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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPhoenix Fence Proposal to Village of Cayuga Heights.pdf1 SLP 3/14/2017 PROPOSAL To: Village of Cayuga Heights, Board of Trustees From: Marie and Stuart Phoenix (homeowners) Re: Compromise relocation of current 4 ft. high fence at 914 Highland Rd Date: March 14, 2017 Summary. This proposal is in response to a January 5, 2017 letter we received from Brent Cross, Zoning Officer of the Village of Cayuga Heights, regarding the need to relocate our recently erected, 162 ft. long, 4 ft. high, fence along the front of the property on Highland Rd. The letter from Brent Cross stated that the fence was installed by the contractor “about 10’ encroaching into the Village street Right of Way”. He further stated that “After presenting the options of either having you move the fence back onto your property, or consider granting you a license to allow the fence to remain in place, there was not support among the Board members for allowing it to remain in the public ROW.” (We checked the minutes of the Trustees’ meeting, where the fence issue was raised, and there was nothing recorded suggesting any kind of vote on the matter.) The letter went on to say that “Therefore you will need to have the fence relocated onto your property” and that we should “plan to have the work done by 4/30/17”. The fence, a white vinyl -clad picket fence of high quality, was erected under contract with Lowes of Ithaca at a cost of $6,000. The fence anchors are set 6 ft. apart and 2 ft. into concrete. There are two gates: (i) a 4 ft. wide gate at a newly-installed, colorful sidewalk that extends from about 4 ft. back from the road to the front porch of the house, and (ii) a 12 ft. wide, double gate near the north end of the fence, which allows entry onto the front lawn by large lawn mowing equipment and occasional service equipment (the area remains all grass). Before building the fence, we did, in fact, investigate Village of Cayuga Heights law on line, particularly Section 9 of the Village of Cayuga Heights Zoning Ordinance as well as various proposed and enacted amendments over the period of 2010 and 2011. We found much discussion about fences taller than 4 ft. (largely erected by homeowners to prevent deer from eating shrubbery) but almost nothing on fences 4 ft. and lower. The closest statement of guidance in Village documents is from a February 2012 document explaining “the process by which Law 9 that amends the Village fencing ordinance, will be enforced. The new local law was passed on November 14, 2011.” There are some 18 bullet points in the document, 17 of which deal with fences exceeding 4 ft. in height covering topics such as The Fencing Law, How to Obtain a Fencing Permit, and If You Have an illegal fence. The last topic was largely devoted to either taking down the illegal fence of filing a zoning appeal to the Village Zoning Board. Only one bullet point (the first one) dealt with fences 4 ft tall or lower and it stated “Fencing up to 4 ft and constructed of any material is allowed anywhere on a property with no building or zoning permit required.” And as mentioned by Brent Cross in his letter regarding our fence “the fence is not subject to zoning regulations, and therefore did not need a permit to be installed”. We should emphasize that, while the decision and responsibility for the location of the fence was ours, it is also apparent that the Lowes of Ithaca representative (who has long experience in construction in the Ithaca area), as well as the actual installer of the fence (from Montour Falls) were not aware that the placement of the fence could become an ROW issue. Our discussions with them focused on determining how to best thread the fence through obstacles (mostly trees), and assessing risk of damage from snow 2 plowing, etc. We do not believe there was any deception on the part of either, and in fact we were sufficiently impressed with the Lowes service and attention to detail, that we worked again with them in October in replacing the aging house roof and finding an innovative solution to deal with ice dams that had been a serious problem for many years. Returning to the February 2012 letter from the Village explaining enforcement of new Local Law 9, it would appear from the position taken by the Village on our fence, is that the wording “is allowed anywhere on a property” should have been interpreted by us also to mean ‘do not locate the fence in the Village Street Right of Way’. However, in writing this document, it would have been helpful to Village residents to be cautioned about this implicit requirement, since most residents are not versed in subtle wording of law (not to mention ROW potential issues regarding widening of roads, building new sidewalks, etc.) Frankly, requiring a zoning permit for a 4 ft. or lower fence and costing $25 (or even $100), would have been preferable. and would have served both the Village Trustees and its residents well, both in avoiding this type of problem and perhaps even ensuring that any fences erected are of acceptable quality to the Village Trustees. In fact, a drive along Village streets turned up several fences 4 ft. and lower (and even higher than 4 ft.) that appear to encroach on the Village street ROW. In fact, one needs only to drive north along Highland Road about four or five houses to 1052 Highland Road to find a white picket fence that encroaches at least 10 ft. into the