we will go ahead and call to order this meeting of the Temple Terrace Board of adjustments on Thursday January 25th 2024 our first item is the pledge of allegiance to the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice all right our next order of business is the approval of the minutes uh from the last meeting which was a long long time ago back in June uh I did find one error that we have already put in uh where it says the public heum was opened by Cher hope and I believe you were running the meeting that evening I was not here so we will get that corrected correct and I I found one more where I did not prent so I will will correct that as well okay are there any other Corrections anybody has found or do you need a moment to look through all right what you're good motion to approve it okay motion to approve with the two adjustments that that we have already noted yeah is there a second second second all in favor say I I any opposed all right the minutes are approved the next item on there is the elections for the nominations of chair and for the nominations of Vice chair which it's hard to believe it's already been a year and a half that flew by very quickly um so I'll say that before I get started I've I've been very happy to do this um if you all want it I'm happy to continue it and I'm happy to get out of the way and let somebody else do it uh whichever way works with that I'll open the floor for any nominations I'm going to I'm going to nominate the current slate of officers for reelection I second that so all right um anyo I'm sorry uh let me try that again everyone for hi any Nays all right then the motion carries so just for the record if you can State who then is the chair and who's the vice chair uh in this case I will be the chairman and the vice chair will be Baron Longworth and I'm Stan cop if you're not watching on TV since I'm sure both views will probably be people related to us if not us all right the introduction of the planners this is quite exciting because I understand uh from before the meeting we were chatting that for the very first time there is actually a Full Slate of people there are no vacancies uh we have everybody that is supposed to be in what position they're supposed to to be and so that's quite exciting so I will turn it over to you for the introductions if that's okay okay well I'm not going to we have two new planners now we have Miranda Anaya and we have Malik Hall the Malik Miranda is the city planner Malik is the planner and I want them to tell you all about themselves a bit so they can intr introduce themselves awesome hello good evening I'm coming from Citrus County which is about an hour north of here I'm very happy to do City work now um done many variances in my career commercial residential some that have hardships some not so much some that are straightforward some that are come like straight out of straight out of a movie um but yeah so variances are always uh either very easy or controversial so um happy to be uh doing them again um but um I started here uh 9 months ago I believe uh May of 2023 so um it's actually a good thing that I haven't seen you guys cuz that means something's working if you don't have a lot of experiences then uh people don't feel the need to deviate from the code so that's a good thing thank you makes me feel tall on the camera um so my name is Malik Hall I started in June I think think actually maybe the day before y'all approved the minutes it said June 22nd was that a Tuesday or uh that would have been a Thursday yes I know whatever was a week after June 19th is when I started so but um yeah my background I come from pelis County born and raised in Tampa but I come from pelis County I did uh I was Environmental Specialist so I did dock permitting uh you know swim in the water for seagrass if it's seagrass here hey shift your dock over here uh it was cool it was it will prepare me for my current job CU I do a lot of the um I view I review a lot of the side plans on the zoning side so even though it's not as simple as seaw wall body of water and dock I got to you know use to dimensions and uh proper labeling and setbacks and all that stuff but um other than that I'm a USF grad got my bachelor there environmental science and policy Masters there global sustainability at the Patel college so that is um that's me I'm happy to be here marena's been a great supervisor um it's it was pretty just nice to have a job from County work as she said she went from she was in county or many things but she mentioned the transition from County to City same thing for me I wasn't used to the city you know if I had a field trip or a field day and I forgot something that's like another hour back North like I'm done it's over but here we haven't done any inspections yet but once we start doing site inspections if we do for zoning stuff it's not like oh my God I forgot this oh it's like eight minutes at most so well if traffic is decent enough 15 at Max there if there's something crazy going on 15 at Max but yes I'm happy to meet y'all I'm happy to be here and Echo what you said hasn't really been many variances so that's that's probably a good thing our code's not as um difficult as um people like to make it seem so you think it's because people just aren't getting permits you should have another discussion with our building official they're definitely getting permits they're definitely getting permits well thank you welcome fantastic it's nice to meet all of you welcome aboard and I'm sure of that 15-minute drive at least seven of it spent down