Middleton, WI Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

04(9) defines 'loiter' as sitting, standing, loafing, lounging, wandering, or strolling in an aimless manner, or stopping, pausing or remaining in an area without a specific, lawful purpose, and defines 'obstruct' as interfering with travel, including standing on a part of a street or sidewalk fit for passage, or placing a vehicle or object there so as to prevent it. Subsection (b), 'Obstructing Streets,' prohibits obstructing, loitering, causing a nuisance, or engaging in a sport or exercise on any public street, sidewalk, bridge or public ground in a manner that prevents or obstructs free pedestrian or vehicular passage, hinders ingress and egress to a business, church, public building, school or meeting place, or causes a nuisance by congregating and hindering that passage.

Subsection (c), 'Obstructing Sidewalk Prohibited,' is the more specific sit-lie style rule: no person may block a sidewalk or bridge so completely that a pedestrian cannot travel along it without leaving the sidewalk and walking onto adjacent property or into the street. The definitions section also limits 'sidewalk' to walkways owned or maintained by the City or a school district, expressly excluding sidewalks or walkways on private property, shopping centers, apartment complexes and office building sites, so the sit-lie style rule reaches only City-maintained public sidewalks, not privately maintained walkways.