August 6, 2026

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Welcome to the August 6th City of Clayton Board of Adjustment. Time is now 5.07 p.m. Apologies for the delayed start. My name is Rick Bliss.

Today I'm reciting as the Chairman of the Board for this meeting. I'd like to start with introductions of the Board members and staff. Shall we start here? Liza Streett We've got Bryce Woollen.

We've got Jason Laetman. Hobie Kropp, Planning Tech with the City of Clayton. Brian Helley, Planner with the City. Board members and alternates are appointed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council.

Members serve without any monetary compensation. This board consists of five regular members and three alternate members. All members must be residents of Clayton and hold no other office or position in city government. I'll note that there are two openings now.

We welcome anybody who might be interested in joining us. Four votes in favor of granting a variance are required to decide in favor of the applicant. This is a duly advertised meeting. The proceedings are on the record.

I'll ask Ryan, please call the roll. All righty. Jason Letman. Here.

Bryce Wolin. Here. Anna Eskorn. Liza Streett.

Here. Rick Bliss. Here. I'd like to note that tonight that Scott Schweizer has moved out of Clayton and will no longer be serving on this board.

I thank him for his brief but helpful service. Also, Abby Goldstein is resigning from the board. So I thank her for her participation as well. Tonight, we have one application on the agenda.

An appeal from Paul Fendler is the applicant on behalf of Mary and Chris Danforth for the property located at 17 Brentmore Park. Paul, I assume you're ready to go? Okay. Before we go further, anyone wishing to speak either in favor or in opposition to the application needs to be sworn in.

If you would please. Should we do minutes real quick? yes thank you ah the first item on the agenda for tonight's meeting is the approval of the minutes for the last meeting held on june 4th 2026 are there any questions comments or corrections hearing none i'd like a motion to approve move to approve the june 4th uh minutes they're a second second all in favor say aye Aye. Opposed?

Thank you, Ryan. Shall we go forward and ask anyone who wants to speak to be sworn in? Rebecca? Ryan, I'd like to ask if the city has any exhibits to be offered for consideration?

We do have exhibits to offer. Exhibit A, the Code of Ordinances of the City of Clayton and Clayton Master Plan. Exhibit B, Sending Your Few Application Denial Letter from a Hobie Crop Planning Technician. Exhibit C, Appeal to the Board of Adjustments.

Exhibit D, the Plans and Survey Provided by the Owner. And Exhibit E is the Staff Report. Okay. I trust you have no objection to those documents being entered into the record?

We can take that as well? We'll get there. We'll get there. All right.

Yeah, in addition to the application, I want to acknowledge receiving a memo from the trustees of Brentmore Park supporting the granting of the variance. Anything else to bring forward? Okay, thank you. At this point, I'll call Paul Fendler forward and ask you to state your name and your address.

And then you can make your presentation, please. Paul Fendler, 5201 Pattison Avenue, my office. So I would just like to give you a very brief background of how we got here today. So my client, Chris and Molly, Mary Molly, moved out of their house about 12 to 16 months ago, and they had a very extensive environmental report done.

And the environmental report came back and found an extensive amount of mold throughout the house, along with some other issues. I've known Chris and Molly for a long time, and I've worked on this house for about 20 years, various projects. And they've always had an issue with water problems and some ongoing health concerns over the years. The issues have been caused by a number of for a number of reasons uh some of the materials that were used on the original home that the house stone and the foundation stone is very porous um and then a lot of the details on the house are just not great the flashing details are not good there's no overhang on the house has a steep roof so every time it rains water rushes down the over the stone It has old steel windows and doors, and the flashing details of those items are just not very well done.

We received some bids for remediation work, and the remediation work alone was just Very, very extensive. And at the end of the day, it did not provide 100% guarantee that this issue would be resolved. So after a lot of conversation, they decided that the best course of action would be to tear the house down and to build a new home. The first thing that we did, that I did was to consult with the trustees and we've been working very closely with the trustees throughout this design process.

