have a total of five minutes to present their position. Finally, the case will be open to public comment with each speaker limited to five minutes. Members of the public must fill out a speaker form for the record. The board may ask questions during any of the presentations. The response to the question does not count against the five minutes. However, speakers are asked to only respond to the question that was asked and refrain from elaborating or restating their positions or asking the board further questions. Once public comment is closed, the board will deliberate on the case during which the board may ask additional questions. As always, the speakers are asked to respond to only the question and not to elaborate or go off track onto other points of discussion. The BZA is a severed member board with a four member quorum. All motions must have four affirmative votes to pass, regardless of the number of board members in attendance. Ms. Critchison, please call the order. Mr. Foley. Here. Ms. Bowman. Here. Mr. Patel. Here. Mr. Velmore. Here. Ms. Evelyn. Here. Mr. Liu. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Do we have announcements for tonight? We do not. Okay. Then we will go unfinished business. We don't have an unfinished business. So we are going to go to new business and go directly to, would you call the case number please? BZA, 2024, 00, 003, 304 North Pitt Street, public hearing and consideration of a request for a special exception to construct additions in the required rear yard. RM residential and the applicant is Karen Conkey Architect. I think we go to staff presentation first, right? Karen, Kongi, architect. We go to staff presentation first, right? Yeah. Good evening, Mr. Chair. Members of the board, my name is Sean Killian. I am one of the urban planners in planning and zoning. And I have the pleasure of presenting to you three or four North Pits straight tonight. The applicant as Mr. Christian has stated is requesting a special exception to construct a one-story addition to the long existing non-compliant rear wall. Here's a photo of the property. The property is zoned RM, which is our townhouse's own district and the property is surrounded by other residential uses. The zoning requirement for the RM is a rear setback of 16 feet. The applicant is proposing to construct this addition 0.16 feet from the rear property line on the north side and to construct an addition of 0.73 feet from the rear property line on the south side. Therefore, it's not there requesting a special exception of 15.84 feet for the rear property line on the south side. Therefore, it's not there requesting a special exception of 15.84 feet for the north side and 15.27 feet on the south side. This is the picture that proposed rear additions. They're both one story in the height on for the north side. Sorry, the south side additional measure at point, sorry, 101.99 square feet with the north side at 150.42 square feet. Included in this proposal is a one-story screen porch. This screen porch does comply with all the requirements of the art and district and measures at about 109.30 square feet Thank And staff recommends approval for the special exception That is all Okay, are there any questions for staff? Okay, I have a just one one quick question. So if If the property is if they're building that close to the property line, which is very close How does like Maintenance happen? Is there they're building so close the property line, if something has to be done to the other side of that structure, then they, I guess they have to go on their neighbor's property in order to do something to maintain their house, is that correct? So if they were going to do that, they would indicate permission of course from the neighbor to go on to the property that's standard with all building permits as well. If the applicant needs to get access, they need to get approval from the neighbors as well. OK. Do you know if we read a number? I don't know which house it is that's there. And there was a lot of positive feedback from the neighbors. Do you know if that particular neighbor has given the feedback? I do not at this time. Oh, okay. Thank you. If there's no further questions from the board for the city staff, we will go on to the applicants. No questions? Okay, let's move forward. Great. Hi, good evening. I'm Karen Conkey. I'm here representing my clients Grace and Liam O'Grady. The O'Grady's have lived here since 2023, and would like to expand their home to better suit their needs on the first floor, possibly allowing them to age in place and stay in Alexandria. We proposed to build a one story, set of additions one on either side, expanding living space while still meaning optimum, very optimum side yard and garden space on either side. The homes, in usual location on the lot has kind of caused our placement of the rear additions. They are, to answer, I'll quickly answer your question. We have retaining walls that are taller than our additions. So we're kind of pushing our additions up against those retaining walls that are on our property. So we kind of have a masonry wall that has been there for decades, probably, that our additions kind of push up against. So maintenance should be minimal, because it's no different than what it's been, other than we're enclosing up against it. We're requesting a pre-wool of the special exception to allow us to construct both editions approximately in line with the Rome's rear Non-complying wall This is a very unusual home in that it's placed centered on a very square lot Different than what most houses in Oldtown are usually justified to one property line or the other Which kind of necessitates why we want to build the editions where we do We've read the staff report and its findings and we accept what has been presented and thank you for your time and is there any questions I'm happy to address them? Does anybody have any questions for the applicant? Questions. I have just one question. One of the letters that you just brought to the board states that believe that the understant of the construction will not extend above the shared retention wall or alter the northern view from our rear home. And then go on this is important to us. As much appreciated. So when I look at the drawings, I mean it