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

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

With me at the day's this evening is one of our other board members, Roy Deutschman.

And we are here on variance application 2026-257 VAR concerning a zoning variance at the National Lutheran Home for the Aged, located at 9701 Veers Drive, Rockville, Maryland.

We do have you do have the ability if you are watching this virtually for you to participate.

But if you do decide to participate virtually during the pandemic, pandemic, the Board of Appeals created a set of rules for participating remotely, and you should be aware of those before you before you come and make yourself be heard.

Okay.

So Mr.

Davis, this is your case.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

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 evening, Mr.

Chair and members of the board.

We present to you this evening a variance application as Mr.

Waselec has indicated.

This is a uh variance for the villages at Rockville at 9701 Beers Drive.

So the subject property is outlined on the aerial image on here on the screen.

It is located at 9701 Veers Drive.

It has a land use designation, land use designation of residential multiple unit and a zoning designation of R400 corresponding with the city's residential estate zone.

As you can see from the image, the property is located to the north side of Beers Drive and is immediately south of the Lakewood Country Club to the north, as well as some single family detached homes on the south side of Beers Drive.

As you can see from the spotted black line, the city-county boundary kind of traverses Veers Drive on either side along this section of the city.

So the specific proposal by the applicant anticipates uh continued redevelopment of the site, um, namely updating the existing independent living cottages on the campus from a series of triplex to duplex conversions.

Um with this specific request, uh the applicant is requesting two variances uh for uh alternate setbacks in order to allow uh additions and new patios to uh these two specific uh building units outlined in red.

As you can see, towards the rear of the property or the plan north is 9531 Veers Drive, um, and that is the building requesting the rear yard uh setback variants, and 9503 Veers Drive is requesting the front yard uh setback variants.

Um this unit is located towards the frontage of Westcott Place.

So you can see here are the specific uh variances requested for that uh building unit at 9503 Veers Drive.

You can see highlighted in blue is the specific area of the proposed addition that would be subject to the variance that is a requested 39-foot front yard setback in lieu of the required 50 foot.

And uh the image to the bottom is 9531 Veers Drive, um, which is requesting the 40-foot rear yard setback in lieu of the 50 foot, and staff's recommendation is approval with conditions.

So here are some images of the existing conditions.

As you can see from the image on the left, here is a more of a street view perspective of the building unit at 9531 Vierce Drive.

As you can see, it's an improved one story structure with a brick exterior.

From this view, the new addition will be at the rear of this of this building unit.

As you can see, behind it is some mature tree plantings which separate the campus from the abutting Lakewood Country Club to the north.

And as you can see from the image on the right, that is the building unit at 9503 Vears Drive.

This is fronting on the Westcott Place, and it's requesting the front yard setback variants.

It's a similar structure and style, and it's proposing a similar type of building addition.

And to that point, here are some proposed elevation drawings, including the new additions.

As you can see, the intent of the new additions are to be seamless, utilizing the similar exterior materials and overall proportions to be compatible with the existing buildings there on the campus.

So moving on to the specific zoning issues, again, the zoning ordinance in particular Article 10 requires minimum front and rear yard setbacks for this particular property of 50 feet.

The specific requests is a 39-foot front yard setback and 40-foot rear yard setback for those proposed additions.

Without the approval of these requested variances, these improvements would be prohibitive in order for the applicant to move forward as proposed.

So moving to the specific staff findings, after review of the application, staff, the staff has found that the application has satisfied the necessary criteria for granting the variance.

Specifically, staff has found that the variances would not be contrary to the public interests.

Notably, the improvements are modest in size and will support further residential use of the campus.

Furthermore, at the time of this hearing, no letters of opposition have been received, and staff does not anticipate any adverse impacts from the proposed improvements.

Furthermore, staff has found that the requested variances are due to conditions peculiar to the property and are not the result of any action taken by the property owner.

Most notably, staff has found that the property is irregularly shaped.

And in conjunction with that, the configuration of the site current creates disproportionate impacts, constraining on-site areas as compared to other properties in the neighborhood.

In addition, staff has found that over time setback requirements for this property have changed, which have also created some constraints and moving forward with the proposed additions.

These unique conditions staff has found are not due to the owners, the actions of the owner on site.

So this slide shows an exhibit prepared.

As you can see, the very unique shape of the subject property is more of a kind of a U or a boomerang shape.

From this specific exhibit, you can see if you added the front and rear property lines, they would accompass 80% of the total property perimeter.

And that would further equate to four times being four times larger than what the side property lines would be.