On May 11, 2011, the Wisconsin Legislature passed Senate Bill 59, which extends the pier registration deadline until April 11, 2012. Governor Walker has indicated he will sign the bill into law very soon.
Background
In 2004, lawmakers adopted new dimensional standards for piers. While these new standards were intended to apply only to new piers (those installed for the first time after 2004), some regulators attempted to apply them retroactively to existing piers. As a result, thousands of existing piers could have been declared illegal and been forced to be removed or downsized.
In 2007, Wisconsin lawmakers passed a law (2007 Wisconsin Act 204) that grandfathered 99 percent of existing piers from new pier dimensional standards. The new law contains three size classifications of existing piers – small, medium and large. Owners of small piers do not require a permit or need to be registered, and owners of medium-sized piers must register with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Owners of large piers must obtain a permit from the DNR.
To qualify for grandfathering, a medium-sized pier must meet the following requirements:
- Date – must have been originally placed prior to February 6, 2004
- Width – no more than 8-feet wide
- Platforms – a larger deck/platform is allowed as long as it is located at the lakeward end of the pier and the platform has a surface area of:
- 200 sq. ft. or less (may be any width), or
- Between 200 sq. ft. and 300 sq. ft, if the deck/platform is no wider than 10 feet.
- Registration deadline – must register with the DNR by April 1, 2011.
The DNR estimates 10,000 property owners were required to register their piers by April 1, 2011 in order to be grandfathered. However, only four to 5,000 registrations were received by the April 1, 2011, deadline.
If a property owner fails to register a medium-sized pier by the deadline, the pier will not be grandfathered and it must be downsized or replaced entirely to be brought into compliance. In some cases, this could be a significant expense to the property owner.
Number of Boat Hoists
The most common reason for a property owner to register a pier isn’t the size of the pier or the platform, but the number of boat slips or hoists. Under the pier regulations adopted in 2004, a pier is allowed two boat hoists for the first 50 feet of water frontage and one additional boat hoist for each additional 50 feet of water frontage on the property.
The pier grandfathering standards, however, focus exclusively on the size of pier and platform, but do not place any limits on the number of boat hoists. Therefore, if a pre-2004 pier has more boat hoists than what is allowed under the law adopted in 2004, the owner of the pier can grandfather the current number of slips by registering the pier with the DNR.
Spreading the Word
Now that the pier registration deadline is extended for another year, REALTORS® should continue to educate waterfront property owners about the need to register certain piers with the DNR. By registering their pier, a property owner will have certainty that their pier is compliant with state law and will avoid possible future enforcement actions by the DNR. Moreover, when the property owner tries to sell the property, the owner will have documentation from the DNR indicating the pier is grandfathered, which will likely be important to prospective purchasers of the property.
For more information, please contact Tom Larson (tlarson@wra.org) at (608) 240-8254.
Tom Larson is Chief Lobbyist and Director of Legal and Public Affairs for the WRA.