The Board of Zoning Appeals met 06/17/2024. One of the variance requests they took up was from a property owner on Linwood and Badger who wanted to build a single stall garage on their property. The lot is small and triangular in shape so anywhere he built the garage it would be both (a) in the front yard and (b) closer than 20 fee from the front yard property line.
Section 23-43(f)(1)(e) of the city’s zoning ordinance prohibits accessory buildings in the front yard and section 23-93(g)(4) of the zoning ordinance requires a 20-foot front yard setback for any structure built on a property.
Given the small size and irregular shape of the lot, the Boar of Zoning Appeals did end up voting 4-0 to grant both of the applicant’s variance requests. However, it is possible that he still will not be able to build a garage where he wants to, at least not immediately, because he needs to get a curb cut for a driveway to the garage. The location where he was proposing the garage would result in the driveway being placed right next to a large cottonwood tree. Section 23-50 of the zoning ordinance requires a 10-foot vision corner at the end of a driveway by the sidewalk. Because of the existing tree, the applicant’s proposed layout would not conform to city code and he would not be granted a curb cut from the Engineering Department.
The applicant had been given an $8,000 quote from a contractor to cut down the tree which was outside his financial means at this point, but it is possible that he will be able to save up that money in the future and get the tree cut down at a later date, in which case, the variances granted at this meeting will have opened a path for him to be able to build a single car garage on his property.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
This is not the first time Glen, the owner of this property, has come before the Board of Zoning Appeals with an application for a variance to facilitate the building of a garage. In 2022, he tried to get a variance that would have allowed him to build a garage connected to his existing driveway which connects to Badger Avenue. That variance was denied because the property has an existing variance for a 6-foot-tall fence along the Badger Avenue property line. The fence was directly next to the driveway entrance/exit, and the board was concerned about creating vision issues were they to allow the installation of a garage in addition to the fence, so they denied the variance.
During that 2022 meeting there was discussion about the feasibility of having the garage face Linwood instead of Badger, but there were issues with that. The tree would have to be taken down to make space for that, and any garage would not be able to utilize the existing curb cut on the Badger Avenue side of the house but would need a new curb cut on the Linwood side. It was unlikely the city would allow a third curb cut for the property, but it was possible that Glenn could work with the city to eliminate one curb cut to allow a new one to be made.
Now, in 2024, Glenn came forward with a new variance request asking for exactly the hypothetical that had been discussed at the meeting in 2022—i.e. to place a garage facing toward Linwood instead of toward Badger Avenue. The problems that had been discussed in the 2022 meeting were still problems, which is to say, the board could grant a variance to build a garage but the Engineering Department was the entity in charge of granting curb cuts, so Glenn would still have to work with Engineering to be granted a curb cut.
Additionally, the tree on that side of the lot had not been cut down as had been discussed at that previous meeting, so the board had concerns about visibility issues when pulling out of the proposed driveway that would run right past the tree. Glenn believed that even with the tree, Glenn believed that the situation would be safer because the tree caused no more visibility issues than the current fence he has to pull out past on Badger, and Linwood is a much less busy street than Badger Avenue which he currently has to exit on to.
A wrinkle was that, since Glenn first appeared before the board back in June of 2022, the Common Council approved updates to the city code allowing homeowner to grow gardens in the terraces of their properties. Part of this proposal included new rules requiring that vision corners be maintained on the corners of properties and near the ends of driveways. Now, as a result, even if the Board of Zoning Appeals granted Glenn a variance to build a garage in the location he wanted, he would still not be issued a permit until he removed the tree because the tree was in the vision corner and would cause the proposed driveway to be non-conforming to the city code in a way that he had not received a variance to overcome.
The board eventually voted 4-0 to grant Glenn the two variances he had requested. They recognized that, given the physical layout of the property it was impossible to build a garage on in without receiving a variance. They also believed that they would not be increasing the safety issues that currently exist on the property but might actually be decreasing them because Linwood is a quieter street than is Badger Avenue, so exiting onto Linwood instead of Badger was probably safer.
The variances granted would not guarantee that Glenn would be able to build a garage where he wanted because the existence of the tree meant that the proposed driveway would not conform to city code. As a result, city staff would not issue a permit for him to install that driveway. However, the variances did open up the possibility that sometime in the future, if he was able to take the tree down, he would be able to pursue building a garage on that lot.
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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