Zoning board ponders criteria for variances

The Longboat Key Zoning Board of Adjustment is frustrated with the criteria it must follow when deciding whether to grant Key residents variances that allow them to build closer to the Gulf.

At its Thursday, April 14 meeting, the zoning board granted a home at 3037 Gulf of Mexico Drive a variance that allows the homeowner to build a second story (an additional 1,600 square feet) and move closer to the water.

But the decision was made with some reservations.

Board members believe it’s unclear what should be considered before granting the request.

The issues that property owners face, especially Gulf-front property owners, are the size of their homes, the proximity of their homes and the neighboring homes to the beach and their views.

Zoning board members must decide whether a property owner faces an undue hardship and not whether the property owner will have a worse view than his neighbor.

The board voted 5-2 to approve its recent variance, which went against the planning staff’s recommendation that the variance should be denied.

The situation was disconcerting to zoning board member Ed Zunz, who begrudgingly voted to approve the variance.

“I don’t feel the legal standards for a variance have been met, but, by the same token, the building would be far better than what presently exists,” said Zunz, who noted the house’s existing walls would be strengthened.

“We felt there is reasonable use of the house now and the variance is not warranted,” said town planner Steve Schield, who noted that the board granted a variance to allow a second story of 1,600 additional square feet to a home that already has more than 3,000 square feet.

Board member Chuck Fuller agreed.

“We aren’t supposed to be controlled by precedence, but they keep coming up,” Fuller said. “It’s awfully hard to believe they don’t have reasonable use when the current structure is more than 3,000 square feet.”
The board agreed to allow town staff to work on preparing something for its review that might allow them to change variance criteria with more reasonable guidelines.

And if relief is not granted in the form of a variance, town attorney David Persson said the town would be forced to buy the lot from a property owner.

In many requests that the zoning board has received in the past, properties would have been unbuildable if relief was not granted from Gulf waterfront setback guidelines.

But not every board member agreed that strict guidelines would be beneficial.

“I think we are better off to have robust discussions (about variance cases) than have a degree of specificity we must abide by,” said zoning board member Andrew Aitken.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected]