Shop Size - Fighting Zoning

[Icenine]

I live in Helotes TX, inside city limits on 2 acres (87,738 sq ft). I finally have the land space to put up my dream shop. Working on my own toys, race cars, motorcycles, yard art - full private machine shop. I was reading up on city code/ordinance which limits 'accessory' building on a residential property: "Any lot larger 1/2 acre coverage of 1,000 sq ft or 3%, whichever is greater." That is total for all 'accessory' buildings to include secondary resident.

That limits my future dream shop to 2,632' approximately 51'X51', but I have to subtract 20'X20' or 400 sq ft because of my existing garage. That puts my dream shop at 2,232 sq ft or 47'X47'.

I know, not exactly tiny but I was hoping to build 60'X80' steel building.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions if I try to go to city counsel to get an exception to the zoning ordinances? Has anyone successfully gotten their city counsel to approve larger than zoned on private residence property? Do city counsels rule strictly by the code or do they make exceptions like an additional percentage?

 

[Scott H in Wheaton]

I had to get a variance approval when I built the front porch on my house as it would extend into the minimum setback. It was a pretty easy process. I had my choice of going before the village board, OR, have the neighbors on each side of me and in front and behind me sign off on the plans. I chose the second method. Had my permit in 3 days.

 

[ForceFed70]

There are a lot of permit/zoning/variance threads on GJ. I think your best bet is to do some searches and follow some of the advice there.

It really depends on the comitee. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes they won't approve it no matter what you do. Only other thing I can suggest is to look for precedent within your neighborhood. You'll be much more likely to succeed if everyone else has an oversize shop.

I'm lucky, my zoning said 20% lot coverage.

Also, most zoning will limit you to only 1 accessory building. If you already have a garage they may not allow it regardless of the size so make sure you look into that as well.

 

[ADSR]

There are a lot of permit/zoning/variance threads on GJ. I think your best bet is to do some searches and follow some of the advice there.

It really depends on the comitee. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes they won't approve it no matter what you do. Only other thing I can suggest is to look for precedent within your neighborhood. You'll be much more likely to succeed if everyone else has an oversize shop.

I'm lucky, my zoning said 20% lot coverage.

Also, most zoning will limit you to only 1 accessory building. If you already have a garage they may not allow it regardless of the size so make sure you look into that as well.

BC has some real Ahole laws tho.

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

I live on about an acre in a township on sewer and water. My max outbuilding was 600sf. A former town board member and the building inspector were very blunt and upfront that the town board would NOT approve any kind of a variance for me for a larger building. Once they start to do variances like that for one, then they have to do them for everyone.

Then I read about another township about 20 miles away that had a property owner come to the board stating that this township's "accessory building" zoning code was behind the neighboring towns and villages. Board entertained increasing the size.

So I called my town supervisor. Explained the situation. He said mine was the 2nd request in a month he had. Encouraged me to come to the town planning committee meeting the following week. I did some research, discovered our town had the smallest max "accessory building" limits of the surrounding townships (they are six miles on a side in WI, 36 sq miles). Town board was very receptive. A couple supervisors said they had had comments similar to mine.

So town chairman directed town staff to review and come back next month. The zoning administrator did a nice job. I was there. My "angle" was that when the zoning law was last updated we lived in a different time. People have more "stuff" now. Boats, snowmobiles, ATVs, 3rd and 4th cars, lawn tractors, snow blowers, campers, race cars, collector cars, more toys.

I suggested they drive around in their respective areas and look at the number of cars, boats, snowmobile trailers, and stuff sitting outside. One supervisor said, "I don't need to drive around. I know LOTS of stuff sits outside."

I asked for an increase from 600sf to 1500sf on the lots 20,000sf to 1 acre (43,560sf). I would settle for 1,200sf. We stalled at 1,000sf and that is what they gave me. In retrospect, I think that if I would have provided some renderings of 1,500sf garages and shops and/or talked to them into a 42' or 44' max length facing the street ... I think I could have gotten 1,200 or maybe 1,500. I think they were afraid of 60x25 (1,500sf) detached garages.

