Tim, can you make sure to turn your microphone on?

Yeah.

There we go.

We are on the record.

This is the uh appeals and variance hearing.

My name is Tim Pack.

I'm the variance here appeals and variance uh hearing officer.

Today is March 31, 2026.

Um approval of the minutes from our last hearing, January 9, 2026.

Uh I've reviewed those and those meeting minutes are approved.

Um next item on the agenda is the Chris Gardner variance application.

Uh before we begin, let's get everyone's appearance who would like to make an appearance, starting with the city.

Um Jennifer Destremsky Todd Draper.

Spencer De Sain, um counsel for the city.

And Matt Symes, building official for the city.

Lori Stout, executive assistant.

Thank you.

And now for the applicant.

Chad Hutchings, counsel for Mr.

Gardner.

Chris Gardner.

Great.

Welcome.

Um is it Hutchins or Hutchinson?

Hutchings, all right.

Uh and are you going to be speaking on behalf of the applicant today?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, feel free to take the podium and uh let's begin.

I mean, is this hot?

Is this microphone on?

Yes.

Okay.

Um so uh we have kind of stepped into this case.

Uh, our firm somewhat last minute as Mr.

Uh Gardner's prior counsel is now a judge.

So we have taken over this case from him.

So uh I will be obviously dealing with uh the documents that were prepared by Mr.

Whiting on Mr.

Gardner's behalf, but I have not prepared any documents myself.

To begin with, um I would start with the assumption that you have read all of the documents that have been prepared by Mr.

Whiting and by the city, so you understand each side's relative position in this.

So I'm not going to belabor points or spend a lot of time reiterating everything that's here.

Uh you're correct.

I I've read everything that's been submitted.

Thank you.

So what I would like to uh to address are some of the important things uh that I see in this, especially from Mr.

Gardner's perspective, and I would like to address, of course, the arguments that are made directly in the briefing from the city.

Um I've made a few notes about that.

What we uh are looking at is a request on Mr.

Gardner's behalf to have the city allow him a variance on his building that the uh the city says does not comply with its uh its ordinance governing governing setbacks.

Um the first thing I would like to say about that is of course Mr.

Gardner not being a contractor or an attorney or anything like that, hired somebody to do the construction for him and relied on that individual's knowledge and expertise as they were holding themselves out as a contractor to know what permits needed to be obtained and to know what building ordinances and and uh regulations applied to the specifics of what wanted to be done.

So, you know, it talks about this as being something that was done in ignorance of the law and brought his, you know, shall we say brought his misery upon himself, but the reality is the uh the misery, if it were misery, were brought upon him by uh what turned out to be an unlicensed contractor, he did not know that, who did not follow the law again.

He was relying upon the contractor to know his business and follow it.

Um ultimately to uh his his detriment, even if it's only just having to deal with this hearing and these applications.

Uh what we are dealing with is not an ignorance of the law situation, but a mistake of fact.

As attorneys here will know if I'm going 45 miles an hour in a 40-mile zone, I get pulled over for speeding.

I can't say, oh, I didn't know it was against the lot of speed, but I can say, oh, I thought this was a 45 mile an hour zone.

And as a mistake of fact, I'm probably not going to get a ticket from the police because they're gonna go, oh well, we probably can't win the oops.

I thought it was something other than what it is.

Kind of dealing with that same sort of situation here.

Um when we talk about the unreasonable hardship aspect of this, uh, you know, the city's uh uh council would like the uh would like you to believe that this is a a self-imposed and economic hardship.

Uh was not self-imposed in as much as he was relying on an expert or whom he thought was an expert to do his job correctly.

Uh and as for economic, yes, there is some economic hardship here.

He has saved up a great deal of money for a great deal of time in order to build this fulfill this dream.

Uh so it is it, yeah, there is that economic aspect, but there is more than just the economics to it.

Uh there is the fact that he had fulfilled a dream, and you know, I mean, uh, suddenly comes to my mind the uh the poem from Langston Hughes, what happens to a dream deferred?

Does it uh dry out and like a raisin in the sun or does it explode?

Um sometimes uh a dream that goes unfulfilled makes greater hardship.

Now, I'm not uh I'm not uh meaning to imply here at all that he might uh go go off the rails in some violent way uh with the explosion, uh and that was just a quote that just came to mind.

Uh I was an English major, so I read a lot of poetry in college.

