The Board of Adjustment shall consist of five regular members, plus one additional member designated as an alternate who shall attend and serve only when one of the regular members is unable to attend for any reason, each to be appointed for a term of three years and removable for cause by the appointing authority upon written charges and after public hearings. Vacancies shall be filled for the unexpired term of any member whose term becomes vacant. One member only of the Board of Adjustment shall be appointed from the membership of the Planning Commission, and the loss of membership on the Planning Commission by the member shall also result in his or her immediate loss of membership on the Board of Adjustment and the appointment of another Planning Commission member to the Board of Adjustment. After 9-9-1995, the first vacancy occurring on the Board of Adjustment shall be filled by the appointment of a person who resides in the extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction of the city at the time as more than 200 persons reside within the area. Thereafter, at all times, at least one member of the Board of Adjustment shall reside outside the corporate boundaries of the city but within its extraterritorial jurisdiction. The Board of Adjustment shall adopt rules in accordance with the provisions of any ordinance adopted pursuant to Neb. RS 19-901 through 19-914. Meetings of the Board of Adjustment shall be held at the call of the Chairperson and at any other times as the Board of Adjustment may determine. The Chairperson, or in his or her absence the Acting Chairperson, may administer oaths and compel the attendance of witnesses. All meetings of the Board of Adjustment shall be open to the public. The Board of Adjustment shall keep minutes of its proceedings, showing the vote of each member upon each question, or, if absent or failing to vote, indicating the fact, and shall keep records of its examinations and other official actions, all of which shall be immediately filed in the office of the Board and shall be a public record.

(Ord. passed - -2000)

   An appeal to the Board of Adjustment may be taken by any person or persons aggrieved, or by an officer, department, board, or bureau of the city affected by any decision of an administrative officer or Planning Commission. The appeal shall be taken within a reasonable time, as provided by the rules of the Board of Adjustment, by filing with the Board a notice of appeal specifying the ground thereof. The officer or agency from whom the appeal is taken shall transmit to the Board of Adjustment all the papers constituting the record upon which the action appealed from was taken. The Board of Adjustment shall fix a reasonable time for the hearing of the appeal, give public notice thereof, as well as due notice to the parties of interest, and decide the same within a reasonable time. Any party may appeal at the hearing in person, by agency, or by attorney.

(Ord. passed - -2000)

   (A)   The Board of Adjustment shall have the following powers:

      (1)   To hear and decide appeals where it is alleged by the applicant that there is an error in any order, requirement, decision, or refusal made by an administrative official or agency based on or made in the enforcement of any zoning regulation or any regulation relating to the location or soundness or structures;

      (2)   To hear and decide, in accordance with the provisions of any regulation, requests for interpretation of any map, or for decisions upon other special questions upon which the Board is authorized by any such regulation to pass; and

      (3)   Where by reason of exceptional narrowness, shallowness, or shape of a specific piece of property at the time of their enactment of the regulation, or by reason of exceptional topographic conditions or other extraordinary and exceptional situation or condition of the piece of property, the strict application of any enacted regulation under this act would result in peculiar and exceptional practical difficulties to, or exceptional and undue hardships upon the owner of the property, to authorize, upon an appeal relating to the property, a variance from the strict application so as to relieve the difficulties or hardship, if the relief may be granted without substantial detriment to the public good and without substantially impairing the intent of any resolution, but no such variance shall be authorized unless the Board of Adjustment finds that: the strict application of the resolution would produce undue hardship; the hardship is not shared generally by other properties in the same zoning district and the same vicinity; the authorization of the variance will not be of substantial detriment to adjacent property and the character of the district will not be changed by the granting of the variance; and the granting of the variance is based upon reasons of demonstrable and exceptional hardship as distinguished from variations for purposes of convenience, profit or caprice.

   (B)   No variance shall be authorized unless the Board finds that the condition or situation of the property concerned or the intended use of the property is not of so general or recurring a nature as to make a reasonable practicable the formulation of a general regulation to be adopted as an amendment to the resolution.

   (C)   In exercising the above mentioned powers, the Board may, in conformity with the provisions of this act, reverse, or affirm, wholly or part, or may modify the order, requirement, decision, or determination appealed from and may make the order, requirement, decision, or determination as shall be proper, and to that end shall have the power of the officer or agency from whom the appeal is taken. The concurring vote of two-thirds of the members of the Board shall be necessary to reverse any order, requirement, decision, or determination of any such administrative official, or to decide in favor of the applicant on any matter upon which it is required to pass under any such resolution or to effect any variation in the resolution.

(Ord. passed - -2000)

   Any person or persons, jointly or severally, aggrieved by any decision of the Board of Adjustment, or any officer, department, board, or bureau of the city, may present to the district court for the city, a petition, duly verified, setting forth that the decision is illegal, in whole or in part, and specifying the grounds of the illegality. The petition must be presented to the court within 15 days after the filing of the decision in the office of the Board of Adjustment.

(Ord. passed - -2000)