Too many of the supervisors didn't want to double the size, just because it would be doubling. Even though town staff and the building inspector said that because of existing minimum setback, side yard, backyard, and distance from existing house ... that many of the lot/house configurations wouldn't allow more than 1,000 to 1,200sf in the first place! I got them to agree they would rather have a larger accessory building than "stuff" sitting outside.

My suggestion ... if you think the size restriction is too small ... contact your respective supervisor or trustee or alderperson and try to change the rule. Unless of course they say ... "Bring in a variance request, we'll probably ok it."

One thing to keep in mind ... say your zoning covers lots from 1/2 acre to 2 acres (based on the sf number you indicated in the OP, you're a touch over 2 acres) and you're at the large edge ... I think you're to have resistance because any change would impact everything down to 1/2 acre.

So look at the other zoning buckets. Lets say your town has 1/2 to 2 acres and then 2 acres to 4 acres (which is more liberal), then maybe all you need to ask for is a rezoning to the larger, more liberal zoning classification.

Another thing to be worried about ... having the largest lot in the neighborhood. If you have the largest lot in the neighborhood, that is a good reason for the municipality to not want to give you a large building.

Finally ... there is strength in numbers. If you find others in the community that want the rule changed, everyone who comes forward will help your cause. I would recommend talking to people in the community, builders, etc.

Good luck, keep us posted.

 

[tymbo]

A buddy I know had the same problem. He made his attached garage into a "family room" so he could have the max sq. footage of the outbuilding. Some time later, the "family room" mysteriously turned back into a garage

 

[djjsr]

If the 47x47 is the size of the footprint, maybe you could add a second floor?

 

[Engineer61]

A variance could be the easy way out, how friendly are your neighbors? Most places getting a variance does require your neighbors to okay it. I signed for my neighbor needing a variance for too much of his lot covered by outbuildings, and if I ever get the money to rebuild my house I expect he will sign for the variance I need to put one corner of my house 5 feet from the lot line, just as the present house is.

 

[sberry]

Mine would love it, more taxes. Last one I built I didnt even apply for a land use permit, I tore down an old building and put 80x100 over it and no one said a word.

 

[MacTexas]

If there a different limit if the building was called a "barn"? I looked up Helotes on the web and I see that elotes is corn on the cob in Spanish and that the history of the town is agricultural. I'll bet there is some provision for barns.

 

[atfulldraw]

This is pretty normal stuff for the Board of Adjustment.....

you are going to have to convince them that a variance would not be contrary to public interests. I think Helotes requires 4 out of 5 members of the board to approve the variance.

I would approach it from the standpoint of larger and shorter is better than taller and uglier!

It's do-able.

 

[Air_Cooled_Nut]

I'm just surprised that a garage is considered an accessory building even when it's a designed-in piece of the house! That's just crazy to me.

 

[steve911]

I am a Town Supervisor In a Wisconsin township in Dane County and I am also a memeber of the Township Planning Commission.

By law Towns CANNOT have control over zoning. It is statutorily given to Counties, Cities and Villages.

The township may have an ordinance concerning accessory buildings, but their ordinances cannot trump county zoning. My advice is to go to your county zoning office and find out what your county's ordinance says and how it applies to your current property zoning.

Prior to becoming a Supervisor, I had to do the exact same thing you are attempting to do. It is doable. Above all stay calm, do your home work, prepare your presentation, and good luck.

Steve A.

 

[Falcon67]

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions if I try to go to city counsel to get an exception to the zoning ordinances? Has anyone successfully gotten their city counsel to approve larger than zoned on private residence property? Do city counsels rule strictly by the code or do they make exceptions like an additional percentage?

If there are no other buildings around you that are over the current limits, or there are no other variances granted for similar structures I'll go with you being 99.9% out of luck. This is the typical framework you will be up against:

"variance request is justified only if special conditions exist on the lot that create a hardship making it too difficult to comply with the code's normal requirements. Likewise, a request for a variance on a normal lot with no special conditions could judiciously be denied. The special conditions or hardship typically must arise from some physical configuration of the lot or its structures. The financial or personal situation of the applicant normally cannot be taken into consideration. Under most codes governing variances, approval of the variance must not result in a public health or safety hazard and must not grant special privilege to the property owner. In other words, when a variance is granted, any other property owner with similar site conditions should be able to obtain a similar variance; this criterion is often addressed by citing precedent"

If there is no hardship or precedent, it will be denied. Check with your city manager before you bother P&Z, it'll save you time. Use Google Earth and possibly your local tax assessor property mapping online to see if there are structures around that exceed your request.

The township may have an ordinance concerning accessory buildings, but their ordinances cannot trump county zoning.

A good point on why web answers may send you in the wrong direction. The above doesn't apply in Texas.

"Counties also have much less legal power than home rule municipalities. They cannot pass ordinances (local laws with penalties for violations) like cities can. Counties in Texas do not have zoning power (except for limited instances around some reservoirs, military establishments, historic sites and airports, and in large counties over "communication facility structures": visible antennas)."

 

[pmiranda]

Build an "attached" garage onto your house and then replace your existing detached garage with a bigger building. It boggles my mind that all the zoning and land use codes seem to run counter to good sense and fire safety in encouraging people to build attached garages which then need expensive fire-rated construction instead of keeping them in separate buildings.

 

[justanengineer]

If you have to fight zoning to build it, you might consider the difficulty of defending against zoning once you have it. In many areas zoning boards are very similar to HOAs, they want to keep things organized and looking "pretty." You may be able to get a variance and build it now, but that doesnt mean they cant come back in a decade or two to hike your taxes and declare inhabiting the property illegal bc of your "commercial" building. Ive seen them do exactly that several times, declaring properties as mixed residential/commercial until the next property sale at which time its entirely commercial.

Yup, they can write daily tickets for unregistered vehicles and even kill citizens without trial now too, but those are entirely different discussions.

 

[aka Larry]

I'm in the survey business so obviously we have run into this kind of thing a time or two, or three...hundred. Keep in mind that a zoning variance from the board of adjustments is 100% political. We have seen sane stuff get quashed and insane stuff get passed. If you 'know somebody' if will go a lot better for you. Translation: Hire a professional surveyor who is connected in the community to "go to bat" for you or at least ask his opinion. Whether you like his answer or not, I'd wager it being a 98% chance he's right as to what the outcome will be.

 

[Ray916MN]

See if there are any height limits on what you can build. If there aren't or they allow tall building develop a plan for a really tall building that will be much more visible and ugly than what you want to build. Be prepared to go in front of the planning commission and request the variance indicating that you don't want to build a tall ugly building, but because of the footprint limitations you are being forced to consider building such a building to get the total square footage you want. Tell them it will cost less money for you to build a taller building, but before you built a cheaper code compliant building that you wanted to volunteer to spend more money and build something that would look nicer if they were willing to give you a variance on the size of the building footprint.

If they approve the variance, politically this positions the planning commission as having forced you to spend more money so that the building would look better and not be an eyesore. A win for and a win for you.

 

[bajones238]

In 1992 I built a 2,500SF garage (I have a 1,500 SF house). In order to get it permitted, I had to make the garage "attached". So, I built a walkway connecting the garage to my basement door (I have a daylight basement). The walkway serves no purpose at all except to satisfy zoning.

 

[ford33]

You should not "fight zoning". You should work with them to reach a mutual agreement. Zoning rules benefit the community overall and you need to show how your situation will benefit the community. This is true in villages and towns but not so much, I believe, in large cities.

Approach the members individually and informally, if possible, to determine where they have concerns. Listen carefully. Then develop an approach that resolves their issues, improves your neighborhood and then submit the request with supporting documentation.

 

[LEVE]

You should not "fight zoning". You should work with them to reach a mutual agreement.

I'll second that. I was on the P&Z commission for my town, and the head of the commission for a few years. We always took the tact of trying to figure out how to say yes to the applicant.

The only time I can remember shutting down an applicant was when the applicant brought in a lawyer and had the lawyer do the talking. He started digging up facts about buildings being back in the 1940's as a precedent for his client's building application. As I countered his arguments with "No, that's not going to be done, and here's why..." the lawyer became belligerent and started to threaten the town with lawsuits. I turned to the other members of the commission and we quickly voted to deny the application. The lawyer and the applicant were incensed. With threats and lots of swearing on their part they were both shown the door.