But uh just the fact that sometimes the dream deferred can become something that that harms the dreamer.

When you lose your your dream, your sought-for goal, sometimes it causes a person uh psychologically to turn inward upon themselves.

And in the case of Mr.

Gardner, we have uh documentation from his therapist that he's already dealing with some pretty significant post-traumatic stress from his time in military service.

So I am concerned of how this might inwardly explode upon him.

That is part of the hardship here, and then of course, that's also uh goes to other reasons for this uh variance to be granted.

Um there's also the fact that uh having, you know, this is not uh say, for example, say a trampoline or something that he can just or a shed that he can just pick up and move a few feet.

If this variance is not granted, he will have to demolish the building, also an expense to himself, um, and then perhaps if he feels he needs the same building, try to rebuild in some other way on the property in compliance with these variances, which would more than ultimately more than double the cost that he's originally put into this.

Now, some would argue, well, you know, okay, that's an economic loss, he can go after his uh contractor.

Well, I uh spent the first half of my career as an attorney doing subrogation work for insurance companies.

Uh, for those who are not familiar, subrogation work is insurance.

Well, say, for example, contractor uh doing work on your house, sets fire to your house, you call your insurance company, they fix your house, and then the insurance company would hire me to go recover out of the contractor for the damages that had been done to the home from his negligence.

I learned from sad experience doing the uh subrogation work that unlicensed contractors don't have any money to go after, and you get judgments, sure, that you can frame, because that's all they're good for.

So my concern is here that if we say, well, he can go sue his contractor, well, great, he can go get himself a piece of paper to put on the wall in his house and look at and cry, because it's not gonna be any value to him otherwise.

Umstances are one of the issues.

Well, the special circumstances here are that we are dealing with a building that he built to help in his therapeutic process.

Now the city says, well, there are lots of other people in the area that could conceivably have the same or similar uh mental health issues, and they don't need these buildings.

Well, you know, no two people with mental illness or mental health problems have the same problem, even when they have the same problem.

Uh I can you know give the example of I have a stepdaughter and two nephews who are all three on the autism spectrum, but no two of them are the same autistic.

Just so no two people with post traumatic stress disorder have the same presentation of post-traumatic stress disorder.

So this outbuilding that he is had built on his property is there to help him deal with, treat, and hopefully ultimately overcome or at least live with successfully his PTSD.

So that is a special circumstance in the sense of he's not special for having PTSD because lots of people have that, but the building is special circumstance to the treatment and care for his unique situation.

Um there is an argument about the right of possession and control of property, and and the you have seen, I'm sure, his dismay that he's being told that he cannot do with his property what he would like to do with his property.

There should be some deference though to an individual's desire to have whatever structure they need on their property without getting too concerned about does it meet the exact letter of the law.

And that brings me to the next point about the uh the Draper City General Plan and how this building in the city's uh view does not conform with the general plan of the city.

And there is talk in in the brief about the semi-rural nature of Draper City.

And I don't mean to disparage Draper City.

Uh I grew up in Sandy in the 70s and 80s at a time when Sandy was a lot more rural than Dra Draper is now.

And I remember coming down to Draper.

I had friends down here.

I remember when Seventh East ended just a couple of blocks past 126 here.

And I remember when it was mostly farms.

The nature of this place, though, and I came down here today.

My office is in Lehigh, came down Fort Street.

I remember when Fort Street was farm, farm, farm, house, farm, farm, farm, house.

And now it's house, house, house, house, house, house, house.

I mean, they're enormous houses, but they're houses.

Most of the farms are gone.

And, you know, I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, but that's the fact.

And I mean, I can remember, you know, you I go down Seventh East, go to my parents' house.

I go down Seventh East all the time, and I go, Well, I remember that was Pearson's farm.

Now it was Matsumory's farm, that was Lundberg's farm, now is Malmberg's farm.

But now now that's uh Marco Brown's office.

Now that's a bank.

Now that's a 7-Eleven.

Those farms are gone.

Those people are gone, and the nature has changed.

Now, having said that, if you look at the overhead satellite view of this neighborhood, and I'm sure you've seen those photographs and those images.

We are dealing with some reasonably large houses on some not very large parcels of land.

We're talking about a third of an acre, not quite a third of an acre on the parcel of land that his home is on.

Uh I I can't imagine the definition of property or of a city that would say that a third of an acre is semi-rural if you have a house on it.

