2026-11-04 - Development Review Board

We have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order. Um, I'm Evan Gould, vice chair of the Development Review Board, and I'm going to call to order the November 4th meeting. Um, first item on first and only item on our agenda is ZAP-26-14 is the appellant here. >> What's the name I'm looking for? >> Uh, Alex Garvin. >> Okay. Share here first I have Michael Miller. Are you representing this fence appeal, Mr. Miller? >> If you are, can you just raise your hand? >> Here. Appellant's not here. >> I mean, we can give it a little bit of time. >> I always think what your last name is when I'm taking minutes now. Me too. Oh, I know. [laughter] Confusing everyone, even myself. >> Mr. [clears throat] Miller, if you're here to give testimony, would you raise your hand? >> We can do two more minutes and then If the appellant's not here, we just deny the appeal, right? >> We can't connect with him at all. He's definitely not stuck at the door, right? >> Check There was a guy that was supposed to come on a bike. Oh, the bike. Well, we could move it to another meeting. >> Yeah. Yeah. I'm fine with that. I mean Oh, there's someone Well, it's also bike council today. >> Alex Fayet? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh if you can just sit down and then uh if anyone is here to speak upon this matter, um I'll just have you raise your right hand? >> Right here. >> Let's set this guy off so that he Fair enough. He was not interested. >> That is your star witness. >> [laughter] >> Sorry. There you go. >> Contract your >> [laughter] >> Yeah. All right. Sorry. Oh, wait there. >> No. >> All right. Um, do you uh Is the testimony you're about to give true and correct under the pains and penalties of perjury? >> Yes. >> Um, so normally with a a field move them out of city to go first. So >> Sure. Um, this is in regards to zoning permit ZPF 2463 address 45 Um, as it stands uh first permit condition includes Hence does not do this at the moment. It presents its unfair side to the adjoining properties. Um, In addition, it is not a repair of a existing fence. It is a new style of fence. >> Do you want to describe this part of that? >> Yes. So this is the >> It's the updated one. >> This is the updated one. >> Yeah, and this is from the neighbor's view. So our house is the yellow one across the fence. >> It's from the staff report. Yep, let's start right there. So this is the view from the northern side of the property on the sidewalk showing the inner side to the exterior. And these are photos of the original fence. And this is just another angle of the current new fence from the I believe this is the south side of the property. Correct. We have the photo with the prior fence. >> [clears throat] >> From which angle is that from? Their property or the neighbor's property? >> This I believe is from the >> This is from our property facing outwards. And so it looks like the old So the old fence was basically [clears throat] cut of back and forth. >> Correct. The old fence was a stocking fence and the new one is a picket style fence. So the facing for that stocking doesn't really matter because both sides are finished. >> Yeah, Kaylyn. >> Um yeah, the question that I had was about it being in kind or not since the zoning application included a diagram of the fence that they planned to install and that was um part of that application. Is that side of it not really relevant because that was the fence they got the permit for? It looked like they provided uh exactly a picture of what they planned to install and that matches what was installed. >> It's correct. Um from my interpretation of it because the style of fence has changed it is not an in-kind replacement. >> But they have a permit for the work. So >> Correct. If it was an in-kind replacement and there was some evidence that it was built with the finished side out previously then maybe that could stay. >> That would be a continuation of the non-conforming use. >> But what happened here is they actually got a permit to replace the fence with a permit condition set finished side out. >> Correct. >> Are there any other questions for staff from members of the board? Okay. All right. Matthew, give us an overview of like your your side and um I know you submitted your your appeal. >> Yep. >> We all had a chance to read that, but do you have any responses? >> so just to clarify, Mayor, you're the city attorney? >> I am not. >> You you are board member? >> of permitting Staff permitting and I'm sorry, you don't have That's okay. I'm Matt Quantick, inspector. >> Great. Appreciate it. And then the rest of you are board members. >> Yep. >> Great. I'm Alex. I'm the owner along with my wife of 45 South Union. This is Franklin resident, interested party. Um so yeah, the I think you're all kind of up to detail on um the details. Let me just give you kind of the origin story. About 1022 2022 2024 it uh as you could see it was kind of like overgrown uh for a large portion of time. In uh 2024 it was blown over by the wind. Um so I brought a photo which I I would happy to be shared with you. I wanted to try to give you guys some context of what we were starting with. It got blown over by the wind. Um I started calling contractors. I had like a hell of a time finding contractors. Um so people uh just uh we had to pay $5,000 for the fence. The lowest quote was like twice that. Eventually had a couple contractors that just don't like to work in Burlington, period, which is kind of frustrating. Uh eventually found a contractor and my request for him was, you know, just to make it as similar to existing fence as possible. Um and uh that kind of brings us I'll back to the point about you know the pickets now in a second. And so eventually found a contractor to do it. He did the work in the fall of 2024. I had a little bit of back and forth with the the permitting office I can I can come back to. And then I I consulted with my neighbors both when the fence fell over and then when we were doing the replacement. The neighbor who in our picture here is like over the fence. He offered to pay for it because we didn't want to have a hole in the fence and he was renting it out as an Airbnb at the time. That owner since sold. I actually don't know the new people in there. It's kind of been a series of short-term tenants. But the neighbors that blue house that we can see on the left side of the screen and on the other side they both supported the project all the way. And so first thing I just want to say is like I'm not disputing the city's finding that the finished side is currently facing inwards and that the unfinished side is to the other side. Compared to that diagram we just saw it's not the type where it's totally unfinished on the other side. It's only the posts. So the posts are the unfinished portion and that is currently facing outwards. >> But there are still cross beams on the unfinished side well. >> I don't believe so. >> You go back to the photo by the by your heating and cooling unit. >> Okay. >> I think 485 fences installed for the property. >> This one. >> Yeah those cross beams there. >> Okay could you also look at the other one from the other property? That's