Fence Saga Likely Ends

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

May 21 -- A year-long battle over a fence and hedge on a scenic beach walk street seemed to finally reach its end Wednesday.

In a compromise reluctantly accepted by applicants Jerry Bass and Stephanie Barbanell, the planning commission ordered the couple to tear down their illegal fence and hedge, but granted a variance to erect a see-through, six-foot fence roughly ten feet from the walkway.

The decision -- which must be put in writing before final approval -- comes 13 months after the City issued compliance orders to the couple, who argued their six-foot-tall fence and 14-foot-high hedge were necessary to fight crime and safeguard their privacy.

Planning Commissioners hedged their bets with the compromise, allowing a fence to be erected nearly twice the height permitted by code. But it wasn’t a done deal until Commissioner Arlene Hopkins -- who had been sitting on the fence -- agreed to the compromise.

Barbanell, who often opposes variances to the zoning code, seized on the compromise when it became clear that the commission would not let her keep the fence and hedge.

Although she had repeatedly rejected the proposed compromise, Barbanell changed her mind when Commissioner Jay Johnson indicated he would not otherwise vote for the variance.

“If the applicant would not accept (the variance), or if granted, would not do it,” Johnson said, “then that puts me in a place where I … would deny the variance, which means the fence comes down entir --”

Before Johnson could finish the word “entirely,” Barbanell jumped from her seat and shouted into the microphone, “I’ll accept it.”

Not everyone was willing to compromise. Commissioners Julie Lopez Dad and Terry O’Day worried that granting the variance flew in the face of community goals to expose houses to the street and discourage owners from barricading themselves from their neighbors.

“We made this offer before and it was twice refused, but that isn’t the essence here,” Lopez Dad said. “The essence is really what direction do we want to go for the City, and we are actually going in the opposite direction… in terms of keeping the openness and the fences and the hedges down and having interaction with the community.”

“I feel this would set a bad precedent for the community,” said O’Day, noting that any homeowner with a similar easement and set back might seek to erect fences taller than code allows.

The saga of the fence began in April 2003, when Barbanell and Bass were asked, along with their neighbors, to comply with the code. While the neighbors tore down their illegal hedges and fences, the couple took their case to a zoning administrator, who in January denied their request to keep the illegal fence and hedge.

The couple then appealed the decision to the Planning Commission, which failed to reach consensus earlier this month.