Permission to differ from one specific rule, because of something about the property itself.
| Decided by | Board of Adjustment |
| Type | Quasi-judicial |
| Evidence | Sworn testimony |
| Realistic clock | Two to four months |
A variance is narrow relief from one dimensional standard, and it is the one approval here that genuinely resolves inside a year, a setback, a height limit, a lot width, a buffer, granted because strict compliance would create a genuine hardship arising from the land.
The word that decides it
Hardship. And it has to be a hardship of the property, not of the owner or the pro forma.
An unusual lot shape is a hardship. A rock outcrop, a stream running through the buildable area, a parcel made non-conforming by a road widening, those are hardships. “The setback costs us four lots” is not, and neither is “we paid too much for it.”
Hardship that the applicant created is also generally disqualifying. If you subdivided the parcel into a shape that can’t meet the standard, the board didn’t create that problem.
This is a hearing, not a negotiation
A Board of Adjustment sits in a quasi-judicial capacity, it acts like a court. Testimony is sworn, the decision has to rest on competent evidence in the record, and written findings usually follow.
Which means you cannot lobby the members. Contacting a board member about a pending case outside the hearing is improper and can put the whole decision at risk. Applicants who are used to rezonings get this wrong, and it’s an expensive mistake to make in good faith.
What goes wrong
Arguing economics. The most common failure. The case that persuades a council, this project doesn’t pencil otherwise, is legally irrelevant here and can actively damage you by putting a self-created hardship in the record.
Bringing a story instead of evidence. Quasi-judicial boards decide on what’s in the record. Photographs, surveys, expert testimony and site facts carry the day. Assertions don’t.
Asking for more than you need. Boards grant the minimum relief necessary. An over-broad request invites a partial grant that doesn’t solve your problem, or a denial you then have to appeal.
What we do
We work out whether a variance is actually your instrument, often it isn’t, and an administrative adjustment, a minor modification or a different layout gets there without a hearing. If it is, we build the hardship case from the land: the survey, the topography, the constraint, and the specific standard it collides with.
Then we read what this board has granted and denied before, because boards develop patterns about what they’ll accept as hardship, and those patterns are visible in the record.
Standard you can’t meet? Tell us the parcel and which one.