here at 56 and Fowler right from USF side you never know that it's it's a it's yeah just roll the dice um okay uh I believe the next thing we have is some training points and I see the City attorney is here so I assume that is that is in your ballpark well I was told that we were going to be showing a PowerPoint so I don't know if that's set up or not Brian's got it okay so so this was uh I believe shown yesterday to our um historic preservation folks and um it's just a general refresher since we haven't been here in a while um with regard to um quas judicial uh quas judicial hearings and procedures so I think we were going to do that first and then I was going to when we're done with that I was going to talk about hardships so hello I'm Ernie Mueller from the legal department and today we are going to briefly discuss the basics of Quasi judicial procedure the oath you took for your office requires you to uphold the laws of the city the state and the United States States the board attorney will advise you on the laws as may be necessary from time to time it is very important you listen to their advice when you follow the advice of the board attorney you not only protect the city but yourself as well as long as you follow advice you are protected from lawsuits against you if you fail to follow the attorney's advice you might be held personally liable in a lawsuit related to that action the city all may not provide you legal counsel in those situations as a member of a public board you are now subject to several laws including Florida's Sunshine Law all discussions on matters that may come before the board or commission between two or more members is subject to the Sunshine Law that means that it must be noticed open to the public and minutes must be taken your regularly scheduled public hearings meet these requirements and are the correct time to discuss items the following are not in compliance with the Sunshine Law discussions that occur in the back room during a recess passing a note to a fellow member during the meeting discussions at a neighborhood association meeting or any other Communications of board business not noticed as such open to the public and recorded in some manner as a possible violation of the Sunshine Law this includes emails text messages Facebook posts Instagram posts tweets telephone conversations as well as the telephone game where you tell someone to go tell another member also all of these written forms including your personal emails and text messages regarding board business then become public records and must be retained according to the public records law it is better to just not not create these records and potential violations Communications on board business with fellow members is best handled at noticed public meetings in the sunshine if you have a topic that you feel should be discussed either send an email to the city staff who can neutrally disseminate information that would not violate the Sunshine Law or schedule it for discussion at a noest meeting however matters pertaining to a particular application should only be discussed in the hearing on that application do not violate the Sunshine Law if you do you may be assessed up to a $500 fine knowingly violating a Sunshine Law is a second deegree misdemeanor and is punishable by a fine of up to $500 Andor imprisonment for up to 60 days you will likely be suspended or removed from your office attorney's fees can be assessed and may be assessed against you personally unless you are following the advice of the board attorney in addition if there is action taken on the matter discussed outside the sunshine that action could be voided you must also comply with the laws on conflicts of interest there are statutory conflicts of interests and there are conflicts based on the appearance of impartiality first let's discuss statutory voting conflicts you are required to vote unless a ground for conflict or recusal exists under Florida Statutes board members are conflicted and must recuse themselves if the matter will Ure to their special private gain or loss special private gain or loss means an economic benefit or harm that would inure to the member his or her relatives business business associates or client the economic benefit or harm arm should be fairly direct and immediate Not Mere speculation for example your spouse is working on this project is a statutory conflict that your spouse has a landscaping company and this project could hire them to provide Landscaping if approved is not a statutory conflict if you have a conflict you must recuse yourself on the record State the reason and file the form with the city staff within 15 days even if there is not a statutory conflict disclosure of a conflict and possible recusal may still be necessary consider whether it would appear to someone on the losing side that you may not have been completely impartial examples are if you live or own property within the area that required notice of the property at issue you should recuse yourself in this instance what if you are within the neighborhood and either have been or currently are active in the local HOA that is opposing The Proposal again this should be disclosed and you may need to recuse yourself what if your college roommate is the applicant once again disclose and you may need to recuse yourself even if there is not an expar communication these types of perceived or real conflicts should be disclosed and the board attorney will walk you through whether recusal is is necessary whether your possible conflict is with the applicant or