The Mathews County Board of Zoning Appeals denied a request for one variance and granted another for Doswell residents Mark and Candice Eubank during a public hearing on an appeal last Wednesday.

The Eubanks had applied to Planning and Zoning Director Thomas Jenkins for after-the-fact permits for their Gwynn’s Island summer cottage on Sweet Gum Road, but Jenkins denied them, and they appealed his decision to the BZA.

One request was to allow an already-constructed porch addition on the cottage’s water side to continue to encroach into the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Acre Overlay District. The other was to allow encroachments into setbacks by an 8’ x 26’ screened porch, an 8’ x 18’ open deck and a 56-square-foot triangle-shaped deck, all of which the county said were built without zoning permits.

The Eubanks came before the BZA last year after Jenkins charged them with four violations of the zoning ordinance. At that time, the board found in favor ...