1717 BAKER AVE B 2016-01-01 MF Import

Dav1d Y. Guadalupe Appeal 4-90 Page -6- 3. The Ezaminer Pro Tem Se required 'o base his decieiona upon adopted municipal law and may not coneider equitable defeaeea in �udging caees which are before him. CChaueaee v. Snohomish County, 38 Wn.App. 630, 638, July, 1984) The poeslble economic lmpnct of the inetant decieion upon snq pereon cannot legally be consldered. The 1717-1/2 Baker structure either meete City code atandarde for non-conforming usee or it doee not. Zf it doeo not, the Planning Department's decision must be suetained. 4. Sworn teetimony of pereone having firet-hand kaoxledge of the facts of Wtiich thay speak is the beet evidence upon which to base an appeal decieion. In the lnetant case, neither Guadalupa aor Young have aay pereonal knoxledge of the use of the aub�ect property prior to their acquieitioa in 1989. Guadalupe hae presented no svora teetimony nor affidavits from any of the prior ownera regarding the use of the etructure at 1717-I/2 Baker. What hae been preeented regarding auch prior uee are uneworn rrritten atatemeute and interpretatione of those etatements. The only exception is the swora teatimo¢y of Swan, a pereon xho hae •lived withln one block of the eubject property for approzimately the laet 40 yeare. 5. Reeidential uee of 1717-1/2 Baker would have became non-conforming in 1956 with tLa enactment of the 1956 version of the City'e Zoning Code. (The City teetifled that there may have been zoning as early as 1942 but r,hat no rellable recorde thereof are available. The Eaem.iner has 7gnored the poteatiality of zouing prior to 1956 1n deciding the iaetant matte^.) The reaeon resSdential uae of 1717-1/2 Haker would have become non-conformiug in 1956 ia tF.et the 195ti verelon of the City Zoning Code allowed only one reeideatial etructure on any g:ven lot. (eee exhibit 17) 6. Aeauming arguendo that 1717-1i2 Baker wae in use ae a residence ia 1956, !ta continuance ae a uon-conforming uae would thereafter have 6een eubject to the aon-r.onforming use regulatiooe within the City's 7,oning Code. From 1956 through 1980 the Zoning Code provided that "Aay uee or building which does not conform to this Ordinance may not be: (1) re-establiehed after diacontinuance for one year; .. . " (ezhibit 171 Thus, if realdentlal use of the structure at 1717-1/2 Baker were discontinued for any period of tvelve coneecutive munthe or more at any time between 1956 and 1980, the non-conforming right would have been loet and coulrt not have been legally re-eetablished. �Similar reetrictione have applied since 1980 but are not relevant to [he i decieion reached herein.) 7. The best available evidence in the record leade to the conclueion that any non-conforming riglit for reeidential occupancy of the etructure at 1717-1/2 Baker was loat ae early ae the early 1960'e. The record ahoxe that there are at leaet two periode uf greater r.han tvelve months bet�+een 1956 and 1980 during which 1717-1/2 Baker wae not uaed ae a reeidence: during a eeverel year period in t:�e mid 1960's chen the Jelvike used the atructuxe to build care and to a[ore parts for care; and during the several-year period that the Radkes own�d the subject property when the structure was uaed for atorage oaly.