What does "Essential Character" mean?

Essential character of the locality means, as a guide to Board decision-making, that it generally appears to be for example, if a landowner requests a setback variance to build an addition to bring a home closer than the required road setback, but no closer than all of the neighboring homes, the requested variance would not alter the “character of the locality.” However, it probably would not meet the “uniqueness” criterion or the “reasonable return” criterion. The “essential character” standard applies to both use and dimensional variances.