the opposition it is better to disclose than to have a decision overturned because you failed to disclose Florida Statutes also prohibit soliciting anything of value in exchange for a vote accepting anything of value given to influence a vote attempting to use an official position for private gain using non-public information for private gain doing business with one own's agency or having a conflicting employment or contractual relationship these are all prohibitions found in the Florida code of ethics for public officers and employees unlike the previous slide where clarifying the impartiality or recusal from a vote cured the defect violations of these Provisions cannot be so easily cured we are going to talk specifically about what is a conflict employment or contractual relationship a public officer is prohibited from having an employment relationship or contractual relationship with a business that is subject to the regulation of or doing business with their agency practically speaking this could come up if you or a business partner represents someone appearing in front of your board so if your employer or a client paying you come before the board you would need to resign however and this is a big however there is an exception to the statute for professionals that are on the board because of their profession for example if you are an architect on the board in the architect position and your client that you provide architectural services to under a contract appears before the board you can simply recuse yourself instead of resigning if however you are on the board in a citizen position you would be required to resign if you are not sitting on the Commission in the professional capacity you will want to be very cognizant of whether someone that you have an employment or contractual relationship with might come before the board a second part of this is worth noting also continuing or frequently recurring conflicts can also be a cause to resign for example you would not want your business partner to start routine representing people in front of your board even if you fall within the exception mentioned above a constant frequent cause for recusals may still necessitate resignation okay we've talked about the matters that affect the public hearing let's talk about the hearing itself staff will present the item all staff departments with a presentation should present first this is followed by the applicant then comments from the general public then the applicant is afforded rebuttal after rebuttal the public hearing will be closed the very next thing that should happen is a motion All City hearings operate under Robert's Rules of Order generally Robert's Rules call for a motion a second discussion and voting always in that order thus discussion is appropriate on a motion and a motion should be made immediately after closing the public hearing new state law requires that every board decision to approve approve with conditions or deny must include written findings in order to allow the minute taker to accurately capture all the grounds for the board's decision and commit those to a writing the motion must come before any discussion let's briefly discuss motions the motion to approve approve with conditions or deny should State all the grounds or findings that the motion maker believes supports the decision the best way to support the board's decision is to have all the reasons for the motion stated in the best possible detail the motion maker should cite the code section and all factual references that he or she feels support the decision board members may find it helpful to take notes for themselves during the hearing that they can reference them okay board members may find it helpful to take notes for themselves during the hearing that they can reference at the close of the hearing however board members should never pass these notes to other board members keep them only for reference not communicating if you are not the motion maker you can still help if a fellow board member makes a motion that you feel lacks code or evidentiary support you can offer an amendment for example evidence of X and Y in the record also support your motion will you accept that as an amendment is a welcome addition to all motions if a motion is made but does not receive a second it will die and another motion is in order once a motion is properly made and seconded discussion is appropriate the chair May limit disc discussion if time is limited but generally board members have an opportunity to speak after the motion in the second if they so desire it is not necessary to speak however if a board member simply agrees with the motion there is not a requirement that they discuss it if however a board member disagrees with the motion that was made this is the correct time to bring up concerns to fellow members after a vote is taken unless the vote failed the matter is closed and should not be further discussed if you have concerns after a vote has been taken it is best to address these concerns to either staff or the legal department privately the need to be impartial and act impartially continues even after the applicant has left the room and you never know when a particular issue applicant or case may come back if discussion is going long and not progressing and if the the chair has not called for an end to the discussion any board member May signal to be called upon and upon obtaining the floor move to call the question call the question means to cease all discussion and take an immediate vote if seconded and approved no further