Unusual issue appears at Sunbury Planning & Zoning

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

An unusual issue came up at the Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 24, Vil­lage of Sun­bury Plan­ning & Zon­ing Com­mis­sion meet­ing. Local builder Guy Yinger was in cham­bers for an infor­mal dis­cus­sion about build­ing a single-family home with an attached two-car garage at the north­west cor­ner of Rain­bow Avenue and Otis Streets.

That part is not so unusual. Peo­ple build homes on empty lots all the time. The lot (actu­ally three parcels form­ing one lot plat­ted in 1919) has always been vacant, there has never a house there, and the home Yinger wants to build fits in with the rest of the neighborhood.

What’s unusual about Yinger’s pro­posed build­ing site is the zon­ing. All the houses to the west and the lot are on lots zoned com­mer­cial C-2, to the east the entire block is zoned res­i­den­tial R-2, all land to the north is vacant village-owned ground.

Sun­bury Vil­lage Solic­i­tor David Brehm explained that he and vil­lage admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin had met with Yinger to dis­cuss the long-standing zon­ing discrepancy.

“C-2 com­mer­cial zon­ing does not allow res­i­den­tial, but it does allow res­i­den­tial as a con­di­tional use as long as it adheres to R-2 stan­dards,” Brehm said. “He could request a change in zon­ing, but that’s a lengthy process involv­ing sev­eral pub­lic hear­ings. That process doesn’t fit into Mr. Yinger’s schedule.”

Brehm said Yinger’s pro­posed house plan and how it sits on the site is not incon­sis­tent with what’s in the area, but it does present chal­lenges in addi­tion to the C-2 zon­ing designation.

The 118-foot by 75-foot lot is 8,850 square feet; R-2 zon­ing requires a 12,000 square foot lot. Side set­backs meet code, but the front set­back, at 38 feet, is two feet shy of code. The garage access from a rear gravel alley would also need an ease­ment con­fir­ma­tion from the neighbor.

Zon­ing com­mis­sion mem­bers rec­om­mended that Yinger apply for a con­di­tional use per­mit and set­back and lot size vari­ance request prior to the 20-day dead­line before the next zon­ing ses­sion. Neigh­bors would be noti­fied, a pub­lic hear­ing could be sched­uled, and zon­ing com­mis­sion mem­bers could act on Yinger’s request at that same meeting.

Yinger was also reminded that even though there are no side­walks on adja­cent prop­er­ties, the vil­lage does have the statu­tory abil­ity to require side­walks at a future date.

In other busi­ness, zon­ing com­mis­sion mem­bers Tim Gose and Nathan Coey were selected to serve as the commission’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the Vil­lage of Sun­bury Com­pre­hen­sive Mas­ter Plan Steer­ing Committee.

The next meet­ing of the Vil­lage of Sun­bury Plan­ning & Zon­ing Com­mis­sion will be held at 7:30 p.m., Mon­day, Octo­ber 22, in third floor coun­cil cham­bers, Sun­bury Town Hall.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.