The City of Frederick Zoning Board of Appeals met on October 22, 2013, starting at 7:00 PM at City Hall. The meeting included approval of minutes, general public comments, a variance request for a garage reconstruction, and an appeal of a Planning Commission subdivision approval. The board voted to grant the variance and continued the appeal to the November meeting for a written decision.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the October twenty second, twenty thirteen meeting of the City of Frederick Zoning Board of Appeals. A little background for uh some uh folks that uh might not have attended a ZBA meeting uh before. Uh hard to believe that there are some of you out there I know that we're very popular. Uh use of leisure time. Uh, the members of the zoning board of appeals, uh, we are all volunteers. We are all uh residents of the city of Frederick. Uh we are um nominated by the mayor, and those nominations are approved by the Board of Aldermen. Um before us. Uh, a little bit about our rules of procedure uh for everyone, and uh tonight we have two sets of rules and procedure that are in play, and so I'll make that uh clear. Uh, make sure everybody understands that. Um, for the rule for the uh cases that fall under our normal rules of procedure, uh, like a variance to build a garage. Um, I will call your case. Um, if you can make your way to the to the stand in the microphone, that would be great. Um, we'll ask for the staff report. The staff will read the staff report into the record. At the end of the staff report, the staff will make a recommendation concerning the case. That's one item that we will use in our consideration of uh our cases under uh the normal rules of procedure, but it's not the only criteria. Um, we'll then allow the applicant uh to make a statement, uh, either, you know, expand on or elaborate on anything that happened to come up during the staff report. Members of the board might ask the applicant questions. Following that, we'll see if there's any public here, public comment regarding the case. After we take any kind of public comment that we might happen to have, we'll give the applicant an opportunity to wrap up with some closing thoughts. That'll end uh our taking public comment on the case. Following public comment, I'll ask for a motion from the board. Um just so everyone is aware, uh and this applies uh to both matters before us tonight, according to the uh ZBA rules of procedure. We need four votes in the affirmative to pass the motion. We have four members uh before you tonight, and that does qu constitute a quorum under our rules. Um but we need four vote votes, not a simple majority to pass a motion. Um if uh you're speaking tonight and you're at the microphone. If we could have your name and your address uh for the record, if you happen to leave the microphone and come back, if we could have your name again. Uh the reason for that is that tonight's proceedings are all being recorded. Um anyone who's aggrieved by a decision of the zoning board of appeals has the right to appeal that decision to circuit court. And so when the circuit court judge uh listens to the tape and goes over the record, that helps clarify who happens to be speaking at any one time. Uh do we have any questions about tonight's uh normal procedures? No. We also have uh as our second case on the uh DACA tonight, we have an appeal of uh the uh planning commission decision. Appeals of planning commission decisions are handled under our special rules of procedure. Um procedure, we conduct what's called an on the record review of the case. And so what we will be focusing on is the actual record that was created when the planning commission uh adjudicated their findings and when they met. So as a result of that, the only people that will be speaking tonight uh regarding that case will be the appellant and uh the appellees uh and in this case we have two, the planning commission and uh the county. Um and so under our normal rules, um what we would normally have an opportunity for public comment uh under our special rules since it's an on-the-record review and we can't consider new evidence uh we don't take public comment during that. So uh I appreciate that we got a lot of folks out that are interested tonight uh in tonight's cases. Um and uh I understand that there might be some uh times where you fear feel like uh uh jeering folks that you might not agree with or cheering uh statements that you do. Um if uh we could try to keep that at an absolute bare bones minimum. Uh I'd certainly appreciate it. Uh it'll certainly make the proceedings go a little bit easier tonight. Uh if uh anyone happens to have a uh cell phone with them these days, which most folks do, uh if you could set that to vibe vibrate or turn the volume down, uh that would be a big help. Are there any questions concerning uh our rules and how we're gonna conduct today's meeting? Yes, ma'am. Um are you also considering then for what's on record what's been spoken at the original planning commission meeting?