And if you look at the overall nature of that particular neighborhood, we are dealing with what I think most people would describe without knowing anything else as a straight-up suburb.

Houses in a neighborhood fairly close together.

Some people have sheds, some people have pools, some people have other things.

Some of the photographs that have been provided also show that some of the neighbors in that area, not exactly his direct neighbors, but some of the other houses in that area have even larger outbuildings on the properties.

So his outbuilding isn't even that big of a derived deviation from what's already there in other parts of that part of the city, as well as I'm sure other parts of Draper City in general.

And some of these other outbuildings.

Yes.

So in the materials, uh I see a couple of area aerial photographs.

Yes.

And it's not necessarily the neighborhood.

Maybe it's just sort of the adjacent properties around Mr.

Gardner's home.

Is that is that right?

Uh I know those have been provided.

I know there were others.

Maybe you don't, maybe some.

I can I can I've got them here on the desk if you want them.

And there's a photo, I mean, there's a photo also from the main houses 11 674 South Douglas Vista Drive.

Is that is that an where's that in relation to the subject property?

Um, you know, I don't know the answer to that question.

Do you know what that property is that he's asking about?

11674 is my property, and I submitted a photo of the structure, the additional structure.

Maybe that's what you're seeing.

Uh some of the I'm sorry.

There's oh, sorry, the answer, that is your property.

So there's one photo with it's 11324 page 26 of your PDF that you submitted.

I uh you said 11324?

Yeah.

Can you I do have that photograph?

Who's whose home is that?

Is that near Tim?

Is it the same?

Yeah, this is the one I'm looking at kicking out.

Is that is that meant to depict one example of a rather large accessory building?

That that's less than 10 feet from the property line.

Yes, I I believe that is a uh uh example of shall we say a non-conforming use that was provided by uh Mr.

Whiting.

I I kind of went on the assumption that that was provided and that it he had explained carefully enough where that was and what that was.

So I apologize.

Um I think there were several other examples that were in Draper.

That one must have been an one-off since it's uh South Jordan.

So from the photos you've submitted, how many how many examples of accessory buildings are there?

I'm not in that don't comply.

Right.

I don't know exactly how many photos Mr.

Whiting submitted, so I can't answer that question intelligently.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Sorry to interrupt, keep going.

No, you're fine.

No, I'll answer your qu I want to answer your questions.

That's the important part.

Um one addition.

I I apologize.

Uh from what I saw that Mr.

Whiting had were uh there were also homes themselves that were not following the draper setback.

Um they weren't even 10 feet apart from each other.

So and uh guess Mr.

Whiting assumed that the city already must be aware of those instances since they have nothing to do with um sheds or anything, they're just homes.

Um now I want I noticed this photograph, and there's something on here that I noticed when I was looking over these documents when I got them last week in and in test in task uh in anticipation of this hearing, and you'll see at the bottom there uh those property dimensions, those are the dimensions of the overall lot, not the building.

Because I mean that those dimensions are basically half a football field.

Okay.

So uh I I got confused at first too when I thought there's no way this building is 153 by 106.

Um and did clarify we are dealing with a building that is something just over 400 square feet in area.

Um this is an older satellite view, I know, because uh obviously it does not show his outbuilding in there, and I did go to uh Google just last week, and it still doesn't show his outbuilding on there, so they have not uh updated their satellite imagery uh in the time since uh the building was built.

Unless oh well they have now.

It wasn't there last week.

This this is the city's map we got.

We just a few months ago got an aerial from 2025.

Okay, so I was like that was not there last week.

Very recent that we've had access, so you will see from this image we're not dealing about with a terribly large building.

It's nothing that's visible really from the street, and it is something that he has talked to his neighbors about.

None of the neighbors are bothered by it.

In fact, some of the neighbors really like its existence and feel that it actually increases their privacy and their enjoyments of their property.

So that brings me to kind of what I would say is an important question in my mind as I've been going through all of this.

Where's the harm?

Who's being harmed by this building?

I know that's not something that's outlined in the statute, and it's not something that's contemplated in the case law that council has provided, but I think that is the overarching question in all of this is where is the harm?

Who is being harmed by this building?

None of the neighbors are being harmed, they're not complaining at all.

The uh in fact they they like it or they're fine with it at the very least.

So none of the adjacent property owners have have any complaints.

