The Zoning Board of Appeals met on January 23, 2024, at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall to hear a variance application and conduct administrative business. The board approved the previous meeting's minutes and unanimously granted a variance for 406 Magnolia Avenue.
All right. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the are we still January 23rd, the January 23rd, 2024 meeting of the City of Frederick Zoning Board of Appeals. Apologies for definitely the folks who are here with us tonight and anybody who happened to tune in at home for getting late. We had a little bit of logistical problem, but we're going to go ahead and uh push through as briskly as possible. Here at the Zoning Board of Appeals, it's our job to hear appeals to the city's land management code. Members of the zoning board of appeals, we are all volunteers. We're all residents of the city. We're appointed by the mayor, and those appointments are confirmed by the Board of Aldermen. We need four members to have a quorum, which we've talked about for a little bit tonight. And we have four members with us tonight, so we can conduct uh business. Um supporting us in our work, our members of the city staff. Uh to my far right and your far left, you all know uh is Ms. Monica Robbins. She is a um uh planner with the city's planning department. Uh um next to Ms. Robbins is uh Ms. Gabrielle Collard, uh, and she is the director of planning here for the City of Frederick. And then to my far left and your far right is Ms. Jennifer Vandergreek, and in addition to many many responsibilities that she has here at the City of Frederick with the planning department, she also supports the ZBA and all the work uh that we conduct uh here. Um just a little short abbreviated um background on what our procedures are for tonight. I will um uh call the case number. I know we have an applicant here with us tonight. Usually I ask for somebody to give me a short wave and let me know. Um, but we'll start off. I'll ask for the staff report. Um the staff will um enter the staff report into the official record, and um at the end of that staff report and uh in their summary, they might make a recommendation or recommendations regarding the case. That's one element that we use in our decision making, um, but it's not the only element. Following the staff report, I'll ask the applicant if they have anything that they'd like to share with the board, um, maybe something they want to clarify or um give us some additional details from the staff report. Umbs of the board might ask questions of the applicant as well during that time. Um following that conversation with the applicant, um, we will ask if anybody would like to give public comment regarding the case. Um, here in the city of Frederick, uh, any member of the public can give testimony regarding any of the cases uh before us tonight. I don't think that we have anybody here for public testimony, but I'll ask the question uh just to move on. Um following any public testimony, we'll ask the applicant if they have any closing remarks that they'd like to make, then I'll close the public testimony section of the case and I'll call for a vote from the members of the board. Um, a majority um of members voting in the affirmative pass a motion. So for tonight, three out of four members voting in the affirmative will pass any motion that is before the board. Um if I can uh ask if anybody is coming uh to speak tonight at the microphone. Um we're gonna ask for your name and your address for the record. The reason for that is that um this is a quasi-judicial proceeding, and everything uh that transpires tonight will be recorded. Anyone who's aggrieved by a decision that we make here at the zoning board of appeals has the right to appeal that to the circuit court of Maryland. And so we need the names and the addresses for the record. It helps the judge who might be reviewing a case to be able to keep straight, who happens to be speaking or talking during the testimony during that time. Uh are there any questions from anybody tonight about the proceedings? No. All right. If not, we will go ahead and get started with tonight's uh cases. And you would think I would be better prepared than this. I do have our cases. Um we have a couple housekeeping measures uh to start with. Members of the board, you have before you uh minutes from the previous zoning board of appeals meetings.