and the Environmental Constraints Overlay.
- So number one and number two are being met. Number three and number four are not. Number three specifically states the maximum residential density that shall be allowed shall be one unit per 2.5 acres. So the property sitting at four acres is permitted to have one single family residence. However, as soon as you add a second dwelling unit, you need to have twice 2.5 acres or five acres in total.
- So that is the request for VAR-25-44C is to have a lot with four acres and two dwelling units rather than a lot that has five acres and have two dwelling units, which is what would be required. Number four, each dwelling unit shall have at least one acre of total contiguous buildable area land.
- So in this one, the petition site only contains approximately 1.5 acres of contiguous buildable area land, that is the area that's under the 15% slope. So in this respect, the petitioner would need two total acres of contiguous buildable area in order to have two dwelling units, or in other words, one acre of contiguous buildable area per dwelling unit. So that is why this variance is being requested as well, and that is VAR-25-44D.
- All right, on the screen now we have some site photos. There's the petition sign. This is East Sanders Second Avenue you see here. And that is the existing driveway entrance to the petition site. A few more photographs here. This photograph in the bottom right is as soon as you come through that driveway entrance. And then it's panning to the left in the top left corner.
- photograph. And then you can see here a dilapidated or older barn structure that's a little overgrown there in the foreground in the bottom right photograph. And then just more photos of the site as you turn to the right or starting to look north and then turning around and looking at the driveway entrance again. And then these are just a few other photographs of standing at the northern or excuse me, the westernmost side of the property and looking out
- So now on the screen, we have the letter from the petitioner stating their requests. This is an older letter. It was initially requested that they had two variances with respect to the 1,000 square feet for a dadu and the five acre requirement for a dadu. However, through the review process, it was found that they are in the eco area and they needed those two additional variances with respect to that request.
- chapter of the ordinance. All this is included in the packet. Here on the screen now is the petitioner's conceptual site plan. So you can see here it's showing a two driveway entrance design. Again, they're not set on that type of design as it would require additional permit and review from the highway department.
- The primary driveway entrance is the one on the western side, which is across the street from 1745 East Sanders Second Avenue. And you can see here on the screen, the set layout of the property that they are proposing the primary home, as well as the accessory dwelling units, the accessory dwelling units, having 1280 square feet of living space, which again is 280 square feet over the 1000 square foot requirement.
- That brings us to staff's recommendation. Staff recommends denial of VAR-25-44A stating that practical difficulties have not been met. The petitioner intends to build a new residence on the property and the additional dwelling unit could meet the thousand square foot size standard by way of redesign.
- Staff also recommends denial of VAR-25-44B stating that practical difficulties have not been met. The petitioner could move to acquire adjacent property to meet the five acre minimum lot size requirement. Staff recommends denial of VAR-25-44C stating that practical difficulties have not been met. The petitioner could move to acquire adjacent property to meet the 2.5 acre minimum requirement for the two dwelling units. And finally,
- Staff recommends denial of VAR-25-44D, again stating practical difficulties have not been met. The petitioner could propose only one dwelling unit and meet the contiguous buildable area requirement outright. I will now take any questions.
- Well, thank you, Mr. Myers. I think we'll hear from the petitioner and then we'll return to questions of staff and or the petitioner later. So Mr. Tobias Dick, if you are here, please come to the podium and sign in and then I'll swear you in. Welcome to the Nat Hill courtroom. Yes.
- Would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. And if you would kindly move the microphone so that we can capture your voice properly. And you'll have 15 minutes to go over your requests with us. OK. Thank you. OK. So you just want me to give my summary of it? OK. Well, this is land that's been in the family for, I think, 80 years. I think actually this year.
- It's been 80 years. It was my grandparents' land, so I grew up around that land, on it a lot. So I'm not sure how many of these variances were in place then when they bought it, but a couple more have come up, as he stated, since even we put it in that we weren't aware of. But what we'd like to do is we'd like to have, of course, the ADU would be for my son,
- And then the bigger house we'd like to have for my wife and myself later on. The ADU we'd like to have for my son hopefully this fall. And the reason it was bigger is because that's what was available to him at the time. And with various things going on, he thought this spring was the time to move on that. So we do that home purchased.
- So it will be here, I think, in September, actually. So we do kind of want to get this figured out now. We've kind of had it delayed a little bit. What questions do you have for me, or does that? Do you have anything else you'd like to present to us about anything? Like, for example, the staff had said you could conceivably purchase
- and a joint adjacent property. And I wondered what your thoughts were on that. Well, I hadn't looked into that. I mean, I suppose you could, that wasn't an expense that we wanted to do. I mean, I don't know if anyone down there really has anything for sale or, cause like I say, this has been in the family for a long time. We always intended to do something with it. So a lot of this is new to us, this whole,
- all these variances and things. So I don't think that that's something that reasonably we'd be willing to do right now. So yeah, we hadn't really looked into that option of it. Now, as far as the, was one of the issues, the septic systems hadn't been met. Well, to me, it seems like that issue would be taken care of
- by the building permit itself, because if I understand right, you can't get a building permit without a septic permit anyway. So we'd just like to know whether or not, you know, it would be possible for us to do this on this land at this point, have two homes there. I mean, obviously later on, if we go to do it, we can't get septic permits, we won't be, you know, having two homes down there.
- and do my colleagues have any questions for Mr. Dick? I have two questions. Okay. On page two of our report, it says 4.79 acres and everywhere else it says four. How many acres is your property?
- but from what I've understood, it was four also. I don't know where the 4.7. I don't know where that came from. I just happened to notice it. And did you just tell us you have already, is it a manufactured home? You've already bought it and it's being delivered next month? Yes. Okay, fine. Thank you very much. I have. Yes, Mr. Laughman. The limit
- for under the ordinances is 1,000 square feet. I assume I understand you're getting 1,280. The mobile home you bought is 1,280. It won't be of any use to your family if you can't put it on this property. Is that right? Well, it would limit the use of this property.
- drastically because at that point I'm kind of forced to figure out what I want to do that's the home that's been purchased at this point so that was to be my son's home. Which you know if you look at a mobile home, you know that basically they come in like 28 feet. With I believe and then you know it varies in length and all that so if you look at the actual footprint.
- how it varies from 1,000 square foot to 1,280. It's not much, it's not a much bigger home. And the other home, I guess another point I was wanting to make is the other home that we were gonna put on that property was gonna be at most 1,600 square feet. So together, we're still less than what, 3,000 square feet on that property, which isn't a lot of home by today's standards.
- by any means, and definitely not on four acres. So it doesn't seem excessive to me. It seems like some of the restrictions that are put on this would be better off phrased in different ways other than, you know, two structures, maybe a square foot limit or something like that. But if I have to put just one home on this property, then that's going to limit essentially this entire four acres to
- the 1,280 square foot home at this point. Thank you. Yeah. Other questions? If not, yes. I'm going to reserve the right to come back to that. Yes. I have a question for staff. Because he has four acres, if he could put two homes
- of the 1600 plus plus the 1280, if they were each divided differently, subdivided, did I read that in the materials that there would be a way to place both of them on that property depending on how they were defined and the acreage each had? So the property contains four acres, that is correct. I'm not sure how that typo got into the report.
- From a subdivision respect, you need to have at least 10 acres or have a connection to a sewer system in order to subdivide in this zoning district. So the subdivision option is not applicable for this particular property. They could redesign or have the primary home scaled back
- to 1,000 square feet. So that one would be considered the accessory dwelling unit. And the 1,280 square foot structure could be considered the primary home. But you're still having to keep your square footage down. And at least one of the structures needs to meet that 1,000 square foot maximum for the detached accessory dwelling unit. And because the five acres comes into play.
- The five acres comes into play and that's an additional requirement for a detached accessory dwelling unit. Thank you. Okay, so we will hear from the public and if there are people opposed to your variance requests, then you'll have an opportunity to come back and speak to us. Okay, so thank you. Are there members of the public who would like to speak in favor of this petition? If so, please come to the podium and sign in.
- or raise your virtual hand online so that we can unmute you and have you recognized. Are there members of the public who are in opposition to this petition? If so, please come to the podium in the Nathale courtroom or raise your virtual hand online. There's no one, so you will not be coming back unless we have questions for you. So I return now to
- to our fellow commission members or our board members for further discussion and or motion. Dale, you seem to have something you were thinking about that you haven't revealed yet. And I'd like to hear your thoughts before we go any farther, if I'm not imagining it.
- Yes, please, Mr. Daly. I'm a little confused at the timeline and perhaps the communication between the petitioner and staff. The petitioner, I'm not sure, and perhaps, I'm sorry, can I invite you back? I'm going to address this specifically toward you.
- So you. When did you purchase this? 1280 square foot dwelling. It was earlier in the spring. I don't remember the exact day, but yeah, and at what point did you begin communications with the? Staff of the Planning Department. Uh? That.
- becomes difficult to remember because they've actually doing another property from my daughter this year to you okay but you did you purchase this knowing that there was going to be a challenge with the square foot because of the county ordinance no I had no idea actually that that was a thing I didn't even know at the time that I would have to do a
- an ADU on it at the time. OK, so you made the purchase and then afterward you spoke with them and realized that. Oh yeah, I realized it was it was bigger at that time. Sir, sometime during the process. Yeah, we realized that it was figured. Now it is a two bedroom, which I think is also required for an ADU. Right?
- I'm going to ask you to stay there. Mr. Myers, you had mentioned a lot of this could be remedied if he purchased some adjoining property. Do you happen to know if adjoining property is for sale? I had not heard you mention that in previous cases, so I'm guessing that there is. We do not know if any
- property nearby is for sale per se, but that is an avenue that would avoid the variance request. Right, right, right, okay. All right. I'm just, I'm stuck with my thoughts on this. It doesn't seem as, it doesn't seem as if there's a whole lot of wiggle room around where we're going here.
- our hands are kind of tied in terms of what the statutes say and what the ordinances say. And we have very little decision-making choices, believe it or not. And from what I'm hearing, you really haven't addressed the practical difficulties for part A of this. But I want you to be able to have this because I think that five-acre
- I think our county government is not serving us well with having that restriction, but that's neither here nor there, but that is the ordinance as it is today. So better understanding that timeline, Mr. Loppen, I guess. Thank you, yeah. I guess that helps me. That helps me, yeah. All right. Well, my feeling is,
- It's hard to have a dwelling unit under 1,000 square feet. It is. If there's something that I would bring to the commissioners' attention, it's just hard to do that. And a two-bedroom mobile home, it's not a lot over. So I'm sympathetic, personally,
- bending the rule or making an exception to the rule, which is our job, if it's a practical necessity. And I don't like to reward people for buying a trailer before they figure out that there's a thousand square foot limit, but it's just hard to buy anything that meets that thousand square foot limit and has two bedrooms and is a livable space. The other factor that I think is important, it's one thing if somebody's
- If it's a subdivision, they're thinking it through and they know that you've got to have five acres if you want to do this kind of development, but this has been in the family for generations. When his grandparents bought it, I don't think that they were thinking about limitations on daddos because they didn't exist at the time.
- And they probably thought they might be able to put another house on there for one of their kids, and they never needed to. And the buying adjacent property,
- I don't think it's the duty of the one who wants to to build to go look for audition, you know, is my neighbor, you want to sell your property. It's a lot of neighbors just don't really be like to ask you want to sell your property. It's, it's not a real neighborly thing to do. There's no evidence that available property is so
- Those are my thoughts, and I'll make a motion if the time comes, but I don't want to be the only one expressing them. Well, Mr. Dilley did. I'd be glad to hear other people's thoughts, would like to. I'm sympathetic for all the reasons you just outlined, and it would concern me with a four-acre tract, and we are seeing more and more family members living close to family members, and that's a very good thing.
- That's it. It's just a reality of the world today. You're amenable to one driveway if that's less traffic on Sanders Road. You're open to that. I appreciate that willingness.
- I agree with Guy that Mr. Lofman that the size matters in something you're gonna live in for a long time and entertain other people and have a guest room and an office or whatever it is. What I meant to say is I think it would be a stretch for us as a quasi-governmental body to suggest somebody go out and purchase land,
- adjacent to them, when they're closed, four acres, five acres, you're in the neighborhood. You're not one acre. You're in the neighborhood. I worry about that precedent. I would be concerned about that in terms of government's role. It might be a fine suggestion. I don't deny that, but to require it, oh, my.
- Yeah, I think the only thing I would add is that when I see the phrase practical difficulties have not been met, the petitioner could move to acquire adjacent property and meet the 2.5 acre minimum requirement. To me, that gives me pause because I think to most people acquiring adjacent land is a practical difficulty. So I think that's the only add to other things I've heard. Ready for your motion. All right. I move
- to approve, let me get to the right spot. I move to approve variance 2544A, Sanders' second residential accessory dwelling unit over 1,000 square feet, and to approve 44B, Sanders' additional second residential accessory dwelling unit
- residential use, the five acre minimum, and to approve 44C, the maximum residential density
- and 44D, the one acre of continuous buildable, because I think practical difficulties have been shown. It was a lot of record sitting there for a long time in family use.
- and that creates an unusual circumstance. And I don't think it's reasonable to expect somebody to buy property, if he owned property next door and he could switch lot lines around, I'd be much more sympathetic to denying it. But under these circumstances, I move to approve all four.
- I'm going to second it, but you switched C and D, but I know you fixed that when he read those. You read maximum density, but you'll fix that with that slight amendment. Yes. Could I offer a friendly amendment to 44A before we continue, and that is that the petitioner supply planning staff with proof that a septic system can be permitted for the primary dwelling in ADU.
- Yes, I accept that as a friendly amendment. They've got to do it two ways now instead of just one way, and that's OK with me.
- So there's been a motion and a second to approve VAR-25-44A, the Dadu 1000 square foot size limitation. VAR-25-44B, the Dadu five acre minimum lot size requirement.
- VAR-25-44C, which is the eco area to one acre of contiguous buildable requirement, and VAR-25-44D, which is the maximum residential density permitted. Note that the variance is to allow a data of 1,280 square feet per the site plan submitted, and then one condition, a proof that the petitioners supply a septic permit proving that they have
- ability to serve the primary home and Dadu. Okay, a vote yes is a vote to approve all four variances. Jeff Morris? Yes. Pamela Davidson? Yes. Mark Clements? Yes. Skip Daley? You have your votes and I'm ecstatic that you have your votes. I'm going to vote presence so I can
- I have to maintain that integrity, but I vote present. I'm glad that you succeeded. Thank you. Thank you. Guy Lofman? Yes. Okay, so the motion is approved four to zero. Good luck to you and happy family union on your property. Thank you.
- Thank you very much. Okay, we're moving on to variances that have been grouped together, but I also want to give the petitioner, the petitioner's representative the opportunity to either hear them alone individually or in the groups as presented or together as one. And so those would be VAR-25-46. This is the HUP.
- main gate parcel eco area one a 12 slope land disturbance variance and then the staff has grouped um variances 25-47a through d the huff main vacation home and dadu parcel eco area one 12 slope
- The one acre contiguous buildable area the parcel accessory dwelling unit 1000 square foot size limitation and the dad do Parcel accessory dwelling units that the staff is grouped together, but the petitioner has the option to have them heard and
- separately if they so wish and then items 10 and 11 on our agenda var-25-45a and b the huff agricultural parcel eco area one the 12 slope encroachment variance to chapter 823 and the huff agricultural parcel lake yard setback
- for Lake Monroe variance to chapter 823. And then there are three other variances that are grouped together by staff. And I think that's because they were applied together by the petitioner. And that is VAR-25-48A, B and C. And this is the Huff New Road Eco Area 1 with a 12% land disturbance variance to chapter 823. A Huff New Road Eco Area 2
- with a 15% slope land restriction and a variance is being sought. And then the Hough New Road Lake yard setback to Lake Monroe, variance to chapter 823. And I'd like to hear from the petitioner. How do you prefer to proceed? Is the petitioner in the room or just online?
- Petitioner and their representatives are online. Todd Borgman has his hand raised. Yes, if tech services could promote Todd Borgman and but I think you'll have to unmute yourself as well. I yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, as far as grouping together, do you mean do all 10 or 12 together or or just group?
