The Board of Zoning Appeals met 06/17/2024. One of the variance requests was from a residential property owner on Leminwah Street who wanted to construct an attached two-car garage 4 ½ feet from her property’s side lot line; however, the city’s Municipal Code requires a setback of at least 6 feet from the side lot line.
The property owner was not able to demonstrate a hardship with the property itself. The hardship she mentioned was that she worked in healthcare and believed that she needed to have an attached two-car garage so that if it was raining at a time when she had to race to the hospital for an emergency, she would not get wet running out to her car.
The board ended up voting unanimously against her variance request because there was no unique hardship associated with the property itself, and the only hardship attached to the resident of the property. Board member Scott Engstrom stated, “I think we’re constrained by case law. Because we don’t have anything here where it’s not particular to the property owner, and when it’s just particular to the property owner, I believe there’s case law on this that we’re not able to consider that, especially if it’s the sole basis.”
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The variance request was somewhat confusing. The property owner had initially submitted an application indicating that she wanted to construct a garage 3 feet from the side lot line.
She then submitted an updated second application indicating she wanted to build a garage 1 ½ feet from the side lot line. She indicated in her updated application that her neighbor was willing to sell her 4 feet of his property.
It took a while for the board members to clarify why she even needed a variance because if she was 3 feet away from the lot line in her first request before the purchase of her neighbor’s land and then she was purchasing 4 feet of land as indicated in her second request, that should have given her enough space to build an attached garage that was 6 feet from the lot line and conformed with code.
It turned out, however, that as initially planned the garage would have only been 6 inches from the lot line, so even after the purchase of 4 feet from her neighbor, the garage would still only be 4 ½ feet from the end of the lot line, leaving her 1 ½ feet short of the 6 feet buffer required by city code.
[It took kind of a long time to for that issue to be figured out and it had a little bit of a Whose On First vibe to it.]
Once that was figured out, the board turned its attention to the matter of trying to determine a hardship. There was no physical hardship. The lot was just a normal, average-sized lot with no out of the ordinary topographical elements.
The hardship as expressed by the homeowner was “I need an attached garage to be able to get to my patients with a life-threatening condition. I have made it to the hospital too late before. When my beeper goes off at two in the morning, I need to speed to the ER. People that have life threatening conditions where a clot could kill them. So I want to make sure that I’m doing everything I possibly can to save a life in time. When I—my beeper goes off, sometimes I—if it’s raining, I’m drenched in my car because I don’t have time to put a coat on. I run. I grabbed my scrubs. I grabbed my coat. I get to my car, and I speed to get to the patient in time, because one of the main things I do is I look for a blood clot. So someone could throw a pulmonary embolism, or I prep someone for an emergency bypass surgery. So the situation is a little bit different. I want to make sure that I’m doing everything I can to make sure that I’m there for the patient right away.”
Later on she stated, “Part of the reason this is really important to me is because no one got to my mom last October. She died of a blood clot. So this is—I want to do everything I can so that this doesn’t happen to other people. Every second counts.”
The board asked about the possibility of making the garage smaller or of only having a one car garage. The garage was already as small as it could be and still be considered a 2-car garage. When asked about the possibility of installing a garage that was two-cars deep instead of 2-cars wide, the applicant said, “The reason I would object to that is because my husband would be parked behind me. If my beeper goes off, I can’t move his car and then play, you know, moving cars. I need to get to the ER.”
The current situation of having an unattached two-car garage was not adequate because when it rained, she got wet running from her house to the garage. She explained, “[W]here we live, it’s hard for me because I’m totally drenched. I don’t even put on a coat when my beeper goes off. I run. I grab my scrubs. I grab my coat. I get in the car, and I literally, I go as fast as I can to the ER. And if I have to change into my scrubs while I’m looking up the patient history, that’s what I do. So this has happened to me a number of times where I have to get in the car, and I’m totally drenched. And I—everything is wet. So it’s just a miserable situation for me.”
Board Chairman Paul McCann understood her personal need for an attached two-car garage. Unfortunately, the variance would not attach to her as a person but to the property for its lifetime. He explained “[I]t sets a bit of a precedent for anybody else who wants to build a garage four and a half feet from the lot line that doesn’t have a physical limitation of the property that wouldn’t allow them to enjoy their house.”
Board member Scott Engstrom believed that they specifically could not consider her personal circumstances when considering the variance request, stating, “I think we’re constrained by case law. Because we don’t have anything here where it’s not particular to the property owner, and when it’s just particular to the property owner, I believe there’s case law on this that we’re not able to consider that, especially if it’s the sole basis.”
The board members went on to vote 4-0 to deny the variance request.
[For what it’s worth, I did an internet search on the applicant’s name and found a medical sonographer by that name listed on LinkedIn. Her work experience indicates that she currently works in Green Bay. While I understand that it’s no doubt disappointing that the variance wasn’t granted, I would think that keeping an umbrella by the door and adding a possible 60 seconds onto her journey by fiddling with that to avoid being rained on would not endanger the lives of patients more than the 30-minute drive from Appleton to the hospital. It does also seem like it might be possible for her to build a garage that was two cars deep and then, on nights when she is on-call, she and her husband could arrange it that she is parked closest to the garage door, so that she doesn’t have to move his car to get out.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1204778&GUID=B0D1EE84-BC99-4001-8A29-149A969D93A6
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