It was very important to the trustees that the new house maintained the current historic fabric of that neighborhood. So the massing of the house, the height of the house, footprint of the house, and especially how the house sits on the lot, that was very important to Um, the new house, uh, is, uh, very similar in size. It's a slightly larger because we have a, an attached garage and a new structure or the current house does not. Um, but the footprint is very close to the same, same, uh, house that we're currently tearing down.

Um, We're keeping a couple of the structures. There's a detached garage slash carriage house that has a pool house in the back of it and a swimming pool and steps down to the swimming pool, and we're keeping those structures. And again, that was important to the trustees. They wanted to make sure we didn't come through and just kind of clear cut the lot, but that we were able to selectively demo the house and then build a new house.

The reason we're here today is because the house that is currently there sits on the plat at front yard setback, which is different than the zoning ordinance front yard setback. West Brentmore is a unique neighborhood, right? It's large lots. The houses are very spread out and there is no consistent front yard setback in West Brentmore.

And as a matter of fact, I mean, I believe there's a number of homes and it could be, you know, I've taken a very Close look. I've driven around. I've stepped off some homes. It's hard to go on other people's properties, but I would venture to guess at least 50 percent of the homes observe the plat at front yard setback.

Some obviously sit further back. Some are closer. The neighbor immediately to the west. He's on that corner lot and his house sits fairly close.

To the street. So what we are asking for is just to maintain the current condition and to put the house back pretty much exactly where it currently sits and to maintain that same front yard setback. Logistically, it's important that we do that. Not only again, the trustees really liked the idea that we're maintaining that same fabric, but the property almost immediately behind the house is a very steep slope.

hill that drops off about 10 to 12 feet it drops off and to push this house back any further it just starts to create a snowball of effect i need to start regrading the lot which then affects trees um the garage that is currently there in a pool house in a pool It's questionable whether those can stay. Right now, we want to maintain the current garage as a garage, and then the house has another two cars in it. So pushing the house back really makes it impossible to get in and out of that garage. There are retaining walls on the sides of the property that we're keeping.

It's just moving the house back would create problems. a lot of negative impact, not only to the slot but to the adjacent neighbors as well. So I guess just to conclude, I just want to reiterate all we're asking for is to maintain the current condition. I'm happy to answer any questions you have or if you have any comments.

Any questions? Well, I just want to say that when I went over there, I could see immediately, and I hadn't heard your explanation, but that was my first thought, was moving the house would mean moving the pool or all these other things. And because of the contours of the lot, it just looked unnecessary to make a change to the situation. I agree.

It says here that... You need to demonstrate an extreme hardship or severe practical difficulty based on the shape of the lot of the topography. And I think certainly if you were to move back the 24 feet to the south, that you would encounter that hill and a whole host of other problems. So this is kind of a textbook example of, in my opinion, what should be approved on the application.

Jason or Bryce, might you have any questions? I do not. I do not either. Okay.

Let me just for the record ask staff is it staff's observation that granting of the requested variance is not likely to result in detrimental impact to light and air? Correct. Is it your observation that The deviation would not constitute a change in the district map. Correct.

Impair an adequate supply of light and air to adjacent property. Correct. Increase congestion in public streets. Correct.

Increased the danger of fire. Correct. Materially diminish or impair established property values. Correct.

Um, Also, it looks like staff observation is that the placement of the proposed single family house is similar to properties in the immediate area. Correct Thank you. Um, I have no other questions. Um, I'll ask for a motion to approve.

I move to approve a 24-foot variance from the required front yard setback of 95 feet, 5 inches. Section 405.1730, point capital A, point capital A of Article 12, R2, large lot, single family dwelling district. R1, sorry. Is there a second?

Second. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Anything else? You're approved.

Thank you. Thank you all very much. I appreciate that was quick. Thank you.

It took me longer to get here and try. Thank you, Paul. How are we looking for next month? I do have a couple inquiries.

I do expect that we will have a meeting next month. Okay, very good. If there's nothing further to cover, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thanks.