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Council denies variance for enlarged detached garage, asks staff to study ordinance changes
Summary
After a unanimous planning commission recommendation to deny, the Marshall City Council denied Jeff Greenwood's variance request to enlarge a detached garage and directed staff to review zoning rules so detached garages and attached garages have more comparable allowances.
Marshall City Council denied a variance request to enlarge a detached garage that would have increased the structure to roughly 1,700 square feet and instead directed staff to study possible ordinance changes to address similar cases.
Planner Ilia Goodman presented the request from property owner Jeff Greenwood, explaining that the existing detached garage (built in 1993) is already about 1,100 square feet, while the city ordinance limits detached accessory buildings to 1,000 square feet and limits rear-yard coverage. Goodman said staff and the planning commission concluded the request did not meet two statutory variance criteria (uniqueness of the property and preservation of neighborhood appearance) and recommended denial; the planning commission had voted unanimously to deny at its public hearing.
Amanda Schroeder, the council's planning-commission liaison, had emailed the council with the planning commission's rationale and said the commission had discussed alternative approaches—combining lots or attaching a garage to a house—none of which fully addressed Mr. Greenwood's accessibility and safety concerns. Mr. Greenwood told the council his preference was to preserve alley access for safety and avoid shared access to a busy church street.
Council members expressed sympathy and debate centered on whether the situation is best addressed by individual variances or by ordinance revision. Councilor Lzinski and others argued that the council should consider amending the ordinance to allow larger detached garages in certain circumstances rather than granting repeated variances. City Attorney Whitmore cautioned that variance law requires unique property hardships and that broad variance grants could be difficult to defend if challenged.
In a motion, councilors moved to deny the variance and to direct staff to draft ordinance changes for the Legislative/Ordinance committee to consider; the motion was seconded and passed. The transcript records the motion as passing but does not list individual vote tallies.
The council's action upheld the planning commission recommendation while signaling interest in a code-level solution that could offer clearer, repeatable rules for accessory-building size and parity between attached and detached garages.
