Good evening, everybody.

Uh, welcome to the October twenty third, twenty eighteen mid eight meeting of the City of Frederick Zoning Board of Appeals.

Uh, welcome everybody.

Thanks for coming out.

Uh, before we get started on tonight's business, I'd like to give a little bit of brief information and background about the Zoning Board of Appeals, what our authorities and responsibilities are, um, and then go over how the proceedings will go in tonight's cases, just to make sure that everybody's clear on what our rules of procedure are and see if anybody has questions along those lines.

So it's the responsibility of the zoning board of appeals to authorize on appeal in specific cases a variance from the terms of the city's zoning regulations to hear and decide special exceptions to the terms of the zoning regulations, and to hear and decide the appeals of agreed parties when it's alleged that there's an error in any order requirement decision or determination made by an administrative officer in the enforcement of division one of the land use article of the annotated code of Maryland, or any law adopted under that division, which includes the City of Frederick's land management code or the LMC as we call it.

Members of the Board of Appeals are all volunteers.

We're all residents of the city.

Four members constitute a quorum of the board.

We do have a fifth member who is on the way, but we have four, and so we have a quorum to move forward with tonight's business.

Board is also supported in our activities by city staff.

Just for everybody's benefit, I'd like to introduce those individuals who are supporting us tonight.

To my far right and everybody's far left is Ms.

Sherry Kelly.

She is a planner with the planning department in the City of Frederick.

Seated next to Ms.

Kelly is Mr.

Scott Waxter.

He is an assistant attorney with the city's attorney's office.

And then sit next to Mr.

Waxner is Ms.

Gabrielle Collard.

She is the division manager of current planning for the City of Frederick.

And then to my far left, and everybody else's far right is Ms.

Jessica Murphy.

She's an office manager with the planning department.

And in addition to her many, many numerous duties, she supports the ZBA in our activities and make sure that we keep everything straight here before everybody and stay in line with our rules of procedures.

As I mentioned before, we have uh really sort of two categories of appeals that uh the ZBA hears.

Um and tonight we have cases that fall into both those categories.

So I'll go ahead and go through the rules of procedures, which are a little bit different depending on the type of appeal that happens to be before the board.

Um our procedure for tonight's cases for variances and special exceptions.

Um I'll call the case by the case number.

If the applicant's present, if they could just please indicate that they're here for us, that'd be great.

Um I'll then ask for the staff report.

The staff will read and enter their entire report into the record.

At the end of the staff report, the staff may make a recommendation or recommendations regarding this case.

Um that's one element that the board uses in our determination, but not the only element in our decision making process.

Um following the staff report, I'll ask the applicant to give a statement during which time the applicant can clarify, expand on their application or anything in the staff report or provide the board with additional information that might be useful in our decision making.

Members of the board may ask questions of the applicant uh during that period.

Following the applicant's testimony, I'll call for any public comments with regards to the case.

Any member of the public may offer testimony either uh support or in opposition of the particular case or to provide information to the CBA that you feel might be useful to us in our decision making process.

Um following public testimony, I'll ask the applicant if they want to make any closing statements or address any points that were raised during the public testimony.

Um, and I will then close the public testimony portion of the case.

Um I'll then ask for a motion from the board.

Um three members of the board must vote in the affirmative for any motion to pass.

We also have tonight a um case uh for somebody who is uh an aggrieved party appealing the decision of a zoning administrator in the city of Frederick.

For those types of cases, we handle a different set of rules of procedures.

Um call the case by the number if the applicant is here if they can give us a short wave, that would be great.

Um I will then ask for any presentation of any papers constituting the record of the action that's going to be appealed.

So we have documentation that's already been provided to us as part of the record.

If there's any additional documentation uh that either the appellant or uh the administrator wishes to provide, now's the time to provide that to us.

Um the board will then discuss and decide any preliminary motions that uh might be made uh by the applicant or the administration, uh including things such as the establishment of standing.

Uh following preliminary actions heard by the board, um, I'll ask for a presentation of evidence and testimony from the applicant.

Following the applicant's presentation, I'll then ask for a presentation of evidence and testimony by the administrative officer whose decision is under appeal tonight.

Let's see here.

It was a long night, so I made sure I took notes.

Um for tonight's cases, uh, we will limit each presentation uh to 30 minutes given the size of the docket that we have here before us.

Um then following the presentations by the applicant and the administrative officer, I'll call for any public testimony either in support or opposition of the particular appeal.

Following public testimony, I'll ask the applicant for any rebuttal to testimony that may have been presented, and then closing statements from both the applicant and the administrative official.

Um, we'll then close the testimony uh component of the case.