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While a Dunedin resident seeks approval for a privacy wall, city officials pass a moratorium on the kind of fence permit he needs.
By DEBORAH O'NEIL
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 23, 2000
DUNEDIN -- His plans were ready and Jeff Ricketts figured he would soon have the permit he needed to build a 6-foot privacy wall around his new house on Edgewater Drive.
When he showed up at the Dunedin Building Department on Jan. 10, however, Ricketts was stunned to learn the city just days before had enacted a moratorium on issuing fence permits for Edgewater Drive, which he needed for his wall.
The moratorium will remain in place until city officials can write a new fence code that will prohibit Ricketts -- or anyone else -- from building walls on either side of Edgewater Drive.
Under different circumstances, Ricketts' neighbors might rally behind him, decrying the city government's apparent infringement on his property rights. But not in this city, ever concerned with aesthetics and image.
"Imagine how it would look for tourists entering the city? It would really look like a fortress," said his neighbor Lucy Myers. "These things you need to look into and weigh if it's the best thing for our city."
City officials are proceeding with what they see as their imperative to preserve the scenic character of Edgewater Drive.
"I can imagine this is going to be controversial," said City Attorney John Hubbard. "There is no personal enmity toward him, but the aesthetic resources of Edgewater Drive are so extraordinarily good, we need to protect them."
Florida property rights advocate David Russell, founder of Citizens for Constitutional Property Rights, said he has seen issues like this arise before on Florida's waterfront. He said it sounds like the city is discriminating against Ricketts.
"This business about a scenic view, to me, doesn't hold water," Russell said. "Nobody is entitled to a view at the expense of another's property ownership."
Ricketts, who is experienced in dealing with development issues, views the city's actions with disbelief.
"I've never been in a situation where a city so blatantly steps out of bounds," Ricketts said. "The thing is, they're doing it with righteous indignation."
His neighbors -- correctly so -- assume Ricketts is from out of town. Otherwise, they say, he never would have sought to build a wall on Edgewater Drive.
"People have lived there for 50 years and nobody ever wanted to put up a wall," said Vivien Grant, who has lived on Edgewater Drive for 54 years. "He must be from out of town. He must be a Northerner. He has no feeling for Dunedin."
Ricketts, 42, came to the area last summer from Virginia to be closer to his two children, ages 14 and 6, in Clearwater.
He is a program manager for Tanknology, a national company that develops and services underground fueling facilities. Ricketts routinely seeks permits in different communities for fueling facilities, appearing before planning boards and talking with local officials about development and land use.
In Dunedin, he found a unique piece of property on the southwest corner of Edgewater Drive and President Street for $300,000. Beautiful homes line the east side of Edgewater Drive; Ricketts' house is the only one on the west side. The land, with its dazzling view of St. Joseph Sound, is certainly worth more than the 98-year-old ramshackle bungalow on it.
Ricketts realized the traffic, noise and headlights from 20,000 cars a day that travel on Edgewater Drive, a federal highway, were going to be a problem.
Before buying the house, he said he made sure it would be possible to put up a 6-foot privacy wall. To do it, he would have to move his front door from Edgewater to President Street, but it was permissible under city codes.
"If I had thought I wouldn't be able to have the ability to surround it off, the property wouldn't have been nearly as attractive," Ricketts said. "Sharing my back yard with the 20,000 cars that go up and down Edgewater Drive doesn't appeal to me."
But rather than building a 6-foot wall, which would have involved the city simply issuing a permit if his plans met city codes, Ricketts decided to request a variance for an 8-foot wall at a public hearing.
He now regrets that decision. Letters of protest arrived in City Hall from neighbors. And Community Services Director Kevin Campbell recommended denial of the 8-foot wall to the city Building Board of Adjustment and Appeal.
"This Department alternately recommends approval of the installation of a 6-foot-high wall," Campbell wrote to the board.
A group of neighbors attended the Nov. 30 meeting and voiced their objections. The board rejected Ricketts' request, but board members reminded the neighbors that Ricketts could build a 6-foot wall anyway, without their approval.
But neighbors didn't want to see a 6-foot wall either.
"The people that have lived here a long time -- this is an old neighborhood -- don't like the idea of a wall. It's right on the water," said Hazel Sigvartsen, who lives across the street from Ricketts. "We think it kind of upsets the neighborhood."
Neighbors complained that if one wall went up, what would prevent others from going up on Edgewater Drive?
At first, Campbell said, "I thought, no it can't (happen). He's the only one on the west side. But then I stepped back and realized yes, it could happen to more than just his property. If that's the case, maybe the public is right, maybe we do need to look at this."
Campbell said that on Edgewater Drive there are 13 houses on corner lots where the homeowners could change the orientation of their front doors and erect 6-foot walls on Edgewater. Also, he said, half of the land on the west side of Edgewater is privately owned, and some would qualify for 6-foot walls.
City officials concede it is unlikely that anyone else would want a wall; it would block their views of the water. But, they say, you never know.
"Some people do things that harm their neighbors for what they consider to be perfectly valid reasons," Hubbard said.
Ricketts could have gotten a permit if he had beaten the city to the punch.
The city waited about a month after the Nov. 30 hearing before deciding to institute the moratorium and begin, as Campbell wrote to Ricketts, "the process of revising its fence ordinance as it relates to properties adjacent to Edgewater Drive on both the east and west sides. . . ."
"Mr. Ricketts had the absolute right to put (the wall) up, and now we're saying no," said City Manager John Lawrence said. "I believe in a concept which I call the overriding public interest, and I want to protect that on Edgewater Drive."
But the city has no basis on which to deny Ricketts his wall, said his attorney, Bob Walker of Clearwater.
"You can't just ex-post facto out a right that currently exists," Walker said. "The restriction doesn't exist. It may or may not exist in the future."
Hubbard said that in this case, unlike the situation with the 180-foot communications tower that was built on State Road 580 to the surprise of many, "The horse isn't completely out of the barn." It wasn't until after the tower was built that the city put a moratorium on communication tower permits so it could revise its codes.
Campbell said he expects to present the code revisions to the planning board in February. Then, the City Commission will hold two public hearings on the changes.
"As we look at the ordinance, I don't want to unfairly hurt him," Lawrence said. "He's a citizen and he's granted some rights and I don't want to trample on those. We'll be balancing that."