- all the 47s together and all the 45s together. And what is your preference? I am fine group in 4546 and 47 together, but I would like to keep 48 separate. OK, OK, thank you Mr Borgman. We will hear the cases presented by staff and then I will swear you in. OK, so thank you. Yes, thank you. So this first case,
- will be VAR-25-46, 25-47A, B, C, and D, and 25-45A and B concerning parcels owned by Mr. Huff's revocable trust and Nicole Huff's revocable trust concerning
- properties at Section 7 and 12 at South Shadyside Drive and concerning a 42.74 acre parcel in Clear Creek Township Section 12 at South Shadyside Drive and a 21.9 acre parcel in Clear Creek Township Section 7 at South
- the property. And that's a shady side drive. And have I adequately and appropriately identified the properties? Okay, so, um, Miss Nestor Jelen and Miss Behrman. If you would kindly lead us through these cases, we'd be most grateful. And just for the record. I'm Tammy Behrman. I'm the assistant director for the
- So I'm going to give some background, which I think is included in each of the four separate reports. We'll just cover it the one time here. We wanted to kind of give an overview map of the four different lots or parcels that are involved. And the first one you're going to hear tonight is the green one, VAR 2546.
- Then right after that will be VAR 25-47, which is the yellow, and that contains the vacation home, which has that yellow and red dot, and then also the red star, which is the detached accessory dwelling unit. And then the purple lot,
- is known as the Ag parcel. Sometimes we've called it the Chumlee site, and that'll be covered under VAR 2545. So these green, yellow, and purple, a lot of those variances are going to be dealing with the access number one road that cuts through that entire south kind of section along the lake there. And then we have
- The blue parcel, we're calling that the new road parcel, and that's VAR 25-48. And basically, there's going to be a proposed road that comes across this segment of Shadyside Drive. And we'll start kind of dipping in where access number four is and wind its way through this property and attach itself kind of right
- almost where the yellow and purple lines are to connect back with that access one road. So this little area where I'm circling here is kind of an important piece that we'll hear later on as well. And there are four access points. We have the Shadyside Drive, there's a cul-de-sac here, we have access one, there's another access point here for number two, access three, access four.
- So some background. Prior to the creation of Lake Monroe, this parcel was likely connected to East Cleve Butcher Road. So over here is Fairfax Road. If you can see my cursor, it's a little difficult, but it's to the far left and kind of more red in color. That's Fairfax. We have Cleve Butcher, which is still a road that we have today that goes east-west and then terminated into what we now know as the lake.
- When the lake was created, we kind of think that part of the Huff property was accessed by that cleave butcher road. But then once the lake was filled, that road was removed and is no longer accessible. And that was sometime between 1960 and 1965. And so what we see today is something more like this shape surrounded by water.
- Property was rezoned from Ag Rural Reserve to Conservation Residential 2.5, which is CBR, with the passage of the County Development Ordinance December 18th, 2024. And the environmental constraints overlay with this parcel has been Area 1 since at least 1992. And we have aerial evidence that this lot was mostly
- forested and wooded since 1985. We have a picture here from 1998 that's a little more clear for everyone to see. And sometimes you can see a little bit of this access road throughout. So some other background in
- September of 2016, the petitioner did call the planning department and spoke to one of the planners to kind of see what kind of restrictions were on the property. And they were aware of the environmental constraints overlay. And then in February of 2017, the petitioner purchased at least the main gate property and I think a couple of the other ones. Some of their properties may have been purchased at different times.
- In 2017, they had DNR come out and do a stewardship plan with the intent of doing some logging out here. A couple of things to note are these green areas, which are labeled in the legend as log yards slash home site slash wildlife food plots. And there are some access roads sort of delineated out here in blue. And skid trails are in black.
- and then they had some stream crossings identified, which we will also see later on in our fourth variance. One thing to note is that this area here that I sort of briefly pointed out, you do not see a connection road in this area. So we have this access one road, and then there are some that could kind of maybe make up some of that other
- new road that we'll be discussing And so they did receive in 2018 a logging permit However, they never did pick up the permit and there were conditions associated with it So that the permit was not issued and then As part of the logging permit application yeah, the stewardship plan was submitted and
- the district forester Ralph Umbersaw provided context to the plan and the history of the property. So per the stewardship plan, the access road to the main gate parcel was already established, which is now representing part of the red dotted existing road on the petitioner site plan, which we'll see later. The proposed changes to this road, including road expansions and or relocations,
- and the placement of utilities, such as water and electric, and silt vents on both sides of the properties are what is requiring variances here this evening. The petitioner has intentions of developing the property since the time logging began, and this is clear from the stewardship plan, which illustrates those log yards and home sites throughout the real estate. And we can also reference Huff versus Raymond case as well.
- Again, this is just a depiction of where the petitioner has access to each of the buildable area sites by way of access one through four. So access one is that main gate parcel here. We have some nice any place that's blue. These are slopes that are less than 12%.
- This is a 2024 aerial that's kind of zoomed out coming from the cul-de-sac of Shadyside Drive. You can see access one road that comes through the entire property. You can see some of the other roads that have developed over time. The aerial from 2019 is showing access from South Shadyside Drive.
- to the main gate parcel, which was used to log the property. So this was, they began in like 2018 logging and then utilized this road here for much of that activity. All right, so that's kind of the background that I have here. And we're gonna jump into the main gate parcel, which is VIR 25-46.
- This is in the environmental constraints overlay area one in its entirety and that eco area designation has not changed since 1992 and you'll see Area two here that won't come up until the final variance variance for that or the fourth one And that has a 15% slope restriction All right, so a summary of the request for the main gate parcel is
- We're looking at an eco area one greater than 12% slope encroachments. And we kind of broke it into three sections. There is the roadway widening. And we were able to calculate out the length of disturbance. It's a little bit, well, in this case, the square footage of disturbance. The roadway relocation at the very southern property line.
- We were able to look at the square footage of that as well. And then a utility installation and silt fence, and we used linear feet total for that one. And these are some of those totals.
- All right, so this petitioner's original site plan that they submitted for the main gate parcel. You'll see this easement up here that cuts through a different property, and then this is where their property line begins with the main gate. So the petitioner states in their letter that the HUP's plan to widen, pave, and install utilities along the existing road for a proposed residence and guest home. The proposed residence,
- which is the main vacation home and the guest home, Dadu, will be constructed on the parcel to the south of this subject parcel and will be subject to a different variance, which is VAR 25-47. Due to the location of the utilities currently on South Shadyside Drive and the location of the proposed residences, the petitioner is stating that utilities are required to be installed through the main gate parcel and south and west to other proposed structures.
- Staff has requested construction plans for the main gate, the main gate vacation home, or sorry, the main vacation home and the dadu and the agriculture barn. But we're told that construction plans will be provided with building applications. So we do not have a building application quite yet. Therefore, staff cannot confirm details such as whether the main gate requires electric or water, or if it is only being utilized for other lots further south and west.
- Staff asked the petitioner's representative, a licensed surveyor, do you know the minimum separation distance required between trenched water and electric lines? The representative answered, I do not believe there is a minimum separation for service lines.
- So as such, the petitioner could alternatively redesign the utility installation to be on one side of the road using a single trench, thereby reducing the disturbance by 2,485 linear feet. On the western side of the road, petitioner is proposing the water line to be a maximum of 19 feet away from the edge of the improved roadway.
- Erosion control measures such as silt fence are required under the construction stormwater general permit, the CSGP. The variance is to place all silt fence outside of the 12% slope along the utility installation and widened slash relocated roadway. The location of silt fence is dependent on the natural slope of the land and the furthest extent of the proposed improvements.
- Therefore, improvements that work with the existing build-out access road and limit new disturbance, such as widening or relocating, would thereby limit the area of disturbance required for silt fence installation. Correctly installed silt fence requires trenching into the ground and is used to control soil erosion and sediment runoff from disturbed areas. To the extent of variance is recommended for approval,
- or denial regarding silt fence location. It should not be misinterpreted. Any disturbance should have silt fence. It is often that the extent of the disturbance could be redesigned and or the construction limits could take place within the buildable area. So kind of by redesigning, you may not require as much silt fence by putting perhaps the electric in the water within that same trench
- So I'm going to take a little time here to how to interpret some of the site plans that you'll see in the packet. That last one was the original without any markups. This is another one that doesn't have any staff markups yet, but we wanted to kind of show you the segment where they're wanting to place the silt fence, which is SF, outside of 12. It would be within over slopes over 12%, and then
- On the east side, they are proposing the electric, which is the E. And on the west side of this easement, they're proposing the water kind of matches up. And then the red dashed line is an existing road. So they are proposing to widen this a bit to be at least 16 feet wide. So now staff has in the packet some illustrations that it helped us kind of break down what we were looking at
- and what variances were to be required. So the green lines are all of the improvements that require a variance. The blue area, this actually makes a full shape, full polygon. That is area where slopes are at least 12% or
- So the main gatehouse that they are proposing here and this widening of the road with this little circle drive in here, this is within areas that are less than 12% slope. And I will say that this area on the main gatehouse parcel, they do have an area that is 1.26 acres in size.
- And that's kind of significant because as you just heard in the previous petition, you do need one acre of contiguous buildable area to build a residence. And so they're not building a residence here. They're building a gatehouse here. Let's see. So for this road widening, we are seeing 857 square feet of disturbance in Eco Area 1.
- And how staff was able to calculate that was we took their red dashed line of road and really zoomed in, calculated a square foot just for this red sliver on the east side. And that's, it's not, we're not looking at the entire road, because a lot of that is gravel, it's flat, it's compact. But where they're widening it and proposing that, we took that square footage and then we did it again for the other side of the road.
- and came up with that 857 number for disturbance for roadway widening. And then to the upper right corner, you'll see this little green arrow up here. This is the extent of the road relocation that is being proposed. It's only 82 square feet of roadway
- of relocation, the remaining roadway relocation will be reviewed under VAR 25-47. So the main gatehouse road is just this very small triangle that's almost in between this upper purple arrow and then the green arrow. And then in the next variance, you will be hearing the larger piece of relocation that's going to be proposed under the main vacation dadu parcel.
- And the litigation road is just something we want to point out here. The BZA did here on February 1, 2023, this gray portion. So if you think you've heard a little bit of this before, you have. We also have utility and silt fence installation to take into consideration. So the east side of the main gatehouse, we saw this little segment up here in detail.
- Where it's going to be widened the petitioners representative said that this segment here will not be widened necessarily, but It will need electric line and silt fence which is 2,294 linear feet and the west side will need 2,485 feet And I do believe that staff
- is making a recommendation that both of these will be located in the same trench on the east side, which would be the least amount of disturbance, linear or feat-wise, and it's also going to end up being on the same side of the road as the main vacation home and the proposed Dadu. And this is also a nice indication of seeing that 12% buildable area that they do have, the 1.26 acres.
- Okay, we're gonna move to the staff packet. All right, so the main gate house parcel in red here. Let's see if I can make it bigger. Again, pointing out that this is in the eco area one in its entirety.
- So it is restricted to slopes. Development should occur on slopes less than 12%. Here we have an overall slope map of the subject parcel. We see here these purple, dark purple slopes. We're getting up into 46% to 55% slopes. But the segment that I think we're mostly going to be concentrating on is up here for that disturbance, and then down
- in this area over here. So this is Shadyside Drive where the cul-de-sac ends. This is a neighboring driveway. This is the neighbor's house. So the access one is just to the west of there and comes through and does go through slopes that appear to be between 19 and 25 slope percent.
- and then merges back into this blue area that is less than 12%. They're wanting to widen this and add the utilities and have some solvents in there. This is the main gatehouse that they're planning to widen this area for driveways purposes, not for residents.
- Then again, we've seen some more slopes down here to the south that we'll be taking into consideration because they want to relocate part of this road and add the utilities. And then just some findings of fact support that we were looking at. Example of driveway widths from homes along Shadyside Drive. We have this driveway that we found that was 10.45 feet wide.
- And we had another one where the width was 11.28 feet wide. And again, the petitioner is wanting a 16 foot wide road. And then also looking at the steepness of slopes and how the home and driveway maximized and utilized area less than 12% slope in this instance here. So this is just an example of utilizing those buildable areas that are not restricted. And though they did have a little bit of, you know,
- Their driveway did do some encroachment into slopes, but they were utilizing the footprint as much as they could. And then we do see similar ridge top formations around the area. You know, these are just ridge top communities as the topography of the land out here. So nothing exceptional. That's different with the petitioner's property. It's just the nature of the area that we see out here.
- And then something to point out would be this western branch of South Shadyside Drive. It's the 7500 block. It is also an eco area one. And this access road supports, I believe, eight residences. And staff went out and measured the width of that gravel driveway that these eight residences use. It was 12 feet wide and gravel. Here's staff kind of showing where we stood for the tape measure there.
- We have the petitioner's letter in the packet. And then also, we have a sworn affidavit. And this was part of the variance that you heard in February of 2023 as a part of VAR-22-53. This is from Stephen Smith after being duly sworn into, let's see, I think it's number five or four. I'm just going to read number four.
- He's a former owner of Smith Design Group and a retired licensed professional surveyor. Number four, he put the roadway created is more than adequate to serve the property. And then we have some site exhibit photos. We have the cul-de-sac facing south.
- Most of these photos you'll see where staff was standing and then there's an accompanying photo with a little yellow arrow that shows the direction that staff was standing and kind of giving the perspective. So here we're kind of facing up and measuring. This was 22 feet wide. This is the easement area facing north. They intend to widen and add utilities
- on either side. This is facing south along road number that access one. There's a lot of this is mowed grass already. Here we're standing just below the main gate house area facing south. This picture to
- Way in the distance, that's where you start to see the litigation road that we had talked about and discussed before. And again, this is litigation road that sort of arcs over. Then just as a reminder, a lot of this property has been logged out here. We've seen heavy machinery and heavy load
- equipment located on the Chumley Peninsula. And they've been using the existing access drive one for the access for all of this activity. That's the perspective we have for that photo. And then we have an aerial shot of the ag parcel also on the Chumley Peninsula from April of 2020. And this is prior to that new litigation road construction.
- Again, this is the perspective of this one. And then from the variance that you had heard before, they originally kind of shown four different building sites they had planned to use with the access number one. And they were not at the time proposing to widen or relocate the road at this time. And then we get into the stewardship plan again, which I'm not going to go into too much detail of unless
- Yeah, not gonna add into that right now. Yeah. Okay. All right, so this is the petitioner's submitted site plan. We were zooming into a couple of the spots for it.
- but you have up here the cul-de-sac that we saw off the Shadyside Drive for access one, and this site is going to be coming through the main gatehouse parcel, coming down through here to access the main gate, the main vacation home, and the Dadio, and keeps going towards the west out towards this ag structure, which they do have some plans
- in place for the main gatehouse parcel does have a 200 foot setback, but there's no encroachments into that at this time. And then we have this little piece here, I'm just gonna keep pointing this piece out, because it is a new, we were calling it part of the new road, and that's gonna go north and connect all the way up to that access number four point. This is the main gatehouse.
- Original plans, we see that circle drive here with the widening of asphalt on both sides of it and the gate house here. The ag building that has covered porches, some fire pits. This is the detached accessory dwelling unit.
- plan set with parking lots. You can see the red original driveway here. We have the septic system proposed and then finally the other septic system proposed. They're like kind of side by side. And then the main vacation home with swimming pool and parking. All right. With that,
- I'm going to go over the recommended motion for this first variance. So this is for VAR-25-46, the Huff Main gate parcel, eco area one, 12% slope disturbance, variance to chapter 823. Staff recommends approval of the portion of VAR-25-46 that relates only
- Two, utility installation and silt vents installation with the following conditions. One, that all proposed utilities and silt vents to be installed only on the east side of the road. No utilities and silt vents to be installed on the west side of the road. Utilities installed on the east side of the road shall be located within a single trench on the course of the proposed electric lines as shown on the petitioner's site plan.
- This redesign shall be submitted under the site plan SIT-22-24. Condition two, the petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to commencement of each of those improvements.
- Condition three, trench work shall be promptly covered, reseated and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. And condition four, petitioner and contractor shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements, inspections to be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement.
- Staff recommends denial of the portion of VAR-25-46 that relates to road widening based on the findings of fact. And finally, the legality of the road relocation area is subject to a pending appeal from the Indiana Court of Appeals. If the Court of Appeals overturns the trial court's decision, then the county will enforce the BZA's prior decision by seeking road removal.
- At this time, any approval of this portion of the variance request would be conditioned on the outcome of the pending appeal. All right. Staff can take questions at this point, or were there any other clarifications that you needed? Do you want us to present the next two cases together as well before we take questions? Yes, because Mr. Borgman requested that. Yes.
- And that was number. That was VAR-25-46. And now the others that are grouped together are 25-47A, B, C, and D, and 25-45A and B. Thank you. Procedural question. I will allow it, but just one. Yes. Could you come to the mic?
