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The Rehoboth Beach planning commission voted 3-2 to take an unusual step: it waived the 12-month no-consideration clause of the city code and will reconsider a partitioning request for property at 507 Lee St.
The commission previously denied the application, which proposed one lot be divided into two. One lot would have been 8,474 square feet; the other lot would have been 8,026 square feet, because the side yard lot line was not straight. However, at the commission’s Friday, March 7 meeting, the applicant’s attorney, Chase Brockstedt of Bifferato Gentilotti, made a new request. The side yard lot line was straightened, creating one 8,466-square-foot lot and one 8,034-square-foot lot.
The problem for the planning commission was two-fold: Brockstedt had filed an appeal of the commission’s original decision with the city commissioners. At the same time, he had also filed a request for a reconsideration of the commission’s original decision. Brockstedt and the applicant, Lee Street LLC, had also filed the new application for a preliminary review, based on the commission’s decision to reconsider the partitioning. Chairman Preston Littleton said the commission could not reconsider the application while there was an appeal filed with the city commissioners.
As a compromise, the commission proposed to waive a clause in the city code that states no application that was previously denied could be reheard within a 12-month period.
In exchange, Brockstedt dropped his appeal with the city commissioners.
“The applicant has submitted a new proposed subdivision that remedies the fatal flaw, as it’s been defined, which is the side-yard lot line that is not straight,” Brockstedt said. “The applicant has taken heed of the planning commission’s decision and they have come back with a modified application that has substantially changed.”
Scott Kaufman, representing 507 Lee St., said to the commissioners, “I don’t have any desire to do something that is unreasonable or not within what the code allows you to do. I just want to get it done right as much as you do.”
Commissioner Harvey Shulman acknowledged that Kaufman was dealing in good faith but did not think a waiver should be granted.
Shulman suggested that Kaufman and Brockstedt go forward with their appeal to the city commissioners and get the case remanded back to the planning commission.
“In my view, I think a waiver is the absolutely worst thing we can possibly do. We have never voted to waive anything before. It is going down a path that is terrible,” he said.
Commissioners Jan Konesey and Dave Mellen both favored waiving the waiting period, but Mellen also warned that the commission could be setting a precedent.
“We are setting a precedent if we let a petitioner continually come back and say ‘I didn’t get it right, can I try again?’ This is not the planning commission slot machine where you can keep pulling the handle and essentially come up with a few cherries. It just can’t work that way,” he said
Besides Shulman, Commissioner Tim Spies was the other “no” vote.
After deciding to reconsider the application, the commission held a preliminary review of the new 507 Lee St. application and deemed the application to be substantial and accurate enough to go to a public hearing.
Contact Ryan Mavity at ryanm@capegazette.com
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