The house in question is at 780 NE 119 Street. We've all been watching the house, because it was not in good repair for quite a while. The current owners bought it this year or late last year, and they have done a lot of work on it. It looks very nice now.
The lot is unusual, though it's not the only such lot in the Park. Because of the way the house is situated, the lot looks long and thin. The house is set way back, giving the impression that there must be no back yard at all. And it's a small-looking house, adding to the effect. The front yard was planted thick with lots of fruit trees. It appears some may be gone.
What the new owners wanted to do was create a barrier in front, so their dogs could run around. They seemed to say they had essentially no back yard. They wanted a picket fence in front. We then saw survey drawings and a photograph.
The drawing shows that there is in fact a back yard, 22 feet deep at its shallowest point and 32 feet deep at some other point. The front yard is very large, as we knew.
The photograph showed a fence seemingly just a few feet in front of the house.
My initial reaction, before I saw the drawing and the photograph, was that the owners probably really did need a fence, to contain the dogs, since there was no other room for them. But then it became clear they do have a back yard, seeming perhaps to obviate the need to make a front yard enclosure. Also, it wasn't clear where the owners imagined the dogs would run out front, since the fence was so close to the house that no real enclosure was created.
One person familiar with this development added a new insight. The fence was only close to the house for most of the front expanse, but it was 40 feet from the house along one side. It appears that the reason for the "bump out" on that side is to make room for the owners' RV, which is within the fenced area. So again, no room for dogs to run.
The meaning of this fence was getting increasingly ambiguous.
Furthermore, we were told the fence was erected "to Code," though without permits, and then part of it was shifted out front, to make room for the RV. That part, too, is said to be "to Code." But Code for fences includes anchoring of the posts so that it would be a major undertaking to move part of the fence. Or it would have been a major undertaking to have moved part of the fence. That's what we were told happened. This fact, I'm sorry to say, raises questions about whether the fence was really erected "to Code," whether it is permanent now, and perhaps even whether the homeowners own it, or are borrowing it to make some sort of statement or inroad. The questions were not asked, and I don't know the answers.
As a personal, subjective matter, I think the property looks nice with the fence (I don't mind fences, and I never did), and the part containing the RV is behind enough trees that you have to look carefully even to see it. My feeling, as a BP resident and someone who happens to live less than two blocks away, was that it would have made a very positive difference to the homeowners to have used the fence for the stated reasons. I was put off, however, by a few facts. One was the fact that there is, in actuality, a usable back yard, so the presentation seemed like a misrepresentation. The homeowners stated they preferred to let the dogs run out front, but this was a matter of preference, not a functional limitation of the property. That distinction is critically important in variances. The second thing that put me off was that the position of the fence so close to the house, and the presence of the RV, left little or no meaningful room for dogs to run, so again, I was unsure what the homeowners were really communicating, and what their real aim was. Finally, I resented that the fence had been erected seemingly as a ploy, since the homeowners had every reason to know perfectly well they couldn't put up a fence without a permit. The whole presentation left me feeling tricked. I do not, however, vote. Let me tell you about the people who do.
Bryan Cooper, for whatever reasons, loves picket fences. He also, for whatever reasons, hates government, rules, enforcement, and anything he identifies as "the man." So he was a reflex avid advocate for the homeowners. His position cannot be taken any more substantially or seriously than that. He voted to approve the application for the variance. He also, interestingly, advised the homeowners to leave the fence in place, even when the application was denied, on the hope that a new Commission after December 3 might look more favorably on it. He supported all the bad behavior of the homeowners, and encouraged them to break Village laws, in the interest of the fence that they want and he likes. Interests of the neighborhood? Not so much.
Bob Anderson is not, as far as I can guess, a front yard fence lover. If he is, I don't know about it. But much more to the point, he seemed at least as resentful as I was, and seemingly much more offended, that the homeowners manipulated this fence into place in what they had to know was a proscribed way. He voted to deny the application for the variance.
Noah Jacobs voted to allow the homeowners to have their fence. He shares anti-government, anti-rules, anti-enforcement leanings with Bryan. His advocacy, however, did not include a personal preference for fences, picket or otherwise. It was a less specific, less issue-driven, more provocative advocacy that was anarchic more than it was sensitive. His intellectualization of the moment had to do with the homeowners' having improved the property, so they should be rewarded by getting to have their way with the neighborhood and its rules.
Roxy Ross judged this purely and dispassionately by the book, as far as I could tell. The true need and hardship requirements weren't there, and so there was no indication to approve the variance.
Barbara Watts was rigidly against the fence. Barbara hates front yard fences. Barbara appeared barely to be listening, as is typical for her, and the answer was simply no.
So I think the Commission was right to deny the variance, and I think there was a combination of reasons for the denial. Importantly, the fact that the variance requirements were in actuality not met was prominent enough among those reasons. That being said, however, if the homeowners had made a more straightforward and honest-seeming application, I would love to have seen them get their fence. It just wasn't possible with our current Code and the requirements for variances.
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