VIRGINA- A “dream home” proposed to be built on Plotnik’s Point on Lake Vermilion won’t be as close to the lakeshore as originally planned after the St. Louis County Board of Adjustment rejected variances the house would have required.
While their primary residence is in the city of Shoreview in Ramsey County, Jon and Jean Savat are certainly not newcomers to Lake Vermilion.
“Forty-five years ago I started dating a girl and she brought me to Lake Vermilion,” Jon said. “I fell in love with that girl and I fell in love with Lake Vermilion. Thirty-five years ago we built a log home in Frazer Bay and our kids grew up on Lake Vermilion.”
In 2020, the Savats bought the Plotnik Point property at 4573 Bradley Rd. on Black Duck Bay, and they’ve spent the subsequent summers there, staying in a 484-square-foot vertical log cabin that was a part of the former resort on the property. During that time the Savats have been planning to make the property their permanent home by building a 4,100-square-foot “cabin” on the property while keeping the cabin they’ve been using for use as a guest house. They said they will be removing three old cabins in disrepair totaling about 1,000 square feet that sit in the 50-foot shore impact zone.
County planner Skyler Webb described for the board why the cabin would require four zoning variances.
First, the 1.3-acre lot is too small to accommodate a second principal dwelling.
“We can’t consider the existing dwelling to be an accessory dwelling,” Webb said. “It’s considered a first principle dwelling. In order to allow the new cabin that would be considered the second principal dwelling, in which case, they would need to have double the acreage and double the width. Unfortunately, this parcel does not have that acreage or width.”
The Savats described the care they took in considering where to site the house on the property, giving consideration to preserving a number of large trees as well as historical features of the former resort and overall aesthetics. But the spot they proposed brought three additional zoning regulations into play.
The footprint of the angular cabin would extend into the 75-foot shore setback, with the closest point to the shore being just over 50 feet away, a location that required a variance.
And because it extended into the shore setback, the cabin’s proposed dimensions became an issue as well, Webb explained. At 116 feet long, the cabin exceeded the calculated allowable length by six feet. The design also exceeded the 25-foot allowable height. As the house would not have a basement, the house was designed with storage space above a large garage, and the roof pitch needed to adequately shed winter snow required a height of 32 feet.
Webb said that she discussed alternatives with the Savats that would move the cabin back behind the 75-foot setback, locations that would negate the need for three of the four variance requests. The house could be built as planned with only the second dwelling variance necessary. Another option would have been to scale down the size of the house. The Savats decided to go ahead and seek the multiple variances.
“Skyler was great about explaining everything and understanding the ordinances and their intent,” Jean Savat said. “We did revise our original plan to better align with ordinances and their intent. The intent of these ordinances is to preserve the land and the lake shore. We believe that our proposed site aligns with the ordinances’ intent.”
Savat noted that only a relatively small portion of the house would extend into the 75-foot shoreline setback.
“We’re actually asking for about 18 percent of the proposed dwelling to be within that 75-foot setback, and about 82 percent of that dwelling then is actually past the setback,” she said.
Moving the house back would bring elevated ledgerock into play, requiring about four feet of fill and a retaining wall, the Savats said.
“We don’t necessarily want to build a castle on a hill, we would rather build a cabin in the woods. And with leaving it down at that lower level, it gives us that opportunity,” Jon Savat said.
During Webb’s presentation she described the bar necessary for the Savats to clear to have their requests approved.
“Ordinance 62 states that it shall be the burden of the applicant to demonstrate sufficient practical difficulty to sustain the need for a variance,” Webb said. “Absent a showing of practical difficulty as provided in Minnesota statutes and this ordinance, the Board of Adjustment shall not approve any variance.”
And as the board deliberated, it became clear that some members failed to find practical difficulties that would warrant a favorable decision for the Savats.
Board member David Pollack criticized the Savats for not considering zoning requirements during their planning.
“Sometimes when you have a property it becomes a situation that you need to analyze the rules and regulations of what you can look for, not just that I want more height, I want to be closer to the lake,” he said. “Wish lists don’t fly, reality flies. I’m looking at this and I don’t see any work being done that applies to the rules and regulations. You’re telling us your wishes, not what you can do to more closely adhere to our rules and regulations. Everybody wants, everybody doesn’t get.”
Board member Dan Manick indicated that ledge rock was an issue that could be reasonably dealt with.
“Skyler did talk to you about alternatives, but you’re still proposing to come here with a structure that doesn’t meet three of our requirements,” Manick said. “Just move (the cabin) back a few more feet and we don’t even need to talk about this. If you were to move it back we have no arguments.”
At another point in the deliberations, Jean Savat said the need to have the fill and a retaining wall was something they had been trying to avoid with the placement of the house.
“Is there any compromise there?” she said. “If you move it back and then you have to add another four feet of fill and we’re going to have to accommodate that four-foot drop towards the lakeshore, and I was just trying to avoid a retaining wall. I think those are very ugly on the lakeshore. That’s what we are trying to avoid there.”
However, the Savats indicated when asked that they were amenable to moving the cabin back behind the shoreline setback. They also readily agreed to a stipulation that the lot could never be split, a concern raised in public feedback that the Savats said they never had any plans to do.
After further discussion, board member Tom Coombe made motions to deny the setback, height and width variances and approve the second dwelling request. The first three passed unanimously, and Manick, who had previously expressed his opposition to the second dwelling variance, voted against that motion.
With the agreement to move the house back behind the setback, the Savats will now be able to apply for a building permit to construct the cabin according to plan and preserve the small cabin as a guest house.