The Board of Zoning Appeals met 12/18/2023. One of the variance requests they took up was a request from the owner of a property on W Seymour Street to erect a 6-foot-tall fence 13 feet from what was technically the front yard property line even though the city zoning ordinance required fences over 3 feet tall to be built at least 20 feet back from the front property line.
While the homeowner wanted to erect a fence closer than 20 feet from what was technically the front property line, this house was located on a lot that abutted two streets, Seymour Street on the south side and Riverview Lane on the north side. So, this was functionally the back yard of the property. This sort of situation has been one that has come up fairly frequently before the Board of Zoning Appeals, and in this case the board voted to grant the variance, allowing the owner to build a 6-foot fence 13 feet from the property line along Riverview Lane.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
The request and discussion around it were both fairly straightforward. The owner had just recently purchased the property and for privacy reasons wanted to erect a 6-foot fence in what was functionally the back-yard of her property, but if she had to adhere to the 20-foot setback requirement that would leave very little yard to fence in. The fence would still be 13 feet from the property line and would line up with the neighbor’s garage so would not impact sight lines for people. Additionally, for many years, there had been bushes that were over six feet tall right up along the property line. These, the new homeowner had removed, and it seemed that replacing them with a fence that was farther back would actually improve the line-of-sight issues along the property.
The entire neighborhood along Riverview Lane was older and it looked like there were multiple properties that did not conform to Appleton’s modern zoning ordinance. The neighbor’s garage, for instance, was only 13 feet back from the property line, but the modern zoning ordinance required accessory buildings to be at least 20 feet back from the front yard property line.
Board Chairman Paul McCann expressed some concern that a 6-foot-tall fence would make it more difficult for the property owner to see anybody walking along the street as she pulled out of her driveway; however, there was a full car length between the fence and the street and it didn’t seem like line-of-sight issues were particularly problematic.
Given the unique condition of the property in question with two front yards, as well as the uniqueness of the overall neighborhood which had resulted in the existence of multiple other lots nearby with property features that were legally non-conforming to the modern code, the board ended up voting unanimously to approve the request for a variance.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1139601&GUID=1640BAC8-6BCC-4A7F-AABD-43DCB9DFCD1B
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