A month later the applicant came back, without the lawyer, and we talked out the problems and the permit application was granted.

It always pays to be nice and not burn your bridges.

 

[Falcon67]

LEVE nailed it. Been to a lot of P&Z meetings and have been informally asked about being on the committee. Show up with items supporting your case, facts, pictures, etc. I handed out an info package of 6 pages, including sat views of the area with other large out buildings marked, a plat showing how the building would sit on the lot, a decent hack job graphic showing the building look from the street and tax+lot line drawings of the surrounding properties. I was building on a lot next to our house and the normal rule is no accessory building on any lot without a primary structure (house). There were 5 other buildings in place on separate platted lots in the immediate area of about 4 blocks, so precedent had been set. We had a special loan that we didn't want to disturb by trying to combine the lots into a single unit. However, the tax accessor did that later, which saved us a bunch. With our three lots lumped together for tax purposes, our homestead, etc. exemptions apply to all the structures.

Which goes back to my original answer - if now one else has been granted "relief" and there is no hardship to you other than you can't build a copy of the Vertical Assembly Building, then your application for variance will be denied outright. It's not political, it's just how it is. It's the car port issue - if the neighbors have car ports, your application for a car port variance will likely sail through. If you are the first on the block, you'd need to be asking for relief, as in the house you bought has no garage or area to protect your vehicle and car ports exist in the immediate vicinity. And it'll still be a stretch because the committee knows that one approved variance opens the gate to others.

 

[ishiboo]

I'm about to do this as well. Our township is 1% of the square footage over 1 acre, and I have just under 8 acres on this parcel. My barn is 40x100, plus the ramp counts... so I am already over my footage limit. The bottom floor of the barn is 7' ceilings so my 2 boats, truck, etc. sits outside looking like trailer trash.

So... need a variance to go over by 2,000 square feet to get my stuff inside.

What ***** about our town is not the requirement, but the fact you have to pay $250 to get them to consider the variance.

 

[Icenine]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I use the word 'fight' loosely, you always catch more flies with honey than vinegar but why would anyone really want to catch flies?!?! I have recently read How to Win Friends and Influence People so it is now time to apply what I learned.

Anyway, I went down to the courthouse to ask some questions in person. It was a good conversation. I wanted to see if they had made any type of exceptions for the total square foot for accessory buildings. The development services specialist I spoke with could not remember anyone asking for that particular exception. He did say they do make exceptions for other building codes such as the ordinances that no buildings (garage, shed, or accessory) can be built in front of the line created by the front of the house.

The gentlemen did suggest to put in the paperwork for the building permits with a plot. It will get rejected but then I can take it in front of the board to review. The other suggestion he had is the city of Helotes is very big on preserving the natural trees - mostly ancient oaks. If I could show how by building the shop not attached to the house would actually save trees that I might be granted an approval. It was a great suggestion because the lot is packed full of trees, mostly cedar as well as some oaks. Besides helping me I really do not want to remove any oaks. It is south Texas after all...shade is a beautiful thing here!

I can always fall back on attaching the shop to the house with an enclosed walkway. The breezeways idea will not work as it is outlined as still an accessory building. Also, being south texas the house is built with widows on all sides with a large covered porch on two sides proving good cross breezes. I completely agree, I do not want it attached the house for all of the obvious reasons.

The neighborhood was primarily built in the 80's, with most lots being 2 acres. The natural woods are thick enough I cannot see my neighbors. There are properties here that are not to building codes. I will need to see if I can find some examples of properties with larger square feet accessory buildings. The plus side is I have great neighbors, I would like to keep it that way and not build my shop directly next to say their pools.

Anyway, I will keep you posted on whats happening. A little luck I will be sharing the pictures of my shop being built. It is going to take some time. If I can get the exception or perhaps change the building ordinance for lots over 2 acres to increase accessory building square foot to maybe 4, 5 or 6 percent of the lot. Now to see if I can find a professional surveyor and who exactly is on the building ordnance review board. Again many thanks! Amazing responses...very active site, I am impressed.

 

[econoline]

Man 250 is dirt cheap if you ask me, I'm looking at closer to 2000 per variance just to get them to consider it, whether they grant it or not.