This is the Monday, May 11th uh 2026 meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals for the City of Walkish Show.

And uh we will have a call to order.

Kevin Riley present.

Eric Dunst present.

Timothy Redding, present.

Junior Mike on Tim Reddick present.

And uh just for information's sake, uh, we're starting at 4 15 rather than four o'clock because we had some members who had some prior engagements, but I hope that's up okay with everybody.

And uh do we have anybody here for public comment not pertaining to one of the items on the agenda?

Seeing none, we'll move on to the approval of minutes for April 13th.

Do we have a motion to accept the minutes?

Motion to accept the minutes.

I'll second.

First and a second, uh Kevin Rayleigh votes aye.

Eric Dunce votes aye.

Tim Reddick votes aye.

The minutes of April 13th have been uh approved.

And we are on to new business.

We are going to rearrange the order of new business, and instead of the ID 2603 506 being the first item on the agenda, we are going to move on to ID 2603507, the appeal of the Salvation Army of Waukesha County for a dimensional variance from section 22.427A of the zoning code.

If granted, the variance will allow for the construction of a new attached garage at 445 West Madison Street with a street yard setback of eight feet from the third street right of way when there shall be a minimum street yard setback of 25 feet from any street right of way.

All right.

Uh so this is 445 Madison Street.

Uh it's at the uh intersection of Madison Street and Third Street, uh, just up the hill from City Hall.

Uh this is it's the Salvation Army property.

As you can see, the uh the building is uh situated right at the corner uh with a with a parking lot behind it, and then a small additional parking lot uh off of third street up at the top of the hill.

Um the building is there's a kind of a primary mass that's right on on the corner, and then two wings that uh that extend out behind it, so you can see the the one that goes down Madison Street there, and then this is the one that comes out uh along third street.

Uh and uh the applicants would like to add an attached garage uh onto the building at at that third street uh the uh facing towards third street at the top of the hill there.

Um so here you can see this is the uh the topography for the property.

Um as you can see it's built into the hill, and uh the portions of the property that aren't the uh either the building or the uh the parking lots are uh uh very much steep grade that are you know that that it's taking up that hill.

Um so there isn't really much space on the property to expand or add any even a small uh garage without without going into that grade.

Uh so here's the area that they that where they would like to locate the garage.

As you can see that the hill is going down uh from that uh from that space.

So if they moved it uh back even a little further than where they want to put it, uh it would it would have to be into the uh into the parking lot area.

Um you can also see the uh what looks like sort of like a uh an ambulance uh in the parking lot at the base of the hill is the uh is the vehicle that they would like to put into the garage.

It's uh an emergency response vehicle uh that that uh needs to be parked indoors.

Um so they've considered a number of other options.

Uh the most recently they they looked very closely at the possibility of locating a garage behind and potentially attached to uh the small house that's that's at uh that's located to the right of the uh parking lot entrance along Madison Street.

Um so there's the the house that's a one-story formerly uh a residence that they've uh taken over and and they use for uh I believe auxiliary office space.

Um in that location, as you can see, there's uh also a steep grade behind it.

Uh you can see several retaining walls.

Um that would have that would have required some pretty significant grading work and would have uh had some complications with neighbors and uh and with uh utility lines.

