The Zoning Board of Appeals met on August 25, 2026, at 7:00 PM at City Hall to consider five conditional use applications and conduct an election of officers. The board approved all applications with varying conditions, including five-month compliance reviews for two establishments. The meeting included extensive public testimony on noise concerns related to outdoor amplified music.
Good evening, uh, everybody. Um before we get started with tonight's cases and uh tonight's business. I usually like to start every meeting with a little bit of uh background about what our authorities and purpose is here in the city. Um introduce some of the people that um are supporting us in our work here, um, go over just at least at a high level what the procedures are going to be for this evening and see any questions uh before um we get to the individual cases, if that's uh okay. Um here the zoning board of appeals, we hear three kinds of matters. We hear variances from the city's zoning regulations. We hear special exceptions to those regulations. Um we also hear appeals when there is an alleged error by an administrative officer in the enforcement of the land management code in accordance with Maryland state law across the board. Um that third one, an appeal if somebody uh alleges there are error. We don't have any cases like that tonight. That's like maybe somebody in the permitting department. Um somebody feels that they made an error issuing a permit, and somebody will come to us with an appeal to have us take a look at it. Um we have five members of the zoning board of appeals. We are all volunteers. We all are residents of the city. Uh we are nominated by the mayor, and our appointments are confirmed by the city council. Um in our work here, uh we are supported by members of the city staff. So we've got a full house tonight. Uh but to my far, far right uh and you're all as far left is uh Gabrielle Collard, and she is the uh director of the planning department. Uh we also have Mr. Scott Waxter. He is an assistant attorney here with the city's legal department. Um we have Michael Hackman, who is a planner with the city um uh planning department. Um we have Khadijah Roder, who is also a planner who is going to be supporting some of tonight's cases. Um and then next to Khadijah is Christina Roderick. She has the most complicated title in the entire city government. Um see, I messed it up already. Uh she is the um division director who's in charge of current planning in the city of Frederick. Um and then to my far left in your all's far right is Ms. Jennifer Vandergreek. She is an administrative assistant in the planning department, and in addition to her many, many daytime duties, she supports us here in our work at the ZBA as well. Uh so a little bit of background of uh sort of what our process uh will look like tonight. Um you all have an agenda. Uh I'm gonna rearrange the order that we see some of the cases uh tonight just for some of the efficiency to let you all know ahead of time. Uh but I will call a case number. If the applicant is here and you can kind of give me a wave and let me know, especially since we've got a full house, that would be great. Um but what we'll start off with is I'll ask for the staff report. The staff report will be entered into the record. And so the entire staff report that you all can download from the website will be entered into the official record. And then the staff will go through and summarize some of the salient points of that. At the end of the staff report, um the staff may make a recommendation or recommendations regarding tonight's case. Uh that is one element that we use in our decision making here at the ZBA, but it is not the only element. Um so following the staff report, uh we might have members of the board who ask questions of staff at that time. Uh and then I will ask for the applicant if they would uh come up. Uh they're free to give a presentation, right? Sometimes people have formal presentations uh uh prepared to do. Um, but they can also expand on anything that happens to be in the staff report. They can clarify any points. Once again, members of the board may ask questions of them. Um following the applicant's testimony, I will then open the floor up for testimony from the public.