WAUPUN — Two residents addressed the Waupun City Council this week on the ordinance restricting trailers, boats, and RVs from being parked in front of homes in the City.
Neighbors Cliff Teletzke and Brenda Ehlert spoke at the Common Council meeting held August 12, 2025. Both residents live on Robin Rd on the south side of town.
The primary issue with the ordinance was the provision against parking a camper trailer in front of a property for more than 48 hours at a time—which includes both street and front driveway parking.
The first to speak was Cliff Teletzke.
“Just so you are all aware, the police came around to tell us we need to move our trailer here—they have a license on them, and we pay road tax on that license on these campers. If you’re saying we can’t park them on our driveway, they have to be past the front of the house—it’s unrealistic in these new divisions with ranch style homes.”
“People buy campers, boats—things to do with their family. Well, now we can’t park them in our property. We were told last week we had to move our campers, but where are we to go with them? What do you do? You can ask a farmer if you can park it next to a field—but what do you get in these $40,000 to 100,000 campers? Mice, tearing up your private property.”
“I think this ordinance needs to be changed, at least from April or May to October when cars can park on the road. We’ve got contractors, concrete places on Lincoln street parking in a way you can’t get around or through with a car. They can park on the road. And you’ve got work trailers that can park on the road.”
“Some of our trailers are bigger and go in front of my house—and there’s nobody there—but I physically can’t get into my driveway or it’d hang over the sidewalk, which is illegal. Relaxing the ordinance would be huge during the summer months—I understand totally during the winter or fall, but just to have a place to go with all this stuff.”
“So essentially what it’s saying with this ordinance, the way it reads, because you live in the City of Waupun, you can’t have a recreational vehicle because where do you go with them? There isn’t enough property except for farmland where they’ll just get eaten up by mice.”
“These campers are $40,000 to $100,000, they’re not your $8,000 pop-ups anymore—they’re huge, they’re nice, worth better than any car. But you can have a zebra-colored van that’s leaking oil into the street and that can sit in the street for weeks on end and nothing happens, because I was told it’s licensed. My camper is licensed—I pay it every year, I pay road tax on it and insurance. I find no reason why we can’t have them past the front of our house.”
Teletzke also pointed out that some properties seem to get talked to more often, which he suggested might just be from only a few complaints, while others are never touched.
“Is the City going to provide a huge property and gravel it and everything so everyone can go there with their recreational vehicles? I don’t think so.”
The second speaker, Brenda Ehlert, echoed many of Teletzke’s sentiments.
“My concern with the ordinance is the fact that it also talks about the front of our house, so your driveway,” Ehlert said. “We were also asked to move it because it was in our driveway for more than 48 hours. Our house, like Cliff’s—like a lot of the newer ranch houses—your driveway and your house are all one level, you don’t have the old style garage behind your house. So we can’t park longer than 48 hours.”
“So I’m going to use the example of the average working person. I go camping on the weekend, I come home Sunday, I unload my camper, I don’t have it clean yet so I’m going to wait until Monday after work. Hopefully get it done, get it out to where I store it—guess what, I’m going camping the next weekend. I gotta bring it back Wednesday, I’ve got to plug it in, get the refrigerator running so I can store my food Thursday night, get my camper loaded, all so we can leave Friday. So the 48 hours—it’s going to be really hard for the police to monitor in my driveway or in our area because I was gone for maybe one or two days.”
“I can understand not parking it in the grass, not wanting grass growing around a camper, not wanting people living in a camper,” she said. “But you’ve got your UTVs that are parked, boats, campers. I would like to have the City consider adopting or editing the ordinance to extend it during the high usage months during the summer.”
In response to these comments, the Plan Commission added the topic to the agenda for the meeting scheduled Wednesday, August 20 at 4:30PM. The Plan Commission does provide a time for public comment if residents would like to express further questions or concerns.
The agenda item reads: “After review with staff, the Police Department and the Building Inspector have enforcement authority as outlined in ordinances in Chapter 6 and Chapter 16 (zoning chapter). All zoning code modifications (Chapter 16) must come to this board to review and eventually a public hearing must be conducted to obtain input prior to making any desired change. This is a preliminary discussion on Chapter 16 provisions found in 16.01 (11)(i) Storage and Parking of Recreational Vehicles. Staff will take any feedback and will discuss with Council for the Street parking provisions at an upcoming meeting, then will take direction provided and modify ordinances. Once that is complete, we will schedule a public hearing with you on any proposed changes in Chapter 16.”
The Plan Commission agenda packet also includes a copy of the relevant ordinances as they are currently found.