- we Mr Borgman we can after we discuss and hear from the public we can separate them out and we can also vote for them all at once so um yes thank you so i am asking staff to go forward and um combine the present us with 25-47a
- through D and 25-45A and B. And then we will hear from Mr. Borgman and then from the public who is in favor of the petition, the public who is opposed to the petition. And then Mr. Borgman will have an opportunity to rebut that. And then we will discuss it and vote
- We may separate them out, we may group them all together. We don't know until we've heard all of the testimony. And then we will hear VAR-25-48A BNC. Okay, so Ms. Behrman, if you would kindly go forward with the 25-47 and 25-45. Right, so VAR-25-47.
- Huff Main Vacation Home, and Dadu Parcel. There are four variances associated with this. Two of them are eco area one variances, one for the 12% slope land disturbance, like we just saw. And then we also have an eco area one, one acre contiguous buildable area variance to chapter 823. There are two variances associated with the accessory dwelling unit. There are 13 standards associated with accessory dwelling units.
- They are only meeting 11 of those standards. So they need a variance from the 1,000 square foot size limitation and also that an accessory dwelling unit be owner occupied year round either in the Dadu or the main residence. And in this instance, it's a vacation home. So to familiarize ourselves again with this,
- Overview map, we're looking at the yellow parcel this time. And again, towards the right side is the main vacation home with the yellow bullseye-looking diagram. And the red star is the approximate location of the detached accessory dwelling unit, which I'll likely call a daddy for the presentation. And again, much of the variance will be the road widening, silt fence going in,
- water and electric discussions. So this is the petitioner's original site plan. Here you can see coming from the east, the access one roadway. We have litigation road shaded out there in gray. There's the main vacation home with swimming pool, the two septic systems, the dadu with some parking.
- And then throughout this entire thing, we have electric and water utilities with silt fence. And again, I'm gonna point out this little kind of backward C shape or this C shaped curve here. It is a new road that is really closely affiliated with the second, well, with VAR-25-48, which we hear last this evening. All right, so we're gonna stick with
- The green kind of indicates that we're talking about the eco area one greater than 12% slope encroachments. We have a lot of the improvements that do encroach into these restricted slopes. We have a roadway widening and grading on the western portion, 3,938 square feet. Of that, the new road widening that I just
- kind of pointed out is 2,211 square feet and then the access one road will be 1,727 square feet. We have roadway removal and regrading between the existing road and litigation road on the eastern portion of 5,762 square feet. We have a roadway relocation and grading in the Dadu area
- of 4,269 square feet. We have silt fence installation of 2,670 linear feet total. And that's broken out with the north and the south. And then we have a water line installation north side of the road, which is 1,248 linear feet. And that is broken out between east of Buildable Area and west of Buildable Area.
- We have an electric utility line installation of 1,143 linear feet total. And again, that's broken out between the east of the buildable area and west of buildable area. So in total, we're looking at a disturbance on this specific parcel of 13,969 square feet for road widening or removal and grading.
- plus we have 5,069 linear feet of utilities and installation to consider. The new road, I'm gonna keep pointing out this new road, it's 2,211 square feet of disturbance for widening on either side. We didn't take the entirety of the road, it's we did a strip on the east side and a strip on the west side. This widening of this road,
- really almost should be a part of that VAR-2548, but because it's on this parcel, we're kind of looking at it here. And then in green, we see the widening access number one road kind of highlighted with these green hatch marks. It's 1,727 square feet of disturbance. So in total, we have a disturbance of that 3,938 square feet.
- paying attention to that new road segment. We just didn't have a great site plan that showed existing roads, and then that one altogether. So here's an aerial that we placed showing the existing access one road that kind of runs a little more east-west through here, and then that orange circle, keep pointing that out, and how that looks under VAR-2548.
- there's a 1.41 mile road being proposed. It starts up at that access number four that comes off of Shadyside Drive. You can see it in the, it starts off in the blue area and it snakes all through that property, kind of continues down through the red. And then under this variance, we're just looking at the orange segment here, it's approximately 350 linear feet of road. But by connecting that little 350
- segment that then allows connectivity to the road that's being proposed. That's 1.41 miles under VAR-2548. So the new road segment on the main vacation home in Dadu Parcel, that's what we're showing here. You can see there's a pipe that is 30 inches corrugated metal pipe.
- That goes underneath because we have a riparian area right through this area here. So you've kind of taken to some drainage considerations. Site plan for the new road indicates widening that would measure 2,211 square feet and disturbing the slopes in eco one.
- When we look at what kind of slopes are gonna be disturbing here, these are 36 to 45% slopes in certain areas. It's pretty steep. I was pretty sweaty hiking up that when we were inspecting it a couple weeks ago. We have the petitioner's original site plan here, just reorientating us because I believe we're jumping back over to now. Just wanna check.
- Yes, we're heading away from the west side of the property from that new road. We're looking more at litigation road area and the main vacation home. So a portion of the roadway that is being removed and graded to occur between the existing access road and the new drive segment here, there
- kind of showing about 5,762 square feet of disturbance for the road removal and grading. We're also, I think, let's see.
- I mentioned also in the packet that the litigation road was, it has stone on it presently. So as you'll see in the recommendations, we're saying that that is currently pending a final decision. So we did not count that additionally under this one. So that's why the red hatch area does not include or recount the litigation road, but we will later count the utility installation, which is new.
- out too is the green that's depicted on here is silt fence and we still see also the water line and the electric line water line on the north side of the road and electric. The Dadu depicted shaded structure on the right you can see that the Dadu where they currently have a red dashed
- road that goes through here, that's the existing road, they're proposing to remove that and relocate it partially within the 12% slope line in the buildable area, but then it does get relocated within those restricted slopes, and that is 1,684 square feet for new,
- Road location and then the existing road would be removed and that's 2,585 square feet and this is to accommodate the footprint of the detached accessory dwelling unit Normally we see those coming in a thousand square feet. That's what's required, you know allowed and This one is five thousand one hundred eighty square feet between the all stories and
- So they may be stuck with a smaller footprint. The road may not need to have been relocated. We have a prior submitted site plan that you were able to view during the previous variance in 2023. It's showing an 8,750 square foot available buildable area space for the main vacation home without relocating the road.
- and not requiring that new private drive to be relocated. The current plans that they have for their buildable area that they have is the main vacation home of 7,680 square feet and then 3,592 square feet of swimming pool and decks. The electric line, we see that on the south side of the road in yellow. Staff is recommending that water and electric line
- be on the south side in a single trench and only follow the existing access road, not the relocated access road. That electric has 1,143 linear feet. The water line, staff is recommending the water and electric line be on the south side in a single trench and only follow the existing access road, not the relocated access road.
- And that is 1,248 linear feet. And then we'll see some green in here again. And again, that is silt fence. And should there be a redesign, there would be less silt fence required to be trenched in and disturbing that area. Again, the green lines indicate that silt fence locations. And if the water and electric lines are both on the south side of the road and a single trench,
- then there would be 1,719 less linear feet of trenching due to silt fencing and the waterline trenching. All right, that was 47A. We're moving on to 47B. This is eco area one, one acre contiguous buildable area variance to chapter 823.
- The improvement is for the main vacation home and accessory dwelling unit on 1.372 acres of buildable area. Each dwelling unit under the eco chapter is required to have one acre. So in total, if you're having a main vacation home and a Dadio, those are two dwelling units. Two acres is the minimum required.
- And since they only have 1.372 acres, they are short 6.28 acres less than the requirement. What they kind of are depicting here in the 12% slopes, which is buildable area, is that they are putting the residents and the DADU and the septic systems all within the buildable area. But the standard does say that you need to have one acre per dwelling unit.
- and they don't have that here. The petitioner submitted site plan, hold on. Yeah, note a proposed new grade of 715 is in bold yellow line. The existing site goes up to 719 feet and a grading plan that indicates that four feet of grading across,
- 142 feet in areas of slopes less than 12%. However, it then includes a design using the litigation road, which is in areas of greater than 12% slopes. So they're kind of going to be shaving off about four feet from the top of this hillside to be able to then develop the main vacation home.
- A lot of that is on the buildable area, but some of those plans then indicate that they need to get into the litigation road, which are areas greater than 12%. Summary for the main vacation home and dadu disturbance. Total area of buildable area on this parcel is 1.372 acres. The petitioner is proposing to disturb 1.197 acres, leaving only
- 0.175 acres undisturbed for later without a variance. I think I'm gonna just circle back to just the consideration of the main gatehouse parcel, which does have more than an acre of buildable area. This variance would not necessarily be needed if the accessory dwelling unit was relocated to perhaps the main gatehouse parcel where they do have
- over an acre of buildable area. Gonna move on to VAR-25-47C. Now we're gonna look at the size of the accessory dwelling unit standard. It's 1,000 square feet size limitation, variance to chapter 811. The accessory dwelling unit, they're proposing measures 5,180 square feet deviation, let's see, from the requirement
- They're basically 4,180 square feet over the maximum allowed.
- Okay, after you finish with 25-47D, I'm going to redouble and check with Mr. Borgman if his intention is still to have the next group of variances included because you're presenting quite a bit. And so if you would kindly go through the Huff Main Vacation Home and Dadu Parcel Accessory Dwelling Units, or have you finished with this? I'm not done yet.
- I'm still on 47. I have 47 D, but I was kind of confirming something with Jackie. In the findings of fact, we've not had a variance to the Dadu size over 2000 square feet. So this is the first variance of this type that this board has seen since the Dadu variances have been. Could you repeat that last thing you just said, please? Sure.
- When we started using the OpenGov platform in 2022, we started tracking how many variances we were getting to the Dadu 1,000 square foot maximum. And the variance deviations that we've seen since 2022, they have not exceeded 2,000 square feet. So this is the first Dadu variance for over 2,000 square feet that we've seen since 2022. And that's in one of the findings. OK.
- So to kind of continue on with the Dadu size limitation, in this illustration, we're showing a rectangle that is 1,000 square feet of a home footprint. Like we said, this current footprint has four, the current home has a proposed footprint of 4,338 square feet and livable residential space of 5,180 square feet.
- The red dashed line, I don't know if you can see, this is where the road currently is. Access Road 1 currently would go through the footprint of the accessory dwelling unit that they're proposing. If they stuck with 1,000 square feet, they would not need to relocate this road. Or they could relocate.
- the DADU entirely onto the main gatehouse road and not need a variance at all. Or sorry, different variants, sorry. Okay. VAR-25-47D. This is a standard associated with the DADU is that accessory dwelling units, there's an owner occupancy year round requirement in chapter 811.
- The petitioner requests an accessory dwelling unit measuring 5,180 square feet and a main vacation home with a 7,680 square footprint. The deviation from the requirement, it requires owner occupancy in the primary home or the accessory dwelling. The petitioner does not want to sign the required affidavit and seeks a variance. Usually when we see a
- Dwelling unit come through the BCA or even just a permit because it's outright, you know, they met all the standards The owner of the property is living year-round either in the accessory dwelling unit or the primary residence And so in this case, it's the first time I think we've maybe seen it Being proposed this way, but they do not want to sign the affidavit stating that they would live there full-time on the property If they moved it
- To the other parcel, that could just be considered a primary residence, would not be restricted to the size limitation, would not need to sign an affidavit. It would meet the one-acre contiguous buildable area standards and would not need many of these variances. So the buildable area on the main gate parcel indicates that the dadnew could be relocated and no longer require this variance.
- I also see the petitioner and their representative not proven that the requirement for year-round occupancy creates a development limitation. The accessory dwelling unit or the accessory dwelling could be relocated to another vacant lot owned by the petitioner and not require compliance with the standard and therefore would not require this variance. And again, this area at the main gatehouse is 1.26 acres. We haven't even looked at the
- Properties that are more to the north that they own that the big road is going to go through But there is buildable area there as well There's also buildable area on the ag parcel which we haven't really talked about yet But they're putting a large ag barn here. They have two point nine nine acres of buildable area on that site and instead are choosing to put an ag barn on this property and
- going to go to the packet again. There's the petition site and eco area one location. We're looking at some of the slopes.
- That's part of the litigation road area sloped. We have some slopes in here as well. This would be west of the Dadu. And then, of course, this is that new road segment. And you can see some of the hydrologic features that cut through here.
- The proposed new roadway slopes, we've already seen that at one point. This is litigation road here, looking at those restricted slopes.
- We have, again, the examples of the driveways, again, how wide they would be. Because we're still looking at the road width. They're wanting 16 feet. And we're seeing driveways of 10, 11 feet in these areas. Again, utilizing the footprint or putting footprints in buildable area, which we believe they could do with the Dadu if they redesigned it and relocated it. And it's not unique to this area.
- see a lot of the ridge top formations. Again, looking at the width of Shadyside Drive is 12 feet. They're still asking for a 16 foot wide road. This serves eight residences. And at this point, they're wanting to do a vacation home and a dadu so far on this property with an ag barn. And I'm going to go through these photos showing the location and angles of where we were when we were out there for the site visit most recently.
- This one is litigation road facing east. Is that right? Yeah. This would be the dad do location. We're kind of standing in the main vacation home site. Right here. Here's staff showing two cars passing side by side on the gravel road. We are 16 feet apart.
- showing that they're wanting to do more disturbance and pave this in asphalt. This was the angle. They're wanting to, we were measuring out the road removal and road relocation to accommodate the Dadu house footprint. Staff measures 40 feet from the edge of pavement to roughly the location of the proposed road. So the person on the right side, that's the extent of where the road would be relocated to, to accommodate the Dadu footprint.
- And this is kind of the green arrow showing this relocation. Here's the western portion of the property facing west. And then here we're down in the riparian area viewing the new road portion of the main vacation home and daddy parcel at 350 linear feet of segment
- that will connect the 1.4-mile road. And this is the perspective. We're kind of down in the repairing area. There is this 30-inch corrugated metal pipe. The red dotted lines are the existing road width. And the petitioner is wanting to expand that road width all throughout this segment.
- Here's the repairing area that we're looking at down in the bottom lands. What did we measure here? This was staff standing 12 feet apart. So they need to widen this to be 16 feet. We have not seen construction plans for this. So we can only estimate only the exact width that they're going from to.
- We cannot account for any of the other extent of grading that may need to take place. So this is a minimum variance for that. And again, showing this is a 12-foot road width. It's pretty steep here. I think we were seeing that those slopes were up in the 36% range. Yeah, that's the perspective. So just coming up and reconnecting with that
- access number one road, it does have quite a steep factor and a bit of disturbance that would occur to widen the road here. And again, the access road one has seen logging, a lot of heavy machinery throughout the site. Just kind of give me that perspective. And we do have the petitioner's letter in the packet.
- It's different, it does request those data standards and acknowledging that they're needing the two acres and only have 1.37 acres for an accessory dwelling unit. Again, the affidavit from the licensed professional surveyor stating that the roadway created is more than adequate to serve the property. And then, I think,
- I could read through the recommended motion or what the staff recommendation is and all the conditions. That is four slides. Let's go. So for VAR-25-47A, staff recommends approval of the portion of VAR-25-47A that relates only
- to the utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. Just wanna make sure. All proposed utilities and silt fence to be installed only on the south side of the access drive number one, not on the south side of the proposed relocated roadway. So no utilities and silt fence to be installed on the north side of the road
- Utilities installed on the south side of the road shall be located within a single trench on the course of the proposed electric line as shown on the petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under site plan SIT-22-15.
- Petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to the commencement of each of those improvements. Condition three, trench work shall be promptly covered, receded, and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. Number condition four, petitioner and contractor shall allow
- and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements, inspections to be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement. And so again, continuing on with the eco area one greater than 12% slope and encroachment variances, staff recommends denial of the portion of VAR-25-47A that relates to the roadway widening based on the findings of FACT.
- Staff recommends denial of the portion of VAR-25-47A that relates to roadway removal and grading between access number one and litigation road based on the findings of PACT. The legality of the road relocation area is subject
- to a pending appeal from the Indiana Court of Appeals. If the Court of Appeals overturns the trial court's decision, then the county will enforce the BZA's prior decision by seeking road removal. At this time, any approval of this portion of the variance request would be conditioned on the outcome of the pending appeal. For VAR-25-47B, staff
- recommends for the Hough main vacation and Dadu parcel eco area one, one acre contiguous area variance chapter 823. Staff recommends denial of the variance based on the findings of fact. They could relocate to a different place for one acre contiguous buildable area. For VAR 25-47C, this is the Hough main vacation
- and Dadu parcel accessory dwelling unit, 1,000 square foot size limitation, variance to chapter 811. Staff recommends denial of the variance based on the findings of fact. And VAR-25-47D, the Huff main vacation home, let's see, sorry. The Huff main vacation and Dadu accessory dwelling units owner occupancy year round requirement to chapter 811.
- Staff recommends denial of the variance based on the findings of fact. And then I guess you wanted to... I'm going to check with Mr. Borgman. Mr. Borgman, are you still able to unmute yourself? Madam Chair, before we speak, may I address? Yes.
- to ask a quick question relating to the evidence of staff. Who is Michael Kane? Yes. So the handout that you received, thank you for pointing that out. I have a reason. Could you just specifically tell me who he is? Sure. So Michael Kane is a nearby resident and they have a separate litigation with Mr. Huff.
- Mr. Kane is in the room. Yes. So we will hear from him, presumably. That hand up that you received was additional evidence that the petitioner gave us via email today in this afternoon. And so we printed it out and we have four additional copies on the table over there. So that's from the petitioner as part of their evidence that they'll be presenting to you for their variances.
- Mr. Kane is in the room and plans to speak. Are you Mr. Kane? Yes, but that's not from Mr. Kane. That information is not from Mr. Kane. We have here a court filing that is your court filing along with Alinda Raymond as a plaintiff and counterclaim against and Louis Mataya against the Huff Revocable Trust and the trust declaration.
- So when it's time, we'll hear from you. But I do want to check with Mr. Borgman. Well, that's fine. Yes. It's your meeting, Madam Chair. I mean, go ahead, but let's be quick. I'm trying to clarify. This affidavit is somebody that's in the room. Yes, but that is from the petitioner, Mr. Huff, and their representatives. It's not from Mr. Kane himself. Yes. Okay.
- Mr. Kane, do you have this? Thank you. There is a copy over there so that if you would kindly get it and review it so that you at least know what we're speaking of when it's your time to speak. As exhibit four on the bottom. Yes, I yield. OK, thank you. Is Mr. Borgman online? And can you? Yes, I'm here.
- Thank you, Mr. Bergman. Given the way that the presentation has gone forward, is it your preference now to have your 15 minutes before proceeding with variances 25-45A and B? What is your preference? No, I mean, I'd like to keep going with 45. I mean, they basically relate to the existing road and widen it. So I'm fine with moving forward with 45.
- So okay, so then we'll hear the presentation on variances 25-45A and B, and then we will hear from Mr. Borgman and then from the public, and then Mr. Borgman again, presumably, okay? So that's how we'll proceed. So Ms. Baierman, if you would kindly review with us variances 25-45A and B. Sure. So this is
- In relation to the agriculture parcel, VAR-2545A is eco area one greater than 12% slope encroachment variance, which we've seen already twice now. And we have a new one, VAR-25-45B. This is the lake yard setback to Lake Monroe variance to chapter 823. We're in the purple parcel now, the ag parcel, sometimes known as Chumlee.
- And a lot of this is having to do with the access one road that goes through the parcel. This is the petitioner's original site plan. You can see the red dashed lines here represent existing roads that were done as a result of logging on the parcel. They are proposing to widen them, add utilities,
- and some silt vents. Some of these areas are going to encroach into the 200 foot setback line. There's also a landscape wall that says height to be determined by landscaper. We also have a top soil stockpile that is going to come into play here as well. So we're gonna cover the lake yard setback, the Lake Monroe first, it's 200 foot requirement.
- There's the landscape wall. It encroaches 26 linear feet. We have water line, which is 143 linear feet encroachment. We have the electric line, which is 220 linear feet encroachment, silt fence. Silt fence would be about 601 linear feet. Something to point out is, for whatever reason, we have some floating silt fence of 157 linear feet.
- and silt fence near the stockpile of 81 linear feet. So I think we had requested the petitioner's representative to remove some of the random silt fence. It did not happen. So we have to cover it. Excuse me, Ms. Spearman. Mr. Laughman? What is a floating silt fence? We'll get into it. OK, sorry. It's just doesn't seem to serve a purpose. I'll wait patiently. Yeah. And then we've got a soil stockpile.
- that is shown to be 22 square feet encroaching into the setback. And we have a road widening of 348 square feet encroaching into the 200 foot setback for Lake Monroe. So this in total is 370 square feet of the soil stockpile and road widening and then 992 linear feet of landscape wall utilities and silt vents.
- So the purplish pink line is depicting the 200 foot setback for the lake. And here in this lake, let's see. And it synchronized with my
- In this instance, the lake yard setback is 200 feet from Lake Monroe and illustrated with measurements. The image points out the portion of the stockpile, which is 22 square feet, that little yellow triangle, and the portion of silt fence, which is 81 linear feet that are in the area of 200 foot lake setback. It should be noted that both of these improvements are within buildable area.
- and do not require a variance to the greater than 12% slope encroachment. For the petitioner's representative, the stockpile size is not based on calculations for the amount of soil that will be stirred on the site.
- Therefore, the encroachment into the 200 foot setback for the stockpile and related silt pens could be redesigned to meet the 200 foot lake setback. For this one here, we have road widening. It shows the western segment of the improvements taking place within the 200 foot lake yard setback. This figure specifically measures the portion of the road widening taking place within the 200 foot lake setback, which is represented in the pink fuchsia color.
- Road widening in this area is proposed to include 348 square feet of disturbance and is also requiring a variance to the 12% slope encroachment. So it's kind of a double hit here. Figure 1C of the packet shows the western portion of the 200 foot setback and illustrates the water line in blue
- and illustrates the water line, it's a blue line, that as creating 143 linear feet of disturbance within the 200 foot setback. The electric line, it's a gold line, as creating 222 square feet of disturbance within the 200 foot setback. And the landscape retaining wall, which is brown, red line, as creating a 26 feet of disturbance within the 200 foot setback.
- Staff also assumed the silt fence would be required on both sides of the road and utilized the prior measurements of the water and electric lines to come up with the 365 linear feet of silt fencing in this area. All of the measurements pointing out in this figure are located on slopes greater than 12%. So it's not only within the lake setback, it's also within restricted slopes.
- Here we have some floating silt fence examples, which measures 157 feet and is both in the 200 foot lake setback and slopes greater than 12%. We're not sure if that is an error, but it's there, so we're gonna account for it. Originally placed due to the petitioner's site plan,
- Showing a red dotted existing gravel road proximate to the area that was removed when the staff was to be removed in an earlier iteration. Okay. And when staff notified the petitioners representative that it would require a variance, they edited their site plan submission and confirm that the roadway would stay as existing.
- So now we're looking at, so what we were looking at before were technically the 200 foot setback encroachments. Now we're looking at the eco area one greater than 12% slope encroachments. And this is for road widening, waterline, electric line, landscaping and retaining wall and silt fence. On the slide is all of those linear feet for each of those items.
- And I will just say that in total, it's 3,280 square feet of disturbance for road widening, and 5,488 linear feet of disturbance for utilities, landscape wall, and silt fencing. So in Eco Area 1, greater than 12% slope encroachment,
- This figure shows the water line in light blue color, the electric line in gold, and the landscape wall measurements, which are red, brown, and color, and slopes greater than 12%. The water line is proposed as being located on the north side of the road and measures 1,181 linear feet. An electric line located on the south side of the road measures 1,197 linear feet, and the landscape wall measures
- 483 linear feet. With regards to that landscape wall, we don't have construction plans for that. It's really steep right through there. We're not sure how the grades will turn out as a result of that wall yet. It's just not enough details. Did you repeat that number for me for the length of the driveway? Is that what you said? The landscaped wall. Let's see. Did you just say 1,000 something? 1,000, let's see.
- The electric line located on the south side of the road in yellow, that's 1,197 linear feet. And then there's a landscaped wall north of the water line that measures 483 linear feet. I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about the length of the driveway that incorporated 3280 square feet. Do you have the length of that? Okay, that's okay, you can move on.
- up in a minute. The roadway widening, perhaps that's what you were wanting. That is 3,280 square feet of disturbance in the eco one restricted slopes and all of that is depicted in yellow, I believe on this
- You're talking about the square feet of disturbance. What's the total linear feet of the driveway itself? I thought you shared that number. It would be approximately 1,180 linear feet if you're measuring the water line. And the area is greater than 12% slope, if that's what you're asking.
- So this image, the image showing silt fence locations and measurements all placed in areas greater than 12% slope. The floating silt fence remains, even though staff recommended the silt fence could be removed due to the change in the plans that allows for the existing red dotted road in the area to no longer be proposed as being removed.
- The ag barn silt fence was requested to be scaled back to fit within the buildable area. The remaining yellow colored silt fence was not located within the buildable area as requested by staff and therefore requires a variance. The green colored silt fence is assumed not shown by the petitioner surveyor. And since there is a trenching on either side
- Proposed and a landscape wall for portions of the north side of the road the total amount of linear silt fence proposed in areas greater than 12 percent slope is two thousand six hundred and twenty seven linear feet Two thousand six hundred and twenty seven, okay And with a redesign it could be less than that
- In this one, again, we have some floating silt fence. The silt fence shown in light green remains as proposed, even though the note, existing road to be removed, was deleted from an earlier site plan draft. This area measures 157 linear feet of silt fence. And then we have silt fence shown in light green, totally 92 linear feet around the ag barn covered porches and two
- burn pits. 42. Hey, we're going back to the packet. This is the ag parcel also known as the chumlee parcel. We're showing in this instance we see all the red slopes are slopes greater than 12%.
- So there is a little bit of area that's considered buildable. I think it was actually 2.99 acres I remember reading earlier. This is the location. Here's our slope map that kind of depicts where some of those slopes are fairly severe. This is some of the areas where that
- 200 foot setback also kind of comes into play and a retaining wall Again support the findings we don't think that this road needs to be widened to 16 feet As we see other driveways in the area that Utilize much more narrow drives. It's not unique to the area again, we have
- Shady site drive, eight residents using a road that is 12 feet wide and gravel, not 16 feet wide and paved. And then here we have some of the site photos for this area. This is facing west on the ag parcel. Previously there was a well established second road that branched off at this location and went to the left. There's the.
- that picture. This is staff standing 16 feet wide along the existing access drive one. This would be proposed for the landscape wall which spans 483 linear feet behind staff and utilities would be installed kind of where staff is as like looking to the right. I think what to point out is to the right that's a
- pretty severe slope that shoots off behind that person standing there. It is 36 to 45% slopes. And again, we don't have construction plans for the 483 linear foot retaining wall. We do know a water line is proposed to go in there as well, and silt vents. And that's the perspective here for that area where the retaining wall would go.
- This is a location showing 200 foot setback encroachment in this area. This is the relative location of a soil stockpile that they're proposing within the 200 foot setback and related settlements that would go with it. It's approximately here. This is a view of Lake Monroe from
- The location nearest the proposed stockpile perspective. So the stockpile would be right around in this area. Perspective. And then a location showing 200 foot setback area and leading towards the proposed ag barn. This area. There's the location of the ag barn.
- and septic site that would be associated with it. Standing west of the proposed ag barn here. Ag barn location and related silt fencing that would be outside of the buildable area. And this location.
- Again, reminder that we've seen logging on these roads, and they were adequate to serve those vehicles. Here we have the petitioner's letter, which goes into the restricted slope requests and the 200 foot step back encroachment. And again, the affidavit.
- I think most of these conditions are similar. I'm going to read number one because it's usually the one that's different. Is that all right? So for VAR-25-47A. Left-hand side is wrong. It should be 45A. 45A. Is that right? Yes, you're correct. VAR-45A.
- This is for the HUF ag parcel, eco area one, 12% slope encroachments, variance to chapter 823. Staff recommends approval of the portion of VAR-25-45A that relates only to utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. Condition one is that all proposed utilities and silt fence be installed only on the south side of the road
- No utilities settlements to be installed on the north side of the road. Utilities installed on the south side of the road shall be located within a single trench on the course of the proposed electric line, as shown on the petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under the site plan, SIT-22-12. And I have read conditions two, three, and four
- already this evening, and they're the same. But number one changes sometimes, so be cognizant of that when you're making recommended motions. And then staff recommends a denial of the portion of VAR-2545A that relates to the floating silt fence and ag barn silt fence based on the findings of FACT.
- Staff recommends denial of the portion of VAR-25-45A that relates to the landscaping wall and road widening based on the findings of FACT. With VAR-25-45B, there's a typo here again, huff agricultural parcel lake yard setback to Lake Monroe variant to Chapter 823.
- Staff recommends approval of the portion of VAR-25-45B that relates only to the utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. The first four conditions are the same as the last one. I will not be reading those. But number five says the floating silt fence should be redesigned to fit within the buildable area.
- Staff recommends denial of the portion of VAR-25-45B that relates to the landscape wall, stockpile, soil stockpile, and road widening based on the findings of FACT. And that concludes
- So staff's presentation for that. Thank you. Thank you. We'll hear from Mr. Borgman now. Mr. Borgman, thank you for your patience. If you would kindly give your presentation to us and then we'll hear from the public. Yes. Do you need to swear me in first? Pardon me? Yes. Would you kindly raise your right hand? And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Thanks for the reminder. Yes, I do. Thank you.
- Yes, first of all, I apologize. I've been under the weather for a while, so my voice is a little scratchy. But I just want to go over a couple of things here. I know four of you, if not all five of you, were on the BZA back in 2023. And at that time, the Huffs presented their case to put in that road for safety. And that is where we are at now.
- I understand there's an existing road there, and I understand it can be used for certain things. But as with any road, when it's going to be used more often, it is usually upgraded and widened. And you're going to go from having agricultural equipment, to construction equipment, to full-time residents, to friends and family there. There's no doubt about it that those roads are going to see more traffic. And by widening those roads, they become safer.
- And I don't know if you remember or not, but at the hearing back in 2023, you know, the sheriff's department and the fire department submitted letters saying that they would like to see those roads improved for safety. And I think the other thing to remember about the roads is, and I understand that, you know, planning staff is showing some numbers about square footages and linear feet, but anything that the huffs do to these roads will require variances.
- There are some parts of them that are not in current 12% slopes, but the ones that are, any modification of these roads will require a variance. Any utility installation, any silt fence, any widening, any modification would require, will require these variances. And yes, the huffs want to upgrade it, they want to widen it, they want to create these roads and make them safe for friends, family, workers,
- moving forward, and that is what they're trying to do. If you gotta go for the variance anyway, why not go for the variance and improve it to the way it needs to be improved to? Moving on to the utilities, yes, I did rely just planning staff that no, there is no current recommended separation for water and electric, although it's not recommended. I mean, you know,
- Obviously, I tell my kids water and electric don't go together. Yes, you can put them in the same trench, but it is not recommended and I would not recommend it. Not only is it difficult during construction, moving forward maintenance, if the water line goes bad, the electric line goes bad, you basically have to service both lines in order to fix the problem because they're next to each other or typically it's done vertically with one on top of the other one.
- And then moving on to the one acre contiguous, I understand planning staff is saying that Mr. Huff has other options when it comes to the main home and the vacation home. And that is true to some degree, but it's not true to this parcel. This is a parcel of record. While Mr. Huff do own other parcels around there, this parcel has its own rights and its rights
- go with this parcel, not with other parcels. And on this particular parcel, there's only 1.37 or 1.47 acres of buildable. And that's all there is based on the existing terrain and based on the zoning ordinance. I know you saw previously, they talked about going to the neighbor buying property. That's not an option here. We've already moved that line to maximize the buildable area on this property.
- Regarding the floating silt fences, I do believe most of those are drafting errors. I mean, I do know, especially around the Ag building, that those silt fences have been put inside the 12% line. And I do believe on newer versions, they've all been removed. So that'll be taken care of. And then lastly, on the landscape wall, that landscape wall, as planning staff mentioned, is in a very steep area off the slopes.
- They want the landscape wall for two reasons. Number one, for safety. Again, because it's deep down that slope. But number two, for permanent erosion control. That is the one area on the property that does, during a big rainstorm, the gravel will wash out and needs repaired. With putting that landscape wall in there, it will also be a safety buffer and help with erosion.
- And with that said, I would like to give the rest of my time to a Mr. Hubs ever other representative, Mr. Nicholas Moline. Yes, Mr. Nicholas Moline, would you kindly unmute yourself? Could you stop the time clock until we have unmuted him and sworn him in? Mr. Moline, can you
- speak yes can you hear me yes i can and would you kindly raise your right hand do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth yes i do okay thank you you have about 10 minutes um roughly 10 minutes 10 seconds left roughly speaking
- Okay, thank you. Yeah, I am Nicholas Mullen. I'm a council representing the Huff Revocable Trust in this matter. I want to start with, the staff recommendations start with a false premise throughout and several false premises really throughout. And I'll start initially with, they are comparing the Huff's access road to the West Shadyside Drive Road. And they measure that at 12 feet wide and they say it's connected.
