On 07/26/2021, the Municipal Services Committee took up item 21-0872 which was a request to “Approve update to Municipal Code Section 4-141 regarding prohibited accessory buildings”. This item included requests to ban the use of shipping containers as sheds and also ban the construction of pole buildings on residential property.
During the previous Municipal Services Committee meeting, the committee had voted to approve the recommendation that pole buildings be completely banned on residential zoned properties. Alderperson Joe Prohaska (District 14), however, voted against that because pole building can now be constructed to look just like normal residential buildings and cost a third of the price of a traditionally constructed garage. When the item came before the Common Council Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked for it to be referred back to the committee because he thought there were some other questions and information that would be good for the committee to discuss before the full Council took it up.
When the item appeared again before the Municipal Services Committee, city staff had updated the recommendation from banning pole buildings completely to allowing them as long as they were no more than 200 square feet.
Director Vandehey said she and Inspections Supervisor Kurt Craanen met with Alderperson Doran and went over some of the concerns that had been raised during the previous Municipal Services Committee meeting. They also met with staff from the planning department, they realized that metal shipping containers are already prohibited in residential zoning areas. Therefore, they want to update the building code to refer to the section that bans shipping containers, to make it more clear in case a person doesn’t think to look in the zoning code and looks in the building code instead.
She said that, regarding pole buildings, as they talked, they realized that it may not be so much the material-type that was the issue but rather the size. They wanted to make sure that a pole building would be in scale with the residential neighborhoods, so staff proposed that pole buildings greater than 200 square feet would be prohibited in residential zoning.
Alderperson Prohaska didn’t understand where the 200 square foot limit was coming from. Were they going to make a blanket 200 square foot limit for any building or just for pole buildings?
Inspections Supervisor Kurt Craanen said, “Two hundred square feet was arbitrary.” They thought that, because pole buildings are cheaper to build that people tend to go bigger with them. They were trying to avoid massive pole buildings that look like they’re agricultural buildings. Rather than limit them completely they thought they’d give people the option of building smaller ones. In the city’s code right now, any accessory building 150 square feet or larger would be considered a garage. This would give residents the option of building a pole building; they would just have to keep the size down.
Alderperson Prohaska responded that the problem he had with this was that the average size of a single car garage is 288 square feet, so the size permitted under these rules was not even a garage but just a shed. If he wanted to build a two car garage that was a pole building, he would not be able to do that under these rules; he would have to build a stick and wood structure. If someone could build a building out of two by fours, plywood, asphalt, shingles, and siding that is within the parameters of Appleton’s code, why couldn’t they build a pole building within those same parameters? To him, these rules sounded like they were just a matter of looks rather than anything else, but what one person might like another person might not like. Does the city therefore, someday come up with a rule that nobody in Appleton can have a blue house because they don’t want to change the looks of the neighborhoods.
His other concern was that there are a lot of dilapidated garages in Appleton right now, and the neighborhoods where those are located are the neighborhoods that they’re trying to preserve the looks of. If those garages were torn down and rebuilt, which is what would have to happen to make them look nice again, all that old construction material will go to the landfill. Asphalt shingles take 300 years to degrade in a landfill. On the other hand, a pole building is all metal; it can all be recycled if it needs to be torn down. So just from an environmental aspect, a pole building is much better than regular construction. He just didn’t understand the need to get rid of an option that people should have.
Director Vandehey said that, to be totally honest with them, the city receives complaints after they issue building permits for pole buildings. People call up and say that was not what they thought their neighbor’s property was going to look like and it’s impacting their property value. She and Inspector Craanen wanted to make sure this came before committee and Council, and if the Council decided residents could build a 4,000 square foot pole building then when permits are issued and residents complain they can say that they brought it to committee and Council and the Council felt those structures were appropriate in residential neighborhoods. [It should be pointed out that a pole building accessory structure can’t be 4,000 square feet because, as Inspections Supervisor Craanen stated later on, the maximum size of an accessory structure is only 1,600 square feet. At any rate…]
She said they were trying to address complaints that they get and were trying to do it by size so that it wasn’t about color or anything like that. She confirmed that, as Inspector Craanen said, the size was arbitrary. If there was a different size or no size, that would be completely up to the committee.
Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) wondered if they could address the size issue but also Alderperson Prohaska’s concerns perhaps by requiring that pole buildings be scaled to the primary residence. She suggested perhaps saying that a pole building or any accessory structure could only be a certain percentage of a primary home. She could understand residents complaining if their neighbors built a pole building 4 times as big as their house, but if the maximum size could only be, for example, 60% of the square footage of the primary living residence, might that be an option that the city could use to address both problems without precluding people from having pole buildings?
Inspector Craanen said the current zoning code included limitations on the size of accessory buildings. 1,600 square feet was the biggest accessory building that could be built, but in no case could it be bigger than the square footage of the primary residence. That was the same for attached garages; a resident couldn’t have a massive garage attached to a tiny house.
Alderperson Hartzheim said she understood that the city got complaints, but what were they trying to fix? If they could get to the root of what they were trying to fix, then perhaps they could find the right fix.
Alderperson Vered Meltzer (District 2) thought they should find a way to make these buildings accessible and legal for Appleton residents to build and appreciated Alderperson Harzheim’s efforts to start walking down that path. It sounded like a percentage was not the right way to go because that was already in the Municipal Code so perhaps setting the size as that of a two car garage would be a good limit since it had already been established the current suggested limit was arbitrary. When thinking about the uses people would have for these buildings, a two car garage was reasonable. Based on experience with the sorts of things people complain about, things larger than that tended to be complained about, so they stood a good chance of eliminating those complaints by setting the size limitation at a two car garage sized building. [That was almost exactly what I had been thinking.]
Alderperson Doran said the discussion with staff had been really interesting. They tried to tackle the issue from a number of different angles and that was how they came up with the 200 square foot number. In his mind, they were looking at these as accessory buildings that were more like sheds than garages and maybe led them down that path. He thought some of the things they were also trying to prevent was the unauthorized uses of accessory buildings such as someone running a business out of a pole building on their property in a residential neighborhood. He said that was certainly an option given the cost of being able to build one. So that, he thought, was where they came up with the idea that restricting the size might be a happy medium. He thought limiting them to 200 square feet was a place to start and they could always revisit it in the future if they found it was more restrictive than they wanted it to be. He said he favored trying to allow residents to make the best and most cost effective use of their property as they could and hoped they could strike a balance to address some of the concerns that neighbors have while also giving people as much flexibility as they could. City staff had indicated that this is what they felt comfortable with, and he thought they should look to them as experts on this.
He started to make an amendment to limit pole buildings to 200 square feet, but Attorney Behrens said that wasn’t necessary because they were operating from the July 26th memo that had the updated proposal regarding a 200 square foot limit in it already.
Alderperson Siebers responded to what Alderperson Doran had said regarding the fear that somebody could have a very large building and run a business out of it. He thought zoning played a key role in that. A person could have a large building, but if they were not properly zoned to run a business out of it then they couldn’t do that. “So that’s a weak argument in regards to prohibiting or not allowing these structures.”
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) appreciated Alderperson Prohaska’s point about the environmental aspects of pole buildings. She agreed with Alderperson Siebers that city zoning covers using these buildings for commercial enterprises. She also [rightly in my opinion] pointed out that if people were going to complain that somebody put up a big pole building next door they would certainly complain if somebody was running a business out of that pole building. She had come around to believing that someone should be able to put up a pole building garage. Her question to staff and to all her colleagues was a garage could be 1,600 square feet; did they want to leave it at that or did they want to put more restrictions? Bottom line, she would be willing to say you can build a garage, subject to the current restrictions that are already in place, but she would also ask staff what further restrictions do they need on these to make someone able to build a garage?
Director Vandehey said if she understood Alderperson Fenton correctly to be saying she wanted property owners to be able to use pole building material to build a garage in line with current code then she would need to make an amendment to remove item number two from the recommendation they were voting on. That would result in accessory buildings being all treated the same rega5dkess of construction type.
