The Board of Zoning Appeals met 06/19/2023.
They were initially slated to review two variance requests. The first pertained to a car wash that wanted to construct a drive-through in the front yard. That item, however, ended up being withdrawn.
The board ended up only needing to hear one variance request. This pertained to a request to alter the lot line between two properties along S Memorial Drive. An inground pool currently straddled the lot line making both properties unsellable. The applicant wanted to alter the lot lines so that the pool was fully on one lot. The only way to do this resulted in one of the properties having lot coverage of 55% but the city’s zoning code ordinance allowed lot coverage of no more than 50%, hence the need for a variance.
The Board of Zoning appeals ended up granting the variance after concluding that it would theoretically be possible to get the correct coverage on both lots if the lines were drawn at an angle instead of straight but current civil engineering practices and record keeping for lot sizes and configurations discouraged drawing lines in that way.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
The properties were both originally owned by Robert Kolosso, the founder Kolosso Auto Sales in Appleton, who passed away in 2001 and his wife Joan who passed away in 2021, and their daughter Barb was the one making this variance request which she believed was necessary in order to settle her parents’ estate and sell the properties.
She explained to the board that her parents had bought the properties in the 1970s and installed the inground pool in the backyard around 1975. The pool was located on one property but the equipment for the pool was located in the garage on the other property. Given this situation, neither property was currently sellable. The options were (1) change the lot lines so that the pool and its mechanics were all on one lot, (2) move the pool equipment, a project that was prohibitively expensive, or (3) take the pool out.
The staff report from Inspections Supervisor Kurt Craanen regarding the variance request indicated that the pool was installed without a permit; however, that was not necessarily true. Supervisor Craanen noted that the city’s digital records only went back to 1981-82, so a pool permit issued in the mid ‘70s would not be part of that. “Possibly there was a permit taken out, but I don’t have any record of it.” Barb was certain her father would have gotten a permit, but he died in 2001 and she had no idea where it would be or where to even start looking for it. She also thought he had probably intended to change the lot lines but had obviously not gotten around to it.
The board members struggled for a bit on what to do with this variance request. Variances cannot be granted due to financial hardship. As board member Scott Engstrom explained, the properties being left unsellable due to this issue, “while that’s something that is obviously not desirable, or none of us would see as desirable, it’s not something we can really consider for purposes of a hardship.”
They also struggled with how small of a lot coverage percentage Barb was wanting a variance for. The Municipal Code allowed no more than 50% lot coverage and she wanted 55%. The board asked what the reason for the lot coverage rules was. Supervisor Craanen said that part of was to maintain greenspace and community standards and the other part was to allow drainage so that when it rained everything was not going into the storm sewers but instead could also be absorbed into the ground.
Given the relatively small amount of space it would take to get the lot down from 55% coverage to 50% coverage, the board members discussed the possibility of angling one of the lines instead of keeping it straight so that some of the difference could be made up, hopefully allowing the property to reach 50% coverage without the need of a variance. Supervisor Craanen told the board that “they” don’t like irregular shapes. [I took “they” to refer to the city and the officials in charge of recording lot shapes and dimensions.]
Board member Kelly Sperl eventually suggested that one could argue there was a hardship given the progression of time and the changing of codes. Although this problem was in some respects owner-created in that the owner had installed the pool the way he had, the change in civil design practices now also prevented them from being able to draw irregular lot lines in a way it would not have back in the 70s.
Utilizing this reasoning, the board ultimately voted 4-0 to approve the variance request.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1105314&GUID=ED4C110A-47D7-4D07-B56A-0333746601E4
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