The saga of Michael and his unpermitted driveway extension which violates city code rolls on.
Basically, Michael is in the process of fixing up his property and had a large portion of his front yard stretching from his driveway to his front walkway paved with concrete which he planned to have painted with a mural and then also use on rare occasion to park his vehicle when he had guests over parked in his driveway.
He did not take out a permit for the work, and, beyond that, the size of the space which was paved violated city code which only allowed driveway extensions to encroach 4’ into the front yard.
This item first appeared before the Municipal Services Committee on 07/25/2022. Michael himself was not able to attend, but his contractor did appear on his behalf. During that meeting, it seemed that an acceptable solution had been agreed upon in which the contractor would—instead of removing the entire paved area—remove a portion of the concrete, keeping the front walkway, a 4’ driveway extension, and a path from the driveway to the front walkway. The committee voted to hold the item until the next meeting to give Michael time to bring his property into compliance with this new proposal; however…
When the committee met again two weeks later, Michael himself was in attendance. For reasons unexplained, he seemed to have not checked in with his contractor as to how the previous meeting had gone, and he was not aware of the tentative agreement that had been reached as to how to fix the situation. He complained that there had been poor communication from Inspections Supervisor Craanen throughout the entire situation [although, to be fair, I didn’t necessarily get the impression that Michael was a reliable narrator]. He asked for a variance in order to keep the entire paved area, but that request ended up being denied 4-1.
The variance request then went to the full Common Council on 08/17/2022 at which point Alderperson William Siebers (District 1) requested that the item be referred back to the Municipal Services Committee.
It wound up back before the committee on 08/22/2022 at which point it appeared that neither Michael nor a representative appearing on his behalf was in attendance.
Department of Public Works Deputy Director Ross Buetow told the committee that the Public Works Department was asking for the item to be held. He said that Director Danielle Block and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator Terrence “Timber” Smith met with the property owner last week and came up with a resolution to the issue that was satisfactory to everyone. That solution entailed removing a portion of the driveway and, once that happened, the variance request would become moot and could be withdrawn. [So, essentially, it sounds like the same solution that was agreed upon during the Municipal Services Committee meeting back in July.]
City staff had been hoping to hear back from the property owner, and earlier on 08/22/2022 Director Block had requested either an email response or some other sort of response from Michael prior to the meeting. They did not receive that response, however, and were, therefore, requesting that the item be held until the next Municipal Services Committee meeting to give time to hear back from Michael.
There was no discussion about this or questions from the committee and they voted 5-0 to approve the request to hold the item until the next committee meeting.
[I don’t know what the odds are that this will be resolved by the time the next Municipal Services Committee rolls around. Given that it was theoretically resolved a month ago and yet is still ongoing, I’m not holding my breath that it will be fixed by 09/12/2022.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=982993&GUID=0F97248C-E1D7-411F-9D54-FCB23476798B
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