discussion is allowed however generally all members will simply agree to vote if another member calls the question under Robert's rules almost all motions require the moving member to obtain the floor by signaling and being called upon to speak similarly almost all motions require a second and a vote point of order does not require any of these point of order is used if you believe procedure has been violated in some way if you believe an important part of procedure was missed you can simply call out point of order and then state State what you believe the concern to be it is always best to obtain the floor first but if you cannot get the chair's attention always feel free to just speak up on important procedural issues it protects the city to make sure proper procedure is always observed point of information does require you to obtain the floor first but it does not require a second or a vote board members can use point of information to ask questions from staff or of the legal department while questions may come up at any time ideally all questions of Staff legal members of the public in support or opposition as well as questions of the applicant will take place before the applicant is given a chance at rebuttal if additional questions come up after an applicant has already given their rebuttal they may need to be afforded additional rebuttal time to address any evid evidence given in response to the question thank you no yes um there was a phrase in one of the slides any business entity subject to the regulation of the board isn't that basically every business in Temple Terrace probably so you can't have a so let's say like I'm hiring a termite person to come and do something at my house they're subject to the regulation of the board if they are in Temple Terrace so does that mean I can't have a contract with any business like my plumber or there's got to be some limitation here right well no I mean if you have a business relationship that's more of a one-on-one not that you know you go to Publix and you buy your groceries there and now Publix is building they're adding on to their their building you're just one of of a huge number so that would probably not be a situation where you would accuse yourself but if you've got a plumber and you've done business with him in the past and you know you come to have and you hire him every time you need somebody you have an ongoing business relationship with that person and you should probably recuse yourself well wasn't that one of the I thought that was I might my memory might not serve me but I thought that was a slide where it said you have to resign if so I'm curious if if having business relationships with anyone I mean it seemed it seemed incredibly broad so that's why I'm struggling with it yeah I don't think you would resign for that one applicant you just would not hear that one case okay I think I uh sorry if I I think I I heard as question basically it's if it's an ongoing thing like for example the relationship is with someone that has like an ongoing thing where they're petitioning for something every month at that point you would like your business partner is the lawyer arguing for somebody else that would be but the single time plumber would just be that one vote okay okay okay anything else um I had the one on the HOA and I I want to make sure I'm interpreting this I would assume that if if for instance the HOA I live in came before the board uh that living in the HOA does not necessarily exclude me but I would if I was a board member or some other way participating um is is is if you is your HOA is that recalls for recusal or you have nothing else to do but live there yeah a lot of times you have to look at each individual circumstance and see you know how closely you are related to it if the HOA is coming forward to um request something that is specifically going to impact you and your property and your house then I always say air air or act an abundance of caution it's better to to recuse yourself and I'm not encouraging recusals because I have seen people who just don't want to make a decision and so they just recuse themselves and Ling no this is your job you can't just recuse yourself because you don't want to make that particular difficult decision but if it impacts you specifically then you would probably be best to recuse yourself if they're coming in for something that doesn't really impact you and it is on the other side of the development then you could probably hear that case but it's perfectly okay if something comes up and you see something on the agenda and it's causing you pause contact me or contact the deputy City attorney and just ask you know and we'll talk about what the situation is and come up with a conclusion for you okay thank you right I mean council members have done that before they and they are encounter things that they feel sometimes uh causes them a conflict and usually they'll contact me ahead of the meeting and we'll decide what is best to do anything else that it if you if you come up with some other questions we can we can you know hear those you know and talk about them after I wanted to make sure that we talked about hardships it's a difficult concept and it's it really is the key to what you do that because in under the law in order to get a variance the person who's asking for the variance has to prove to you that they have a hardship and there there's different criteria in determining whether somebody has a hardship what you'll often hear is people coming before you and they'll tell you a sad story and often