The Brown County Board of Zoning Appeals met last week and approved changes to phrasing in the tourist home guidelines first proposed in May.
BZA member Darla Brown wrote a new draft guideline based on two changes discussed by the board at a work session in February.
The draft was initially presented at the May 25 BZA meeting. BZA President John Dillberger made a motion to adopt the two changes to the guidelines.
The board unanimously approved the adoption of the resolution, including the changes, at its meeting on Sept. 28.
Under the change, the first amendment to the BZA rules and procedures for tourist home special exception conditions will be moved to a different section of the guidelines.
The second change is rewording a portion of the tourist home guidelines and conditions as follows: “Within county jurisdictional area all tourist homes should be located no closer than 250 feet from an existing residence. Where circumstances do not allow such separation, the foregoing distance may be reduced if buffers such as terrain or woods will sufficiently reduce the impact of proposed tourist home on nearby residences. Within the county jurisdictional area, all tourist homes should be located no closer than 1,320 feet from another existing tourist home in order to minimize the impact of business uses on any single neighborhood or residential area.”
The rewording states minimizing the impact of businesses on a neighborhood as the reason for the restrictions on two nearby tourist homes and moves it to a different section of the guidelines.
BZA member Andy Voils said in May that buffering between homes is the difference between immediate light and sound impact on a residential neighborhood, versus the economic impact of having multiple tourist homes in a smaller area.
Voils said he knew the BZA had received several letters addressing the topic of tourist home density and that it’s a topic with which Brown County residents are concerned.
All the board was deciding was to clean up the language, he said.
BZA member Randy Jones said at the meeting last month that he has thought many times about establishing a permitting process as opposed to granting special zoning exceptions to allow tourist homes using the guidelines.
Dillberger said that there have been discussions with other boards in the past about how it would be easier to not use language as a way to regulate business, but instead to require individuals to get a permit for business use to operate a tourist home.
There are 250 to 280 tourist homes in Brown County that have gone through the process of rezoning. Some are being operated without having gone through process, according to the BZA.
The process of establishing a tourist home would leave the BZA and be transferred to whichever entity is picked to preside over permitting. Permitting is an appealing option for two reasons, Dillberger said.
One of the complaints raised by those seeking a special exception for a tourist home is a homeowner getting the variance on their property and then not using it, which blocks another individual who may also want to pursue special exception. A permit process would eliminate that possibility, Voils said.
No decision has been made by the BZA regarding permits.
Also at last week’s work session, the BZA decided to limit public comment to three minutes per person in an effort to streamline meetings.
It was proposed they limit the number of petitioners per agenda, but ultimately it was decided to limit the amount of time petitioners and the public speaks.
Petitioners will be able to speak for up to five minutes and members of the public for three minutes each.
