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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZBA Mintues 2026-06-23ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 1 MEETING OF THE TOWN OF ITHACA Zoning Board of Appeals MINUTES Present: Connor Terry Chair; Kim Ritter, Larry Sallinger and Barry Segal and Stuart Friedman Marty Moseley, Director of Codes; Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk; and Nathan VanWhy, Attorney for the Town Mr. Terry opened the meeting at 6:00 p.m. ZBSA-26-1 Appeal of Greg and Matoula Halkiopoulos, owners, 155 Westview Ln., TP 58.- 2-39.541, MDR; seeking relief from Town of Ithaca Code section 270-223 (Fences and walls; retaining walls). Town of Ithaca Code section 270-223 allows a maximum retaining wall height of 3’ when the retaining wall is within 5’ of the property boundary line, where the applicant is seeking special approval to allow the retaining wall to exceed 3’ in height due to being less than 5' to the property boundary line. Ms. Halkiopoulos gave her overview, saying that she bought the house 20 years ago and she realized there was an issue in the back yard where there is a low point and she later found out there was a pipe underground which collected water from the adjoining neighbors and continue onto her neighbor’s lot but it became clogged all the time, causing drainage issues in her yard, pooling like a small lake. She said she called the Town and was told there was nothing they could do about it and it was up to her. Ms. Halkiopoulos said she let it go and when it became clogged, she would pay DrainBrain to unclog it at her cost, no neighbors would help with those costs. My neighbor would get upset because DrainBrain had to access the pipe by going on her driveway because my yard would be too flooded. She said she got sick of this recurring problem and tried to talk to the neighbors, but they wouldn’t talk to her. This was a contractor mistake. They should have taken the water from the hill and the neighbors to the town’s system. She said she decided to put in French drains and build a retaining to solve it permanently, and she was not aware a permit was needed. There was a wall there, so she thought it was permitted. She did what she needed to do on her section of the bad design and solve her problem. She added that the former owner had also put in some French drainage to the driveway into the town’s system. Ms. Halkiopoulos again apologized for not being aware of the Code. Questions from the Board ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 2 Mr. Terry asked her if there was a retaining wall previously and is the one you installed the same length? Ms. Halkiopoulos responded that there was but they decided to build it higher. Mr. Moseley shared his screen to show the submitted pictures of the wall and the survey with property boundaries. The south end is close to the neighbor’s property line and then is veers off to the north. The Board discussed the pictures of the wall and the French drains and whether there were pipes coming out from the wall. Ms. H stated that the neighbor harassed her workers and made them extend the French drains onto their yard at her cost. She said there are no pipes and her nephew who did the work came up to describe what he did/ Shane said that he is a Civil Engineer and he built the wall, at about 6’ feet, and put drainage under the wall and replaced the existing pipe; they are under the wall and not on her property. The wall was backfilled with 2’ feet of drainage stone. He said he cut back the laterals, and they do go a couple of feet onto the neighbor’s property and then onto the next property. The water is going to go where it is going to go, and they probably helped the neighbors by slowing it down and redirecting it. Mr. Terry said it looks like that it is about 6’ feet tall where 3’ feet is permitted and the closest the wall comes to the neighbors is an area less than 1’ foot, then it veers off with the vast majority of it within 5’ feet of the neighboring lot. Mr. Shane responded that it is 6’ feet on the face front. Mr. Moseley noted for the record that his office did not inform the applicant that a sign was supposed to be posted on the property regarding the appeal in a timely manner, but when we did, they immediately came in and posted it. He noted that the Town Code states that the posting of the sign is not a fatal error and the Board can waive the requirement if good cause is shown. He added that the neighbor notification, which is a courtesy, was sent out as usual 5 days prior to the meeting and the legal ad was properly run. Mr. Terry moved to waive the required posting of the notice given that there were multiple neighbors present and the sign was posted about 24-hours prior to the meeting, and the Town failed to inform the applicant, that was “good cause,” seconded by Mr. Sallinger; unanimous. Public Hearing - Mr. Terry opened the public hearing. ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 3 Helen Spanswick, next door neighbor, spoke, saying that if she had known about this before it was done, her attitude may have been better and that she is not a nasty person even though the applicants have called her that. She said that there was no previous retaining wall, there was nothing. She said the pictures showing the wall went, the slope was there and they took down her plants and her tree to put this wall in. She said she was nice enough to let them access there yard through her property for their mowing and maintenance and then they do this. Took down a tree and killed some of my bushes. Ms. Spanswick said the wall is ugly and there are drains, at least 6 of them, which get clogged and animals have also made their own drains under the wall, and they cause drainage issues into her garage, which also freezes in the winter, making her driveway a skating rink. She said the wall was poorly built and all along the edge is open so there are more places where the wash is coming out. The drains have no covers on them so there are a lot of animals now and people told her to put traps out, but she doesn’t want to do that, she wants it taken care of. The nests and the dropping get washed out onto her driveway. She said the pressure build up from the nests and blockages cause hydrostatic pressure which is going to blow at some point and the wall is going to fall and she referenced the pictures included in her emailed comments. Ms. Spanswick said she had been working on gathering information and pictures for a year and she was told she would get notice of the meeting, but she didn’t until Thursday night, and Friday was a holiday so a long holiday weekend, leaving her 1 day to prepare. There were no signs. Her sons were going to attend but couldn’t on such short notice, but one of her sons did call the office today and they were going to zoom in. She added that she spoke to a realtor who told her this would affect her property value and who suggested she call a lawyer, which she did, and was told to wait to see what happened here tonight. She stated that there was no retaining wall there before this. Andrew Spanswick spoke, saying that he was Helen’s son and lived in Los Angeles and he speaks to her every night and this issue has been going on for over a year. They didn’t get a permit and just built whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. He said when he was there visiting about a year ago when they were building the wall, they had cut the restraining straps out of the hill that were on the smaller little wall, and they just folded them back, so there's no strapping holding that wall back, so who knows what can happen. ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 4 He said his mother had never had any sort of flooding issues at all and now, since that wall has gone up, there's ice all over her driveway, going into her garage, causing a real hazard for her, especially at her age. It is a real problem. Mr. Spanswick said they didn't file for a permit, saying that they didn’t care and would just get a variance. They figured they could just bully my mother around and do whatever they wanted. He said his mother told him they built this giant wall and now I have flooding in my driveway; I have ice forming, I have flooding into my garage, and the town should be coming here and doing something about it. He said he was worried about her every day through the winter with her falling, and they haven’t offered any solutions. Mr. Spanswick said he finds it very interesting that the owner of the house stated that there were no drains, and yet there's obviously drains visible in the photos and there was a much lower wall there before, with a hill, and they basically a built it up as high as they wanted and created a lot of excess water building up behind that wall that just floods with no drainage system, causing his mother issues. He said he is hoping that the board can see that these people have created a huge issue on his mother's lot, which has affected the value and requires her to disclose this water issue if whe wants to sell the house. There has been no concern about the effects on her mother from the neighbors and he felt that they just thought that they could bully his mother and get a variance like they have for other properties they have in the community, or so he was told; this is what they do, do it wrong, without an engineer or professional oversight by the town, and then get a variance for not meeting the requirements. Mr. Spanswick said that the wall should be put back to its original height when there were no drainage issues for his mother. Amy Weirmont, a neighbor up the hill, spoke, saying that she can attest that the hill is very damp and that she thought this variance was for something that had not been built yet and she wanted to make sure that the 80’ foot Oak and Black Walnut trees that are between their properties were not affected by this. A landscaper who works for both Ms. Spanswick and Ms. Halkiopoulos, said that this subdivision has water issues because the water from up hill has to go somewhere, so it goes down into those lowest yards. He said he didn’t have any solutions, but it is a problem. Mr. Spanswick spoke again, saying that his mother has lived there for several years and there were no drainage issues until this wall was built because they didn’t do the proper work to see where the water would go if this was built, and now her house is flooded and that needs to be addressed. When the other wall at 3’ feet was there, the water didn’t pool up and come down the bottom and through the wall onto his mother’s property. ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 5 They are saying “this is a beautiful new wall!” but so what if it is beautiful, it is causing issues because it wasn’t thought through and built correctly to mitigate issues like this. Mr. Terry closed the public hearing. Discussion Mr. Moseley shared a topographical map of the area of the house under discussion, and stated that he was not aware of any municipal drainage except for the roadway area that goes down the road and is diverted down Route 79. Mr. Terry said it looks like there is water coming from the north to south and then some from east to west and when it hits the applicants front yard and driveway it goes west into the open ditch, but it looks like the bulk of the water would be coming from the east and it would turn before it would hit the retaining wall into the neighbor’s property. He said his intention is not to solve the problem but retaining walls don’t create water. The question is whether the retaining wall is changing the direction of the water flow. It seems it would not, but the difference is that without the wall, it would be sheet flow spread out whereas not with the wall, it is concentrated from these pipes, with more discharge points close to the neighbor’s property. Mr. Terry stated that the Board has heard conflicting statements; there was a smaller wall and there wasn’t; there were drainage pipes before and there were not; there were drainage pipes and they were replaced in the same spots. The Board looked at the criteria for a special approval, noting that this is not a balancing test type of determination but rather each standard under the criteria must be met. Mr. Moseley explained that because the wall is built, Codes was not able to inspect it and typically they would require and engineer or architect to inspect the wall and submit a report that it was built in accordance with NYS Uniform Code. If the variance for the height (3’ feet permitted at this distance from a property line) then it would meet Town Code for the purposes of the special criteria. Mr. VanWhy noted that the special approval criteria are generally applied to a project and some may not apply, with the key applicable criteria being #3 “Do operations in connection with the proposed use create any more potential nuisances than the operation of any permitted use in this particular zone?” and #7 “Will the project include sufficient landscaping and or other forms of buffering to protect surrounding land uses?” After some discussion, the Board felt they did not have enough information about the construction of the wall and points of discharge, where drawings by a registered landscape architect, licensed architect or licensed engineer would have that information along with any ZBA 2026-06-23 (Filed 8/11) Pg. 6 impacts on drainage into nearby properties and possible mitigations. If the process had been done correctly, appearing for a variance prior to being built, the drawings would have been included in the materials. Motion made by Mr. Terry to adjourn the appeal until no later than the September meeting to give the applicant time to submit professional drawings of the built wall with confirmation of structural integrity and a drainage plan. seconded by Mr. Friedman, unanimous. Other business Mr. Moseley reviewed upcoming appeals and confirmed attendance for purposes of a quorum. The meeting was adjourned upon a motion and a second; unanimous. Submitted by Paulette Rosa, Town Clerk