The Zoning Hearing Board Wednesday granted seven variances requested by the local engineering firm that has been hired to create a land development plan for the renovation that will turn the former Altoona YMCA on Lexington Avenue into a fantasy art museum.

The variances, as requested by Adam Long of Keller Engineers:

– To allow more than 70% impervious lot coverage. The existing site is 87% impervious, and a planned addition and patio would bring that to 93%, Long said. Those additional features, along with retention of the existing parking lot, are necessary, the developer believes, according to Long.

– To allow the parking area to remain closer than 10 feet to a secondary street that provides access to the property (10th Avenue). The museum needs all the parking it can get, according to Long.

– To allow the proposed addition to be closer than 15 feet to the rear property line. The addition would be 2 feet from the line, which is farther away than the main building, which is right against it.

– To allow public gatherings on the property. Such gatherings, some of which would be celebrations connected with seminars and lectures, are common for art museums and galleries.

– To allow fewer off-street parking spaces than required by ordinance (27, compared with the required 43). No additional spaces will fit, given other features and proposed features on the property. There is, however, a significant number of on-street spaces nearby, and the owner is hoping to buy other properties to add off-street parking.

– To waive the requirement for landscaping on the parking lot island where the transformer and generator are located, as it is undesirable to have a deciduous tree overhanging a generator. To waive the requirement for a tree on an island on the east side of the parking lot, as it’s not ideal to place a tree on the upper side of a retaining wall. And to allow the islands to be narrower than the required 9 feet, as that will help maximize off-street parking that is already insufficient.

– To waive the requirement for a grass strip between the curbs and sidewalks on Ninth and 10th streets, as there isn’t enough room for the required 5-foot-wide sidewalk and 5-foot-wide grass.

An Australia native who lives in London has purchased the property to create the museum, the core of whose holdings will be his 15,000-piece collection, according to Patrick Wilshire, an Altoona native and current resident who is the anonymous Australian’s longtime art dealer and his eventual museum director.

Wilshire has been supervising development of the property.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.