just a short portion of the fence. I don't know if that is the >> 485's the second to last. >> document Mary if you can pull that up. >> This one or the >> Second to last document. >> Yeah, Yeah. >> Yeah, those photos from the neighboring property. Oh, yeah, I see what you mean now. Yeah. Yeah, so it it does have those. Um, and uh Yep, so I'm not you know, I'm not disputing that it's currently unfinished. Uh, so that was in 2024 and uh I didn't hear anything back until this spring. Um, when I believe the inspectors were on the property for an unrelated uh project and then they informed about the finished side. And so in the the communications with the zoning team here um I didn't understand I thought they meant by finished that the gate had to go all the way and you know, in this photo here the gate is currently open and not attached. So I corrected that and so that was my first kind of mistake here. Uh, generally to this issue of the finished side, I don't recall talking about that with the contractor. Um, and unfortunately at this point I have no way to change anything. I haven't talked to him in since 2024. Um, he doesn't usually work in Burlington. Um, so I don't really have a way to fix this. Um, and what I'd like to convey is that both of my neighbors that have to face the unfinished side um they approve it. Um, I they they both got postcards from you. I got them to uh they they signed a letter that I'm happy to share with the board just about how they are uh they approved of the design. They were aware being aware of it before we started and are pleased with how uh was completed. Uh, so that's Alex Reeves at uh 491 which is south of us and then Tim Stevens who's at 483 uh on the other side. And sorry I didn't uh I couldn't figure out how to submit that online before it came. >> If you can just email um Mary I think would you get the >> Yeah, I can make that. >> So uh if you can email me any additional documents just so we have them for the record and they're attached to the that application. >> Yeah, we'll take care of that shortly. Thank you. Um and I'll send this additional photo that I wanted to bring too just of what the fence uh looked like. Um so that's the the major thing here which is that I was not trying to uh subvert the city's guidelines. Uh in the appeal process I was made aware of the fence guidelines that mentioned the finished side being outwards and if I had known I would have instructed the contractor to do that initially um but I didn't. Um and uh so that's kind of my narrative on it um in terms of kind of how we got here. Um I I raised a technical point in the in my appeal about the permitting process and I could go into that or do you guys have any questions for me this morning? >> Are there any questions from members of the board for the appellant? No. >> All right, so my my last point uh on the technical aspect. So I initially started with the city and uh mentioned how I was going to do an exact replacement um which uh according to the fence guidelines doesn't need it needs a building permit not a zoning permit if I print. Um and then um afterwards the zoning department after they saw the finished product then they informed me that they don't consider an exact replacement because of this issue that the previous fence was a picket fence and this is a privacy fence. Um and in the guidelines of what a picket and a privacy fence are here's to be the that privacy fence block the wind and snow and picket fences have space in between. And um >> So I think the previous fence is a stockade fence and then this is a picket fence. >> Nope. Other way around. >> Other way around. Okay. >> So, what do you mean by stockade? >> That's what that is. >> If you go to >> fence Can you look at all fence styles? That's considered a stockade fence. >> A stockade fence in the sense that it does not What's the definition of a stockade? >> Um I'm guessing that again because of the spacing of the vertical slats being so close together it is intended to be more private than a stockade. >> The other way that this gets described is what you had before was a semi-private. Um if there was I I I don't um I think your point you're making is that that's why there was a zoning permit at all because it's not in kind. >> What do you mean by in kind? >> Um because the zoning office told you it's not the exact same fence. That's why there's a a permit here. >> Right. And so that's the decision that I'm unaware of because I This is the previous fence. Uh you can see it partially in this one. Um it is similar to a stockade fence in that it has vertical slats that are very close together. Uh and from this angle it does look like you could see between them. Uh from the previous angle, I have it head on, you cannot see between them. And um I I I didn't know initially when I was just emailing through the portal that this was such a consequential decision. Uh but the intention was to do an in-kind replacement and um uh to the I didn't go to Lowe's to pick them out so I didn't look at the the contractor when purchased them. So my intention from the beginning was to do an in-kind donation uh in kind replacement. And if the definition of a privacy fence is that you can't see through it, you can't wind cannot get through it and snow cannot get through it. The previous fence was of the same characteristics. Um so um and I think kind of the key evidence for that is if they let the wind and snow through it wouldn't have fallen over in a storm um which is kind of the unfortunate thing that got us here in the first place. Um so that was kind of my technical point, but my larger point is that um I think you know with my neighbors and myself uh it's not something we intend to do. I know the board is you know always trying to maintain precedents, but um I think this is one where um they uh they approve of of what we did and uh you know we weren't intending to skirt the city's guidelines. I didn't see the fence guidelines until 126 when we started this correspondence. >> Any questions from members of the board? >> Just want to clear that the you're understanding that the previous fence was a stockade fence. >> Yeah those >> Not a picket fence. You know the difference between a picket fence >> this point I do now yeah. That was my previous understanding. >> Okay uh I guess one last question. >> Mhm. >> When you removed when the contractor replaced the fence fence posts did he basically use the exact same uh holes for the for the fence posts so it was it was exactly where the previous fence was constructed? >> Yeah it was the exact same holes um yeah up up and until um the uh that the the answer is yes. He had to do a uh my neighbor's fence also fell down so there was one portion where we um but yeah it was the exact same holes. All the ones that we could see in the photographs are the same holes and it was built on the same lines as the previous fence. >> Okay. If there are no other questions from the board, is there anyone from the public here to speak on this issue? >> If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand. >> Okay. With that I will close the public hearing and we will deliberate on this matter. >> Great. >> Thank you. >> Thank you.