Village ROW (probably more so than ours). Our intention in mentioning this is not to ‘point fingers’ but rather to suggest that the rules on building fences 4 ft. and lower are more than likely unclear to Village residents, particularly when a permit is not required. Internet searches on this type of issue have become very easy; if the precise wording appears in the appropriate Village legal document it will be quickly found. Despite our criticism above, our goal in this document is to suggest a compromise on our fence that involving moving back a portion of the fence (the location of which is also problematic to us), and furthermore to seek a license for the overall fence that would allow it to remain partly in the Village ROW. Of course, the license would stipulate that we quickly remove and/or relocate any interfering fence portion, should the Village have a need to expand the road, or build a sidewalk or replace water lines for hydrants, etc.). Moving the whole fence is a non-trivial and costly task (probably approaching half the original cost of the fence), not to mention making little sense aesthetically. Furthermore, there are obstacles involved that dictated its location in the first place. Had we been alerted, through a zoning permit process, that the fence would not be allowed to encroach on the Village ROW, we would not have built the fence in the first place since it would have been too close to the house, and visually would have appeared to divide the front yard close to in half. Discussion of Current Fence Location. Figure 1, (based on a survey of the property at the time of purchase) illustrates the current location of the fence relative to Highland Rd, the house itself and other features of the property, especially trees. Table 1 provides measurements of the location of the existing fence at locations roughly 18 feet apart along the fence. Figure 2 is an expanded diagram of the fence region itself. Readily, apparent from Table 1 is that the encroachment onto the Village Street ROW varies over the length of the fence from a maximum of 9 ft. 6 in. at the north end to a minimum of 5 ft. 11 in. 40% of the way north from the mailbox. (To see this, subtract the numbers in the column labeled “To Road Center from 25 ft.) Thus, only at the north end of the fence does the encroachment come close to 10 ft., and over 70% of the fence the encroachment is about 7 ft. or less. 3 Figure 1. Current fence location on a survey map of 914 Highland Rd showing features of the property. 4 Figure 2. Further details of the fence location and various obstacles near the fence. 5 The cause of the encroachment at the north end was the existence of a cluster of three “scrub trees” at location 2 of at least two different species and which are forced to mutually lean away from each other in a fight for sunlight. These three trees had an interference band of at least 2ft. 4 in. as can be seen in Figure 3. Avoiding these trees caused a distortion of the fence line, which when extended straight ended up too close to the road at the north end. Absent those three trees (or even two of the trees closest to the road) the fence line could have been placed at least 8 ft 6 in. back from the road edge and encroachment of about 6 ft., and the angle change would have kept that distance all the way to the north end. One other point worthy of mention is that the huge tree with a 40 in. diameter trunk shown in Figure 3, begins 7 ft. 3 in. from the fence, and ends more than 10 ft. 7 in. from the fence. (Part of the tree is on Village property and part on ours.) Thus, placing the fence just in front of the tree would mean the fence would still encroach on the ROW by more than 2 ft., and because of the interference of the trunk shape at the bottom, moving the fence behind the tree, would place the fence close to 3 ft. behind the property line. Figure 3. Three scrub trees, two of which we request be removed. Proposal to the Village Board of Trustees. We propose that the Village remove two of the three scrub trees so that the fence line can be pulled back as indicated in Figures 1 and 2. Thus from a point about 60 ft. from the north end, starting with the fence post just before the post in the lower right corner of Figure 3, we pull back the fence to at least 8 ft from the road edge, thus reducing the encroachment into the ROW to 7 feet or less. 6 At the south end of the fence near the mailbox, we also propose pulling back the fence beginning with the third and possibly the fourth post from the end, depending on the alignment. These posts and the fence line can be seen in Figure 4. Note that while Figures 1 and 2 suggest the fence, in its existing location, curves out towards the road, this is not the case. Actually, it is the road that curves inward towards the fence going past the mailbox (a feature not readily apparent on survey maps). Thus, it will be necessary to curve the fence to match the road. This can be done without interfering with the light post and would provide more room for the mailbox post (which perhaps ought to be replaced with a more solid concrete anchor since over time it increasingly tilts backwards and needs to be pulled back into place.) Finally, and without further comment, we show additional pictures and views of the fence in Figures 5 through 8, allowing the reader to match the features seen to the diagrams in Figures 1 and 2. Figure 4. Fence line near the mailbox at the south end. 7 Figure 5. 8 Figure 6. Figure 7. 9 Figure 8.