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Attachment B 25 March 2010 Board of Adjustments City of Ramsey 16208 Coquina Street Ramsey, Minnesota 55303 Re: Spitzley Residence Commission: 10.13 Dear Board of Adjustments Members, . <Q =gam ~x~ ~'.Y ~;~~ m~ a~w~ RANDA lL M BU6fiE AIA Thank you for the opportunity to submit this letter requesting a variance to the Spitzley property in order to build an attached garage onto their existing house. We have looked over different options for attaching the garage to the house and the proposed plan is the best fit. This plan does not fight the site, existing topography or driveway layout and will require removing only one existing tree (versus many). Below is an outline of the site constraints that have created the hardship on this site. The house is a walk out rambler that originally had a two car attached garage that accessed. the lower level of the house. The previous owner a number of years ago converted the existing garage into a Recreation' Room and filled in the overhead door with a brick wall. Since then the.. property has not had a garage other than a detached storage/workshop structure that is 135 feet from the front door of the house. The. current owner would like to have attached access from the garage to the house and have a place to keep his vehicles safe from weather and vandalism. We also want to provide a usable front door for guests arriving to the home. . The topography of.the site drops about 6 feet from east to west along-the north side of the garage. In order to work with the site and provide access from the garage into the main level of the home, locating the garage as close to the existing main level frontdoor will allow us to bring . the garage up to the main level elevation (this area is the only high point on the site). This . location will also provide a short walk from the garage to the Kitchen when carrying groceries, etc. The new garage placement will conceal the front door so we propose building a front Entry along the west side of the new garage that will bring the new front door out near tfe corner of the garage so. it is easily seen and accessed by arriving guests. We see the detailing of this Entry element as being trellis-like so it relates to and is a nice backdrop for the adjacent existing deck area. The other parts of the site are too restrictive for building the garage due to the low topography, a natural drainage swale, existing swimming pool /deck /hot tub, potential covering of existing lower level windows and poor access to the existing house (please refer to drawing SD 2.1 ). The garage will 6e a standard width for a two car garage as the owner has large vehicles. The exterior materials and roof shape will match the existing siding on the house so it blends in and looks. like it was part of the original house constn.tction. We hope that you look favorably on our application. - Sincer Randy Buffie, AIA - Randall M. Buffie Architect, Inc. G S i G 8 x 4 8 4 4 I