WAUKESHA, Wis. — The Waukesha City Board of Zoning Appeals on Monday denied a property-owner appeal and instructed the owner at 1823 Sycamore Drive to relocate a 12-foot-by-14-foot gazebo so it sits within the legally defined rear yard.

City staff said the house at 1823 Sycamore is an L-shaped RS-3 single-family residence and that a portion of the existing gazebo sits outside the municipal definition of rear yard (a yard that extends across the full width of the lot, measured from the rear lot line to a parallel line through the nearest point of the principal structure). The owner applied for a building permit in July 2024; staff denied the permit because the gazebo’s placement falls in the side yard and accessory structures are permitted only in the rear yard unless otherwise specified.

The property owner, Julie Fauble, told the board she replaced a previous canvas gazebo with a metal-top structure in spring 2024 and said she had not been aware a building permit was required for a gazebo of this size. “I never knew that I needed a building permit for a gazebo,” Fauble said, adding that she chose the location to replace an earlier, smaller temporary structure that had collapsed under snow.

Staff noted the gazebo measures 12 by 14 feet; a garden shed on the lot measures roughly 90.6 square feet, and the combined footprint of both accessory structures is about 264 square feet — well below the code’s 20 percent-of-rear-yard limitation (approximately 876 square feet for this lot). City staff also told the board that per the municipal code, a gazebo or pergola larger than 50 square feet requires a building permit.

A neighbor, Gretchen Kaczmarek of 1819 Sycamore Drive, objected and said the fence between properties and the recent patio work leave little separation; she said the new gazebo sits very close to her property and has affected her ability to use and enjoy her patio. Staff said they have no contemporaneous survey showing the fence location relative to the lot line and that the complaint triggered the code-enforcement review.

Board members discussed whether the lot’s L-shaped design and longstanding neighborhood construction patterns amounted to an extraordinary circumstance; several members said the gazebo could be moved a short distance to comply with the rear-yard definition and still provide similar use to the owner. The board voted to deny the appeal. The presiding officer told Ms. Fauble she would need to move the gazebo to a location compliant with the zoning code.

No compliance date or permit timeline was provided during the hearing; the city did not state whether staff would return with a fixed schedule for moving the structure.