HomeMy WebLinkAboutVariance LetterVARIANCE LETTER FOR THE CITY OF RENTON PLANNING DIVISION
My wife and I purchased the home at 2621 Meadow Place North in Renton in May of 2014
with the express purpose of updating the home and living there for many years. We both find
that remodeling instead of tearing down and building new is so much more rewarding and
maintains some of the characteristics of the existing home for neighborhood. We completed a
remodel to another home a few blocks away in 2008 and look forward to completing another at
this new location in the same neighborhood. So, even before we sold that home, we began
the process of drawing up the plans for the remodel to the 1960 original floor plan. The main
feature this property lacked was a two-car garage. A single family home that is considered
“updated” and desirable in this neighborhood must have an attached two-car garage. So, we
planned an addition with that two-car garage and some updating to the rest of the home.
There is only a small carport on the property that is barely wide enough to accept two cars
without any walls or much room between the cars. Enclosing this structure is not an option.
Expanding the structure (away from the house) towards the East would not be feasible as it
would then not conform to any setback. The best way to create a reasonable two-car garage
would be adding to the North of the home and remove the existing carport with attached shed.
After considerable months of effort and expense, we had a working set of plans with
engineering ready for the permit process. And then we found out that the zoning had just
changed and our plans were no longer compliant with the interim zoning.
After months of consideration and discussion about possible options and configurations, we
believe the only way to provide this property with an attached two-car garage is by obtaining a
variance of the front setback regulations. Due to the current positioning of the existing home,
there isn’t sufficient room to add a two car garage without encroaching into a setback. Given
that reality, without the granting of a variance for the addition, we would not be allowed to have
a two-car garage. This would significantly diminish any value added to updating the existing
home, creating a hardship to our efforts.
This property is located over 400 feet from any public street and is 10,000 square feet in size.
Even with the addition, we would be over 15 feet from our Northern neighbors’ home and
compliant on the sides. And, we will be removing the existing carport and shed to the East
which helps balance the impervious surface of the new addition. The effect to the neighbors
and neighborhood is negligible given the private nature of the drive, and the fact that we are at
the very end of that drive. We have reviewed our plans with all close neighbors and have not
received any negative feedback. This variance will not effect the use, view or create any
limitation of other properties in the vicinity of our home.
We reduced the overall width of the garage to less than 23 feet from the preferred 24 feet to
reduce the extension into the setback. Any smaller size would make the interior of the garage
very tight and shear panels on either side of the garage door more difficult and expensive to
engineer. And, we stepped the non-garage area of the house (to the West) in by 4 feet to
reduce the setback encroachment along the rest of the addition.
As you can see, the homes along this lane were not built with any survey or property line in
mind. The neighbors home abuts our property line and with property line angled, the our
existing house (and new addition) does not set parallel to that line. This makes the setback
distance vary, with the average being around 15 feet. Given the expressed requirement of a
two-car garage, the difficulty of using any existing structure for that purpose, and the private
nature of the location, we are requesting a variance of the front yard setback of 25 feet, to the
measurements noted on the site plan.
Sincerely,
Eric Komarniski