You can't say that you drive down the street and see this ice orc because it's hidden by the house.

If it's changing the semi-rural nature of the area, well, I mean, again, I look at this and see suburbia, not semi-rural.

If we say that it's I don't even know, I can't even postulate any other harms that would be out there.

What I do see is a potential harm, and not just a potential harm, but a very real harm to Mr.

Gardner if he's compelled to bring this down, and in multiple ways, is he being harmed if he's compelled to bring this down.

So those are the things that I would address.

Those are the things that I feel are the most important things from Mr.

Gardner's perspective.

Uh, do you have any questions for me specifically?

Uh no, I don't.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do you want to hear from Mr.

Gardner individually or um there's a couple of there's a statement from him that I've read.

Uh I've read all the materials.

If if you'd like to, you have an opportunity.

But know that I've I have read everything, and I think I understand everything.

But this is your time, and you're welcome to speak.

Do you want to speak at all?

You can stay there.

Push your microphone down though.

I wasn't necessarily planning to speak, but uh I feel really bad about all this.

I haven't been able to sleep for the last year.

Um it's just I don't want to make excuses for myself.

I'm happy to pay.

I'm happy to work harder to pay m whatever I have to to help to do something good for the city.

Um my condition leaves me dealing with a lot in my head.

Um these kinds of external things, I I do my best, and I'm lucky that I have a very profound working memory.

I can handle a lot in my mind.

Um, and so I can present here today, you know, semi-normally, but uh the truth of the matter is I don't have a normal existence.

Um I have severe problems mentally, and I it's all I can do to try to forget about my problems and to try to help other people because that's all that matters.

Um I have a son, he's two, I didn't plan on that.

My condition, I didn't didn't think I should ever have a child, but despite contraceptives, we have a beautiful little boy, and it's all I can do to try to provide for him, and uh to do the best I can to have a family, you know, to make my soon-to-be wife happy, and um I wanted this building to be multi-use.

Uh I first built it, had it built um after having dealt with a flooding swamp issue in my yard, that corner uh because of the way that area is uh supposedly uh was always a very bad flooding area.

So they had to put a I think it's called a French drain around my property, and um what that does, as far as I understand someone might understand better who deals with uh construction.

Uh it pushes the water that's kind of there too close to the house.

Uh it like makes it go into the I think the northwestern corner, which is where my that structure is.

So it was always swamped out back there, and it caused a problem for my neighbor to the north, Mike Chenwith.

And uh he had the swamping issue because of that, because he also he didn't have a French drain, they didn't put one in his house was built before mine.

But then once they realized they had legally an obligation to put it in my property and some of the other ones.

All this to say I had to ask some experts.

They said putting in gravel and concrete back there would help.

And uh there is a corrugated pipe, it's very big.

I don't know what it's called, but uh goes vertically down at that spot um so that I can pump the water out.

And so the the thing I try uh uh to have a pump out there, this the uh builder provided piping for uh electricity.

That was already provided in the initial um build and with the mortgage and whatever you call like uh you know, beyond permits, it was already there.

Um and so I put that in, and then my neighbor to the west, David Charette, he built his shed first, and neither of us knew that there were these codes.

Um the city wasn't sure on the I know this two issues uh on the uh issue of two buildings being too close to each other, um, not just the setback, but anyway, there's a lot of of things going on there, but uh all this to say I was trying to uh I painted that court, it's all dilapidated now.

You can tell because I clearly don't know what I'm doing.

I went to Home Depot and uh it's all falling apart already.

It's kind of like my life.

But um I was hoping the neighbors they could come by and play and go, you know, they would use the facilities, and I have a guy that's older guy, his name's Paul.

He he doesn't he can't afford to live anywhere.

He's an inventor, and I let him, I was letting him use that spot back there.

You know, he was doing some inventions, he's had patents stolen from him, and I guess I felt bad for him because I thought, man, this guy's he doesn't get the external world.

He doesn't know how people will work the reality, and I felt for him because that's that's how I am anyway.

So thank you.

Oh, you're good.

Um, I would I would point out two things uh from what he has mentioned.

Uh it is important to point out that the electricity was already there, they didn't have to run additional power for that, and the drainage was already there.

There wasn't additional sewer plumbing that had to be done as far as I'm aware.

Uh, maybe maybe just to hook up to the already existing sewer on the property, but uh the the overall construction of the pad, and then ultimately the building uh has mitigated flooding problems for Mr.

