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

My name is Alan Frankel, and I am the current chair of the Board of Appeals.

With me this evening on the Dais are my other members of the Board of Appeals.

Roy Deutschmann, Jimmy Hauer, also with us today, or our counsel, Nick Dumay, and the Chief of Zoning, Jim Waslick, who is coming to us by Zoom.

And Christopher Davis, the senior planner.

So with no further ado, we have a public hearing this evening.

It's variance application VAR 2025-00127 concerning a carport edition at 2288 Dunster Lane here in Rockville.

And Mr.

Davis, if you'd be kind enough to give us your report.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

One sec, and I'll share the presentation.

Oh, yes, we should.

Mr.

Rotzlick, would you like to swear in Mr.

Davis?

I'd be happy to.

If you could identify yourself for the record.

Christopher Davis Community Planning and Development Services.

And will you provide truthful testimony this evening?

I will.

Thank you, go ahead.

You may proceed.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Again, this is variance application VAR 2025 00127.

As Mr.

Wassleck indicated it, uh, this is a variance application for 2288 Dunster Lane.

As you can see, the subject property is outlined in blue on the screen.

The property is located at 2288 Dunster Lane.

It has a land use designation of single family residential detached, and it is located in the R90 zone corresponding with the single unit detached restricted residential zone.

As you can see from the aerial, the property is located approximately at the intersection of Dunster Lane and Bartonshire Way.

This is in the Potomac Woods southern area of the city and the property abuts the Potomac Woods Park to the east.

So the specific proposal and request by the applicant this evening is a zoning variance from the side yard setback requirements of the R90 zone.

And this request is for the purpose of constructing a carport addition along the south side of the property.

As you can see, the site plan is uh pictured here on the screen and outlined in yellow is the uh proposed footprint of the attached carport.

As you can see, it'll be located on the right side of the home if you're looking from Dunster Lane, and we'll uh cover a portion of their existing driveway to the side of the home where there is a side entry that will facilitate the vehicle movements and parking for uh the applicants.

Uh the staff's recommendation this evening is approval with conditions.

So here's a street view of the front of the property.

Um, as you can see, the home the property is improved with a two-story single-family home.

Um, and it's improved also with uh front lawn uh landscaping, and here is an image of that side yard uh driveway leading to the side of the home.

Um, one of the unique aspects of the property that will uh go into more detail is the unique topography of the property.

As you can see here, um the property has a uh a downward sloping topography from right to left, and it also has varying topography from the front to the rear of the property, as we'll see uh here shortly.

So here's the again the proposed site plan, and the image to the right is a conceptual um photograph of what the applicants would like to improve the carport with using similar materials as you can see with stone and um coloring that will match the existing dwelling.

So moving to the uh specific zoning issues for this request, uh section 25105 of the zoning ordinance requires an 11-foot side yard setback in the R90 zone, and the applicant requests a variance of eight feet 9.7 inches to that requirement in order to construct the proposed carport.

So having found uh reviewed the application, staff has found that the application uh satisfies the standards for granting of a variance, uh particularly with the first finding, uh the variance would not be contrary to the public interests.

Uh staff has found that uh the proposed location will occupy a portion of the existing driveway and will be similar in scale and massing to other car ports found in the neighborhood.

Uh furthermore, no letters of opposition have been received uh at this time.

Uh moving on to finding two, uh staff has also found that the requested variance is due to conditions peculiar to the property and not the result of any action taken by the property owner.

Uh specifically, as you can see from the image on the screen, this is a layout of the specific contours as they occur on the property.

As you can see, there's a uh a great uh variance in the topography on the property, again, not only from right to left, but from front to back.

Um, particularly in the rear yard, you can see how uh steep the slope uh slopes downward uh towards the rear of the property, and so that these present challenges for the applicant and um locating a carport in the rear yard that would be complainant with the setback requirements.

Um in addition, uh the property exhibits a narrowing wedge shape, so the northern side property lines and southern side property lines converge as you come to the front of the property, and so that convergence creates issues along the side of the property in um locating a carport along the side without encroaching into the side yard setbacks.

So a confluence of these factors, staff has found results in a peculiar condition on the property that obviously aren't the result of the property owners.

Staff has also found that a literal enforcement of the ordinance would result in a practical difficulty.

Again, uh noting those features, the uh specifically the topography and shape uh would uh would prohibit the applicants from allowing their uh proposed car port without approval of a variance.

Um and again, uh granting this request would allow the applicant to improve the property uh consistent with uh those in the neighborhood.

And finally, finding four that the granting of the variance is not inconsistent with the purposes of the zoning ordinance.

Um specifically, this relief is needed due to the site characteristics of the property, and again, approval of this variance would allow the applicant to enhance the level of livability and residential use of this particular property.