times it's a personal story and it has to do with you know somebody's somebody in their family is sick or um what what they're being required to do is expensive the cost is not a hardship and people's um personal uh health reasons are generally not ever a hardship I've seen not this board not this city I've seen people come in front of boards of adjustment and say I want to build a carport and it's going to encroach um into the sidey yard setback but I want to build this carport because I have a disabled person living at my house and when they get out of the car they need to be under a cover and so therefore that's my hardship technically that is not a hardship because it has nothing to do with the land and hardships are something that run with the land the variance you give them is going to run with the land and here when this family member or these people no longer live there that variance is still going to exist for there to be a carport on that house and it will forever encroach into the sidey yard setback or the front or the rear yard setback a hardship is something that you you find that is unique to that piece of property and if everybody else on the block or in the neighborhood has that same issue that they're presenting to you that is not unique to that land that is just something that everybody in that block has to deal with the way that that is dealt with though is the correct remedy for that is not to get a variance for you all but for them and their neighbors to come in front of city council and ask that that ordinance be changed that's the way way it's that's the way it's done not to ask for a variance from you all because what happens is you grant the variance to the one and now the next store neighbor who's got the same situation now they want a variance and now you're literally changing what the zoning and what the land use regulation or not the zoning necessarily but what the land use regulations are um or the in that neighborhood and that is not your job so the other thing I wanted to talk about is um self-created hardships there may be a hardship and it may be something now attached to the land but if it is self-created you don't get a variance so if somebody has say built a parking lot commercial property they've built a parking lot and now um they want to squeeze in a um a stage and a seating area area and now the parking lot's there and their the river is there and they're trying to squeeze something in that really do a variance that should not be granted that is a self-created hardship and anything in in my view is anything that is new construction rarely is there a need for a variance sometimes though the person is dealing with a piece of property that is unique it is different than the people on either side of them it's irregularly shaped it's got some strange topographical thing going on on top of it and even if it's new construction they may have a hardship because of the land and you can grant the variance but as we've had here there was a lady who wanted to build a house and one of the members here said I could design you a house that would fit here on your very tiny little piece of land because it was new construction and you just got to think outside the box so and she did come back and she had made some changes and eventually the board did Grant her a variance so and and that's fine but you know when you've got new construction there's almost always a way to make something fit it might not be what the person exactly wants but that's too bad they bought this lot they weren't this lot is never forced upon them they bought this lot and it's buy or beware and you need to check and see you come to the city and you check and see ahead of time where's what's my building footprint here what can I put here what am I allowed to build here you know a person's not going to come and buy um a residential lot and then say Oh I want to build a 711 no you find out what what are the what's the zoning what's the the Land Development regulations pertaining to that piece of property and if you don't do that that's just too bad um so um as far as self-created hardships one that that is frequent somebody builds a mcmansion on their piece of property they come back a year later even five years later and now they want to build an Olympic siiz swimming pool on the lot well they filled up most most of the lot with the mcmansion just because they want an Olympic swimming pool they're not entitled to an Olympic siiz swimming pool and so the answer should be no to that variance request because all a person is entitled to is is to make reasonable use of their property and if you've got a residential lot and you've got a house on it you're already making reasonable use of your property so it's too bad you either don't get a pool or you put in a tiny near pool so I I've I've advised boards in in St Pete many many years ago where I finally said to them after probably five meetings it's like you guys have to stop doing this somebody comes in and wants a 20 by 50ft pool and you give them a variance to do that and somebody comes in and asks for a 10 x 12T pool and you give them a variance for that why didn't the people with the great big pool just put in a little pool and not need any variants so you don't get to just come in and say this is what I want also a a a rule a law that applies with regard to variances the variance that you if you want to Grant one the variance that is granted must be the minimum variance that will make it make possible the reasonable use of the applicant's land or structure so if someone