The Board of Adjustments and Appeals met on November 12, 2025 at 3:00 PM to consider one variance request for a townhouse at 601 Bayshore Drive, Unit 14. The meeting included approval of prior minutes, a staff presentation, applicant testimony, and a unanimous vote to approve the variance with conditions.
Morgan, you okay? Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Board of Adjustment Appeals for November the twelfth, two thousand twenty-five. First order of business, the minutes from the last meeting. Everyone read them. Any questions, corrections? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right, Bill, we have uh one case today. Would you read it for us and present it? Yes, sir. Do I need to swear in or anything? Well, these one. I do. Planner 301 Baltimore. We have AB 25-086, a request to submitted for a variance from Town of Ocean City Code Section 3871 A5 minimum elevation requirements. This is to reduce the minimum three-foot free board elevation requirement above the AE six flood zone by approximately two point seven feet for an interior remodel of a townhouse unit, um, including a lateral and vertical addition to the front of the townhouse unit. Locally known as six oh one Bay Shore Drive Unit 14, parcel number one one two dash two zero dash five three four seven unit fourteen. Owners are Jeff and Kim Formosa that are here today. Builders, Ted Rhodes, and he's here today in the audience. So the easiest thing is to point out that um earlier this year, um in February and again in October, you reviewed down the street two properties that are similarly located. Um they have the AE six flood zone at the rear of the property. Um their base their lowest floor elevation was six point three, and they came to the board and requested the two point seven foot variant similar to this application. Um and those were both granted. Um in this case um we're looking at uh the property located here, same set of circumstances, lowest floor elevation per the elevation certificate that was provided, six point three feet. So again, th this is a case where the existing structure, the lowest floor uh meets the minimum NFIP requirements uh above the AE six flood zone. Um, but it does not provide for the um extra elevation that we have adopted as a requirement for free board. This is a little different in that you also reviewed the property next door, and that was one where it was a full teardown of the structure. And so in that case, they when they tore down and rebuilt that interior unit, they chose to set the new floor elevation at 7.1 feet. So it's not one of the reasons that the board has considered this variance request in the past is the difficulty or the challenge of trying to address an interior townhouse units when you have units on both sides that you're you know you're trying to match up with both for access and the structure and how that common wall is dealt with. In this case, I think it's still appropriate for you to consider the requested freeboard variants because they're just doing a minor addition. So I think in your packet uh we've provided a copy of the architectural plans that show that this is a proposed addition on the front of the structure. It does propose to extend out approximately five feet. Um we did verify that that still allows for the adequate distance for the parking space in front. Um so it goes out five feet and then builds above that. Um so it does trigger the substantial improvement criteria. Um at that point, we would you know the the what our code says is that the unit should either be elevated or they should come to the BAA and ask for your consideration of this floodplain freeboard variance request. One thing I did bring along a picture, a couple things to show you, Chris. I'm sorry to go back to the camera. One of the other um things that makes this property a little bit unique is that um the way the FEMA flood map was created. I'm not sure you know what elevation point they were drawing on when they developed the flood map, but you can see there's a finger of the AE6 flood zone that actually shows that it comes up and underneath the building, if you will. So that would be in this this location where the existing unit is mapped within clearly within the AE6 flood zone. Um in this case, you know, we don't know the detail of the crawl space elevation or whether that was accurately mapped, but we do know that what our code says is is that the lowest floor should be elevated to at least elevation six plus three foot of free board unless otherwise modified. Um the elevation certificate was prepared this time.