- it serves eight residential units. That road does not connect to anything that's been raised in these variances here. That road is completely separate, unrelated, but even so, that road only serves residential purposes. That road's not serving agricultural purposes, it's not currently serving any sort of construction, it doesn't have log trucks, it doesn't have anything else coming through it. It's serving
- primarily residential purposes. So that 12 foot might work for that. But in this instance, we're looking at a mixed use residential and agricultural purpose that's going to have large vehicles coming in and out. The more relevant portion of the road would be that section of Shadyside Drive that the Huff's easement runs through the shores. And Mr. Huff and myself were down there Friday measuring different places of that. And that road is typically 17 and a half to 18 and a half feet wide. And that road will become important here.
- minute when I speak further on that. They talked about Mr. Steve Smith's affidavit and said that, hey, the roads are fine in their current state. Well, when Mr. Steve Smith
- submitted that affidavit, he was exclusively talking about for logging and agricultural purposes. That affidavit would no longer stand for the mixed use that these roads are going to be seeing with the agricultural and logging happening at the same time as residents and visitors and guests and emergency personnel moving up and down those roads. And it also specifically calls out the litigation road as being unsafe in that affidavit. So if we're going to take Mr. Smith on his word for one paragraph and say that that's accurate, then we need to trust him on the second part.
- And you know, this board failed to do that the last time we went through this affidavit submitted it and did not want to allow the house to move that litigation road to a safer path. So visitors, emergency personnel as testified could traverse it. The driveways in the shores were measured and they talked about those being 10 feet, 11 feet wide. But again, those are driveways to a single residential home. Those are not
- driveways that are going to be used for logging purposes are not going to be used for other agricultural purposes are not used for construction of multiple homes as well as residents and guests coming up and down those so the hubs the hubs are here because the road widening is necessary to address safety issues with the roads for you both use of agricultural and residential vehicles and this was alluded to earlier but i presented a a packet to you guys and hope you guys have that in front of you right now to look at
- The huffs have been in litigation with some residents, Michael Kane and other residents of the shores for a half a decade now and regarding their access through
- the shores neighborhood and their easement they have through there. And as we talked about earlier, that road is 17 and a half to 18 and a half feet wide. And the first on page two of that packet I provided you, it's an affidavit from Michael Kane with his complaint in that case, in which he attested that the logging equipment and vehicles and the traffic generated created hazardous conditions on Shadyside Drive due to the size and limitations of the road. So you have a resident testifying that 18 and a half foot road is not safe.
- for both mixed use agricultural and residential purposes. Page nine, which is the trial memorandum, again, submitted in that case. The traffic generated by the Huff's real estate created dangerous traffic hazards and conditions and traffic conflicts causing users of the road to curtail or forego use of the road. Pedestrians have chosen not to walk along the road. Cars avoid the use of the road. Again, you have neighbors testifying that an 18 and a half foot road, they don't think it's safe to have agricultural and residential purposes.
- So the Huffs are doing what you guys will allow them, at the maximum you allow them to make the roads throughout their own property safe. I'm sure the members of the Shores would have made their roads wider had they had that opportunity to account for the mixed use of that, but they didn't at the time and they aren't doing it now.
- Additionally, in that packet, you're gonna see beyond those sections, several pictures submitted by those residents of, in that case, of the type of equipment that the house will utilize on their property for logging and construction. And you can see how hard it is for those to pass on that road at the 17 and a half and 18 and a half width of that road. And heaven forbid somebody else is coming down the road on a steep slope and can't see that. The next pictures you're gonna see is us
- measuring some of the equipment. The first is dump truck and an excavator. They were trying to pass side by side. They are 21 feet wide to pass side by side. The next is Mr. Huff's pickup truck and a dump truck. And again, for those to pass side by side, that's 17 and a half feet.
- So, you know, anything under those numbers makes it really unsafe on this property. The next you're going to see is one of two accidents that have occurred here, and this is a teenager who was coming over with that litigation road, coming up over that part that the board previously denied the variance on that they didn't agree was unsafe. And the teenager was coming up over the road, and another car was coming other direction where he could not see it and did not have time to respond and had to try to back down off the road and ended up
- the trees and luckily there were trees there or this could have been more severe and could have ended up down in the lake. So again these are all instances of what the huffs are just trying to do on their property to make it safe for everybody. Locals, residents, visitors, you know that's where we're at. That's what they're trying to do here. The other major issue I want to address is and the limited amount of time I have here is that,
- There's another false premise that this current roadway that comes through, what you guys call access number one, can be used to access the agricultural barn back on what we're going to call the Chumley parcels, the two southern parcels, as well as access logs or anything else through or build on the access buildable sites there. The staff says they can use access one to do that.
- Well, the current access road and huff property comes through the easement they have with the shores on Shadyside Drive. The huffs, like I said, the huffs have been in a half decade long litigation with the shores regarding the use of that easement. The shores litigants in that case alleged that the huffs cannot use that easement to access, build, farm, log, or do anything on that Chumley parcel where the agricultural barn is located. The huffs do not have access through there to the Chumley parcel as it stands right now, other than maybe ingress and egress
- And again, these are all issues that are trying to be settled with the court, but the Michael Kane is there and he will testify probably to you tonight. No, they cannot. He does not think they should be able to build or farm or access the Chumlee parcel. So what does that mean for you guys? Well,
- In 2547, variance 2547, you guys see that first instance of that new road the huffs are trying to build in there, right? So the huffs need that new road to access the Chumley parcel. And failure for this board to give them access out from that Chumley parcel across that new road and the variance we're gonna talk about in a minute is gonna put the county in violation of Indiana code 36741103. Because the board is going to be preventing outside the urban area, the complete use and alienation of the huffs,
- resources and forests on those chumlee parcels. That parcel is landlocked. And you saw that it got landlocked by the lake. That was presented to you. And the shores have objected and continue to prevent the huffs from accessing that through their easement over the shore's shady side road section. So again, if you fail to provide the huffs any access out of there, you have completely alienated their rights to the forests and their mineral rights on there in violation of Indiana code.
- The last thing in the very limited amount of time I have left, I want to talk about the CDO, especially as it applies to the DADU and other things there. The Hubs have been trying and working hard with the county for
- five plus years now to get, you know, get this property to where they can build these cottages, they can build a cottage, they can build a home, they can build their ag farm on the Chelman parcel. All that was stopped during that litigation road dispute. When the Huffs were trying to move that litigation road, all these applications were stopped. And it's the Huffs contention that
- the CDO was changed after they had filed these applications or begun the process to try to file these applications and they were continually stopped. And that their contention is that any of the regulations in the CDO that were changed that the house now are being asked to meet should not apply and they should be, these variances and their applications should be judged against the previous ordinances.
- I think I got everything in there. I know I had a very little time, so I'm trying to get a lot in there. But, you know, the main point here is that, you know...
- This is all for safety. The Huffs are trying to be good neighbors. They're trying to be good stewards to the county. They've had over 100 hours of county officials on their property looking at their property. They had IDEM out looking at their property. They've had stormwater permitting. Nobody has ever seen excessive erosion, even with the work that has been done there that runs in this lake. They don't want excessive erosion. Anytime somebody says there's an issue or a culvert has been a problem, the Huffs immediately fix it. They do it the right way. They do it with the right silt fences. They do it with the right
- contractors to make sure this is done right. They want this land to be safe for their family, for their friends, for their workers, for emergency personnel and that's all they're trying to do with these variances is enjoy their land and make it safe for everybody who's going to be on there. I'll take questions too if you have any. Okay thank you Mr. Moline. I'm going to defer now to the other members of the board to see if they have questions for the petitioner.
- I have a question. It's Davidson. I'm confused. Right now, there are eight homes that share that road that's 12 feet across. This is a request for a primary residence and a dadhood, so two more homes. And we've heard the petitioner and we just heard it, we're going to log.
- Okay, we're going to log and we're going to have heavy equipment. But we also know that the primary residence isn't even going to be owner occupied. So I'm confused. Would you log property that you're going to build two homes on? What is the extra increased traffic when it's not even owner occupied? I'm confused where the need to
- Air on the side of safety comes from where's the traffic and sure commerce. Sure, the first off the the house always want to err on the side of safety and I think the county does as well.
- So while they are not owner occupying it right now, they have children. They have residents, children in the area who are attending any university who could be visiting and staying in that. It's a vacation home. They may have guests who want to stay there multiple times. They're going to have other parcels to build on throughout this.
- property and other places are going to build beyond just these two in the future. So look, we can come back every single time and continue to move the road and widen the road anytime a new piece is requested or a new property or a new house or something is built on there. And again, those plans are further down the road. So we're not talking about those now, though. But right now, there is no residential usage of
- that property because there are no homes right it's just the huffs going out there maintaining their property or their um you know their contractors and the people you know helping them maintain that property so if we if you have two houses there you're going to have you could have four or five people there you could have you know teenagers coming in visiting the property their kids you could have college kids coming in and out visiting the property staying on the property
- coming in at night, coming in during the day. Yes, he's going to continue to log as necessary per the DNR's, you know, the plan there, there is prudent logging is necessary for all of the property here. And that is the access for the Terre Haute Realty parcels, all those, that is their access out right now. And so, yes, that up and down those roads, and especially that litigation road, those are steep. And when you come up over them and, you know, the government officials who were there this last week or two weeks ago will tell, should you should be able
- I tell you, when you come over some of those roads, you can't see who's coming up the other side. And if you don't have, if you don't have a wide enough road for somebody to come up on the other side of you, you're going to end up with accidents as they have already seen. And so the more people that come visit, the more people, the longer they stay there, it may not be a permanent residence, but the house might stay there for months on end. And so, you know, they're going to have plenty of residents in and out of that property. Okay, that's the question you addressed, residents.
- Tell us more about the logging plans and why that traffic will be so onerous for this road. It's going to be onerous as they're continuing to develop new sites. They're going to need to log for those sites. As you are aware, probably within last year or so, there were
- Hundreds and hundreds of trees that were damaged from a tornado that was in that area. So those continue to be logged and cleaned up so they can get rid of remove the dead trees. And you know, overall there's there's, you know, a plan to maintain that property and log as necessary to keep the forest healthy. And again, the huffs made shoes and they have every right to choose to act to do other agricultural work on that that would require large equipment in and out of that property. So you know that's that's within their within their right, whether or not they have
- decided to put any other type of agricultural plot right now, they have the right to use this property for that and that's going to continue to be used. So they are requesting, they should have roads wide enough to be utilized for what this piece of land is designed for. Okay, my last question is the ag building that's referred to over and over, this is not part of our variances tonight. That must just be something planned for the property at some future time because-
- We aren't looking at those right now, but you're suggesting that there's going to be intense agriculture on that purple stretch, the purple stretch down here on the left-hand side of our picture, the Chumley. Is that what you're saying? There's going to be intensive agriculture on that steeply sloped land?
- I'm not saying there's going to be intensive agriculture. I'm saying that it is an agricultural barn and I don't believe that there's a variance because it's on a flat, it's been proposed on a portion that is under the 12% and it is specifically for agricultural purposes to store agricultural equipment. Whether it's intense agriculture or very limited agriculture, the huffs have a right to use that parcel for agricultural purposes and therefore they need a way out of that parcel.
- And that's where the new road comes into play to get out of that parcel. They may grow grapes. That was one thing they've always wanted to do. They wanted to grow grapes and maybe start to utilize it for their own wine or some other purpose. And that's a great parcel for that down there. It's less wooded now. It's in a great location for that. So there are several things they could use that for. Thank you. Are there other questions? Yes, Mr. Daly and then Mr. Morris.
- I have a question for staff and then a question for the petitioner. My question for staff is, did I hear that there's a septic permit for the agricultural barn? Yes. Okay. So then my question for the petitioner is to expand a bit on Ms. Davidson's question. So is this
- I was wondering if the barn planned for equipment storage, like tractors, or to house horses, or is it planned to be a wedding venue or something? I'm intrigued by the idea of putting a septic tank in for an agricultural barn, so I'm curious. Sure. It is planned to be an agricultural barn for storage,
- Um, yes, it plans to have a bathroom as as needed. I don't have all the plans in front of me to see what it is, but we've already had this discussion many times with the county. I think in 2021 there was a meeting with the county and um, I think Mr Schilling and Miss Nestor and several people were there and you know the county said, you know, it's if you if we say it's an agricultural barn, which we are, they're going to trust that it's an agricultural barn and that's what they are building there. They're building an agricultural barn and wouldn't you love to have a barn that has a bathroom, right? You're there working around the barn and you
- you're storing your equipment and coming in out of there, your workers are coming in out of there, it'd be nice for them to be able to use that and not have to go to your home to use the restroom. So yeah, it's going to have a place to use the bathroom, but it's convenient for people who are farming the land to have a place to go. That's not the woods or the lake. So this is not planned to be an event center then? No, it's not planned to be an event center. It's an agricultural one. Thank you, Mr. Daley.
- Mr. Moline is it? Yes, Mr. Moline. I believe it might have been your colleague that mentioned something regarding conversations with the fire chief and the police in the sheriff's office regarding the safety regulations or what their wishes or recommendations were for the width of the road
- Can you or your colleague go a little more in depth into that conversation? Yeah, you guys should have that. There were actually sworn affidavits at the board meeting in which the litigation road was originally denied by the board. I don't have that date in front of me, but you guys should have those affidavits. But yes, essentially, they testified that that portion of the road, that litigation portion of the road, was
- would be very difficult to traverse with large emergency personnel equipment. So specifically such as like a fire truck or an ambulance, things like that. They said it would be very, very difficult for them to come up and over that safely too, because they would not be able to see what's on that. And moving that road to the less steep portion of it where you have a kind of a wider view of the road, the further down and up the road, what was better for them. Yeah, those are all in your guys' record.
- So you're suggesting it's the wishes of first responders to have that road widened if they need to reach folks at the lake for some reason, or folks that would be working or living in that area? Yeah, absolutely.
- The Huffs are, you know, happy to allow emergency crews to come all the way out to the end of their peninsula if there's a drowning of the lake and they need to be, you know, go out that way. You know, if there's fires in the woods, they're going to need to be able to come in and out that way. And yes, based on their testimony, that's their wish is that specifically on that case was to the litigation road being moved. And that's what the trial court
- really took into consideration when they ruled for the Huffs in that before you guys have appealed it to the Court of Appeals, but the trial courts position what was very much based on that testimony by the emergency personnel in that that road needs to be moved for safety.
- Thank you. Just note one thing, just for everyone's recollection, the variance that was in 2023 was just for a road relocation. It did not include widening. It did not include utility installation and it did not include paving. Thank you, Miss Nester, gentlemen. Mr Loftman. Yes, uh. The the. Sunny shady side is the.
- the access to these other residences, and its portions of it at least are 12 feet wide. Is this how your residents or your people staying in the Dadu are going to access it? Everybody's going to go through Shadyside Drive, is that right?
- So right now, the only access to that parcel, the Dadu in vacation home, is through Shadyside Drive, where that shows access number one on that map right in front of you, right, where that arrow is, up through Shadyside Drive there. That portion of Shadyside Drive is about 18 and a half feet wide, up to 18 and a half feet wide. That portion that you're talking about that is 12 feet, if you're looking at the map on the screen right now, is up near access number four.
- that portion is where they measured the 12 feet. They did not measure and the staff did not measure or at least did not present their measurements for the width of the road where the residents were complaining about the logging coming through, which is right where it says access number one, just straight up that section to the north. But a portion of the road is 12 feet.
- Is narrower and everything's going to have to go out in and out through that narrow portion. Is that right. That current portion is only word social access number four. That's actually where it branches off. And again, we're going to talk about this later, but in that
- that new road coming through there will alleviate some of the traffic through Shadyside, maybe in the future. Right now that road's, they're just trying to build that road to get to their agricultural barn and their agricultural purposes. But yes, it could possibly be utilized to alleviate some of the traffic through the shores. And I would hope the shores would be happy to hear that. I'm sorry, but it's not helping me with what I'm trying to understand. If you come from the proposed gatehouse,
- and you tried to try to go all the way out to you get to to County Road to the you have to go through a 12 foot section is that right I I don't believe that you're gonna have to ask the staff that that is not the section they measured no is not there that is not the section they measured today that they talked about okay may I ask this this staff
- I understood that you all measured that. Is that an area people would have to go through to access the Huff property? No, so we're doing a measurement of the strictly north-south, south Shadyside Drive. I am coming up with about 17 or 18 feet of that area that would just be off of access one. Access number four is the new road. That's the road for which we measured
- being 16, comparing that to the 16 feet width, and that was only 12 feet. So access number four is just an offshoot of Shadyside Drive. As you go north on Shadyside Drive, you don't have to go left onto that roadway. You can keep going north onto, I believe it's Sheffield Creek, is the county road. Shieldridge, Shieldridge, yes. Okay.