says I have a house and I want to put on a 15 ft porch extending out into the front yard and it's going to encroach 10 ft into the front yard setback is a 15 is adding on a 15t porch necessary to give them reasonable use of their land now if they've got a house that's already making reasonable use of their land and they probably shouldn't put a porch on at all or fit it in at you know as fit it in and not encroach but I understand people like porches so but rather than grant them variance for what they're requesting of that 15t one you can say a 10t porch is going to fit perfectly fine on your house and now you will only be encroaching 5 ft that's the minimum variance needed so you get to you know you get to do a little modification up here you you're not stuck with what the request is I have seen Boards of adjustment and I'm not encouraging you to do this by any means but I have sat there and watched them totally resign redesign somebody's addition sometimes they've totally redesigned it in such a way that it's better than what the person came in with and they didn't need a variance at all and everybody went away happy other than the person who paid the fee to come and ask for a variance they didn't really need if they'd spent little more time or had a better architect or engineer because because some of the plans I've seen come in and they've been designed by experts and I look at them and go oh my God why would they do that because it really it's a poor plan and now the person is stuck looking for a variance when they could have fitted in better so um I wanted to say and not so much for you all but for maybe a previous board variances are not to be given out as gifts they should be granted sparingly because the applicant come who comes before you is is either a property owner or developer who doesn't want to abide by the laws that have been established by our city council these are the these are our laws everybody in town has to abide by those same laws and now the applicants who are before you for whatever reason they don't want to do it so you have to be very judicious and very critical in making your decision to let somebody not abide by our laws and again what you have to look at is their piece of land how is that unique how is that posing them a problem one one very good example Le of when a variance should be granted is we had um a family come in they had a I believe they already had a house on their property but they they didn't have a garage we all know garages are really important they they actually help the neighborhood because now all the cars and the junk and everything aren't sitting out for everybody to see they get to go in the garage hopefully and their property was instead of a nice rectangular Square was sort of shifted so they had a slanted line really on one side of their property and so when they put on a square garage and garages are pretty much square rectangular you don't have a lot of options there cuz the car has got to fit into it but they wanted to encroach just a little bit with one corner of the garage it wasn't the whole side it was just one little corner of the garage was going to be over because the lot line slanted and that variance was granted and I'm all for that those are the kind of things that should be granted because of an irregularly shaped lot it was unique to the neighborhood everybody didn't have a slanted lot and they were only seeking the minimum variance necessary to be able to put in a gar to attach a garage to the house um does anybody have any questions about hardships I do okay sorry go ahead no go ahead it's better now than when when than when somebody's standing there and expecting something from you so they're expecting that gift from you so one of one of the most interesting things that came up in the previous year was um people who were trying to manifest a particular use on a particular zoning so two examples one was uh Florida College the other one was um the lady that you mentioned with the property near the river and one of the arguments that we all seized on and which seemed to enjoy the the favor of the uh City Attorney at the time was that um if the particular type of zoning um is in a lot for example where you cannot build that type of zoning without a variance and that would be a reason to grant that variance so a reasonable use for example for a a lot that's designated for a particular size of house where you cannot actually build that size of house without a variance right would justify the variance in spite of the caveat empor argument that you brought I mean that that's it we had we we basically had conflicting laws there in that particular neighborhood and and you're not going to find that in every neighborhood but in that particular neighborhood yes there was a minimum house size so you know it was almost if if they said look I want to build a smaller than house um required that would be a variance in itself you know I don't want to build you know if the minimum house size is 2,000 square ft and somebody comes along and says I only want to build a, 1500 square ft house that itself would be a variance that was a very difficult situation those were oddly drawn Lots um how and you know they came to be a long time ago and um that was a difficult case I and I'm not saying and I'm not saying that that that what you decided was wrong there you know you granted her a variance and it was a difficult case but again I commend you for not just granting it right off it's like go back to the drawing board and come back with something better um