Since it was a slow week last week in terms of city meetings, I had an opportunity to go back and listen to the July Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. They took up two variance requests. The first was a variance request to allow a property owner to replace an existing 6-foot-tall fence with another 6-foot-tall fence even though the fence was technically in the front yard and City Code has a 3-foot tall heigh limit on font-yard fences.
The second variance request was from Engage Orthodontics at the corner of Calumet and Matthias Street. They were hoping to add 4-5 additional parking stalls to their parking lot, but they could not do that due to the 8-foot landscape buffer requirements for C2 Commercial properties laid out in the City Code. They wanted to reduce that buffer requirement to 5-feet.
The board spent a lot of time reviewing their request but were not able to come up with a cogent explanation of a hardship related to the property that would allow them to grant a variance so they ended up voting against the request.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
The business, in some respects, seemed to be a victim of its own success. The property had been an orthodontics clinic for what sounded like decades, and had 20 regular parking stalls and 1 handicapped stall. The minimum number of stalls required by city code was 14. The current owner purchased the business around 2017 and did an interior remodel, adding more chairs. She also, somewhat reluctantly, took over the patients from a retiring orthodontist. Due to the growth of the business, there could now be 20 patients at any given time in the building and 100 patients could cycle though throughout the day.
21 parking stalls no longer meet the needs for the business and staff and some patients needs to park on the street which has caused some issues with neighbors. Although the building is a commercial building, it abuts a residential neighborhood. Engage has rented space for staff members to park in the parking lot of the church across Calumet Street from the business in order to free up spots for patients, but that has not solved the problem.
Realistically, Engage probably needs 10 more spots, so 4 more parking spots would not solve the issues they were experiencing, but they would be better than nothing.
The problem with their variance request was that there really was no physical hardship related to the property. The business had operated as an orthodontic clinic for many years with no issue. In fact, board chairman Paul McCann’s three daughters had all received services there under the prior management.
Additionally, variances related to parking spaces normally are requesting permission to have fewer parking stalls than required by city code. This request was for a variance that would reduce the landscape buffering requirements so that they could add additional parking spots, but the rules for reviewing variances did not necessarily cover that sort of situation.
The one physical oddity of the property that could potentially be considered a hardship was the fact that there was a storm water easement on the west side of the property. However, although it was stated in the staff report that this easement “does limit the number of parking spaces that may be added to this lot”, that was not necessarily true because the easement overlaps with the landscape buffer area laid out in city code that applied to all C2 properties whether or not easements existed on them.
The question was raised as to whether or not the business had simply outgrown this location. The property owner agreed that, in some respects they had; however, the location which was very close to East High School and Madison Middle School was ideal for an orthodontic clinic. Additionally, she and her husband were each 47 years old and had already invested a lot in this property. Starting over at a new location with a huge investment at 47 years of age was not an appealing prospect.
The board members appreciated all of those considerations and seemed to give careful thought to the benefits and drawbacks of reducing the landscape buffering requirements. The situation as it currently existed contained safety issues related to cars with children having to park on the street and then those children crossing the street to get to the clinic. At the same time, reducing the landscape buffer also could result in safety issues such as cars overhanging the sidewalk and reduced visibility for drivers as they pulled out of the lot. Chairman McCann was also concerned that granting a variance could result in unforeseen safety issues going forward, which was something to bear in mind given that the variance would remain with the property forever, beyond the current owners.
And, of course, there really was no tangible physical hardship related to the property that the board members could settle on. Ultimately, that was the issue that the board was not able to overcome, and they voted 4-0 against granting the variance.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1110451&GUID=7B2F14C3-118C-4175-996F-9CEE906181B2
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