May 7, 2025, Planning Board Regular Meeting Minutes

What Mr. Steck did is superimpose in a red line where the shadow falls at 9 AM. This is without the third story going on. Mr. Steck states because the shadow pattern typically goes to the north, there is obviously an impact. And it will be a more severe impact when another story is added. In terms of the backyard of the Barton’s, there's one small evergreen that's in the left of center. But there's essentially no screening in the wintertime and the trees are fairly old. In Mr. Steck’s opinion, there is no effective screening at the moment that blocks the subject building from the Barton property. On Page 5, shows 2 photographs from the view of Mr. Steck in his car as if he was driving out of the driveway. There's been a lot of discussion about this sight line. Since Mr. Steck has an SUV, his eye height is probably four feet, five inches off the ground rather than the 3.5 feet. But because there are so few parking spaces on site for the residential uses, Mr. Steck has never been by there where the curb line is free of cars. Below those photographs is a sight line exhibit that the applicant's engineer has presented. The sight line that's required to be shown is highlighted in red. The rectangle to the left is where a car would be positioned. But the applicant's engineer said those cars are movable so there aren't always going to be there. Even on the applicant's diagram, you have to look through six cars in order to get the sight distance that is recommended to see a car coming. The sight line is difficult because there are always cars, in Mr. Steck’s judgment, parked along the curb line. That's both looking to the left and to the right as you're leaving the site. And during rush hour in the evening, typically there's a backup of cars. Mr. Steck states that if you're going to leave this property and turn left, oftentimes there are times where you have to wait for a courtesy gap. So it's not that there can't be any development on the property, but more intensive development has to, in his opinion, meet the negative criteria. And part of that is the level of traffic activity and the difficulty of seeing cars that are in the through lane. Mr. Steck went over the sum and substance of his testimony before going to Page 6. This property is already non-conforming because it has excessive pavement. It has a significant violation of the rear setback, as well

the sum and substance of his testimony before going to Page 6. This property is already non-conforming because it has excessive pavement. It has a significant violation of the rear setback, as well as the rear buffer. And it has parking that is, at least by county standards, too close to the front right-of-way. The county site plan resolution says you shouldn't have cars backing up within 20 feet of the right-of-way of Main Street. So there are significant non-conformities at the moment. The applicant has more building than they're entitled to. So when Mr. McDonough says there's a hardship, the answer is this building couldn't be built today, and Mr. Steck is not sure they would get the same amount of square footage. If you conform to the impervious coverage, that would shrink some of the parking. There's not a hardship due to existing conditions, because the applicant has more building than they're entitled to today, in Mr. Steck’s judgment, looking at the limits on impervious coverage. The applicant wants to put on a third story, having the same footprint as the rest of the building, which is 3,303 square feet. The applicant wants to convert the first floor left for medical office use, which produces about 9.57 parking spaces. Mr. Steck notes that both the traffic report and the architect's plans used a generic multiplier for the office space, but it's higher, and that's statistically true for the medical office space. That's one space per 150 square feet. There was a lot of debate last time about how much parking is really required, and it's clear that the applicant has to rely on some kind of shared parking, even though the