- The portion from Shields Ridge that would go down to the gatehouse is generally about 16 feet. It's a little bit more than that even. Yeah, it's 16 feet or wider. Okay, thank you. That was a confusion I had and I now have an understanding of that. There was another issue I wanted to just follow up on. This is going to be
- You said that there would be college kids coming and going. And that's a little bit of a red flag for me. I mean, of course, people along the shady side
- No doubt some of them from time to time have had college students. Some of them might right now. But is there any special expectation that on the properties you want to construct, the residential properties, there's going to be college students coming in and out of there more than any other thing along this shady side?
- So there's no special expectation. This is not like a property being rented to students at Indiana University or anything like that. The Huffs currently have one student who is attending Indiana University. They have another student who I believe is a senior in high school, and they have another student who I think is in eighth grade. As those kids matriculate and become older, those kids and their friends will probably visit the property and take advantage of the property. It's a lovely piece of property. And the kids are going to want to come down there and spend time with their friends. And additionally, those future homes are going to try to build in the property.
- as they can find buildable sites and work with the county to get those approved. So no, there's no expectation that that's gonna happen other than their kids and their extended family who are of that age may be coming and visiting. Just like everybody else along the road. Absolutely, just like everybody else along that road. Thank you. Okay, we're going to hear from the public now and
- First, we'll hear from the public who is in favor of the petition and we'll start with the people who are in the room. If there are people in the room who are in favor of the petition, please come to the podium and sign in and I will then swear you in. Yes, sir.
- come to the podium you'll have three minutes to express your support of the huffs requests for variance variances and what is your name sir thank you my name is John David Lanham I go by David
- I'm a friend of the Freeman family, which is one of the contractors that have done a lot of work on the property for several years. Would you kindly put the microphone so that we can hear you? And then I also need to swear you in. Yes, ma'am. Would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Now please proceed, Mr. Lanham. Sure, I'll repeat this. I'm a friend of the Freeman family, which is one of the contractors that have done a lot of land improvement there for several years.
- So I've done a lot of volunteer work and I've gotten a lot of firewood from the wood that's fallen there. And also I've had the privilege of using the trails that Mr. Huff put in. It's my understanding that these gravel trails were once used by the loggers. And Mr. Huff was graciously to convert these eroding dirt roads into gravel trails. So I frequent these trails once or twice a week. And I just want to say that he's done a lot for erosion control of these trails.
- The trees that were damaged or fallen, he's ground out the stumps for erosion control, planting grass seed for erosion control, and today the place looks like a state park. I don't see that in any other places around the lake, and I know they've done logging, and I know there's been a lot of protests against that, but there were state loggers that approved this. It's got an old aging forest that needed harvesting. So again, the place is like a state park,
- and I've had the privilege of using it. So I don't know if people will talk about that there may be erosion and he's damaging the ecosystem. It's just the opposite. He's really got this place looking really nice and I have a privilege of using it. So I think that's all I have to say really for thanks for your time.
- Well, thank you, Mr. Lanham, and thank you for coming out tonight and for your patience. I think maybe one more. I do believe that people, I can see they're upset. They have a nice area back there. They don't want to see more homes go back in there, more activity. But these people, at some point, they had a chance to build their home when there was nothing there. They had to drop trees to build their home. So I was like, why does Mr. Huff have to go through this when these people got their homes back in there?
- Also to these guys just maybe uh, I don't think mr. Huff will will surrender but someday he might surrender give that give this up and another development guy may come under he may build several hundred homes in there and you guys won't like that So i'm just saying just kind of be lenient to what mr. Huff is doing He's got a state park going on. It's really beautiful and i'm grateful I can have access of property. Thank you. Mr. Vino Thank you
- Are there other members of the public who would like to speak in favor? Please come to the podium and sign in.
- Lynn, would you kindly put the microphone so that we can hear you and state your name for the record? Okay. I'm Lynn Rogers. Okay. And then I'll swear you in. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. You have three minutes. Okay. Thanks. I live at the second house again on the cul-de-sac on Shadyside and Joe has been very good about
- cooperating with us to keep our end of the road at the very end. He could have taken out our neighbor, Ronald Linda Mosses, basically their whole front yard because the east but actually extended almost to his doorstep. It's sad he didn't even disturb his driveway. He made it. It's just so he's on the other side.
- of his driveway and put a lot of extra time and money into making it so he could bypass disturbing his land at all. Across the street from us, we've always had woods. Now he has that easement that's right across the street from us. And one of the things I mentioned to him is I didn't want a straight drive through the woods there, that I didn't want that particularly as my view.
- And so he kindly just curved it enough to make it so that it looks fine. So he's been cooperative with us. And that's just what I wanted to tell you. Well, thank you, Lynn. Thank you. Are there other members of the public who would like to speak in favor and in support of the Huff's
- requests for variances Please come to the podium here in the net hill room or raise your virtual hand online in order to be recognized and Staff I am not able to see if someone is raised their virtual hand Okay There is no one else who would like to speak in support of these requests so I will now turn to the public who would like to speak against a
- these requests for variances. If there are people here in the Nathill courtroom who would like to speak, please come to the podium and sign in and then I will swear you in.
- of our record, would you point the microphone toward your mouth and state your name? Connie Lindman. Lindman? Lindman, L-I-N-D-M-A-N, Lindman. Okay, and do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you, Ms. Lindman. You'll have three minutes. Okay, thank you so much.
- So again, my name is Connie Lindman. I'm a resident of Shadyside Drive. I'm not a resident of the shores. I actually live farther down the street. And I am here to speak as a resident and as a would-be neighbor of Mr. Hough. So I will tell you the Shadyside community, as you can see here, is a quiet community, is a close-knit community. We've lived in harmony for years. Many of the people in the community have lived here for decades.
- welcoming to neighbors who want to be our neighbor. But Mr. Huff doesn't want to be our neighbor. Mr. Huff wants a variance so that he can build a 7,000 plus square foot vacation home and a 5,000 square foot plus accessory dwelling and an agricultural barn that has a septic and fire pits and a porch. And I would just ask the committee to consider
- the, what I understand from reading the 400 pages, which I did read the packet, that one of the things to consider is whether the variances are needed for Mr. Huff to enjoy the property to the, to the same manner and in the same extent as other people on the property and surrounding. And I know on the staff report, it said that the homes
- ranged from 2,600 to 5,000 square feet. I believe that's probably for the shores, because my home's not that big. My home is 1,900 square feet. So we're looking at an accessory building that's five times as big as the 1,000 square foot limit, which I understand some variance is necessary sometimes, but that's five times as big, plus a vacation home, plus an agricultural barn that doesn't look at least from the outside like it's truly agricultural.
- And all I would say is I understand that the staff has made some recommendations to deny some and agree to a single trench for electric and water and some accommodations. I don't know why we should be making any accommodations until Mr. Huff has come in with a plan that is conforming with the use. I understand the variance, but the variance is supposed to
- allow Mr. Huff to enjoy his land to the same extent as other residents, and he's not. And so I would just ask, even though, respectfully, the staff has recommended approval with the variances for the electrical and the water being in the same trench, I would just say, until he comes with a plan that actually meets the requirements, I would urge you to deny the whole thing. So that's my statement.
- I think that's it. Oh, I wanted to if I know my three minutes is not up. I want to address the safety issue that somehow all of this is only for safety. I'm sorry. It's not for safety. I'm over. OK, I apologize. Thank you, Miss Lin. Thank you. Thank you. Are there other members of the public who would like to speak in opposition to the petition? Please come to the podium.
- What is your name? Cynthia Port, P-O-R-T. And Port, would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. You have three minutes. OK, I'm going to read it. OK, I've lived on Shadyside for eight years, and I'd like to speak about the character of the street and how Mr. Hoff's approach to ownership and development is affecting Shadyside and potentially Handy Road as well.
- Shadyside is a quiet residential area. Most of the homeowners are older. The streets are winding and extremely hilly, and there are no sidewalks. One of our neighbors' favorite pastimes is walking, and not just the evening, but at all times of the day and days of the week. People walk with their dogs, with their neighbors, with their grandchildren. Most of my neighbors I've met through walking. Since its purchase of the land, the
- plans have been opaque this entire time. Over the years, we've been left to try to read the tea leaves as his trucks pull out load after load of enormous trees and bring in load after load of gravel and heavy equipment, as the roads we try to walk buckle and disintegrate under his traffic, and as smoke fills the air and falling ash drives us indoors. Without sidewalks, we step into the poison ivy and muddy edges of the street to feel safe from all these non-resident vehicles, many of whom do speed.
- Most recently, a wedding was held on the property, and this brought even more traffic. Mr. Hupp continues to obfuscate his real plans. A parking lot, a gatehouse, such wide roads, so many large outbuildings with extensive porches and multiple fire pits for agricultural purposes. Our current tea leaf reading is a wedding venue, which would be a disaster. We could potentially expect tens of additional cars on our quiet country street every weekend, again with the possibility of people having had a few drinks too.
- On Handy, all that traffic would be added to the existing summer weekend lake traffic of cars and trucks with boat trailers, and of course, many, many groups of bicyclists who enjoy this area. Our in-laws lived on Handy for decades, and their mailbox was obliterated regularly, as it was, and their daughter's car was hit. Now imagine adding wedding celebrants behind the wheel, and yet Mr. Huff claims he cares about safety. We would have enjoyed welcoming Mr.
- Huff and his family to the neighborhood. We truly, truly would. We would welcome all the houses he's permitted to build with his eight water meters. That's all great. We'd love to enlarge our neighborhood with people who really want to be there and enjoy it the way we enjoy it. But his modus operandi seems to be to do what he wants and then bring a lawsuit later. Anything we can do to at least slow his plans gives us a modicum of a chance. He is not our neighbor.
- and he's unwilling to state that he wants to be our neighbor. His actions so far have done the opposite of build trust. And while some people might get to enjoy his property like a state park, the rest of us will literally be sued if we step foot on it. And he has cameras and has sent us all letters to that effect. I beg the commission to deny these precedent setting and inconsiderate variances. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Port. Are there other members of the public who would like to speak in opposition?
- Please come to the podium, yes.
- What is your name, ma'am? Carol Clark. Ms. Clark, would you raise your right hand and do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. I'm not prepared to really say anything, but I would just like to say that
- The Huff Land is a beautiful piece of property. I think all of us, long before he owned it, used to walk in the woods there. The Freemans who have done a lot of the development have been very kind, nice people to work with, very friendly on the street.
- I would like to say the same thing that the guy who said pro things, but sadly Mr. Huff gave all of us on the street do not trespassing letters. So we have not been able to see his pretty land or walk on the roads at all. I think what we're all very worried about is what is really going to happen since we're all unclear. There has been a wedding venue that was done there.
- Just fairly recently, I understand this agricultural building is going to have a whole set of decking behind it, as well as the septic field, which sounds like a special event kind of thing going on.
- I think what everyone is just worried about is what to expect on a quiet street. Is it going to be really commercial? Anyone should be allowed to do what they would like to with the property as long as they're doing things within the zoning and the courts allow it. But I guess we just have a lot of concerns, that's all. And I do live on the shores, which is a
- less than a mile piece of property that we have to maintain ourselves. We have to shovel it in the winter time or pay for someone to plow it. We have to re-asphalt it and with all we're not allowed to log in our bylaws but because of the easement
- He has been allowed to log through all of this. And as you can imagine, our road has kind of suffered for it. And there really is no sense to throw more money at it until we know exactly what's going to be done. So that's my report. Thank you, Miss Clark. Are there others who would like to speak in opposition to this petition? Please come to the podium.
- sign in. Yes, and would you state your name?
- My name is Kathy Meyer. Ms. Meyer, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. I don't live on Shadyside Drive. I do drink the water. I ride my bike out there. I go to the lake for recreation. And despite some of the glowing reports I've heard about the lack of erosion, from the pictures I saw, I see great evidence of erosion. There were rutted roads.
- culverts that were exposed so everything is washed off on top of them. All that's going into the lake. Now, I understand that there was a forest management plan and I haven't seen that and apparently it was not really covered tonight. But a forest management plan from the DNR does require erosion control measures. It also specifies what kind of logging is done and how often it's done.
- Typically areas are not logged more than every few decades. If the purpose is timber production or habitat improvement, those trees are not going to be removed annually. They're not going to be logging trucks in there all the time. Look from the slides like there's very little buildable sites that are on flat enough ground that you would be removing trees from just for the purpose of building. So if he's logging on
- the slopes that should be limited like it is everywhere else around the lake for everyone else. The size of the building seems extravagant to me as well, and the representative from Mr. Huff mentioned that there would be more homes built at some point, and like the people here, it makes me curious of how many more homes are built and where were they going to build them with so little buildable ground? The sizes
- seemed a lot and for the two buildings, if one is occupied regularly, again I don't see how there could be that much traffic going in and out of that road. I scribbled notes and didn't bring my reading glasses but those are the main points. It just seems to me the
- The agricultural building seems suspect about the only, you're not gonna grow corn out there, so I'm wondering if that would be horses or vineyards, I think was mentioned. That doesn't require a whole lot of machinery, and it doesn't require fire pits and decks. It might be nice to have one deck out there and one fire pit, but multiple fire pits and decks and some of them covered and some of them uncovered seems,
- not to be the typical kind of structure you would have for an agricultural building. Also for the safety, there are lots of places in Monroe County that have gravel drives serving a farm with agricultural buildings and a dwelling or two. The Creek Bend Vineyard had one very narrow gravel drive going into that, and they had a small event venue there. They have a building where they had hosted gatherings at various times.
- Thank you, Ms. Meyer. Thank you for coming out tonight and for your patience as we go through this. Are there others who would like to speak in opposition? Yes, sir. Please come to the podium and sign in, Mr. Cain.
- Oh yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, thank you.
- Mr. Have you signed in, Mr. Kane? I have. And Mr. Kane, would you raise your right hand? And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. And also before you begin, would you affirm that you also are the person who has is a litigant? And a party to a lawsuit against the hubs in this particular?
- endeavor so to speak yes okay thank you Mr. Kane you'll have three minutes to address us. Mr. Moline provided you with the photos of why we're concerned about traffic and why we're concerned about development I took many of these photos myself for our court case. This don't say
- Here's a piece of flat ground, build your building, and then we won't worry about the silt fences or the utilities or the landscape walls. That's all land disturbance. What he's trying to do is maximize the footprint of every building by building it to the edge and then get a variance for the utilities. The problem with our road is that the more development, the more traffic.
- The bigger the buildings, the more traffic. He talked about the roads they're concerned about on that property. Shadyside Drive, where we all have to drive every day, it's got the same blind curves, only worse. It's got the same blind hills. It's narrow. There are no shoulders. There is a place where you pull off and you could literally roll down the hill. And we've been dealing with logging trucks and heavy equipment
- since 2018, maybe soon before, I don't know. The Hubs had the opportunity and they took the opportunity in November of 2016 to hire Stephen Smith, the surveyor. He gave him a full report. There's a memo. I've got a copy of it. He gave him a slope map with two foot contours with the 12% and 15% slope lines on it.
- And then several months later, he purchased the property. He was well aware of what he was buying. He was advised that the county had strict building regulations on that property. If he didn't do his due diligence, I'm sorry. That's not your responsibility or the public's responsibility. The shores and the map you see
- The easements control access to the tarot realty property and the Chumley property. There is no easement for the Chumley property. In a 2023 appellate court decision, it states quite clearly that he cannot use the easements through the shores. That's an entire road through the shore subdivision to develop Chumley or log it.
- He'd already clear cut it and logged it by the time that decision came down. But the development, we're still in court over it. And it also limits any development on the Terre Haute Realty property to residential. And we're still in court over that. And we're still in court over the definition of what is prudent logging, which is another decision handed down by the appellate court. So residential doesn't mean agriculture.
- It doesn't mean vineyards. It doesn't mean event centers. It's residences. It's very clear in the easements. I don't think it's the obligation of the public to bend the rules so that he can maximize his profits or fulfill a dream. He can build a nice house. There's no problem.