but what made that also difficult for you is you had people who came from the neighborhood who said I don't want that house there because my son and I play ball on that lot or or we won't be able to have our view through that per through that lot anymore you know that's not a reasonable objection you know you don't get to have you don't get to somebody else's lot and you you're not entitled to a view through somebody else's property and I've run into that a number of times I had a a a case years ago where a lady had bought a um a model condominium it was set up in a parking lot as a model for a for condos that were being built and and when they were done with it they sold her what was essentially a box it didn't even have any I don't even know if it had any windows in it and she bought this box and she want and she owned a lot and she wanted to Now set this box on the lot well the neighborhood was all upset they didn't want the Box they didn't they said in a few of them said well now we're not going to have the view of the lake because now this is going to be here well you know too bad for them she could build a you know she could have built a three-story house there and they would have even lesser of a view but it you know in the end I forgot what it I forgot what kind of variants she was looking for but she ended up working with not this city she ended up working with the city at the time to to kind of make her make this thing look more like a house you know and she was told you had to put Windows in it and she put a front porch on it and she put a roof on it and things and turned it into a house and in the end um the neighbors were actually very happy with how it ended up looking cuz it it changed but I mean we had all sorts of people in the audience going no no no and the board had to ignore them because because their reasons for objecting just were not legitimate so glad you mentioned that because the argument from the other side was it's an unbuildable lot she purchased an unbuildable lot and then that was in conflict with the fact that it was actually zoned to be built on yes in a particular way so yes so all you can do then is Grant the minimum variance necessary for her to make reasonable use of the land and sometimes it's a foot sometimes you know maybe in her case it's 20 or 30 ft but I nobody said this was an easy job for you so I'm not bothered that you just but that's it and one of the things is you have to be hard-hearted sometimes I mean when I'm picking a jur when I would be picking a jury on an accident case and somebody was injured one of the things I would ask them are you able to be hard-hearted when you hear that somebody was injured if you don't think that the city was at fault for the accident even though the person is sitting here you know with a cast on their leg and the next neck brace on and you believe they were injured if we didn't cause the injury are you hard-hearted enough to just say no to them I only had one person say they weren't you know that know they're too soft-hearted they're not going to be able to do that frankly they probably just wanted to get out of jury duty but you know you you have to be that way and you have to be able to face somebody sometimes and say no so um you know we we had an instance here I I don't think I was even here that night but you know somebody had built a gigantic pool house without a permit even during Co this thing encroached yes it's all there what's the remedy you tear it down but they were granted a variance me I would have said no and the would made it even worse is they did it without a permit they knew they were doing it without a permit so it's hard I saw the board of adjustment once in St Pete make somebody tear down an entire garage it's like they built this thing it encroached into the front yard setback it was big and they finally just they said no you tear it down and that was probably the worst thing I had ever seen but they did it because there really was no other answer um it it should never have been it wasn't permitted should never have been there in the first place so um let's see had was a one thing I'd wanted to read to you if I can find that I think it had to do with self-created hardships and it was a court case but no I'm not seeing it oh yes um it had to do with I I think a self-created hardship and this was a quote from the from the judge there he says when the owner himself by his own conduct creates the exact hardship which he alleges to exist he certainly should not be permitted to take advantage of it so you know you're you know and that's the mcmansion case and those those are just common ones that you know I've seen many many times throughout the years um so that's that's and the law itself I've had people come in and try to say that the basically that the law that itself is their hardship well yes we know it's your hardship that's the thing that's you know that you've got to abide by but you they cannot argue to you that the zoning law is their hardship so again you always have to keep looking is it something related to the land so they've got to point to something on their property or about their property in order to get a variance so anything any questions any other questions anything about the the power or the PowerPoint that you saw Ernie and I are always here so if you think of something later you're you know pondering this this evening pain you huh so anyway you're having heartburn over it you know just you know feel free to give us a call we're perfectly happy to talk about it and and answer any