Good evening and welcome to the John's Creek Board of Zoning Appeals meeting for March. Let the record show we do have a quorum, but that Mr. Green is absent as of now. If he shows up, we will put fit him in on the day. Before us, we have our agenda and our minutes for tonight's meeting. Our procedure will be that the staff will present the case and the applicant will come and have 10 minutes to add anything to the case that they want to be heard. If there is any opposition in the audience, they will also have a total of 10 minutes to make their objections heard. We have our minutes before us. Does anybody have a chance to look at them? Do we have a motion on the minutes or any changes? Motion approved minutes. Yes, as it stands. Mr. Schnault, minute motion to accept the minutes. Do I have a second? Second. Second, my Ms. Ross, all in favor of accepting the minutes, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Minutes are accepted. It is that time of year again, but we have to pick a Chairman and Vice Chairman. Is there anyone here that wishes to take over the reins of Chair or Vice Chair? Is there, do we have a motion on a Chair and Vice Chair? And, Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we reinvite you to remain as chair and Ms. Ross to remain as vice chair for this coming year. Okay, we have a motion by Mr. Steiner to reappoint myself and Ms. Ross as chair and vice chair. Do we have a second? Second. All of Mr. Schnell makes a second on that. All the favor of requesting that Ms. Ross and myself remain as Chair and Vice Chair please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Motion carries. Thank you for your confidence. Who's going to go today? Okay. Thank you Chairman. Congratulations on becoming chair again. Yeah, it's all right. Welcome to all the board members. Welcome to everyone present as well. My name is Alan Gera. I'm the planner too for the community development department Today I will be presenting Variance case v-24 0-0-1 This is at 720 Palswalk. As you can see on the screen, we have the existing conditions for the site. On the left we have the aerial map showing placement of the subject area within the Parsons or Treat neighborhood. And on the right hand side we have the zoning. The zoning for this site is R-4A conditional. The parcel size is 0.284 acres. The applicable code requirements are from Chapter 109, Article five, stream buffer protection. The buffer and setback requirements are as follows. And undisturbed natural vegetative buffer shall be maintained for 50 feet, measured horizontally on both banks as applicable of the stream as measured from the point of rest of vegetation. And an additional setback shall be maintained for 25 feet measured horizontally, beyond the undisturbed natural vegetative buffer in which all impervious cover shall be prohibited. Grading, filling, and earth moving shall be minimized within the setback. The variance request is to encroach 21 feet into the 75 foot stream buffer to construct a retaining wall. 85 square feet in perv surface shown on the screen as the yellow line. The applicant has not proposed any land disturbance or in perv surface within the 50 foot undisturbed stream buffer. And the proposed mitigation is one dog with tree equivalent to 100 square feet of canopy coverage. And on the monitor is shown as green, you can see it there. The stream buffer variance review criteria is as follows. When a property shape, topography, or other physical conditions existing at the time of the adoption of this article, prevents land development unless a buffer is granted. Unusual circumstances, when strict adherence to the minimal buffer requirements in the article would create an extreme hardship. create an extreme hardship. These staff analysis for the subject property, it was platted in 2019 with a 75 foot stream buffer in the southeast corner of the site. As you can see, the rear yard slopes down approximately 10 to 12 feet from the outdoor patio towards the rear property line. The existing slope could cause soil erosion in the rear yard and over time potentially impact the deck piers. The requested variants of granted would bring the proposed improvement into compliance with the stream buffer ordinance while negligibly impacting the stream. And on screen you could see the rear view of the yard from the east and the rear view of the yard from the west. So it is staff's recommendation for the approval of V-24-001 subject to the following conditions. The proposed development shall not exceed the following encroachments as shown on the site plan received by the Community Development Department on February 6th, 2024. 21 linear feed of encroachment into the stream buffer and 85 square feet of in-pervious surface within a stream buffer. And a vegetative plan shall be submitted to the Community Development Department for approval by the director prior to the issuance of a retaining wall permit. Said plan shall be consistent with the mitigation plan received by the community development department on February 6th, 2024. The final vegetative planting shall pass sitting inspection prior to the issuance of a certificate of completion for the retaining wall. And that concludes the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any questions or staff before we call the applicant forward? They're being done as the applicant here. Please come forward and state your name and address and have at it Good evening, ladies and gentlemen my name is David Geiger and I work for mortal assistance engineering and Mr. Bill Morgan back here had Employed our services to design a retaining wall system for his backyard. When our first one out met with Mr. Morgan, notice that his backyard has a 2-1 slope starting right at the back of his patio deck peers, which is already called some. I have some pictures and thing, but I already call some structural cracking in the concrete patio. The peers already showing some evidence of settling and could over time, if not corrected, call some problems with the structure of the house itself. So our proposal was to put a retaining wall on his back property line and to be able to fill the back yard so that it to right now the state is in is unusable for him to be able to do anything. It's hard to maintain erosion control back there even with putting grassy because he's got a 21 or a 2 to 1 slope and there's slopes about 14 foot down in the 30 feet that is from the patio back to the back wall, back to the back property line. So we, that's why we're asking for the variance to be able to put this portion of the