By JONATHAN SNYDER
The Board of Zoning Appeals only had one item on the agenda on Tuesday; an appeal for reduced road frontage for plots of land east of Wayne Street and south of Harrison Road.
There are eight lots in that section of land and the road connecting them is considered a private drive, which will be accessed via a series of driveways on common lots. This means that the private drive will be the responsibility of the homeowner’s association in the area, and they will have to plow any snow.
In the official statement on the BZA information packet, Secretary Mike Lautzenheiser stated that this request is unique for Bluffton, but not for neighboring communities. He advised that if this process goes forward, it may instigate an ordinance amendment.
“This will set a precedent for this type of thing to happen in the future,” said Lautzenheiser.
The board approved the reduced road frontage request from 25 feet to zero feet, provided that an ingress egress agreement is recorded for the common lot, a maintenance agreement put together for the common driveway, and that is where each owner has a say in the maintenance of the common lot access. There will be no owned road frontage by the lot owners.
Since this was the BZA’s first meeting of the year, they also voted to keep Tyson Brooks as president, Jerry Petzel as vice president and Lautzenheiser as secretary. They also took a look at the 2023 annual report, which stated that there were 18 total petitions to the BZA last year. Fifteen of these petitions were variance requests, a high number compared to previous years.
jonathan@news-banner.com