Gardner and his neighbors.

So that is another benefit that I would point out is that this structure actually provides, you know, whether it was built to do that or not, it does provide mitigation and prevention of flooding in that area for those people.

Uh, this is if you zoom out on the on the side light view, you can see that this is on the west side of uh the interstate and not too far from the uh the canal there in the river and uh in the floodplain.

So mitigating uh flooding for himself and his neighbors, I think is also a valuable service to the community, and I would argue that that is a special circumstance for this building, and also a special circumstance to consider why the variance should be granted to continue that benefit that is provided to himself and his neighbors.

And I'm sorry, so the are you saying the construction of the building itself and the and the drainage around it has mitigated flooding that would otherwise occur?

Well, the the original pad started that, yes, and I think that there's an argument to be made that the building has furthered that okay, I understand.

Thank you.

What was tell me your name one more time?

Chad Hutchins.

Hutchins, thanks, Chad.

Thank you, Mr.

Hutchins.

I don't mind spelling it.

I do it all the time.

It's this purely English name that no one can say right or spell correctly.

That's pretty I got it.

It's spelled exactly how it said, so I'm just used to it.

Okay, I got it.

Thank you.

Mr.

Duche.

Wherever whatever you'd like.

You're fine from there.

Okay, so um so first off, you know, these these hearings are somewhat difficult.

Um because I don't think that uh uh there's a great under excuse me, there's a great understanding of what a variance is amongst most people who are not sophisticated in in this area of the law.

Um a variance is an extraordinary remedy that requires extraordinary circumstances, they should be rare.

Uh variances within the state of Utah are so so rare that there are only a handful of cases that address a variance wherein a variance is granted and upheld.

Uh spec versus Big Watertown is is probably our most demonstrative case that that we cite to the most frequently in the world of land use.

Um I've drafted the brief.

You've I'm assuming you've read that.

Um just wanted to respond uh to a few things.

Certainly the city is not unsympathetic towards Mr.

Gardner and his struggles.

Uh certainly we have a great deal of uh sympathy for all of our citizens and for the hardships that they have.

Um wanted to respond to a few things that Mr.

Hutchings said.

Um we understand that there are people who will hire non-licensed contractors all the time.

The remedy for uh that kind of a failure is not necessarily to come to the city and ask for an extraordinary remedy.

Um because it again it's not an extraordinary circumstance.

That remedy is is to um go after the contractor, and like Mr.

Hutchings said, sometimes that doesn't always work out, but the city is not in the uh position to be bailing out citizens when they get things wrong with the contractor.

Um city is not necessarily opposed to a building, uh it's merely imposed opposed to the encroachment into the setbacks.

We enforce this wherever we can.

One of the problems that we have is that we do get a lot of complaints about oh, well, you didn't enforce it with them, so why are you enforcing it against us?

Well, to respond to that, uh a lot of the buildings that have been cited in uh Mr.

Wetting's brief and that we've looked at uh are under 200 square feet.

Um sheds and outbuildings that are under 200 square feet aren't required to meet the same setback standards, and that's under our own city code.

This is well over 200 square feet, this building.

So we're going to require that it meet the setback standards.

Um when we talk about special circumstances, and we talk about all of actually when we talk about all of the elements that are required for a variance, all of the elements that are required to meet a variance attached to property and not necessarily people.

And the reason for that is uh is a good reason.

The the policy purpose behind that is property stays forever, and people come and go and they occupy the property and then they don't occupy the property.

And we certainly hope that Mr.

Gardner wants to spend a great deal of time in the city and wants to be one of our citizens uh for a great deal of time and uh for his long life.

The problem is is that eventually everybody leaves this earthly plane and somebody else is going to occupy the property later.

Same can be said with the neighbors.

The neighbors might not have a problem with it now, but subsequent neighbors might have a problem with it.

Or uh when the neighbors who don't have a problem with it now are looking to sell their property, potential buyers might see that building and say, yeah, I don't want to move into that to this property because there's a building that's 14 inches from the property boundary line, and I don't want somebody, I don't want that close of uh a building next to my property.

So we should be looking at these five elements for a variance as they relate to the property, not to the people.

So extraordinary circumstances, um sure, people's mental health struggles might be different from one person to the next, and everybody might need a little bit of a different purpose or a different way to cope or a different means of therapy, and we're certainly not opposed to that.

