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INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, FLORIDA MEMORANDUM TO: Joseph A. Baird; County Administrator FROM: Stan Boling, AICP; C ori munity Development Director DATE: December 8, 2014 ,+/! SUBJECT: Request for BCC Authorization to Initiate a Land Development Regulation (LDR) Amendment to Dissolve the Zoning Board of Adjustment and Grant the Planning and Zoning Commission Authority to Consider Variances It is requested that the data herein presented be given formal consideration by the Board of County Commissioners at its regular meeting of December 16, 2014. BACKGROUND In most states, including Florida, local governments are granted zoning authority and are generally obligated to establish a board that has the authority to grant variances from zoning -related setbacks. In general, variances from zoning related setbacks are allowed only under a set of special circumstances unique to an existing lot that prevents or substantially restricts reasonable development of the lot. With respect to Indian River County, the LDRs provide for the Board of Adjustment (BOA) to hear zoning related setback variance requests. That 5 member board has been in place for decades; its caseload, however, has fallen dramatically since the early 1990s. In fact, only two variance requests have been considered by the BOA in the last 10 years and the board has not met since October 12, 2009. Because the BOA' s caseload is minimal, because it meets so infrequently, and because it has been difficult to maintain the minimum number of BOA members necessary to constitute a quorum, staff requests that the BCC consider dissolving the BOA and delegating zoning -related setback variance authority to the Planning and Zoning Commission (PZC). ANALYSIS The drastic reduction in BOA variance caseload is primarily due to two factors. First, since the County began requiring form board surveys for new homes in 1985, almost no initial construction - related setback (building location) mistakes have been made for most of the existing housing stock in the unincorporated area. Second, in the early 1990s, the LDRs were changed to allow staff -level M:\AGENDA\2014\Dissolution of Board of Adjustment 121614.docx 1 147