By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
It was a case of just enough yet not enough at Tuesday’s Bucyrus City Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. With two members out of town, the Board of Zoning Appeals had just enough members—three were in attendance—to open the meeting but when it came to voting on an issue, there just weren’t enough votes to go around.
The Board heard testimony from Donald Skaggs, who had requested an area variance to construct a new front porch onto his home. Skaggs has been working on improving his house himself over the last two years. The house had had a lean-to shed room as a porch before the Skaggs’ began making updates to their home.
“I think anything we do to this house is an improvement and an improvement to the neighborhood,” Skaggs told the Board.
The issue isn’t the front porch, per se, but rather how far out it will extend into the front yard. There is a 20 foot front yard requirement—or the average setback for the neighborhood—in Bucyrus. The plans for Skaggs’ front porch fall within the 20 foot requirement but the issue facing the Board of Zoning Appeals is that the neighborhood has an average setback of 31 ½ feet. Skaggs’ front porch would encroach into the front yard by 9 ½ feet.
Planning and Zoning Administrator John Rostash noted that the porch will set our further than that of Skaggs’ other neighborhoods but he didn’t believe that would be too much of a hindrance. “This is not going to have any detrimental effects to any neighbors,” Rostash said.
Law Director Rob Ratliff recommended that board member Floyd Farmer abstain from voting to avoid any potential conflict of interest. Farmer is Skaggs’ next-door neighbor. With Farmer excusing himself from the vote, there were not enough members for a quorum.
The Board of Zoning Appeals will provide the recorded testimony for the remaining members and will vote on the issue at the next meeting on Dec. 3.