The specific duties of the Board of Zoning Appeals are as follows:
(a) To grant variances for certain buildings and for uses in residential districts, following which the Director of Public Safety may issue building permits and certificates of occupancy;
(b) To grant variances in certain cases for those uses permitted in an I-2 District. This action may be taken when there are specific safeguards to protect surrounding properties from the nuisance factors of explosion and fire hazard, noise, smell, dust, smoke, vibration and unsightliness, and when there is assurance that these protective measures will be continued and maintained through succeeding years and ownerships, following which the Director of Public Safety may issue a building permit or certificate of occupancy;
(c) To grant variances for side, front or rear yards whenever the provisions of this Zoning Code in respect to these requirements shall affect construction on any lot which is nonconforming as to size or area as a result of the adoption of this Zoning Code. Owners of such property must show that the normal application of the standards for the zoning district in which the lot is located would deprive the owner of practicable use of the lot or would be contrary to established front, side or rear yard setbacks by a majority of the structures within the same block in which the lot is located. The variance shall be to the minimum degree necessary to permit reasonable use of the lot. The variance shall not be granted if a majority of the buildings on lots within the block, in which the lot for which the variance is requested is found, are not substandard in respect to the variances being requested;
(d) To decide, in case of question, the exact location of a zone district boundary line on the Zoning Map or to interpret any of the provisions of this Zoning Code;
(e) To hear any appeal taken by a property owner as a result of the denial of a building permit or a certificate of occupancy by the Director of Public Safety when the property owner holds that such a denial is unreasonable or unjust or would require him to adhere to standards not adhered to by at least fifty percent of the properties within the block in which the lot is located;
(f) In granting any variance the Board of Zoning Appeals may designate specific conditions for the approval of the building permit or certificate of occupancy for which the variance is granted and such conditions shall be listed on the permit or certificate by the Director of Public Safety. Failure to adhere to such conditions of approval will automatically invalidate the right of a property owner to proceed further under such permit or certificate;
(g) To establish a zone boundary line within fifty feet in either direction of a zone boundary line dividing a property in one ownership.
(Ord. 4702. Passed 8-21-56.)