Alderperson Firkus said they have numerous codes that control the construction of accessory buildings. They also have ordinances that control the use of property so he didn’t think they needed to look to this rule to solve the question of whether someone was going to run a small manufacturing business out of a shed in their backyard. At the same time, he was sure the complaints came because people didn’t want their neighborhoods to look like light industrial neighborhoods. If a neighborhood had a lot of lower end of pole barns being built with gravel foundations, it might start looking more like a storage facility or an industrial site in a residential neighborhood. So that’s where he thought the contention came from because people wanted their neighborhoods to look like neighborhoods and not like light industrial zoned areas.
He thought the committee was now at the place of trying to figure out how they wanted to address that complaint given the fact that pole buildings and their uses are valid. A lot of the concerns that they were talking about were already covered by current zoning code, regarding usage and size.
He did a little bit of research into pole buildings, and, as Alderperson Prohaska had mentioned during one of the meetings, there are many stylings available and they can look identical to stick buildings. In fact, there are municipalities within the state that actually allow property ownerns to construct pole building living units. His two cents on this was that pole buildings themselves could be legitimately used in whatever fashion traditionally constructed buildings are used.
He also understood that the style and asthetic and how people see that in their neighborhoods was creating some upset, but it was a harder thing for the city to set aesthetic standards for these buildings that were enforceable, so he would be open to not having that square footage restriction since one of the concerns here was that they didn’t want to put a special restriction on pole buildings.
Alderperson Prohaska responded to a couple of Alderperson Firkus’ concerns. Gravel foundations were already not allowable under current code, and any garage, regardless of construction type, needed to have a poured concrete slab. It was also possible to make a traditionally constructed building look exactly like a pole building. He saw absolutely no reason to take the option of pole buildings away from people given that it was more environmentally friendly and economically viable. With that he made a motion to amend the item to remove section (f)(2) which currently stated “Pole buildings greater than 200 sq. ft. are prohibited in residential zoning.”
Alderperson Fenton seconded it.
Alderperson Siebers asked Director Vandehey if she could give them an idea of how many complaints about pole buildings they had received.
Director Vandehey said they received “a handful” which she then clarified to be “3-5” over the last couple years.
The amendment to remove the recommendation to ban pole buildings over 200 square feet was approved 4-1 with Alderperson Siebers voting nay.
The item as amended was then approved 5-0.
[Frankly, I don’t understand what’s going on with this. I didn’t understand when the item came before the committee on June 21, and I understand even less now.
It seems there is a portion of the population in Appleton that likes pole buildings and has applied for permits to erect them. There is another portion of the population (3-5 people over the last two years) that doesn’t like them and has complained to city staff about them. I do not understand why city staff looked at that situation and unilaterally decided to side with the people complaining by first presenting a recommendation that pole buildings be banned completely and then updating their recommendation to limit pole buildings to a size smaller than even a one car garage.
It seems to me that in this sort of situation, it would be better for city staff to not take sides but rather approach the situation in a more neutral manner. It would have made more sense to me if they had come to the committee and said they’ve had however many applications for pole buildings in the last two years and they’ve received however many complaints about those buildings, explained why they felt this was a potential issue the committee should review, perhaps presented a range of possible solutions, but ultimately left it up to the committee without making a firm recommendation themselves. When it comes down to it, this issue doesn’t appear to be something city staff would have any more expertise about than anybody else would given that is seems purely about aesthetics. It doesn’t involve safety like the recommended electrical code updates do, nor does it involve operational logistics the way the updates to the city’s snow removal and leaf/yardwaste/bulky overflow collection practices did, so I am baffled as to why staff seemed to come down so firmly on the side opposed to pole buildings when they’re not affected much either way and they don’t seem to have particularly clear reasons that would support the limitations they were recommending.]
View full Municipal Services Committee meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=859287&GUID=E1C1288E-70A7-4C6C-879E-22E7ACB89149&Options=info|&Search=
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