Commission reverses course on shoreland district variances

Two months after recommending on a 4-2 vote that the Hutchinson City Council grant a variance in the shoreland zoning district, the Hutchinson Planning Commission voted 6-1 Tuesday to recommend denial of a similar request.

City ordinances restrict lot coverage on properties within the shoreland district to 25 percent. The district extends 1,000 feet from the Crow River and adjoining Campbell and Otter lakes.

A September variance request was granted for an 18-by-18 addition to a home on West Shore Drive lot partially outside the shoreland district that pushed lot coverage by impervious surfaces from 25 percent to 28 percent.

Tuesday night, Jackie and Joel Penke, 915 Lakewood Drive S.W., sought a variance for a 16-by-16 addition. Their lot is entirely within the shoreland district and lot coverage is already at 32 percent. The addition, after removal of a shed, would have pushed lot coverage to 33 percent.

The Penkes expressed frustration they were never told their house, built in 2001, and purchased by them a few years later, was in a shoreland district and was probably already at or in excess of 25-percent lot coverage as built.

Cities across Minnesota that are on rivers or lakes, including Hutchinson, will have to deal with a 15-percent limit soon, according to City Attorney Marc Sebora. The Legislature has approved that change that will likely require some previously platted lot to be consolidated or replatted.

Read more of this story in the Leader’s Nov. 19 print edition.

(Terry Davis is a Hutchinson Leader staff writer. E-mail him at davis@hutchinsonleader.com.)