Planning Commission Minutes 2018 05 10

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes May 10, 2018 Page 3 of 6 Moline suggested that homeowners might appreciate a graphic depiction for what the 20% coverage would look like on a typical lot in the public outreach material. He asked if staff felt that RE district was the one that needed the most attention or if there were others that needed attention. Ritchie replied that the other districts had fewer and more appropriate variance requests Zuccaro added that the RE zone is unique. When the buildings were constructed in the 1980s and `90s, everyone probably assumed that the buildings were conforming. It was not until 1996 and afterwards that the houses became out of compliance. Staff does not want to do something that greatly affects neighborhood character. However, a huge number of residents in the City want to make improvements to their property, but they're already nonconforming. Ritchie added that today, small home improvements are increasingly common. Using the setback restrictions in RE alone could generally result in 50% lot coverage, which seemed to be too high for a cap. Moline responded that there were also interesting new trends about homeowners preferring yards versus larger homes. Hoefner stated that the new restrictions should consider the people who were already in RE. Those people spent a lot of money to live in Louisville and most people do not check zoning codes before buying their homes. For those people, "nonconforming" would not sound good. He noted that affordable housing may come up as a related issue in the Council meeting. He added that there was a culture change around wanting yards and grass, which he thought should be up to the person who bought the house. Brauneis stated that the process should be smoother, but the City had to balance that with the impact on the neighborhood. Moline asked Brauneis if the impact felt like a physical impact. Brauneis gave the example of a large building on a small property, which might be desirable on a personal level but not on a neighborhood level. Additionally, there was the environmental concern that a growth in house size could increase the amount of space that needed to be heated and cooled, even if more people would not necessarily be living in these houses. Moline responded by asking if the storm water regulations were included in the original zoning restrictions. Zuccaro responded that you could pave 100% of your lot with concrete and that would not affect your zoning compliance. Lot coverage only addressed structures over 30 inches and covered patios. Hsu asked for a more encompassing goal for the RE change than reducing nonconformities, since there seemed to be more factors to consider. He suggested considering neighborhood character. He asked if there was a fee for variances. Ritchie explained the variance process. Most of the time, people submit a building permit not knowing they have an issue and then staff has to let them know that they have a problem. Administrative variances carry around a $95 fee, but when the variance needs to go to the Board of Adjustment it goes up to around $750. She added that when around 99% of the variances get approved, it seemed like the process could be simplified.