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Board approves 40-square-foot deck variance at 200 Ninth Street, allows optional roof
Summary
The Planning and Zoning Board approved a variance May 20 permitting a 40-square-foot third-floor deck at 200 Ninth Street and explicitly allowed the deck to be covered, subject to building-code review and ISR limits.
The Planning and Zoning Board of the City of St. Augustine Beach voted May 20 to approve a variance allowing a 40-square-foot deck at 200 Ninth Street and clarified that a roof may cover that deck, subject to applicable building regulations.
James Whitehouse of the St. Johns Law Group, representing the applicant, told the board the owner wanted the option to cover the third-floor deck and asked the board to treat the matter as a housekeeping item because the deck had appeared in prior elevation drawings but was omitted from some site-plan materials. "She'd like to have the covering of it," Whitehouse said during the hearing. Board members discussed whether a roof would change impervious surface or gross-floor-area calculations; staff said the deck would not count as lot coverage if it were an open, drip-through deck but that a roof could be considered part of gross floor area and could affect ISR if it caused other thresholds to be exceeded.
A board member moved to approve "variance 2025-7" (as cited in the meeting) to allow the additional 40 square feet and specifically to permit the deck to be covered; another board member seconded. The motion carried with the board recording "Aye" and no opposition noted. Staff reiterated that any building permit submission must comply with the city’s ISR and building-height standards; if the eventual permit application exceeded those limits it would require further review.
The variance approval resolves confusion that arose at a prior meeting when elevation drawings showed the deck but the site plan did not.