questions or work through it you know um I I you know it's easy for me to say this I've been I I advised a board of adjustment for 20 years in St Pete and now I'm here advising this board of adjustment so I've seen many many types of cases and here you meet very often in St Pete the board of adjustment met every single month without fail and sometimes the the meetings lasted the entire day I mean they'd break for lunch and come back that's how many cases that they had and that's how often you know they had to listen to it but and and they'd go through Cycles with the change of of members I mean for a while there they never saw a shed that they would allow you know they just hated sheds so if that you know shed was encroaching no way you move it into the buildable space and I don't care how bad it you know they didn't care how bad it looks they were not going to give you an inch to put in a shed so but you know and then I'd see them granting you know a different board granting sheds all over the place so or granting pools for a while I had a board you know I mentioned they just somehow felt like every person in Florida was in titled to a swimming pool and so they would Grant any kind of a variance and so I had to talk to them about that and you know we needed to pull back on the the pools that were being granted so um I just you know I've had a lot of experience with this and I'm perfectly happy to to talk about it to you and you'll become an expert on variances too so all right I anything else that's it for me all right thank you uh looks like the next item we have I'm I don't know what this is for sure but I think I can guess from it um is about a request from the staff for quarterly work sessions so yes um good evening again so last time I we saw youall gosh I think was in June maybe and that's a long time to uh not meet not talk about variances not talk about what's going on in the city or any new legislation that came down relating to variances uh zoning things like that so what we would like to do is regardless of whether we have uh any variance requests at least you know let's get together maybe once a quarter and have a training session if we're meeting every month with variances we may not need to do that but I don't want to go six months again or however many months without having to sit down just for continuity and so that's a request we we have and that probably would take some kind of motion from the board to make that happen all right do I have a motion to hold quarterly work sessions with the city staff should we should we uh vote on that as a motion or should we just have a motion to schedule a quarterly work session in in three months that would be one or the other I guess might work I don't know we just take the just schedule the next one make sure I understand you you're saying just schedule the next one not say we're going to do it every quarter but we'll do one next quar do it yeah yeah just go ahead and do it I mean even if we have a motion and we vote that we want to have them we'll still have to schedule one anyway so that will be two motions I think sure [Laughter] okay so what we were thinking is um to do a motion along the lines of you guys will motion to have quarterly meetings if needed what what that would mean is if you have a meeting in between like a regular meeting in between that that quarter you don't necessarily have to have that quarterly meeting does that make sense m i probably didn't say it quite clear you got it you did really well I got it but we wanted to make sure that you're beating at least once a quarter so you don't necessarily have to meet at that quarterly meeting if you've already had like if we come to meet for a variance in between we just don't want 6 months of yeah of of not eting not not keeping it fresh in your head you want to redo your motion so a motion to Institute a policy where if we have not met for three consecutive months that a work session will be scheduled for the subsequent fourth month at any given time a second it all right I have a motion I have a second all in favor say I hi I any opposed say Nay n nay all right I just don't want had to Crunch those numbers it's okay I had to Crunch those numbers in my head there so so we have four uh eyes we have one n so the motion carries okay all right sure um I have a a general question if that's okay could I bring that in there please go ahead um I know that there's a historic preservation board now and this board also has the power to Grant variances I'm curious if they've had any variances so far does anyone know no they have had none we've had one two organizational type meetings but they've received no variance requests yet okay should they I mean since we're all dealing with variances should we bundle the work session in some way I don't I don't just Oh you mean include them on our work yeah you know it might uh red their variances are different yeah they're not the land it's more the the structure like they want to change their 1920 window to you know impact glass super modern not going to fly that type of variance right so they have a different different scope of rules to follow okay all right have any other questions or did anybody else have any general questions because otherwise we're done all right if there's no further questions do I have a motion to adjourn the board meeting motion to adjourn all right a second all right all in favor I the motion carries we are adjourned thank you very much good to see everybody again youo Happy New [Music] [Music] [Music] Year [Music] [Music] [Music]