retainer wall, not all of it, will be within the 75 foot in Pervies Bell for part of it, misses that. that and so we're only doing a 21 foot encroachment. It's 85 linear feet, which also is 85 square feet because the top of the wall is a foot wide. So by doing this, by putting this in, he's going to have a usable backyard. It will stop the erosion problem. It's going to disperse the drainage out. These are mortal to system walls. So the drainage is dispersed. It has a drainage system all behind the walls. So any water that flows over the yard, of course, it'll go into the side of the areas, by the side to backyard. Any water that does go down will be dispersed over the entire length of the wall. So you're not going to have any areas of concentrated drainage into that area going toward the lake back there. So right now, the way it is is water's just coming off that hill and that too, it won't slope and eroding and flowing down toward the lake. Like I said, it does not the wall placement, does not encroach into the 25 foot state buffer or the 50 foot county city buffer and only accroaches into the 75 foot impervious buffer and it's only the top of the wall for that 85 square feet. So that's pretty much it. It's pretty easy and I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody would have. Alan, can you put some of our pictures up there looking for the one with the patio on the patio from the patio. I'll keep going. Oh, those are the two you have? All right, we have one picture that shows a lot of cracks in the patio. Is that? Yes. And you can see that I captured. I took those pictures. So I captured the, I captured the biggest one. There are some cracks around the peers themselves. You can see one to the white around that one peer. There's some other cracks around the other peers. I don't know that picture. So when the fill is added, is the backyard gonna be grass? Are you putting sod? Or sod. Also. No more concrete or neighbors. No more, yeah, the only thing this gonna going to be impervious is the top of that wall. And then when they're going to their wall is stalled or I will be inspecting the wall while it's being installed. To make sure that all the fill is compacted and 95% compaction and so they're so it's built properly. It's going to be the highest point of 14 feet. That's correct. So if you need the then man or. We put in on these type of walls with segmental block wall is is geo grid. So when you got 14 foot, typically rule of thumb is you'll have 14 foot of grid. I've got the actual technical plans. If you want to see them, it shows the grid links in every place. So that's part of what I'll be working on to install or to make sure it's installed per our design. So. Are there any other questions of the applicant or staff before I call for the overwhelming opposition that may be present Can you explain the mechanism of the drainage through the wall? Yeah, so these walls are this is a mortal is system that's why mortal systems in here So these are mortalists system. So these these blocks are basically dry stack Have a locking mechanism in them. So they lock together. They all set back and inches they go up. And so if there is no water and they're filled with 57 stone, a foot behind the wall and into cells of the block. So if any water does get into the area below it, we put a filter fabric in to keep any silks from going in there. So once the water goes down, it disperses over the whole entire face of the wall and it can come out the wall. That way it doesn't build up any hydrolog pressure behind the wall. So it allows water to dispers out. Now normally you're not going to see any water dispersion out. If you get a real heavy rain, you may get something. But by the fact that we're going to have a fully-sotted yard, that ground is going to absorb most of the water and you know we're keeping the slope of that about a foot and 20 which is what the billy code recommends for sotted area for sotted yard so that's that's how that's done okay how far above the line of the grass is the wall going to extend in its best to make level should be level right and then he'll fall but you know in our plan there'll be a obviously a fence yeah I'll have to be on top of the wall to right keep somebody from good yeah so anybody behind that is that in the plan that's the plan yeah all right yeah we see we show a actual in our section, which I think you got copied over your package, but we show a, what they call a sleetit, which is a way to adhere post, like if you're going to do a, most people do a black aluminum fence. If you're going to do that, that's the way to hear that post from the fence. I've got a question for the staff actually. So looking at the first survey picture that you all put up there, it looks like there was a lake behind that property, is that stream buffer based off of the lake towards the actual stream at the back of the property? No, that stream buffer is based off the lake. It's based on the lake? Yeah. OK. Let me see. Because I'm not seeing any streams there when you put up the survey earlier. I'll call you on the plan. Yeah, that's based on the lake. And it's only the corner of the 75 foot, the last band that's on the southeast corner of this property. Okay. So. That's the plant that was of the whole subdivision as was planted out of the city. That's cool. As long as they confirm that's the buffer for the lake, that's what I was trying to determine. Yeah, it shows the lake and then the here, and really it's not a, it's not a, something the whole water, that holds water consistently. It's, you know, it's not a area behind there. Okay. I mean, the lake holds water, but the stream, the, the, I'm gonna call it drainage. Right, I'll just more of a drain, the geeseman. Right, right. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? Is there anyone here that wishes to be heard in opposition? Okay, there being no opposition. Do we have any further questions of staff or the applicant or any discussion on this matter or emotion to be made? Sure, can you close the public hearing first? Close the public hearing. Oh, we're hearing close. Thank you. Chair, I'll make a motion that we accept V24-001 with staff recommendations. Make a motion by Mr. Steiner to accept V24-001. 001 as presented with conditions. Do I have a second? Second. Second, I have a signal to all in favor of accepting V24-001 as presented with conditions. Please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all. Do we have any new business? Or do we have a meeting next month? We do have a meeting next month. We have a case.