The city's full on uh uh welcoming of Mr.

Gardner having a building in his backyard, the the an accessory building, but just insofar as it meets the requirements of our ordinance.

The other problem that we have with the claim that the city doesn't enforce the ordinance is if we allow an ordinance to go enforce now, then somebody coming in later and trying to do something similar when we go to enforce the setback ordinance elsewhere will say, Well, you didn't enforce it with Mr.

Gardner, why are you enforcing it against me?

So we're going to have that complaint again and again and again.

And beyond all of that, there's a case out of Summit County, it's Burmese versus Summit County that says a city's failure to enforce its ordinance in the past does not preclude its ability to force its ordinance in the present or in the future.

So if there are buildings that violate the setbacks in the same area, our our failure to enforce previously does not mean that we cannot enforce now.

When we're talking about our general plan, I I can I actually completely agree with Mr.

Hutchings that Draper is not semi-rural.

However, our general plan identifies that area as a semi-rural area, and until our general plan changes, we have to evaluate this prong of the test under what the general plan calls for.

And so we have to look at the facts.

We have to look at our general plan that says that semi-rural is this area.

And then we have to evaluate whether this building fits within the general plan, and we think that it does not.

And we've kind of rejected that notion as a nation within the law.

And then there are there's the other extreme opposite end of that, and that is kind of like the HOAs on steroids, I'll call it.

We are in 2026 at the 100th anniversary of Euclid, which was a land use law case that upheld that substantial property rights aren't necessarily infringed by zoning and land use regulations.

So it's it's well established that we can enforce a setback or we can't enforce zoning laws, and that does not interfere with somebody's substantial property rights.

We're losing potential buyers because the building encroaches on the setbacks, and why won't you enforce your ordinance?

And so we're we we come up against this a lot as a city, and we're trying to enforce where we can.

Um we're certainly glad that Mr.

Gardner is part of our community.

Um we're certainly glad that Mr.

Gardner has found a building that you know has built a building that uh helps him to live a better life.

Um the unfortunate thing about the nature of a variance is uh it's not about that, it's about the proximity, it's about property, it's about not about people, it's about land and buildings and where they are.

So uh, you know, this is one case where we would be fully supportive of Mr.

Gardner moving his building to match the setbacks.

Um we would be as a city okay with that so far as it uh meets all the zone applicable zoning um and land use laws.

Um I recently had an opportunity to chaperone my my son's um band trip in Boston uh as part of that trip.

We went to the Louisa May Alcott House and on the first uh first tour, first part of the tour of that house, we went into the kitchen of the Louisa May Alcott house.

Um that building, that part of the the house was originally an outbuilding.

They had their kitchen away from everything else, and um and they the family decided that they wanted to bring it closer to the regular house, and so they rolled it down on logs, and I was thinking of this exact situation, and now we're not asking Mr.

Gardner to roll something on logs.

We have a great deal uh better technology.

Um but we would require it to be moved as an enforcement of our of our zoning ordinance.

Uh the city doesn't think that um Mr.

Gardner can meet the the burden of showing that all five criteria under the variance statute or the city ordinances have been met, and for that reason we would ask that uh the variance is denied.

Do you have any other questions for me?

No, thank you, Mr.

DeShea.

Yep.

Um further from you.

Uh well, the one thing that I would uh say in response to what has been presented is that my client does uh say, which I think is somewhat obvious based on the the drainage issues that we've discussed and how the plumbing was done there.

Uh this building it can't be moved.

It's it's either remains with a variance or it's demolished.

Uh but uh just it it isn't it like I said, it isn't uh like a a shed that you put in your yard to put your tools in or or or your snowblower when you're not using it.

That this this doesn't just lift up and move or even be put on blocks and uh it I mean I guess I wouldn't say that it can't be moved because I mean those of us who've been around in this part of the valley long enough remember the Victorian house that used to be on the corner of 7th East and 86 South, which is now up about 12th east at 86 South, and it was moved.

I remember when they moved that.

So, yes, a building a house can be moved, but the cost of moving it would be greater than the cost of demolishing it and rebuilding it, I suppose.

Uh, and would be either way prohibitive.

Um the city, you know, makes arguments about well, the the current people are okay with it, but you know, some future potential buyer may not be.

Well I can say to that is we we could sit here and speculate all day about what somebody may or may not do in the future, and whether or not a variance should be allowed or disallowed based on the speculation of what some hypothetical person in a hypothetical future that that shouldn't even be considered because we don't know.

