I deal with property issues and building permits for a living. I would HIGHLY recommend photographing and getting approx setbacks from your neighbors' properties. If you can show a precedent with adjacent properties you can claim that you are trying to make your property consistent with its surrounding properties… As long as you aren't trying to exceed what the neighboring properties have, you should be in good shape. You are trying to show that you aren't doing anything out of the ordinary for the area. Also, you should be able to show when the property was built on and understand if the rules have changed since then. A lot of times, you can claim that the new rules didn't apply to your neighbors and therefore, you aren't lowering their property value or creating a hardship for the jursidiction by decreasing the setback. Most of the time, if you can get a neighbor to support you in the hearing, you will be WAY more likely to get the variance. If you have a good relationship with your neighbors, I'd highly recommend asking them to show up and speak in favor of granting the variance.
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