looks to me like the the additions do extend above that well at least the way they're represented in your drawings. Okay. Can you explain that further? It's possible if we could put the elevation, it's probably the ASK 3.2. Yeah, there we go. There's a brick wall. I'm looking at the image on the left-hand side. There's a little brick wall that's no other side. There you go. Brick wall. And then there's a concrete wall that's post-shade above it. So our addition is below that surface on the opposite side, which is on the north side. So the right side of the left drawing, we are sticking up a little bit. But it's just basically the little piece of the roof that sticks up above that retaining wall. Okay, and so this neighbor, Nicole Mahoney and Omar Chavez, do you know which side they are? They are on the south side. They're on Queen Street and Queen Street would be the furthest left of that left diagram. Okay, so that's the very tall wall that would be. Exactly. OK. And I don't know how far back their property extends. So if we have our plot, we can look at it. But I think they're on that southern garden side. OK, thank you. Mr. Chair. Go ahead. Can you just confirm that there was, was there any other feedback? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Mr. Chair. Go ahead. Can you just confirm that there was, was there any other feedback? Good, bad, negative from any of the neighbors? From what I understand, the letters that are in the package, including the one that came in additionally today, is what we have. I think we haven't heard any negative. I'm getting nods, so no negative feedback. So all neighbors surrounding the property were notified. They have been, yeah, per the requirements. Yes. It looks like we have eight positive ones, and then this other one that just came in today, which is maybe a little bit neutral. Okay, if there's no further questions for the applicant, I'm going to go to the next slide. Okay. If there's no further questions for the applicant, then we'll go to. I'll just make a note that there are no speakers registered. I had the only speaker form we got Karen Conkey, which she is breathing right now. So that means that there's no other speakers. Public speakers. So then we will move to four deliberations. Mr. Chair, I have a current contract with Karen Conkey to do business with my family, so I'll recuse myself from this conversation because of that financial interest. Okay, thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. I believe in the future that should be made aware to staff before their proceedings. Isn't that correct? Ms. Christensen? She did let me know and I just saw to recruit you as herself before the board of laborations. Great. Thank you. All right. Do we have any opening remarks? For Mr. Chair, I think today's letter that we received also in I interpreted as positively for the land owners it doesn't look like any of the neighbors have issues with this specific project. Any other comments? I have a question for staff regarding the special exception criteria. The-back that was originally 16 feet, that was moved to, changed to like 0.64 with a special exception. Is that typical for similar properties, can you just help me understand what is, sort of the decision process to sort of recommend approval or denial. When it comes to that distance, Mary, do you want me to help out on this one? So this lot is slightly unique in the block that it's located on. If you look at, can you go back to the site map that shows the rest of the block further back? Yeah. Can you zoom in to that at all? Maybe not. But if you look at that, this lot is not as deep as the other lots on this block because of the way 509 Queen Street projects into this lot. If this lot were as deep as the other lots that front on North Pit, they would not be in the need of requesting a variance. So in addition to the existing condition of that non-compliant wall being located there, that along with this sort of oddly, oddly length of the lot on this block, the combination of those two things. And then there are, I mean, throughout the city, there are several properties in the historic district that run property line to rear property line. Karen also mentioned that this lot is sort of unique. The building is sort of uniquely situated on the lot in that it is centrally located and designed the sort of two like open side garden yards. And you know, they have a lot of FAR and placing the additions at the rear preserving that front open garden on each side was an important characteristic for us that added to our support for the expansion of the rear wall. So as I understand it, the in the RM townhouse zone area, this kind of proposed addition isn't atypical. No, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It's one story addition, it's modest compared to, and like Mary said, with the position of the rear wall, it's in line with a lot of the neighborhood. Additionally, also a lot of blocks in Old Town have a central rear alley that run behind them that can be counted towards their rear yard setback. Or half of their distance can be counted towards their rear yard setback. This block doesn't have an interior alley that runs behind these properties. So that's another sort of unique situation in this block of North Pet. Any further comments, questions or deliberations? Well, with nothing further, can I get a motion? Yes, I'd move to approve the applicant's application. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. I believe that's five to zero in approval. So the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Thank you. The next item on the docket is the consideration of the minutes from the July 8th, 2024, border zoning appeals, staff did place a corrected set of minutes on the dius just to correct some typos. Mr. Patel, do you have a chance to review those? Yes. And no objections. Are there any objections from anybody about the minutes? OK, so, all in favor of approving the minutes, or wait, we have an engine motion. I need a motion to. Question to approve. Motion to approve, a second. Second. Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Unopposed, the emotion passes to approve the minutes. The next item on the docket is a review of the fiscal year 2024 Board of Zoning of Peals annual report. Okay, so did everyone have an opportunity to review the annual report? Any comments or questions about it? Being relatively new to this board, I was just curious if there's any insight into the dramatic drop-off in cases from 22, 23 to 2 and 24. So, you know, I saw that as well. And I had a conversation with previous Chairman about this, you know, some time ago. And one of the things that they've noticed is that the number of applicants coming through here has been dropping over the years. But that's actually, can be looked at as a positive thing, because if the zoning gets done correctly, and there's zoning rules and laws changes, then people don't have to come through here. So that could be positive. It could also be, I think, I had this conversation with some of the staff, because I was thinking of that as well, that what's going on here, it's a big drop. But it could also be the market. Interest rates go up. People have a harder time borrowing money that can't do the renovations. There's lots of different factors involved in why we would get fewer cases than others. I had a conversation with the city staff about this and we are going to look to have, at maybe one of our meetings in the near future, have a review of possibly what could we do, you know, what suggestions could we make to city council about this board in this meeting to perhaps lessen the burden on the city if we're only going to be having, you know, maybe that's decreased in the frequency in which we meet. Maybe it's, I don't know what it is, but we have to discuss that and discuss that maybe some of the options and things and then run it by legal council, the city's council, and to see if it's legal, because this is a quasi-judicial board, and then if everything lines up and we can get some good suggestions on the table to the city council and the city council and the council council and the city council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council and the council council council council and the council council council council and the Ms. Christensen, would you like to add anything to that? I don't really have, that was a very good summary. I would just say we should kind of keep track of cases that they're coming in this year. We do have three cases on the docket for next month. So while yes, last year did seem to be an anomaly. You know, things could change very quickly to going back to having sort having a more regular caseload. But to touch on what Mr. Fully was saying, for a long time, we were seeing tons of special exceptions for front porches. And it was just sort of coming through. And it was like, oh, these are great. They all meet this set of criteria. Why are we making these people come through a public hearing process for something that everyone wants to see more of, which is from porches. So we did amend the zoning ordinance. So that certain porches, meeting certain criteria that previously had to come to the board are approved administratively now through just a building permit process. So we do look at trends and things that we're seeing a lot of. And if you're going out, is there a way to sort of carve out the ones that are sort of benign and don't have impacts on their neighbors and things like that that we can make by right to make the process easier for applicants. So we're always looking at those trends, but this was definitely an anomaly of a year where we just didn't didn't have any cases. We'll definitely keep tracking it. But like Mr. Follies said, we do plan to try to set up the time for a workshop to kind of discuss some ideas and see different things that we might be able to do. So I guess with that approaching, then we can all think about that and come up with our ideas. And when that workshop happens, you know, we'll just put everything on the table and see what we come up with. So thank you. So I guess then I will be with no objections from the rest of the board. I will be signing this letter to the Memorandum to City Council. I don't do, oh oh let's vote on it. Is this what we do here at this board? So since it's my letter going to the I don't think I'm allowed to make motion but so could I have a motion to for something on this letter? I move to accept the letter annual report as presented. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Okay, with none opposed, I will be signing the letter. And we'll be sending it to City Council. Thank you. Is that for the business, are we? I did have one other just additional business for the October hearing coming up. It is likely that we will have not have at least two of our members present in person. I know one will be absent, one may be virtual. In order to have a public hearing, we do have to have four members present in chambers. So we'll be polling you probably a little bit earlier than we normally do to check on your attendance. But if you can try to clear your calendars if you can to be available on October 7th, we may also get another board member appointed. I did check with the clerk today. I haven't heard back yet. To see whether or not they've gotten anyone to apply for that position yet. But we will be reaching out to all of you probably in the next week or so to check on your availability for October. Should we also mention that Tim will not be there and I may be virtual, which means we would need another member to run the meeting. So the rules of procedure state that if the chair is not available, then the vice chair would run the meeting. If the vice chair is not able to be here in person, then it defaults to the board members that are present to elect a chair at the hearing. So that would be potentially something that we would need to do at the October hearing. I also will just, because anytime we don't have a full board, we do like to let our applicants know, so that they have the opportunity to be heard by a full board. You know, depending on your responses, we'll communicate with applicants to make sure that they're aware of the situation as well. We cannot have a public hearing without a quorum. And a quorum is required to have four people in person. Okay, with no further comments or questions or agenda items, I will, with no objections, I will close by unanimous consent. Hearing none, meeting is adjourned. Thank you.