This is the Monday, April 13th, 2026 meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals for the City of Waukeshaw.

And we are ready to have a call to order.

Kevin Riley present.

Eric Dunn's present.

Tim Reddick present.

Do you guys have your mics on?

I do not.

Tim Reddick present.

Eric Dunn's present.

Okay.

Do we have any public comment not concerning the uh appeal that's on the record for today?

Seeing none, we can move on to the approval of minutes for February 16th.

Proof.

We have a first.

Do we have a second?

Second.

First by Tim Reddick, second by Eric.

Kevin Riley votes aye.

Eric Dunn says aye.

Tim Reddick votes aye.

The minutes are approved.

On to new business.

All right.

So we have an appeal from Wisconsin Historic or Wisconsin Housing Preservation Corporation to allow solar panels on in the what is defined by the code as the side yard of their property.

So this is 801 North East Avenue.

It's at the intersection of it's on East Avenue at the intersection of East and South Street, just kind of on the eastern edge of downtown.

This is the East Terrace Apartments.

So basically the full property is either the apartments or the parking.

So the primary array will be on the on the top of the building.

As you can see, that's all these blue blue lines here in this overhead.

And then the secondary one will be in the parking lot to the south of the building in two separate uh two separate sections, which will also be utilized to shade the parking spaces in the parking lot.

So here are the here's a view of the parking lot from the entrance, and then also uh from the other side.

Uh as you can see the building to the south is I believe that's uh Catholic Charities.

It's a the uh uh single story uh commercial building with uh very limited uh uh visibility in terms of windows uh on that side.

Uh the uh arrays again that'll be two sections, uh one over the uh row of parking uh immediately adjacent to East Avenue, and then the other one over uh the two rows in the center of the parking lot, and uh they'll be uh they'll have they'll be arranged as as a carport with uh um supports in between the parking spaces.

Uh this is the larger of the two arrays, so the it'll be uh 40 49 feet wide by I believe it was 60 feet long, um, and then at least 14 feet uh clearance above the uh parking spaces uh with metal supports and then uh concrete base that'll extend on our ground and it'll be angled so that the uh so the rear side is a little higher than the than the front, and then this is the other uh the smaller section, uh which will be about 22 feet wide, and it again that'll extend over a single parking space, and again it'll have the 14-foot clearance.

Um be uh mounted on metal brackets uh which will then be mounted into concrete bases in the ground.

And uh this is the uh the code's definition uh from the code's definitions for a street yard and a rear yard.

Uh the street yard is the is the entire uh space in front of the front, uh closer to the uh front of the building, and then on a uh a double frontage lot, uh both sides are considered to be street yards.

So the on this right side here you can see uh the street yard is both the yard in front of the building and behind uh when it faces the street.

The side yard is obviously the sections that are not street yards.

So for this building, uh the street yard uh is both the orange here adjacent to East Avenue and then uh adjacent to Pleasant Street, and then the side yard is this portion uh on either side, uh including the parking lot to the south, and there is not there is not a rear yard.

So the code requires any accessory structure to be uh in a rear yard only, not in a street yard or side yard.

There really isn't a space on this property uh for an accessory structure.

Um the uh again, this is the where the array will be located.

It'll be uh minimum of five feet uh set back from the property of the south, 40 feet from uh East Avenue, 30 feet from the property boundary, roughly uh in those two sections in the parking lot, and here's the other the other street yard uh facing uh Pleasant Street.

So the applicants have have argued that basically every other property uh in the area has has a rear yard uh where they can locate accessory structures, but theirs does not have any space that would that would meet this code requirement.

Uh so this is the uh the regulation that they're requesting a variance from, which uh states that accessory uses and detached accessory structures shall be permitted in the rear yard only, not in a street yard or side yard.

Is that your full report term?

Yep.

Uh I have uh one question.

Do we have any specific regulations concerning solar panels?

Or the only reason the solar panels are coming up is because they need to be mounted on an accessory structure.

Right, yeah.

We don't uh the current code does not have any anything specific to solar panels.

So there are this general regulation applies to any accessory structure at all, but uh there aren't anything any regulations that are specific to solar panels.

And my second question would be if this property were to have a uh what would be designated a rear yard, would these structures then be compliant or still need an appeal?

Um they would be yeah, they would be permitted in the rear yard.

Uh they would have to go to the plan commission, and and if this is approved, uh if you approve a variance, they will still have to go to the plan commission for the site plan and architecture review.

But um, assuming that you know the plan commission approved it, they would they would be permitted.