Stable owner to come back before BZA

Owners of a pleasure stable located at 903 Two Notch Road will go back before the Board of Zoning Appeals Thursday, asking that the board allow modifications to the barn.

BZA members unanimously denied the last special exception request made by Mary Frances Smoak Walde, the owner of the stable, last July. In her current application, Walde is asking the board to allow modifications to a one-story stable, instead of the two-story stable she requested the special exception for in July.

She is asking the BZA to allow her to increase the size of the stable by 90 square feet, relocate the pleasure stable 20 feet further from the house and relocate the stable to or between a foot or a little over a foot closer to the north side of the property line.

Walde has also placed an application asking for a variance request to allow the building's total size to equal 54.9 percent of the heated floor area of the house instead of the 50 percent required in the Zoning Ordinance. She is also asking that the board allow the paddocks to be distanced 15.8 feet closer to the neighbor's barbecue area.

Walde's special exception request for a stable was initially approved last March; however, after work started on the barn, City officials halted the project, saying it wasn't consistent with what was approved by the BZA.

In the first application, Walde asked for a 976-square-foot stable, distanced 40 feet away from the home and 20 feet north of the property line. What was being built was a 1,052-square-foot stable, distanced 60 feet away from the house and 16 feet north of the property line. A second-floor accessory apartment was also being built.

While he said he is not sure what the outcome of Thursday's meeting will be, Tommy Paradise, a zoning official with the City of Aiken, said removing the second floor of the stable makes a big difference when compared to the modifications requested in the last special exceptions request which was denied.

The BZA meeting will be held on the second floor of the Municipal Building at 5:30 p.m.

"Taking off the second floor is certainly a significant difference of what was originally applied for," he said.

Paradise said removing the second floor would allow the roof line to be lowered on the stable.

"It makes the application significant enough to come back before the board," he said.