Fort Collins Now
July 2008
I’m thinking about opening up a store in Fort Collins that sells faded-to-grey, half-rotted fence slats.
I got to thinking about this business proposition last night as I was picking blackberries. My next-door neighbor has a great blackberry bush, a branch of which has grown through where some slats are missing from our property-line fence.
If the City Council has its way, those missing slats make me eligible for a $1,000 fine. If I get busted, I either have to pay the fine, replace the slats with “compatible materials of comparable composition, color, size, shape and quality” or replace the fence. (Come to think of it, I’m pretty much living with the fear that no one from the building codes department reads this column.)
Your City Council is at it again. Tuesday night they voted 5-2 (with Diggs Brown and Wade Troxell voting in opposition) to impose new regulations on the maintenance and upkeep of your home.
The issue: Dirt yards and missing fence slats.
Take a look at what they voted for to remedy the scourge of dirt yards.
“No less than eighty percent (80%) of any yard area, excluding sidewalks and driveways, must be covered with grass, ground cover plants or other landscaping material, such as mulch, decorative gravel, stone or paving bricks. Ground cover consisting of crushed rock, gravel, or similar material must be one quarter (1/4) inch or larger in size and shall be maintained at a depth that is sufficient to cover all exposed areas of dirt.”
You can’t make this stuff up. Dandelions count as groundcover plants, apparently. Rocks are okay. Very small rocks are not okay. Gravel is okay, so long as it is decorative. Is browned-out grass okay? I’m not sure.
As for my fence with the missing slats:
“All fences and walls must be maintained so that they are structurally sound and in good repair so that there are no broken, loose, damaged, removed or missing parts (i.e., pickets, slats, posts, wood rails, bricks, panels). Repair of fences and walls must be made with compatible materials of comparable composition, color, size, shape and quality of the fence or wall to which the repair is being made.”
Well, my fence is faded, grey, rotted in parts and of general poor quality. I guess I’ll have to find a slat replacement that fits that “comparable composition” and hope it doesn’t disintegrate into dust when I try to hammer it into place.
Now we have the city telling us when and how we need to make our home improvements.
Don’t worry, we’re reassured, there will be programs for low-income households to meet these standards. That’s good to hear. But what about the rest of us?
I’m fairly certain I fall into a pretty large demographic in Fort Collins these days: I probably don’t qualify for a low-income loan. I definitely don’t have money in my household budget to replace my fence this year. These regulations would put my judgment about my budget and my property at the whim of a city official. At stake, a $1,000 fine.
I can understand the concerns of some of the neighbors who are pushing for these regulations. A run-down house can be an eyesore. But these regulations are about fence slats. They’re about the amount of water you can afford to put onto your lawn. They specify the size of the rocks you need to use as ground cover.
These regulations present a high financial bar for many families in Fort Collins.
This isn’t a low-income concern. It’s a real-world reality. If the city came to you and told you that you either needed to replace your fence or pay $1,000 fine, what would your response be? What does your household budget look like? Does the City Council even care?
What’s next? A mandate for a white-picket fence? The city is not a home-owners association. We don’t tell people what color they can paint their house or how tall their flagpole must be. Fort Collins is a diverse city with different tastes, preferences and income levels. Let’s keep it that way.
July 2008
I’m thinking about opening up a store in Fort Collins that sells faded-to-grey, half-rotted fence slats.
I got to thinking about this business proposition last night as I was picking blackberries. My next-door neighbor has a great blackberry bush, a branch of which has grown through where some slats are missing from our property-line fence.
If the City Council has its way, those missing slats make me eligible for a $1,000 fine. If I get busted, I either have to pay the fine, replace the slats with “compatible materials of comparable composition, color, size, shape and quality” or replace the fence. (Come to think of it, I’m pretty much living with the fear that no one from the building codes department reads this column.)
Your City Council is at it again. Tuesday night they voted 5-2 (with Diggs Brown and Wade Troxell voting in opposition) to impose new regulations on the maintenance and upkeep of your home.
The issue: Dirt yards and missing fence slats.
Take a look at what they voted for to remedy the scourge of dirt yards.
“No less than eighty percent (80%) of any yard area, excluding sidewalks and driveways, must be covered with grass, ground cover plants or other landscaping material, such as mulch, decorative gravel, stone or paving bricks. Ground cover consisting of crushed rock, gravel, or similar material must be one quarter (1/4) inch or larger in size and shall be maintained at a depth that is sufficient to cover all exposed areas of dirt.”
You can’t make this stuff up. Dandelions count as groundcover plants, apparently. Rocks are okay. Very small rocks are not okay. Gravel is okay, so long as it is decorative. Is browned-out grass okay? I’m not sure.
As for my fence with the missing slats:
“All fences and walls must be maintained so that they are structurally sound and in good repair so that there are no broken, loose, damaged, removed or missing parts (i.e., pickets, slats, posts, wood rails, bricks, panels). Repair of fences and walls must be made with compatible materials of comparable composition, color, size, shape and quality of the fence or wall to which the repair is being made.”
Well, my fence is faded, grey, rotted in parts and of general poor quality. I guess I’ll have to find a slat replacement that fits that “comparable composition” and hope it doesn’t disintegrate into dust when I try to hammer it into place.
Now we have the city telling us when and how we need to make our home improvements.
Don’t worry, we’re reassured, there will be programs for low-income households to meet these standards. That’s good to hear. But what about the rest of us?
I’m fairly certain I fall into a pretty large demographic in Fort Collins these days: I probably don’t qualify for a low-income loan. I definitely don’t have money in my household budget to replace my fence this year. These regulations would put my judgment about my budget and my property at the whim of a city official. At stake, a $1,000 fine.
I can understand the concerns of some of the neighbors who are pushing for these regulations. A run-down house can be an eyesore. But these regulations are about fence slats. They’re about the amount of water you can afford to put onto your lawn. They specify the size of the rocks you need to use as ground cover.
These regulations present a high financial bar for many families in Fort Collins.
This isn’t a low-income concern. It’s a real-world reality. If the city came to you and told you that you either needed to replace your fence or pay $1,000 fine, what would your response be? What does your household budget look like? Does the City Council even care?
What’s next? A mandate for a white-picket fence? The city is not a home-owners association. We don’t tell people what color they can paint their house or how tall their flagpole must be. Fort Collins is a diverse city with different tastes, preferences and income levels. Let’s keep it that way.