So there's the the house that's a one-story formerly a residence that they've uh taken over and and they use for uh I believe auxiliary office space um in that location as you can see there's a also a steep grade behind it uh you can see several retaining walls um they would have that would have required some pretty significant grading work and would have uh had some complications with neighbors and uh and with the utility lines uh so that location ultimately turned out to be not not feasible for the garage um so that was because that location wasn't feasible they had settled on this location instead um this is the uh the footprint for the proposed addition um it will it's intended to line up with the uh with the main with the larger mass of the main building uh closer to Madison Street as you can see that's uh a setback about 11 feet from uh from third street it's also uh about 16 feet from the Madison Street right of way so that it's legal non-conforming uh with the current setbacks for the the district um the building is almost but not quite parallel with the third street right of way so running further back it's a little bit closer to the right of way than than that mass is uh so that would be they're estimating a setback of not less than uh eight feet eight inches for that for the addition and here it is uh the rendering from uh from the east side facing towards the parking lot you can see it'll be built into the hill there'll be a uh foundation uh underneath and then the uh garage up above uh which will have uh brick and uh a roof uh designed to fit in and to match with the rest of the building um here it is again uh at that uh the level of the uh the street so you can see the where it'll fit into the building um and then this is just the elevation facing from Madison Street where it will not there there won't be any visible addition um the garage will be it's again set back about seven feet from the the lot line uh so it'll be less than one vehicle length uh out onto the street um so normally normally a 25 foot setback is required partially uh for the the purpose of uh when there are front facing garages to allow a space for parking in front of the building uh without extending over to over the uh over the sidewalk in this case uh even a normal sized car would probably be extending into third street if it was parked in front of the building uh so that wouldn't really be possible here uh but it is something that's a concern if it was to be used for uh for parking uh so we would ideally like this to be approved with uh a condition whether you whether the board of zoning appeals does it or or the plan commission this will have to go to the plan commission with the condition that that space won't be used for parking uh also if they were to back out the the truck uh it would probably be over the sidewalk before uh before the driver um could see out out from beyond the garage uh so that might be a safety concern as well here they're showing it uh backed in and they have stated that they that they would always back it in and have a spotter um so that may be less of a safety concern but um you may want to consider uh requiring uh uh um some kind of a mirror or something similar to uh aid with the with pulling out uh since we can't require that they we can't really require that they always back the truck in so um again this is just a close up you can see that that seven foot setback and and the uh path for the vehicle uh leading out so again this is 22.42 which is the uh I one institutional district and and the requirement is that there should be a minimum street yard setback of 20 feet 25 feet from the right of way of all streets do we have any uh questions for Charlie in the city before opening it up for discussion seeing none uh do we have anybody here from the uh salvation army who would like to uh speak to the appeal I'm elected if you could step up to the microphone and give your name and your address or your association with the Salvation Army okay my name is Mike Nyman I'm the building facilities director up there but I'm also the EDS coordinator which is the emergency disaster services um so basically that canteen is my responsibility um I know there is a concern about being close to the the street um and we always back the vehicle in um because it's just easy that way there is a camera on back that we can see but we're we our insurance requires us to have a spotter on the back end so there's always a spot that when we're backing in it would never be left outside of the building there's no reason for us to ever park on an apron outside uh if we were to clean the garage we would pull it off into the parking lot and then back it back in um that way so there's no either stall would would never be parked

Um and we always back the vehicle in because it's just easy that way.

There is a camera on back that we can see, but we're we our insurance requires us to have a spotter on the back end, so there's always a spot that when we're backing in.

It would never be left outside of the building.

There's no reason for us to ever park on an apron outside.

Uh if we were to clean the garage, we would pull it off into the parking lot and then back it back in that way.

So there's no either stall would would never be parked outside.

There's just no reason for it.

We wanted to be stored inside.

Um up until this year we were blessed to have the uh uh fire station two from the city was allowing us to park it there, but now they bought another piece of equipment, so uh it's time for us to get our own uh place uh to put it into.

So um we service three different not that you're interested, but we service three different counties, about 32 fire departments.

Um the vehicle itself is 32 feet long, so even with the 25 foot setback, it's still its nose would still hang over the sidewalk, but again, there's no reason for us to to park it outside.

It's either in or out.

There's no there's no in between.

So and one question, it's I see that there it's a it's a two-vehicle garage.

What would the other space be?

Our support trailer is in there, the trailers in the parking lot now, and when that goes out, the van backs into it and and pulls it out.

It doesn't always go out, but it was just uh a thought that as long as we're building a garage, it it would be good maybe to get that out of the weather too, instead of the snow building up on top of it all the time.

So we go out varying times at of the you know the the month that I mean we can go have two months with no calls at all, and then we can have you know seven or eight calls a month.

So um and the I will say that the we do have cameras on that side of the building.