- I object. Okay. Your three minutes are up. Okay. It was complicated for me just because so many of the variances were put together, you know, so. So I understand, but we need to maintain. We need to maintain the protocol in case there's further litigation. I agree. So thank you, Mr. Kane. Are there other members of the public who would like to speak in opposition to this petition?
- Yes, sir. Please come to the podium and sign in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Skip.
- Would you state your name, sir? My name is Mark Galhausen. Mr. Galhausen, would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. And if you would raise the microphone so that we can get a good... Is this good? That's good. Thanks. Most of what I prepared to say has been said already. I'm one of those eight people that lives in that spur road.
- It is measured at 12 feet, but it is often, my measurements are about a foot to a foot narrower than that in a lot of places. It serves eight of us. We've been there, I've been there for 42 years now. It's been a peaceful community. That is effectively a driveway. When I moved in there and came in there in the early 80s, that was a private drive sign, speed limit 15. It's been, that sign is now gone and it serves still eight people.
- At the time I came in, there were maybe five or six people. The bottom line I want to get to is that it has been effectively a driveway, a residential drive for all of us. It's a spur road. It goes nowhere. It goes to Ridgetop and it stops. There's an easement, I guess, that goes beyond, but it's not been used. What I want to know is what sense does it make to take the end of our little spur road, which is them to be blown out to 16 feet and double wide and paved,
- And then make a zigzag down through the middle to get to chumlee property You've got three other access points that could be optimized or could be argued about or could be opened up or changed But it just makes no sense to me to go through all that sensitive area with a road. They should have to Go through all kinds of steep grades I don't think he to get it get the variances to do that, but it just comes question. I'm questioning Why is that even being considered?
- You're tearing up our little residential area, personally. We're not really part of the main shady side. We're a spur. And you can do all that you need to get on the pavement without even coming down our house. The only people that drive down there are the people that live there. I used to recreate on the property that Joe Huff bought. We could hike it. We could cross-country ski back in there. We could walk our dogs. It was very peaceful.
- Terre Haute Realty allowed us to go back in there, that horse ride back in there. That was taken away in 2017. We were all issued a no trespassing. I have that letter somewhere. Basically, don't go there. You'll be filmed. The police will be called on you. And I did nothing to ever deserve that letter, but we all got that letter. We put up with the logging trucks. We put up with all the congestion, our road being torn up. That road has been busier now in the last eight years
- all of the years prior to my living here. So I just wanted to say I support what all of the people have said that are against this. And I just want to add my comments to that. I don't know how that, if I have it correctly grafted, but my understanding is that that's an all new road, almost 6,000 feet long or something, I believe. So again, thank you for letting me speak. Thank you, Mr. Gilhausen.
- Is there another person here in the room who would like to speak in opposition to these requests? Please come to the podium. If not, I'm going to turn to the, oh yes. Hi, please sign in and then I'll swear you in.
- Okay, my name is Allison Sears and I'm often and would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Miss Sears, please proceed. Okay. I'm also in one of the eight houses by mark right actually next door to mark where we share this really kind of narrow drive and like
- You know, we're always coming and going, but there's like a pull off. So we're just very neighborly. You know, as you can see, everyone, you know, all the neighbors came out tonight. So but my concern, I have four little kids. I think maybe you saw some of them here earlier, you know, widening the road. We actually built in 2018 and the building recommended we move our house closer to the road because of the slope of the backyard. There was a previous house further back.
- So we'd lose a significant portion of our front yard if it, you know, is widened too much. You know, I'm not opposed to it being widened slightly, but yeah, my widening it, paving it, you know, just sounds like a lot of traffic down like our, which is now a dead end road, just, you know, is worrisome with kids that are used to being able to play on this really dead end quiet street.
- That's all. Thank you, Ms. Sayers. Is there anyone else in the room before I turn to online for comments? If there's anyone else in the room who would like to speak, come to the podium. If not, I will proceed to online. I can't see if anyone has their hand raised. One person, two people now have their hand raised online.
- I think JRS was first at first, but now it shows up as Gregory Demis is number one. Gregory Demis, if you would kindly unmute yourself on your end. I believe our staff has unmuted you from our end. You have to unmute yourself on your computer.
- by clicking on the microphone symbol. Thank you, Mr. Demas. Would you speak? Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can. And would you state your name? Greg Demas. Mr. Demas, would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. OK. Well, you have three minutes.
- So yeah, I'm one of the eight residents on the narrow 12 foot gravel road that's been discussed and what we've been calling the Western branch of state Shadyside Drive and have been here for about 20 years now. So I share all the concerns raised by my neighbors about the disruption to what I actually consider a little holler. As you heard from Allison's kids playing the street and it's a lot of things gone that really scare me if there's going to be a lot of traffic. I also want to say I'm a scientist at IU and as a scientist my job is to listen to the facts
- that have been collected and presented and draw conclusions based on those facts. And so with that in mind, I found many of the facts presented during this meeting quite disturbing. And I'll mention just a couple. An unwillingness by the owners to sign an affidavit that they will live there year round as per the requirements, required variances in excess of anything the zoning board has approved previously, if I heard of that correctly. Numerous variances well beyond the currently allowable and frankly appropriate gradients for this parcel.
- Unwillingness to consider alter alterations based on redesign recommendations by experts that would minimize the number of variances required and thus disruptions to the ecology and, to be honest, the safety of the land. The complete lack of clarity regarding their plans and what they intend. I've heard they may do X, they may do not. We can never get any clearer statement of what their intentions are. To my ear, the sheer number of variances requested and required are clearly contrary to the spirit of the intended use of this land.
- And so lastly, with respect to the Western branch where I am, the claim that addressing the safety of existing roads, which have been stated to be unsafe by adding yet another potentially unsafe road that may send heavy agricultural equipment through what amounts to a community driveway, as Mark and Allison mentioned earlier, is not a very credible argument to me. So all these facts together, these variances were encountered to the appropriate stewardship of the land. And as such, I think these petitions should be denied. Thank you.
- Thank you, Mr. Dimas. And then there is a JRS who is online, and I believe staff has unmuted you, and you're unmuted. Would you state your name? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah, my name is Jeffrey Sampson. Jeffrey Sampson? Mm-hmm. Yes, Mr. Sampson, would you raise your right hand? And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes.
- Thank you. Well, you have three minutes. Okay, thank you so much. I don't have a lot to say. I would just like to strongly sustain the statements by Connie Lindeman, Cynthia Port, Carol Clark, Michael Kane, and the others about this whole situation. My parents bought this house, which I'm neighbors with the Ports and Michael Kane and Linda Raymond,
- 35 years ago from the original owners who are the Shields family. And as everybody's been saying, this is a quiet neighborhood. It's a close neighborhood and people care for each other. And everything that has been said about what's happened when Huff bought this property and how it's been handled is frankly quite disturbing. There's one thing I'd also like to ask
- is that I want to make sure that it is on record from the representative from Mr. Huff that this quote, agricultural building is not to be used as an event center. As it already has been stated, there was already a wedding that had been held on that property earlier this year.
- So that raises a lot of questions about what this building really is all about. So I would like some real, real confidence about how this property is to be used. And I wanna make sure that the staff has asked all the correct questions and is clear about that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sampson.
- If there's no one else to make comment, I'm going to close public comment and we will return to the representatives for Mr. Huff for a rebuttal, a five-minute rebuttal of the opposition you've just heard. Okay, thank you very much. Can you guys hear me? This is Nicholas Moline. Yes, we can hear you.
- Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time to respond. The first thing I want to address, I'm trying to walk through this kind of by person, but was that there's been this question about what the huffs are intending to do with the property or that you haven't seen plans. And in particular with this agricultural barn, all of the neighbors are very upset that it may be a wedding venue. Again, the huffs have no desire for that to be a wedding venue. They don't need the money from that to be a wedding venue.
- that is not something they are looking to do with the barn. Yes, there was one wedding held on the property, again, without the venue. So if the barn is a concern, there's a lot of other places to hold a wedding. There was a friend of the family. They had less than 50 people who attended, and they were not paid. This is not a commercial endeavor. So to clear that up. But the Huffs have submitted
- Numerous countless plans to the county all made public to every member here who who opposed to see what they are tending to do with the property and all of the hurdles that house have tried to go through with the county. They can see all of that. They've been upfront from the very beginning when the house bought the property. They offered a substantial sum of money.
- to address concerns of maintenance of the road, to try to be good stewards, even though they did not have to because the previous developer had obtained 11 acres of that land for continued and permanent maintenance of the road for Oterojo Realty. So, the house didn't even have to do that. That was already built into previous land transactions on here, but they did, they attempted to do that to be good stewards here.
- Access number four up there. Several members up there were talking about the hubs plan for a new road and then we're gonna talk about that on the next variants and a little bit of that is addressed in 2545 as well. But if they have an issue and the first gentleman who spoke on that said, hey, you can go through access number one, access number two, access number three, the hubs can't. Go talk to your friends at the shores.
- to ask them to let the huffs through access number three to get to Chumley. Ask them to let the huffs through access number one and two to get to Chumley. They're not. It's not the huffs who are causing this problem. It's the Shores members who are not allowing them to access the Chumley parcel through there. So the huffs have to gain access out from there as guaranteed by state law to access their agricultural rights down there. So somehow they have to get out. And the least intrusive way out is the way that they have designed to get out through access number four.
- And again, many of those members on Act September 4 talked about it being a small road and their houses being close to the road. And unfortunately for them,
- all of those properties are subject to a 50 foot wide easement that runs through that road. And I don't really understand why they were all built so close and in some places encroaching completely on that easement. In the house, we're gonna do their best to limit the width of things that come through there as they can to be good stewards. But unless the members of the shores let them through the other accesses, access number four is the only other access out for that Chumley parcel. So I think it's,
- it's really an issue between those two parties to figure out what's the best option there, but the huffs have no other way out right now. And so that's the way that they're gonna need to come out with that next variance. What other things did I wanna address? I mean, I think Mr. Kane made the case for the huffs for that variance himself, right? He's basically said, no, they can't come out of here. They can't use that to access Chumlee.
- Well, Chumlee's landlocked. Chumlee has agricultural rights. The Hubs have a state law that says the variance cannot completely alienate them from those forests or their mineral rights, and they need to come out through that new road. So that's where we stand on that. And again,
- You've heard from several members who were complimentary of the Huffs and complimentary of Freeman, who had been working in the house property. The Huffs are trying their best. They didn't want to have to issue these trespass orders or stay off our property orders to everybody, but they had individuals who were snooping around that were part of this litigation against them, who sued them. For the litigation, they needed to tell everybody to stay off there until this all gets resolved and they can figure out who they want
- on and not invite on but right now you know that's the huffs are doing their best.
- to make their property safe and fully accessible. They have no plans for a wedding venue. That was brought up probably 10 times. That is not happening. All their plans have been made public. There's not a wedding venue on there. There's no commercialization listed on those things right now. That is not happening. There's no wedding venue. That is an agricultural barn. They need access to that agricultural barn. And right now the only access is through access number four. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moline.
- And now I turn to my colleagues on this board. It's nine o'clock and we need to vote as to whether or not we continue this deliberation tonight and finish this, or if we continue it to another date, because it is nine o'clock. We've heard everything. We've heard everything. It's up to us now. Okay. I think we should deliberate. Well, hold on.
- I heard some portion. There's still other, is there not? Are there still not other? The new road. We haven't presented that yet. That hasn't even been presented yet. Right. But the other ones have. Correct. Correct. I agree with that. I think we need a dry erase board to show what everything. Right. So there are three that have been fully presented. Yes.
- Continue if we discuss those and we vote on those tonight Yes, we would still have to come back for the fourth. We will still have to come back for the fourth Well, let me my feeling is I think we should vote on what we've finished and then I think we should not vote Not continue to hear the the one we haven't heard yet Okay for the public who is here. I just would like you to know that I
- We are deliberating how much of this we're going to decide tonight. It's clear there will probably be something carried over to our next meeting, which is September 8th and So I just you know, you can participate by sending an email to staff and reaffirm what you've already said or
- or you can participate in person or you can participate online, you will have another opportunity to speak in favor and against. But right now we're deliberating as to whether or not we'll vote on what we've heard tonight. So Mr. Daley and Mr. Morris, what do you think? I'm in favor of what I just heard from Mr. Lofman and Ms. Davidson. Mr. Daley? I have no thought.
- Okay so I'd be in favor of clearing this from our desk so that we begin September the September 8th hearing.
- So the September 8th hearing is pretty full on the agenda. Already been noticed. Yeah, it's already been noticed. You could continue to that date, but there's about maybe 19 cases on that one already. So we do have some dates that we can continue to, but once we get to that point, we'll offer those dates. OK, that's wonderful. So most likely, the continuation date for the last set of variances will not be September
- it will be some other date, and you will have those participation options that I described to you earlier. So can we make a motion as far as deciding what we have or continuing this meeting until we finish these cases? I don't know that we have to. Do we need that? No, we don't need that. Okay, then let's just go forward.
- Okay. Yes. Okay. And have a discussion and or motions sequentially along the line. I don't know. Because they're so complex, I think we ought to start with the first one. The main gate parcel, the variance 25-46. Let's do that first. Okay. Sounds like a good plan.
- are you going to address it? I have a question for staff first. We heard from someone that there's a safety concern putting both the utilities and the water line in the same trench on the same side of the road. That kind of makes sense to me that there could be a safety issue. Is there one? When we asked the petitioner's representative specifically, we said, what is the separation distance requirement? And they respond to say that there is not one.
- I in my reading of what you can do in a single trench you can kind of make it a joint trench and have some separation distance both horizontal
- and they will be separated vertically. So in our research we didn't see that there's a way that there wasn't a specific safety concern, but that's something that's new information that we heard tonight from Todd Borgman to say that he thought that there was maybe a safety consideration. He basically stated also that there was a concern that if you have to do maintenance of one, you'll have to get into the utility of the other. In the construction plans, they don't offer a
- specific scaled drawing of the of like the horizontal or the the scale but they did say that the water line had before feet deep and that the electric line I think was going to be closer like three feet deep so there's already a one foot difference in depth that they're showing on their plans
- Is that important for us to know in terms of safety and feasibility? Because this is a long project, there could be a lot of trenching to those sites. I've just never heard of that and I wonder if it's common or uncommon. Do you all feel the same way that that could be a worrisome factor?
- I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I feel like there must be some code around this. I think the testimony was that the code permits it, that the regulations permit it. I get saying, well, it would rather not do it that way because that means if there's a break in the water line, I've got to go through the electric line to get to it, and that's going to be a maintenance hassle.
- But I think the testimony was it's not required by any of the regulations, and it might be preferable all other things being equal. I don't think all other things are equal here because we have a major difference in disturbance.
- So from my perspective, we know the regulation, according to the witness, the regulation does not prevent this. It might be better, but it's not required. And there are circumstances that, from my perspective, make putting them together, if they're allowed at all, sensible. May I address? Yes. You mentioned there's a big difference in disturbance
- please elaborate. What is that? Spell it out for us. If you put one on one side of the road and the other on the other side, then we have to dig two trenches and put in two silt fences, as opposed to just on one side of the road. So it doubles, it more than doubles the disturbance. But do we know the process for a
- I don't think that we could make that statement from Ms Jelin, as I understand elevation. The the the the.
- Water has to be at least four feet deep to keep it from freezing. But then the electricity can be a foot above that. So you're still digging a trench. Now you might also try to get horizontal by digging a wider trench. And I would be speculating as to how much disturbance, but the disturbance we're looking at is cut in half.
- That's what the staff has reported, is that we don't need it on both sides of the road, so it more than cuts it in half, just almost. Has the Huff Snout presented recommendations from the utility companies themselves? Not tonight.
- They have not provided utility service. I do have in the findings of fact, it says they will use a two inch to three inch trencher for the water slash electric lines. The trench will likely be open for 10 to 20 minutes and then back filled. If that answers your question. Thank you. On the very first item, which is the one we're talking about,
- If I remember from the long notes, this is for the main gate parcel, the 12% slope. Other than the trenching, being on one side or the other side, my memory of this was that there weren't any other real issues with this particular structure, the main gate parcel and the
- construction. Am I right about that? Is that my memory? The three components to this variance were the utility and self fence location, which is the recommendation on the screen. And there was a portion that was road widening within the easement. And then the last portion was the road relocation to the south, the very 80, I think it was like 82 square feet of road relocation in the very south. So there is there is activity that
- takes place with just this first one. Yes. OK. My memory's wrong. OK. What do y'all think? Well, let me ask. There's a barn down there that's a wedding venue. Does it have electricity? Does it have plumbing? There is no correct structure like that.
