Sturgeon Bay YMCA Granted Parking Variance for Building Addition
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The Door County YMCA’s Sturgeon Bay facility will not need to add more parking on-site – as could be required in the city code – for its planned 16,300-square-foot addition to expand health, wellness, activity and administrative spaces on the building’s northeast side.
The Sturgeon Bay Zoning Board of Appeals approved a variance June 14 on the condition that the YMCA has an agreement with a neighboring property for available overflow parking, should it be necessary, said Christopher Sullivan-Robinson, the city’s planner/zoning administrator.
He said the condition for the overflow-parking agreement will be in effect through December 2025, when the parking issue could be revisited.
The YMCA, which has 223 stalls in its existing parking lot, requested a variance from the municipal code that could have required an additional 50 parking spaces.
“City parking standards do not accurately reflect the actual needs for parking stalls on this property,” stated the variance application submitted by Eric Bauman, an architect with the Boldt Company; and YMCA CEO Heidi Erickson. “The current parking lot more than adequately serves the needs for its occupants, and it is anticipated to be adequate for the new addition.”
The variance application further stated that additional parking on-site would also increase the impervious surface area, thereby requiring additional stormwater accommodations, which would be limited by available space.
If parking would turn out to be an issue in the future, the application also stated that the YMCA has a plan to reconfigure the parking lot to add approximately 50 additional stalls.
When the YMCA added an aquatic center to the facility in 2000, it made a similar request to reduce the minimum number of required parking stalls for that addition.
“Lack of parking has never been an issue at this facility,” the variance application stated.
