Council flags setbacks, fencing and zero-setback duplex option in new plans

The council reviewed the latest layout and found several items needed formal variances. Staff said the newest plan flips unit orientations, creating areas with effectively zero rear setback to permit possible twin-home (duplex) connections, whereas earlier designs provided 25-foot setbacks. "You're requesting 10 and 10, and it would be 25 and 20 is what our code would say," staff explained when highlighting required setbacks for adjoining properties.

On fencing, staff noted the city's old code required site-obscuring walls between commercial and residential uses; the developer asked to omit a fence where a nearby storage facility provides screening. Staff and council discussed whether that would be acceptable or whether a conditional variance should require a future property developer to construct the fence. The combination of flipped unit orientation, lot setbacks and the twin-home option produced several variance requests that, council members said, altered the project from the version they had previously discussed.

Why it mattered: setback and fencing variances change how the development interfaces with adjacent properties and affect privacy, visual buffers and potential unit counts. Council members signaled they would not accept open-ended variances without clear, written commitments in a development agreement or plan revisions.