The Board of Building Inspection met 07/16/2025. They had one action item on the agenda which was a variance request for a shed that did not have the code-required concrete slab foundation. The shed which was 10’x12’ (120 square feet) was installed on the property without a permit and was eventually reported to the Inspections Division. The owner applied for a permit and on that permit application that he signed, it was indicated the shed was 8’x12 (96 square feet). Per city code, accessory buildings over 100 square feet are required to have a concrete slab foundation. When an inspection was conducted, the inspector noted that the shed was over 100 square feet and therefore needed a concrete slab which it did not have.
The owner did not deny the underlying facts—i.e. that the shed was 120 square feet and that it did not have a concrete slab—but he requested a variance so that he did not have to alter the situation with his shed. Other than cost and inconvenience, he did not indicate there was any sort of hardship that might necessitate a variance. The board ended up voting to deny the variance request, and the property owner indicated he was going to remove 2 feet of length from the shed thus making it small enough to not require a concrete slab foundation.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
The shed in question is located on a property along a section of Ballard Road where the homeowners have been embroiled in zoning code controversies. Rich, the variance applicant who owned the shed, referred to it as the Civil War of Ballard Road and said that four of his neighbors had experienced code compliance issues.
Two other properties involved in that situation have come before city boards/committees for variance requests. One homeowner had installed a concrete pad as an extension to their driveway that did not conform to code and which they ended up being ordered to remove. The other homeowner had installed a driveway extension that, in several respects, did not conform to city code; in that case, they applied for a variance and were denied, but the members of the Board of Zoning Appeals did brainstorm some ways they might be able to reduce the extent of the work they needed to do to bring their driveway into compliance.
There were some other violations that were presumably dealt with in ways that did not necessitate coming before city committees/boards, and Rich indicated that the “civil war” began with a neighbor’s fence being found in violation of city code.
In terms of the underlying particulars of the specific case pertaining to his shed, Rich didn’t have much of an argument as to why he ought to be granted a variance. The basic facts were, the prefabricated shed was installed without a permit sometime around 2021. It did not have a concrete slab foundation, but instead rested on skids that in turn sat on top of 48 square feet of cement pavers. The shed was 10’x12’ which was 120 square feet total.
After he received a notice from the Inspections Division regarding the lack of a permit for the shed, he applied for a permit. The permit application indicated that the shed was 8’x12’ which would have been only 96 square feet in size. Mayor Woodford who sits on the Board of Building Inspection asked why he had stated on the application that the shed was only 8’x12’ when it was, in reality, 10’x12’. Rich stated that he had not filled out the application himself and was not aware of the shed dimensions written on the application. Regardless of whether or not he himself had filled out the application, he acknowledged that he had signed the application, attesting to the contents of the application.
The one legal argument he made was that Wisconsin state statutes was less restrictive than Appleton’s code and allow buildings up to 150 square feet to have foundations of gravel, cement blocks, or pavers. He did, however, also acknowledge that the Wisconsin state statutes pertaining to this allowed municipalities to implement more restrictive standards.
Fire Department Battalion Chief Derek Henson felt the code very clearly required accessory buildings over 100 square feet to have concrete slab foundations, and said, “I think the intent of that section is very clear that […] the city council wanted a concrete slab underneath all sheds when they adopted that ordinance.”
Mayor Woodford stated, “What I’ve heard so far is that it’s not in dispute that the shed as it exists is out of compliance. The dimensions of the shed are not in dispute. The nature of the slab is not in dispute. From my perspective, the mechanics of the of the reporting doesn’t make much difference in this case, because what we have is a, to me, a clear situation of a building not in compliance. I have not heard anything that would suggest there are appropriate equivalencies for this under the code, nor have I heard that there’s a defined hardship other than the matter of cost and inconvenience that would compel us to consider a variance.”
In the end, the board voted to deny the variance request.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1325288&GUID=2E30936D-95C2-4093-98F4-DEE371BDFB8D
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