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City Council <br />Meeting Minutes <br />April 20, 2021 <br />Page 10 of 14 <br />Mayor Stolzmann stated in this case the sewer line crosses another property and in the <br />future this easement could be used to alleviate that. <br />Councilmember Dickinson stated he does not see a reason why the City would need this <br />easement in the future and it is hard to see why we would deny this request if there is no <br />utility need for that easement. <br />Councilmember Lipton asked if drainage would be affected by this vacation. Ritchie <br />stated the easement was only reserved for utilities not drainage. Any new construction on <br />the site needs to meet the drainage requirements. <br />Mayor Pro Tern Maloney asked the applicant if there are any design alternatives to <br />building in this easement. Johnson stated the alternative would be to keep the garage out <br />of the easement. <br />Public Comments <br />Andre Mazur, noted there are no drainage issues on the lot to the north to date. He stated <br />he is concerned building a garage so close to the property line will add new drainage to <br />this site that may then cause problems given the slope of the properties. He noted the <br />new house is on two and one-half City lots and has plenty of room to accommodate the <br />garage without building into the easement. He thinks the Old Town Overlay rules should <br />be consistently enforced. <br />Jim Tesone, reiterated his concerns that the garage will heavily impact the sunlight <br />reaching his property. He wants to make sure the rules on the height of the garage are <br />enforced. He feels the scraping of properties is not in line with the preservation we want in <br />Old Town. <br />Valerie Forester, stated the property owner should build the garage without building into <br />the easement. <br />Councilmember Dickinson stated he cannot see a reason to not vacate the easement <br />given the property owner would still be meeting the required setback even if building in <br />the easement. <br />Councilmember Brown stated easements are for utilities and for better or worse there is <br />no need for this easement for utilities. While being sensitive to the comments about light <br />and massing, those are not criteria for this decision. In this case, Council is bound by the <br />purpose of the easement, which is utilities. He stated he is inclined to vote to vacate. <br />Mayor Stolzmann stated that normally we run sewer utilities to the alley, but in this case <br />this home does not have alley access so their sewer line does run across another <br />property. As such she thinks there is there is a public benefit to maintaining this easement <br />