Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/04/1997

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Page 4 -- January 1997 g.g. t-lq Setback Requirement--Architect says sunroom addition is 'bay window' ?eter Schroeder Architects AIA v. City of Bellevue, 920 P. 2d 1216 (Washington) 1996 Peter Schroeder Architects planned a sunroom addition to a houSe in Bellevue, Wash. The house was in a residential zone with 25-foot rearyard setbacks. The proposed addition would extend 5 feet into the setback, but would be cantilevered over the ground. The entire rear wall would be made of glass windows. Seating would run the length of the wall. The Bellevue Land Use Code allowed "minor structural elements" to intrude into setbacks, but not more than 20 percent of the setback's minimum distance. Bay windows were considered minor structural elements, though the code did not define the term. The code also stated patios, platforms, eaves, decks, porches, balconies, greenhouse windows "and similar elements of a minor character" were minor structural elements. [The city has since amended its building code so the only minor structural elements that may extend an enclosed floor area into a setback are chimneys and bay windows that protrude 18 or fewer inches into the setback. Ed.] The city's director of community development determined the addition was not a minor structural element because it had an enclosed floor area. The director also said the addition would violate the code's intent that minor structural elements not affect adjacent properties as buildings would. A city hearing officer upheld the decision, stating the addition was not a bay window because a window was typically a hole in a wall, not an entire wall itself, and the addition was too big to be a "minor" element. A court reversed the city's decision, ruling the proposed addition complied with the building code. The city appealed. DECISION: Affirmed. The part of the addition that intruded into the setback was a bay window, so it was a minor structural element. It extended only 5 feet into the setback, which was 20 percent of the setback. According to Webster's dictionary, a bay window was "a window or series of windows forming a bay or recess in a room and projecting outward from the wall in a rectangular, polygonal, or curved form." The portion of the sunroom that extended into the setback was such an area. It was made of a series of windows, it formed a recess in the sunroom and it projected out from the rear wall of the house. The code's language clearly allowed bay windows to extend into setbacks, so the intent of the code or the director's interpretation of it were not determinative. The definition of bay window included recesses in a room, not just openings in a wall, and did not limit them to any particular size. The code specifically stated bay windows were minor structural elements, so they could be large or small. The city had to interpret its code as it was written. "It is unreasonable to