Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I now call to order the Wednesday, 01/28/2026 meeting of the Appleton City Plan Commission. Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Roll call membership has been taken. All are represented with the exceptions of Commissioner Eitenbrock, who is excused. And we will mark Commissioner Robbins excused, we will update the minutes if she does appear. Bruno Long, we need a motion to approve the minutes of our previous meeting. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve. Is there any discussion of the minutes? Hearing none, all those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. With none opposed, the minutes have been approved. Right on to public hearings and appearances.

We have one public hearing today. This is item 20 six-seventy six, rezoning number nine twenty five for the subject parcels located at 2610 North Oneida Street, 2624 North Oneida Street, and 2615 North Morrison Street, including to the center line of the adjacent street right of way as shown on attached maps from R1B single family district to PI Public Institutional District. And Colin is going to tell us about this one. All right.

Go ahead. Thank you. So the item before the Planned Commission today is for the proposed rezoning of three parcels that are currently zoned R1B single family district to the PI Public Institutional District. Currently, all three parcels are actually vacant. Two of the parcels had houses demoed in 2011 and 2012, and then the most recent one was in 2023.

So this is an older aerial map. This proposal is being made to facilitate the combination of these three parcels with the main Xavier parcel to the north. In order for lot combination to occur, all of the parcels have to be in the same zoning district. There's also an associated action item, which is for the CSM to combine these parcels as the CSM crosses a plat boundary line. Staff reviewed this against Plan Appleton, our comprehensive plan, and the future land use map in Plan Appleton.

This specific location is in the urban neighborhood future land use category. Staff made their determination that this does comply with the comp plan based on the following components. One, the intent of the urban neighborhood future land use category to encourage compatible infill, specifically given that the subject parcels are currently vacant. Two, the allowance of secondary land uses, such as schools in the urban neighborhood future land use category and three, the allowance of small to medium scale nonresidential uses, such as schools to expand into adjacent residential areas where appropriate. Based on this interpretation, while staff do support and recommend this rezoning for the three parcels, interpretation, staff does want to notify the property owner that future proposals to further expand the PI zoning district into those adjacent residential parcels that are zoned R1B and have existing houses on them would not be supported in the future.

So while this proposal does align with the comp plan, this is sort of the opportunity to expand this campus site for the middle school, but this would likely be the furthest extent of such a rezoning based on staff's interpretation of Plan Appleton. I would also like to note that should this develop, whether it's a building or other accessory structures or a parking lot, it would have to go through a site plan review. That would involve staff from all applicable departments looking at the proposal and making sure that there's conformance with all codes, everything from setbacks to landscaping, etcetera. Lastly, just want to make the plan commission aware that some neighbors did put together an email, and that was sent to me today and is in front of you today as well. That'll also be placed on the meeting minutes along with the full agenda.

With that, staff is recommending approval of this rezoning.

Okay. All right. So before we open this public hearing, I just want to note that during public hearings, members of the public who'd like to speak on this item are certainly welcome to do so, are not subject to the same time limits that appear during common counsel public participation. But I will also note that during public hearings at Plan Commission, we don't engage in dialogue between members of the public and the commission or staff. So if questions are posed during the testimony that's offered, we'll make an effort to make note of those and address the questions that we can in real time, or we may ask staff to prepare answers for future discussions of this item.

So with that, we'll open this public hearing. Again, this is a public hearing regarding rezoning number 925. So this is a public hearing. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Hearing none, I declare this public hearing closed. We will move now to the associated action item.

This is 20Six-seventy7, request to approve rezoning number 925 for the subject parcels located at 2610 North Oneida Street, 2624 North Oneida Street, and 2615 North Morrison Street, including to the center line of the adjacent street right of way as shown in attached maps from R1B single family district to PI Public Institutional District. Is there a motion? Move to approve. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve. We'll open the floor for discussion. Okay. A oh, go ahead.

Well, I just

Let me get you back. Go ahead.

Thank you, chair. I just wanted to reiterate what we have heard from city planning in that the this is in my district, so that what we have before us is merely the rezoning and the combination of the Platts with the existing school. And any further action to put another parking lot, building, etcetera, on that will go through the full city department review before any of that happens. Thank you.

And I think also worth noting that this change is supported based on staff analysis of our comprehensive plan. This change is supported by the comprehensive plan, but further expansion of this PI area would likely not be supported by the comprehensive plan if those requests were to be brought forward in the future. So important to make a note of that as we take up this item. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, we have a motion and a second to approve.

All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? With none opposed, that item has been approved. Moving along in our action items.

This is twenty six-seventy eight, request to approve certified survey map number nineteen twenty five, which crosses a plat boundary from 2610 North Oneida Street, 2624 North Oneida Street, 2626 North Oneida Street, and 2,615 to combine four parcels into one lot as shown in the attached map and subject to the conditions in the attached staff memo. We did have some reference to this item in the presentation earlier. Colin, is there anything else to add?

I would be happy to just add a little clarification. So as you'll see, the main Xavier parcel, a portion of it was actually in a previous plat, so it was not in the Greenfield plat, which the majority of the main Xavier parcel and then these three parcels that were just referenced in the rezoning are in. And so state statute requires that a CSM, where we are combining properties across a plat boundary line, be brought forward and approved by the plan commission. And then just to note that there are two conditions of approval, the first being that the comments sent from city staff to the applicant will need to be addressed in order to comply with all of our codes. And then lastly, the rezoning that we had just discussed, that previous item, will need to be approved by the Common Council prior to city signatures being fixed on this certified survey map.

All right. Thank you. I need a motion. Approve. We have a motion and a second to approve. Is there any discussion? Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Clerk. Okay. Go ahead.

Just for clarity's sake, you mentioned the two conditions that need to be met, and the second of which we just approved, correct? And so the first, is that still in process?

Yes. Yep, that's correct. So typically a CSM is just an internal staff review and approval. So how that process usually works is an application is submitted, staff reviews it for compliance with code, we make our comments and send that back to the applicant to revise it, send it back to us. We repeat that process until everything's satisfied and we feel comfortable that the city can put signature on it and it can be recorded at the county. So we just have that second component to make sure that the rezoning takes place before the lot combination. And then, the applicant actually has already submitted their second revision to this, but we just held off until this was brought before Plan Commission.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you.

Any further discussion? We do have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Alright. But none opposed, that item has been approved. We have no information items on our agenda, so we'll entertain a motion to adjourn. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. The ayes have it. We are adjourned. Thank you.