Since it’s a quiet committee week, I thought I would go back to October and recap the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting that happened on 10/18/2021. I do really enjoy watching variance requests play out, and I view the Board of Zoning Appeals as Appleton’s version of a really laid back, unscripted reality tv show. Even though everyone seems totally normal and there’s no drama, I really like seeing ordinary people getting variances for ordinances that have turned out to cause unexpected hardships for them.
The Board actually considered 3 separate variance requests that day, but I will only recap the first in this post.
Mike and Amy own a small property on Clara Street. They wanted to install a seating area with a permanent gazebo/shade structure in their back yard; however, when they went to get the building permit for the project, it was discovered that 56% of the lot was covered with impervious material when, per city code, only a maximum of 40% could be covered with impervious material.
The staff analysis concluded that the homeowners had caused the violation by expanding the concrete area around their pool, but, during the board discussion, it appeared that may not have been as cut and dried as it sounded in the memo. Either way, the initial recommendation by city staff was that because the property was smaller than a minimum sized lot, they still met the hardship criteria necessary to obtain a variance due to the dimensional limitations of the lot.
Board Chairman Paul McCann started proceedings out by explaining that all the cases would be reviewed in their entirety that evening and that in order for a variance to be granted all four of the board members would need to vote in favor of it.
Mike and Amy explained that they didn’t even know this was an issue until they sought the building permit. The pool was already installed when they bought the house. It used to be a lot larger than it currently is, but the pipes were leaking. When they got the pipes fixed, they also decided to fill in part of the pool and make it smaller because they no longer wanted to have a pool that large.
Later in the meeting, it was explicitly established that the entire pool itself—not just the paved areas around it—was considered a non-impervious surface, and everyone laughingly acknowledged that it was a little funny that a big hole in the ground specifically made for collecting water did not qualify as a non-impervious surface.
There were some moments when Mike stepped away from the microphone, so there were some details that I could not here. Basically, it sounded like a vast majority of surface that they had poured concrete on had already been impervious but, if I heard correctly, he did indicate they had paved some smaller additional areas. Based on the city’s property viewer, it appears that there were indeed a couple extra areas paved.
2017 Birds Eye View 
2020 Birds Eye View
Even if Mike and Amy didn’t pour an ounce more of additional concrete for their current project, they were still well over the 40% limit on impervious surfaces, and because their property was not in compliance the city would not issue them a building permit for the gazebo until they brought their property into compliance either by decreasing the paved surface area or by getting a variance for the requirement.
[Mike sounded pretty nervous to me when he was speaking, and I expect that it can be a pretty intimidating thing to (a) have to navigate all the various city rules surrounding utilizing and improving your property and (b) have to appear and plead your case before a committee that will decide if you’re going to get in trouble for having not met one of the rules somewhere in the hundreds of pages of municipal code.]
The question was: what was the hardship the homeowners were experiencing? As Chairman McCann explained at one point in the meeting, there has to be a reason to grant a variance and that reason has to be related to a hardship. A hardship can’t simply be an economic issue but, rather, related to some impairment with the lot, such as being an unusual shape.
Inspections Supervisor Kurt Craanen explained that their lot was a non-conforming lot of record. Per the memo he had submitted, the parcel was only 6,900 square feet but the minimum size lot in an R1A district is 8,000 square feet.
Board member Kelly Sperl did some quick math and said that their lot was a little over 14% smaller than a minimum allowed lot size. Calculating the 56% lot coverage that existed on the property and comparing it to the 40% coverage that would be allowed on a normal minimum-sized, it turned out that those numbers would come within a few square feet of each other.
Chairman McCann asked, “So this much impervious surface on an 8,000 square foot minimum lot would be acceptable?”
Board member Sperl said it would be within 8 square feet, so very close.
Essentially, the amount of pavement they currently had on their 6,900 square foot lot would fit the municipal code requirements if it were on an 8,000 square foot lot.
As a side question, board member Chris Croatt was curious why the 40% pavement issue had not been caught when the pool was first constructed. Inspections Supervisor Craanan said that, if a permit had been applied for, his department would have done that calculation. It didn’t seem to me that it was determined one way or the other whether a permit had ever been applied for to build the pool in the first place. But, all of that was just a side issue because the pool had been installed on the property prior to Mike and Amy purchasing the property.
With all of that discussion having been completed, Chairman McCann said he would entertain a motion from the board.
Board member Croatt said, “Based on the size of this lot, I will make a motion to approve the variance.”
Board member Sperl seconded that, and the board voted 4-0 to approve the variance request.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=894382&GUID=2F12B96D-8620-4C0B-B16F-14CB70512872
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