Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Dispute Resolution topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Applicants tell board two 9.5-foot driveways would end a decades-long dispute; owners differ on safety and practicality
Summary
Applicants for 184 and 192 South Main told the board that building two separate 9.5-foot driveways resolves litigation and reduces nonconformity; the property owner and a tenant argued the narrower driveways could create safety problems for emergency and service vehicles.
Both applicants told the board the proposed paired 9.5-foot driveways are intended to end a protracted dispute over a shared access easement. Gregory McCracken, representing the owner of 184 South Main, said the split driveways would give each parcel its own ingress and egress and "reduce the nonconformity" present at the site.
Mark Aronson, owner of 192 South Main, said alternatives were included in the filing but warned that abutting 9.5-foot driveways could create safety hazards. "If there's no fence there, I can assure you that with 9.5 feet...people will drive on both sides," Aronson said, and later added, "You will make the buildings less valuable for resale" if the layout causes collisions or repeated hits to dividers. Staff and board members discussed how the town counts gravel as impervious surface and how those calculations affect the need for an impervious-coverage variance. The board weighed practical site constraints against zoning standards and ultimately approved the variances for both parcels.
