Waukesha County, WI Environmental Rules: Boat Dock Permits (2026)

Waukesha County regulates boat docks tied to commercial marinas and boat liveries through the Shoreland Protection Ordinance's conditional-use standards at Section 4(g)17. H sets the actual dock-length rule: no pier may extend beyond an established pierhead line, and the combined length of all piers plus any T's or L's extending from them cannot exceed the total lake frontage of the property. Regardless of frontage, piers, T's and L's cannot extend more than 150 feet from shore anywhere outside the DOD Downtown Okauchee District. Inside that district, the Wisconsin DNR and the county Plan Commission and Zoning Agency set the permitted pier length case by case, weighing on-site parking, traffic circulation and neighborhood compatibility.

The same conditional-use section also requires the marina or boat livery to sit at least 500 feet from the nearest public bathing beach or park, hold a minimum one-acre lot with at least 150 feet of width, and keep sewage disposal fields at least 100 feet from the ordinary high-water mark. For an ordinary residential dock that is not part of a commercial marina or boat livery, the county code does not set its own length limit: the ordinance's own definition of 'Pierhead line' (Section 4(g), definitions item 145) instead points owners to Wis.

13 for how a pierhead line is established and to Wis. 12 for the state DNR permit needed for any pier or wharf placed beyond it. This dual-track structure, county limits on commercial dock operations plus a state permit backstop for ordinary residential piers, reflects that shoreland zoning under Wis. 692 is mandatory county jurisdiction, unlike the county's general zoning districts, which apply in a town only after that town board opts in under Wis. 69.