There was little agreement about the issues, the procedure and the logistics of a zoning appeal heard this week by the Waitsfield Development Review Board.
At issue is a building permit issued by the town zoning administrator that was amended twice and which has been appealed by neighbors who are concerned that the amended building permits do not comply with the house dimensions and location specified in the first building permit.
The house in question is on Old County Road in Waitsfield and is being built by Susan Lee. Her neighbors Susan and Bill Shafer and Michael and Donna Smith appealed zoning administrator Susan Senning’s amended building permit last month.
This week the appeal was heard by the DRB on May 22. Bill Shafer, speaking for the neighbors, outlined three areas of concern. First he asked, procedurally, whether Senning issued a building permit as a result of the DRB approving a screening permit for the lot on which Lee built and challenged whether she could have done that because of the language used in approving the screening plan.
Second, he raised the issue of the house location and dimensions – changing from the first to the second and third amended building permits and finally he argued that the screening plan (approval of which was required before Lee could build) envisioned the house in a specific location on the lot at specific dimensions and that when Senning amended the location and dimensions, it violated the screening approval which he said was part and parcel of the same building permit.
The neighbors’ appeal takes issue with the height of the house as well as its setbacks. The home as built is taller than what Lee depicted when she requested and received a building permit. Her original building permit was for a home with a height of 32 feet and as built the house has an average height of 34 feet, 11 inches.
These changes resulted in Senning issuing a notice of violation on April 5 for those two issues and requiring Lee to apply for amended permit by April 13. She did and received an amended permit.
The appeal from the neighbors challenges the decision of the zoning administrator to issue new building permits for the house that changed the height and setbacks from the Smith property. They argue that approving those amendments “has the effect of substantially altering the findings of fact” of the most recent approval.
At the hearing this week, Senning explained her positions and her reasoning. Senning said that her interpretation of state statute is that she could not issue the building permit until the DRB had approved the screening plan. Once that had happened, she was free to issue a building permit and later amend it when specifics of the house size/location changed. Senning said she did not feel she had the authority to send an applicant back to the DRB for further review of something that falls within the administrative tasks of a zoning administrator.
The amendments she approved were made because the dimensions of the house still met the criteria for that zoning district and the house was still within the building envelope approved when Lee’s lot was created as part of a two-lot subdivision.
In an appeal of this type, the decision of the zoning administrator is appealed to the DRB for adjudication. DRB chair Brian Shupe said he was hearing that there were two differing positions as to what authority Senning exercised and asked the parties to move on. He raised the question of whether the screening plan which the DBR approved was linked to a specific size house placed in a specific location on the lot.
“I’m curious to what extent did we consider the building location as part of the screening plan? That plan had a specific building elevation and created screening based on that location,” he said.
Shafer said that the house had been built further uphill than planned and co-appellant Donna Smith said that the location of the house had changed so much that the trees in the screening plan were not even located between the two houses anymore.
Susan Lee said that the plans she used when she first applied for her zoning permit were downloaded from the building company’s website and she said that there was no zoning administrator at the time to help her with her application. Senning was just joining Waitsfield as former zoning administrator Vicky Trihy was phasing herself out of the job last January.
She said that she had always made clear that she planned to build a 27-foot-high house with an 8- foot walk-out basement.
The DRB closed the public hearing and will deliberate before issuing written findings within 30 days.
{loadnavigation}
