Self-imposed hardship language added to administrative waiver
By MEGHAN BRADBURY
mbradbury@breezenewspapers.com The Planning Commission approved a resolution last week that administrative waivers related to electrical and mechanical equipment could not be self-imposed hardships.
The discussion last Tuesday was for Resolution 26-31, recommending that city council adopts an ordinance that would amend the Code of of Ordinances for “expanding the eligibility for an administrative waiver of applicable limitations of impermeable coverage, vegetation removal, and developed area for HVAC equipment, emergency electrical power generators and solar energy system components to all properties regardless of date of development.”
Deputy Planning Director Gabriel Quintas said in June 2022, city council created a new provision to allow an administrative waiver of the applicable limitations to impermeable coverage, vegetation clearance, and developed area for HVAC equipment and emergency electrical generators subject to certain eligibility criteria and limited to 30 square feet for each improvement. He said additional related amendments expanded the provision to include solar equipment, which revised the 30-square foot limitation to instead allow the minimum necessary required for each improvement.
Quintas said on Oct. 21, 2025, members of council unanimously approved a motion to direct the Planning Commission to develop language to reconcile the inconsistencies relating to exclusions to coverage for certain properties that were raising structures for resiliency purposes.
“The proposed amendments are designed to promote the sustainability and resilience of development within the city. The expansion of the administrative waiver provision is intended to provide relief from the maximum impermeable coverage and developed area/vegetation removal provisions in the LDC — limited to the minimum necessary — for property that contains special constraints, limitations, or a hardship as defined in the eligibility criteria,” he said. “In such cases, relief from these provisions is meant to facilitate the addition of certain mechanical equipment that results in greater responsiveness and preparedness to the threat of tropical storms.”
Planning Director Paula McMichael said self-imposed hardship was not something they looked at as far as an exception.
Planning Commissioner Larry Schopp said his concern has always been that the criteria for a waiver is far more lenient that those for a variance. He said his concern with the revision is for the construction of a new home at the maximum permissible impermeable coverage and then the owner submits an application a week later for solar equipment, generator and air conditioning.
“I can’t think of a case in which the city could deny the application based on wording of the proposed ordinance,” Schopp said.
Quintas said the applicant has to identify any conditions to unusual restraints to a lot or parcel.
“Traditionally a hardship could not be self-imposed,” he said. “I could not see approving the waiver based upon a condition created as a result solely by the house they wanted.”
Quintas said if the applicant can remove something on the property first to accomplish the goal, that is how they would respond. He said if there was a structure that could not be easily removed, such as a pool, that would present another situation.