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Onalaska approves PUD deviations to replace City Hall freestanding sign, waiving some parking and setback requirements
Summary
The Planning Commission granted the city a planned unit development (general development plan and final implementation plan) to replace the freestanding sign at City Hall and approved deviations from setbacks, parking-count and landscape‑island requirements with ten staff conditions.
The Onalaska Planning Commission unanimously approved both a General Development Plan and a Final Implementation Plan on Feb. 25 that will allow the City of Onalaska to replace a freestanding sign at City Hall (tax parcel 18-227-0) and to retain existing nonconforming setbacks and parking arrangements with specified deviations from the Unified Development Code (UDC).
Planner Katie Aspenson said the city requested five deviations: reduced minimum principal structure setbacks, reduced parking-lot setbacks (from the 5‑foot minimum), reduced freestanding sign setback (the existing sign sits 4.5 feet from the parcel line where 5 feet is required), a reduction in required parking stalls, and a waiver of interior landscape islands. Aspenson said the City Hall building location was originally approved by the common council in 1998 and that the parking layout and count reflect an existing configuration, including 147 parking stalls that serve city hall although the UDC parking calculation would require 246 stalls for the principal use. Staff said increasing setbacks on the western side would remove roughly 10 additional stalls and make the property even more noncompliant with the minimum stall count.
City staff recommended approval and proposed ten conditions of approval. Aspenson said that except for the five requested deviations, no other UDC standards (perimeter, lot area, building height, architecture, circulation, drainage, signage standards beyond the sign setback) are being altered. The city intends to continue landscaping and to comply with minimum tree and landscape square footage requirements even where islands are waived.
Commissioner Mike Milke moved to approve the general development plan; Bill Leatham seconded. The commission then approved the final implementation plan for the same project in a separate motion; that vote was also unanimous. The two approvals complete the PUD process necessary for the sign replacement and associated deviations.