- These seem like coddled horses to me. It does seem odd, but if it's a permitted use, it seems to me sensible to say, if there's any development, there needs to be utilities. I sympathize with the public's concern about letting them have anything,
- they're entitled to some development and sub development will require electricity and water. So I'm prone to support the variance that will allow utility and water to be put in, but that they would be in one trench. I would be against any other widening of the road or relocating of the road.
- others feel about them? That's not a motion yet, is it? No, that's because I want to hear what other people are thinking. You know, they might change my mind. I'm sympathetic to your view about that. The fact that the road, the fact that it's been used for decades, it was a driveway someone said, limited use,
- all those things. The main gate, we're back on the main gate though, because that's the one we're actually talking about right now. And that is, it's about the 12% slope land disturbance variance. So I'm not sure the road widening comes up in that, does it? The trench, the utilities did, yes.
- There's a road widening. Oh, yes. You just read that, didn't you? You just read that. So there is. And the road widening. And relocation. I think there's road relocation in this, too. Is that right? Yes, but in the staff recommendation, we have the language that we would recommend. So on the screen right now is the road
- widening disturbance. The road relocation was previously decided by the Board of Zoning and Appeals. And so that one is awaiting a further decision. It's awaiting litigation, correct? So it's the widening. The widening is not. The widening is new, yeah. So the widening and the utility and silt fence. Thank you. So we have the
- Widening, which I'm not prone to support, and we have the widening and the various, the disturbances that go with it. So that's where I'm leaning. I'm in alignment with Mr. Lofman's opinion. All right, then somebody should make a motion. Okay.
- I also am in alignment with that, but please ensure that these stipulations that are here are read into the record. I will read it into the record. Yes, with respect to 2546, the main gate parcel variance to chapter 823, I move we approve
- 2546, only so far as it relates to utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. One, all proposed utilities and fence be installed only on the east side of the road. No utilities and silt fence to be installed on the west side of the road. Utilities installed on the east side of the road shall be located with a single trench on the course
- of the proposed electric line as shown on petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under Site Plan SIT 22-24. Number two, the petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fenced insulation and of trench work at least two business days prior to commencement of each of those improvements. Number three, trench work shall be promptly covered, reseated, and stabilized.
- The petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of trench and silt fence. Number four, petitioner and contractor shall allow them and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements. Inspections shall be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement.
- I move that we deny the portion of various 2546 that relates to road widening based on the findings of fact that there's no need to it and there's no demonstration of practical difficulties that would require that. You did a great job. I'm going to second that. Okay, it's been moved and seconded to
- make a motion on VAR-25-46, the Huff Main Gate Parcel Eco Area 1, 12% land disturbance, Chapter 823, and I will go ahead and reread it for the record.
- The motion was to approve the portion of VAR-25-46 that relates only to utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. All proposed utilities and silt fence to be installed only on the east side of the road. No utilities and silt fence to be installed on the west side of the road. Utilities installed on the east side of the road shall be located within a single trench on the course of the proposed electric line as shown on the petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted
- submitted under the site plan SIT-22-24. Number two, the petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to the commencement of each of those improvements. Number three, trench work shall be promptly covered
- re-seated and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. Number four, petitioner and contractor shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements, inspections to be conducted within 10 days of completion of each improvement.
- And then there was a motion to deny the portion of VAR-25-46 that relates only to the road winding based on the findings. A vote yes is a vote to approve part and deny part. Guy Lofman? Yes. Jeff Morris? Yes. Pamela Davidson? Yes. Margaret Clements? Yes. Skip Daly?
- with all all of those conditions so I vote no motion is approved four to one okay we're going on to the set of variances requested under the category 25-47 a b c and d this has to do with the huff main vacation home and dadu parcel in eco area one
- with a 12% slope land disturbance, the Huff Main Vacation Home and Dadu Parcel in Eco Area 1 concerning a one acre contiguous buildable area, and then also the Huff Main Vacation Home and Dadu Parcel Accessory Dwelling Unit, 1,000 square foot size,
- Limitation and then the huff main vacation home and dad do parcel accessory dwelling units owner occupancy year-round requirement so I turn to my colleagues now for further discussion and or a motion We probably should have asked this question or I should have
- The DADU requirements being 1,000 and this request for 5,180, my goodness, we saw in the report that the parcels are such that the main house, 7,680 foot, could be on one acre tract and there's enough land on another acre tract to put another primary residence
- which the 5,180 foot then satisfied. So I'm confused. Right now, the track that they're looking at to put these two large size buildings, only 1.372 acre, I'm very disturbed by that when there's another way that both of them could be built.
- Yeah and and the reason they're not doing a reason they're not doing that apparently is because they want a gatehouse and i think it's sort of odd to want a gatehouse for why don't but instead of instead of assuming answers why don't we ask them we have them at our disposal well i think we're done with the testimony i think it would be i would hesitate
- to reopen discussion with witnesses after we've been voting on things. I think that might have been a good idea. It might have been a good idea. This is a separate variance. We voted on one. We've recalled witnesses a number of times in precedent before we made a decision while we were deliberating amongst ourselves.
- there's plenty of history of that. Well, I'll leave it to the chair whether it's appropriate to call to ask a question of Mr Moline. I'll ask Mr Schilling. That is up to you. Typically, you don't engage in discussions once you've started voting, but again, you're free to do whatever you like.
- We haven't voted on that. Well, you've closed the hearing. You've closed the public hearing and it's in front of the BZA, so it's up to you. There's no way this plan comes anywhere close to our requirements in the county for daddus.
- and two properties on the same. So maybe the testimony isn't important when they have that option because it's in the materials. Yes, they could build both these structures on land they own right there in the same contiguous area. So maybe it isn't a question we need to ask. Maybe not. Yeah, I don't need to ask it.
- To me, it's odd that they need a gate house for a primary residence, which it's not, and a dadu, which it's, so. Yeah, that's a curiosity of me, but not something I need to testimony on. It challenges me that it's a point of your deliberation of vote
- yet you also simultaneously say that's something perhaps you don't need an answer to. Those are both true. The staff had presented that both in the preparation of the packet and in their presentation to us that there was an alternative spot for the development to occur and so
- you know, I think that's so if we deny this, that may prompt them to go back and look at that option again, because it is an option. The representative for the huffs have made it very clear that they have the right to use their property in meaningful, reasonable ways. And we're in agreement with that that approach. But this does not preclude that. Well, I tell you what,
- I move to deny, could I have that on screen? It's on two pages. It's on two pages. Thank goodness. Thank you for having this printed out. Got it. Got it. Okay. The first part of this is very redundant.
- I move approval of the portion of variance 25-47A that relates only to the utility installation and stilt fence location with the following conditions. Number one, all proposed utilities and stilt fence to be installed only on the south side of the access drive. Number one, not the south side of the proposed relocated roadway.
- No utilities or silt fence to be installed on the north side of the road. Utilities installed on the south side of the road shall be located within a single trench on the course of the proposed electrical line as shown on the petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under the site plan SIT-22-15. Number two.
- Petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to commencement of each of those improvements. Number three, trench work shall be promptly covered, receded, and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. Number four,
- petitioner and contractor shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements, inspections to be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement. I also move that we deny the portion of variance 25-47 that relates to roadway widening.
- based on the finding of facts. And the roadway removal, that's part of this. That doesn't have to do with, as Skip just pointed out, this doesn't have anything to do with the home. It's the second page. Yeah, the first, VAR 2547A is the 12% slope. Okay, yes, okay.
- I'm sorry, Mr. Laughman, please proceed. That I also move that we deny for the portion of variance 25-47A that relates to roadway removal and grading between access number one and the litigation road based on the findings of fact. I also move that we deny
- the variance 25-47-B, which is the one acre contiguous buildable area. Right, there's the, and I recommend
- that we, I move that we deny variance based 25-45C. 47C. 47C, excuse me. Yes, yeah, I got it, but I just need to say it relates to the thousand square foot buildable area. I want that clear. And I move we deny 25-47D, which relates
- to the year-round occupancy affidavit, which is very important to the whole concept of a dadu. So that's my motion. I'm going to second that. Did he cover all the conditions? Good. Cover it all.
- I do have a question that might be a friendly amendment on the very top portion, and I will just explain it quickly in that on the petitioner site plan for this one, they are proposing the electric line to follow partially the pathway of the proposed relocated roadway. So it's covered in the first part of number one, but then I have a minor modification to one of the sentences in here that I will read in. And if it's allowable, I'll call the vote. OK, so.
- The board moves to partially approve and partially deny VAR-25-47A.
- The vote is to approve the AR 2547A that relates only to utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. One, all proposed utilities and silt fence to be installed only on the south side of access drive number one, not the south side of the proposed relocated roadway. No utilities or silt fence to be installed on the north side of the road. Utilities installed on the south side of the road shall be located within a single trench
- the course of the proposed electric line as shown on the petitioner site plan to the extent it follows the existing access drive number one. This redesign shall be submitted under site plan SIT-22-15.
- number two petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to the commencement of each of those improvements number three trench work shall be promptly covered reseated and stabilized petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of trench and self fence number four the petitioner and contractor shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements inspections to
- be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement. And then there were two motions to deny portions of VAR 2547A. One was relating to the roadway widening based on the findings of fact, and the other was VAR 2547A that relates to roadway removal and grading between access number one and litigation road based on findings of fact.
- Then there was a recommendation to deny VAR-25-47B based on findings of fact, which is the one acre contiguous buildable area requirement. A recommendation to deny VAR-25-47C, which is the 1,000 square foot limitation of a detached accessory dwelling unit based on findings of fact.
- And VAR-25-47D, a recommendation to deny, which is the owner occupancy year round affidavit requirement based on findings of fact. A vote yes is a vote to. And let me clarify. I think the statement you made about the addition of the existing road is appropriate and
- I accept that as the text that I do want in this. You also use the word recommends. I'm saying we move for denial, not that we recommend denial, that this is a motion to deny those things. And that would be with respect to B, C, and D. I think that word recommended slipped back in where I want it to be a motion.
- Okay. Thank you. So, Ms. Davidson, do you accept also those friendly amendments? Oh, so friendly. Oh, so yes. A vote yes is a vote to do all the followings that we just mentioned. Jeff Morse? Yes. Pamela Davidson? Yes. Margaret Clements? Yes. Skip Daly?
- No, variance 25-47A should have been separated. I can't agree with, again, and I think it'll come back to hurt the county. No. Guy Loftman? Yes. Okay. Motion is approved four to one. Okay. We are moving on to items 10 and 11.
- 25-45A and B, and this is the Hough Agricultural Parcel Eco Area 1 with the 12% slope encroachment variance and a Hough Agricultural Parcel Lake Yard setback to Lake Monroe and request for variance. And we can discuss this and, and or make a motion.
- I also have a lot of concerns about these because 200 yard setback from the lake, the erosion has to be amazing. The steep slopes, the silt, isn't there a dredging operation that goes on constantly at Lake Monroe? That's not true. That's Lake Lemmon. Lake Lemmon, yeah. Monroe hasn't had that silt problem
- Well, that's a wonderful thing. Anyway, I'm very concerned about that because when we looked at the sites between the silt fence, the landscaping, there were so many things that encroached in that 200 foot setback from the lake. I was very concerned about it. And the pictures told us a lot by the colors of the lines.
- That's how I look at it. Anybody want to look at those pictures again? Or do you remember them? Yeah. The purple line is the lake, right? That pink line is the 200 foot setback line from the lake. Everything's off it.
- Anybody else? Guy and I have concerns. How about? I share the same concerns in alignment with staff's recommendation on all these. Want to make a motion? Let me start over. I move approval of the portion of VAR-25-45A that relates only to utility installation and silk fence location with the following conditions.
- One all proposed utilities and silk fence to be installed only on the south side of the road no utilities and silk fence to be installed on the north side of the road utilities installed on the south side of the road should be located within a single trench on.
- The course of the proposed electric line is shown on the petitioner site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under the site plan SIT-22-12. Two, petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to commencement of each of these improvements. Three, trench work shall be promptly covered, reseated, and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. Four, petitioner and contractor
- shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements inspections to be conducted within 10 days of the completion of each improvement and I move denial of the portion of VAR-25-45A that relates to the floating silt fence and the agricultural barn silt fence based on findings of fact. I move denial of the portion of VAR-25-45A that relates to landscape wall and road widening based on the findings of fact.
- The approval of the portion of VAR-25-45B that relates only to utility installation and silt fence location with the following conditions. One, all proposed utilities and silt fence to be installed only on the south side of the road. No utilities and silt fence to be installed on the north side of the road. Utilities installed on the south side of the road shall be located within the single trench on the course of the proposed electric line as shown on the petitioner's site plan. This redesign shall be submitted under the site plan,
- two, petitioner or contractor shall notify staff of silt fence installation and of trench work at least two business days prior to commencement of each of these improvements. Three, trench work shall be promptly covered, reseated, and stabilized. Petitioner and contractor shall immediately notify staff of the completion of the trench and silt fence. Four, petitioner and contractor shall allow and will cooperate with staff inspections of the foregoing improvements. Inspections to be conducted within 10 days of the completion
- of each improvement. Five, the floating silt fence shall be redesigned to fit within the buildable area. And then last, I move denial of the portion of VAR-25-45B that relates to the landscape wall, soil, stockpile, and road widening based on the findings of fact. Second? Yes. Okay.
- Do you want me to repeat that? That was said perfectly. He would know. OK, he did say it's all right. So there was portions of approval and portions of denial as stated by board member Mr Morris. A vote. Yes is a vote to vote in favor of the stated motion and conditions. Pamela Davidson. Yes, Margaret Clements. Yes, skip daily again.
- made their case on the road widening, no. Guy Lofton? Yes. Jeff Morris? Yes. Okay, it passes four to one. Okay, so Ms. Nestor-Gellin, if you would be so kind as to give us a little direction on when the remaining items that are being requested for variance might be heard so the public knows and
- the Huff Snow. Yes there will be a motion that someone will need to make to continue the case to a following meeting so I would suggest we have a few dates that we could
- come up with these are not regularly scheduled dates, or we could put it on a another agenda which would be October one, which also has a few cases on it so if you would like to dedicate.
- a whole meeting to just this topic. We can create a meeting and I can go over some available dates for the NatU Hill room. Okay, I do have daytime availability too if that's of interest. Okay, so you would rather go to the next ones. Okay, so October 1st and then beyond that we have November 5th and I can check any of the agendas that you would like if you would like to know how many other cases are on the docket for those nights. And since we're continuing it, we should ask the Hoffs if they
- have a preference for that date as well if they're preparation I would I would respect their preference even it means 20 items on that agenda how many items do we have on the October 1st agenda right now we have four items on the October 1st and then we have three items on November 5th oh well it's just four items we can
- But we have 19 on September 8th. Right. If they would agree. It's already a special meeting. So I would object to the September 8th elongation of that meeting. And for me, it's either October 1st or November 5th. We could make a motion and let the Huffs pick which of those two dates they prefer. How about that?
- since we're continuing it. You have to pick the date. Oh, the public. Yeah, you have to pick the date. All right, we'll pick it. Well, they're available. Can we ask the Huff's representatives to chime in here?
- I mean, I don't think it's fair, frankly, because the public is here and I think we set the date and the public also will be, we're not consulting with them as to what date they prefer so. Excellent point, Madam Chair. Yes.
- So I defer to my colleagues either October 1st or November 5th, of course, realizing that the docket will become full by the time. I'm going to I'm going to recommend we choose the October date. There's more than 30 days. If the huffs don't like that, they have the opportunity to request a continuance. OK, that's great.
- Okay, so I'll make a motion that we continue variances 25-48A, 48B, and 48C to the BZA meeting on October 1st, 2025. Second. Okay, it's been moved and.
- Seconded to continue VAR 2548A, 48B, and 48C, which is regarding the Huff New Road request to the October 1st, 2025, regularly scheduled BZA meeting. A vote yes is a vote to approve. Mario Clements? Yes. Skip Daly? Yes. Guy Lofman? Yes. Jeff Morris? Yes.
- Yes. Okay. Motion is approved. Five to zero. Okay. Now, is there any other item on the agenda, Jackie, that I need to be concerned about? Like, for example, public? That's just for the plank. Okay. And does staff have anything else that they need to bring to our attention?
- No, no additional. Okay. So is there a motion to adjourn? I move we adjourn tonight's meeting. So moved. I'm in favor. So let's do it. Let's do it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. It was long and thank you.