environmental review
Commissioners are concerned about amount of grading the project would require.
By Jonathan Friedman
Staff Writer
The Planning Commission granted a request at its meeting Monday by the project applicant to continue the consideration of a variance request for a 9,390-square-foot Big Rock home until June 7 after four of the five commissioners said they would not approve the application.
The commissioners said they wanted to send the proposal for the home to the Environmental Review Board, a body consisting of scientists and architects, for a recommendation. They said the project called for a significantly higher amount of nonexempt grading (9,600 cubic yards) than allowed by the city’s zoning code.
In June, the commission will have at least one new member and possibly more, as three city councilmembers are scheduled to make commission appointments for the new term on May 10. But Commission Chair David Fox, who said in March that he would not seek another term, said he did not believe the owner of the property, Marvin Smith, was “vote shopping.”
This marks the second, consecutive meeting the application has been continued. At its April 19 meeting, the commission was unable to break a 2-2 vote of the four commissioners present, so it chose to bring the item back when a fifth member would be there to possibly cast a deciding vote.
Commissioner Les Moss was the only one Monday who said he was prepared to approve the application. Fox and Commission Vice Chair John Sibert said they were as well, until ERB member Lester Tobias recommended during public comment that the item should go before his board. Commissioner Pete Anthony said he would be more comfortable hearing from the ERB before making a final decision.
“I don’t feel qualified to grant this amount of grading above and beyond the ordinance without some other expert telling me this is the best way to go,” Anthony said.
A project usually goes to the ERB if City Biologist Dave Crawford advises it after reviewing the project. The board then makes recommendations on the application, which are forwarded to the Planning Commission before it hears the item. However, Crawford did not ask for this project to go before the ERB.
Moss said he felt uncomfortable starting a precedent of the commission overriding the city biologist’s decisions and of bringing residential projects before the commission to the ERB.
“On a residential project, unless there are circumstances, that I don’t think have come up tonight, I would be very hesitant to recommend it go to the ERB,” Moss said.
Fox said he, too, felt uncomfortable about starting that precedent, but said by approving the variance request the commission would be creating a precedent by allowing a substantial amount of grading
“As between the two, I think I’d rather set a precedent on the side of being conservative, careful and cautious than on the side of granting something I wish I could take back when I wake up in the morning,” Fox said.
The majority of the grading, 7,440 cubic yards of the 10,600, would be done to create a 650-foot driveway. The need for the long driveway came about because the planning division demanded the project be built on a location of the 32.37-acre parcel that was far from the street due to environmental concerns and because other locations would block neighbors’ views. The proposed site for the project is in a hilly portion of the land, requiring 3,160 cubic yards of grading to make a smooth backyard for a second unit, two swimming pools, a horse corral, a garage and a tennis court.
Concern was raised at the previous meeting and again at this meeting that the proposed project had not been noticed to other residents on the street, Seaboard Road. City law requires all people within a 500-foot radius be noticed. But because the land is so large, the people on Seaboard did not qualify. The law was recently changed to increase the notification distance to 1,000 feet when a project involves larger lots, but it had not taken effect for this project.
Anthony said the city should look into making a law in which noticing is based on informing residents living on a certain amount of parcels near a proposed project site rather than just those living in the homes within a certain distance.
He said another option would be for the planning manager to make a project-by-project determination of whether more homes needed to be noticed than those within the 500-foot or 1,000-foot radius because they would be affected by the project.