Uh we could find any number of hypothetical situations where the person could come in and say, Wow, this is great, I love this.

Uh likewise, you know, Mr.

Gardner did point out to me when counsel was speaking about the fact that I mean he has no intention of relocating from this property uh for the remainder of his life.

I mean, obviously there will come a day when he will uh leave, whether it's uh voluntarily because he's well, involuntarily because he's unable to care for himself, or involuntarily because he's dead and he's taken out by the funeral home director.

But either way, yes, there will come a time when he's no longer there, and some new party will take over the property, and maybe they don't like this building.

Uh, you know, that's part of buying a house.

You buy you buy houses, you buy you get a shed on there, I don't like this shed, I don't like this outbuilding, I don't like this gazebo, you tear it down.

That's that's part of it, or you say, well, I don't really love it, but hey, I can live with it, and you buy it anyway because it's the right price.

So again, these hypothetical futures really should not be taken into account when we're dealing with the reality and the known quantities of today and the facts as they affect my client today.

So let's say that Mr.

Gardner hired a contractor who knew exactly what the setback requirements were.

Um there any condition related to the property that would have prevented a contractor from constructing the building in accordance with those setback requirements.

According to the city's regulations.

Right.

Um I mean, I've not researched that question from what I have from Mr.

Whiting.

I don't think he researched that question.

Uh I mean, if you look at the property, I I would say that theoretically, this a structure that met this purpose with the same contents but not the same floor plan, could have conceivably been constructed somehow on the property within the setbacks.

And we wouldn't be here.

Is there a reason why it had to be built in that specific spot?

I would say no, but there was already a concrete pad there that was not otherwise useful because it had to be a concrete pad there because of the drainage issues.

So I would say this is me talking, this is not Mr.

Gardner.

This isn't obviously I've never even met his contractor, but I would say, you know, if it were me, I'd be able, but why not build it there?

Why not have it there?

And there's already a guy's shed there.

So I'm not blocking his view of anything because he's got a shed.

He's not gonna be looking at the back of my buildings, look at the front of his shed.

So why not?

And and I would also say that, you know, again, had he hired a licensed contractor who knew all of this, that contractor would have done it correctly and would have found those the solution that met the variances.

Um again, we wouldn't be here.

And if that contractor were licensed and hadn't somehow met the the uh the uh setbacks, well then that licensed contractor would also be bonded and he'd have a recourse that wouldn't be a waste of time and money.

Okay.

Do you thank you?

I think he has something that he'd like to say, Mr.

Gardner.

Sure.

I apologize.

Um I have sympathy as well for some of the the arguments uh that uh Mr.

Deshane made.

Um and I've already thought about it, which is why me and my neighbors have um put some trees in certain places uh because everybody likes privacy, so I suppose the uh only remaining view is the bird's eye view, you know, at some point you obfuscate um such that you're not intruding um they're they're like columnar trees um and they create a sort of high, very high wall.

Um something you can't do with a fence because it's not authorized, obviously, and that's uns unsightly.

Uh but the trees are not, they're they're beautiful, and the that's the the point of them as far as I or part of the point at least.

Uh the beauty, the fact that it helps to create that um sanctuary, not only for me and my family, but you know, for everyone else too.

And and uh believe me, if I had uh if I knew somebody who was uh having a problem with it, I I would talk to them directly, I would try to work something out.

Um I have my own theory as to who that's not relevant.

Yeah, anyway.

No, and I don't think there's any doubt that it's a very nice building.

It looks very nice on the property.

So I see so uh I mean this the city's correct that variances are very hard to obtain.

And as the the appeal officer, my hands are really you know, I'm really handcuffed.

I can only grant variances in very limited circumstances.

This is a very, very hard decision.

Um I'm gonna consider the documents again.

I have very detailed notes.

I consider the arguments that have been made by both sides, and I'll I'll issue a written decision for the next week.

It's okay.

But good luck to you, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Uh, do you do you need my email address?

I know I know uh Jennifer has it.

She's corresponded with me to make sure I had all the documents, but do you need it?

So when I issue this the decision, I send it first to Jennifer and then she sends it out.

Right, fair enough, thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Anything else?

No, I think you just need to close the meeting.

All right.

The meeting is closed.

Thank you, everybody.