In its first meeting in nearly two years, the Rowan County Zoning Board of Adjustment on Thursday approved a variance that allows a family near High Rock Lake to build a garage outside of a pre-designated zone.

The planning board last met on May 2013. When it met Thursday, the board approved Rowan resident Duke Brown’s request for a twelve-foot variance at his house on Tamarac Shores Drive. Brown requested the variance to build a 32-foot by 26-foot, detached garage.

Brown’s property requires a 30-foot setback from its boundary line. With the request, Brown’s garage would be 18 feet from the property line. The board needed to find an unnecessary hardship for the request to be granted.

If the garage were to be built inside of the required variance, Brown said he’d have to move utility lines, which would be expensive. Brown said he couldn’t build at another location on his property because of limited space. A circular location on his property would be used for septic repairs, if any problems arose, Brown said.

“Our deal is really simple,” Brown said. “I just want to build a garage at my house.”

The board questioned how difficult moving the utility lines would really be. Board member and local attorney Jeremy Carter also raised a concern about the garage being placed in the septic tank repair area.

“I’m very concerned about the precedent of allowing a structure to be put into an area that our staff has said is part of a repair area,” Carter said.

Briefly, Carter proposed delaying the matter to gather more information.

After close to an hour discussion and a statement from Brown’s neighbor in support of the garage, Carter made a motion to approve the first finding of fact, which states an unnecessary hardship exists. The board approved all findings of fact and approved the variance, with little opposition from board members.

“Let’s just approve the variance and be done with it,” said board member Joe Coladarci.

Contact reporter Josh Bergeron at 704-797-4246.