Good evening and welcome to the City of Rockville Board of Appeals.

I apologize for not being in the chambers, but I had minor surgery on my forehead this morning, and uh I'm supposed to be home, so I'm home.

Anyway, welcome to those of you in the chamber.

Um, and to those of you who are viewing by WebEx or by uh Channel 11 or streaming.

Um my name is My name is Alan Frankel.

I'm the chair of the Board of Appeals.

And uh without further ado, we will get started.

I believe this is Board of Appeals Meeting Number 1225.

And we have a public hearing this evening on variance application VAR 2025 00124, um, requesting a variance at 501 Denham Road here in Rockville, Maryland.

And I believe Mr.

Davis is the uh planner on this.

So, Mr.

Davis, uh look forward to hearing from you.

Uh, before Mr.

Davis gets started, I'm gonna go ahead and swear a minute.

Thank you, Mr.

Watsley.

If you could identify yourself for the record.

Yes, Christopher Davis with community planning and development services.

And will you provide truthful testimony this evening?

I will.

Thank you.

All right.

Good at good evening, Mr.

Chair and members of the board.

Um, as you mentioned, this is a variance application, VAR 2025 00124 for 501 Denham Road.

The subject property is outlined in blue on the screen.

It is 501 Denham Road.

Um, the land use designation for this property is single family residential detached, and the zoning for the property is R60, corresponding with the single unit detached dwelling residential zone.

As you'll see from the image, the property is located at the corner of Denham Road and Gilbert Road.

Um, it is unique in shape.

As you can see, it is of a wedge shape where the front property line and side property line converge uh narrowing to denim road.

The specific request this evening by the applicant is a zoning variance from the rear yard setback requirements in the R60 zone to construct a rear covered porch.

Um staff's recommendation is approval with conditions.

As you'll see from the uh site plan shown on the screen here, the existing dwelling is shown outlined in gray with the new porch area outlined in yellow.

The new porch uh will cover an existing of wood uncovered porch and will basically cover that existing footprint because of the dimensions and the the uh location of that existing area.

Uh it encroaches into the rear yard setback, uh necessitating the variance.

In addition, the applicant uh proposes a new uncovered deck immediately adjacent to that.

Um that specific improvement is not subject to the variance this evening.

So here are a few images of the existing conditions as you'll see from the image on uh on the light on the left, labeled right.

Um, this is a view um into the rear of the dwelling where you can see that uncovered existing porch um where the new covered porch will basically um cover this area um in the same footprint.

In the image on the right, you can see our rear view uh of the area to be covered, and you can see the existing access to the home where the um applicant can have access to the new covered area or covered porch.

So here are the proposed elevations showing that new covered porch.

As you can see, it will be enclosed with screens and railing, uh, which will include vinyl materials to match the siding of the existing home.

It'll also employ a gable roof again to be consistent with the design of the existing home.

So moving to the specific zoning issues, subject of the variance per section 25105, the minimum required rear yard setback is 20 feet.

And the applicant's specific request is a variance for a setback of 16 feet 7.2 inches to construct the covered porch in the rear yard.

So staff review of this application has found that the request does satisfy the standards for granting the variants.

Specifically, the variance would not be contrary to the public interest.

As highlighted, the new covered porch would uh basically cover the existing footprint uh of the existing uncovered porch in the rear yard.

So there will be no further encroachments to the surrounding properties and no further adverse impacts.

Um furthermore, it maintains the similar building massing and exterior aesthetics.

And as well, staff has not received any letters of opposition to this specific request.

Staff's also found that the requested variance is due to conditions peculiar to the property and not the result of any action taken by the owner.

Uh specifically, we mentioned uh the unique shape of this particular lot, um that wedge shape where the property lines do converge to a point.

Um it creates a peculiar buildable area uh that differs from neighboring properties and thus necessitates the request for the variance.

Um, as mentioned in the staff report, this particular property and its configuration was established through subdivision by Montgomery County in the 1940s prior to being annexed into the city, and of course, well before ownership by this applicant.

Finding three that a literal enforcement of the ordinance would result in a practical difficulty.

Um again, because of the unique property and its shape uh and the buildable area that's created by that, um, the specific improvements um requested by the owner would be prohibitive without the approval of this variance.

Uh furthermore, granting this variance would allow the applicant to make improvements similar to other properties in the neighborhood.