I picked a beautiful South Florida spring day, grabbed my hammer and a crowbar, and started to remove the poorly place wooden fence - when low and behold a city official stopped by. Now he may have been randomly driving the streets of the city and he may have aimlessly turned on to the somewhat off-the-beaten-path road I live on… or… some unknown concerned citizen like for example the neighbor from across the street and one house down could have inadvertently called him to asked him to randomly drive by our out-of-the-way neighborhood… but somehow, after only about four hours of work, there he was with his “STOP WORK” order.
I honestly didn’t know I needed a permit to move a fence within my own property, but evidently at some point in the history of our small suburb some bureaucrats convened an emergency meeting to address the scourge of property improvement and decided to appoint themselves the arbitrators of fence decorum… Because of this benevolent act I was forced to stop any improvements I wanted to make to the property that I spent a couple hundred thousand dollars to purchase (presumably because I was not to be trusted to make proper design choices in the beautification of my back yard)… but I digress.
The gentleman building inspector (who was quite nice and agreed that it was absurd that I couldn’t remove a poorly placed fence on my property) told me that I needed to go to the city building department and apply for a permit and until that permit was obtained I couldn’t proceed. So I left the partially demolished fence and headed to city hall with my check book.
“I’m told I need a permit to move my fence… what must I do to request said permit?” I politely asked the nice lady behind the counter. “Fill out these three applications, contact the phone company, the electric company and the cable company to get their permission, then with proof of $300,000 of insurance coverage, a copy of your deed, a drivers license that proves you live at the location you wish to improve and an officially stamped survey of said property with existing conditions and proposed changes, submit these items for approval” she politely responded.
It took me ten days but I was able to obtain permission from the necessary municipalities, fill out all of the paperwork, make copies of everything in my file cabinet and return to city hall to submit the application… with my check book. Ten days later I received a postcard… “DENIED… your contractor has been notified”. (Turns out I have a contractor… I wonder how much he charges for the permitting process). But again, I digress…
I called the number on the postcard to ask why I was denied and what I needed to do to be approved (after all, I now have lived for 20 days with a half demolished fence in my back yard with an obtrusive “STOP WORK” sign attached, and I wanted to remedy this situation). A very pleasant lady answered and typed my permit application number into her computer and proceeded to read Article II Section xvii of the city building code… needless to say I didn’t understand the lawyer speak in which Article II Section xvii was written so the very nice lady who read it to me, tried to explain it better… by reading it to me slower… I hung up.
Slightly annoyed I decided to head back to city hall to try and speak with someone in person. I grabbed a number and sat down hoping that one of the very nice ladies at the permitting desk could help me… they were able to print out Article II Section xvii of the city building code and hand it to me… it didn’t help. “Can I speak with someone who can explain this to me?” I asked. “Sure” they responded “have a seat and we’ll get one of the plan reviewers to help you.” Twenty minutes later a very nice lady called my name and I proceeded to ask her why my permit was denied. Turns out you can’t have two differing fencing materials within the same property and I selfishly wanted to install some wood with the existing chain link… duh, who didn’t know you couldn’t do that?!
I was a bit confused so I asked how a previous owner got by this obviously essential rule when they built the wooden fence within the chain link fence. Turns out that it wasn’t until 2003 that the city got a handle on the destructive practice of combining building materials in fencing… evidently the wooden fence on my property was built before 2003 therefore the obviously irresponsible (and probably Republican) previous owner of my home was not subject to this vital new policy.
“So what can I do?” I asked. She looked at my survey and saw that the perimeter of the back yard had existing chain link fence and asked: “Is that galvanized chain link?” “Yes” I responded… She pondered that for a couple moments and said: “since you have existing galvanized, you can claim an exemption to the new rules (circa 2006) that all chain link has to be plastic, and you can install new galvanized here and here” (pointing to the 20 foot section that would become open when I remove the wooden fence)… “If you want a wooden fence you’ll have to remove all 600 foot of chain link (removing the 12 foot hedge in the process) and replace it all with wood.”
I gave up… 6 weeks after this fiasco started, I am now waiting on approval to remove the wooden fence and install 20 feet of new galvanized chain link… I find out how much this permit will cost me upon approval… Ironically the neighbor across the street and one house down will now have an unobstructed view of my back yard through the chain link… at least for 40 years until I can grow a privacy hedge… I’m glad the city is so interested in the design of my fence… a nice wooden fence would just be down right ugly! I’ve seen the light… Can’t wait for my health insurance to be administered by city hall bureaucrats!
No comments:
Post a Comment