Portage County, WI Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

Section 7.1.6(1)(e)3 of the Portage County Code addresses commercial loading through alley access rather than a berth-count or square-footage table: 'In the Commercial and Industrial Districts, wherever a lot abuts upon a public or private alley, sufficient loading space shall be provided on the lot or adjacent thereto in connection with any business or industrial use so that the alley shall at all times be free and unobstructed to the passage of traffic.' The obligation runs to any commercial or industrial use on an alley-fronting lot, and it is paired in the same subsection with the county's off-street parking-stall standard, which requires 300 gross square feet per stall, a nine-foot by 18-foot space, with adequate ingress and egress to a public thoroughfare.

The Industrial District's own dimensional rules add that loading platforms may sit in a required rear yard only where that yard abuts a railroad, letting rail-served warehouses load directly from a spur without violating the district's rear-yard setback. The code does not set loading-dock hours or a minimum number of berths by building size, so a site plan reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Department is judged on whether the alley remains passable, not on a numeric loading-space formula, when the Department issues the zoning permit for a new commercial or industrial use.