SIDE STREETS: Judicial bulldozer takes aim at Great Wall of Cascade Avenue

Six feet means six feet, by gosh, in Colorado Springs.

Not eight. And certainly not 11. It doesn’t matter how ornately designed and elegant your wall is. We don’t care how much you spent to import red brick from Virginia to honor your wife’s Richmond roots. And we don’t care how lovely the pineapple-shaped finials are atop the pilaster columns.

You want a wall any higher than six feet, you better get the necessary permits, variances, approvals and, if necessary, permission from the Historic Preservation Board.

Or else.

At the very least, don’t blow off all the appeals available, including before the City Council, before going to court.

That’s the hard lesson learned this week by Holger and Sally Christiansen. as 4th Judicial District Judge Timothy Simmons delivered a judicial smackdown to them in the case of the grand wall they started building in June 2007 around their compound on Cascade Avenue in the Old North End Neighborhood.

Simmons said they didn’t follow the rules. Whack!

He suggested they should have known better. Crunch!

He noted they continued to work on the wall after receiving a stop-work order from the city. Smack!

Finally, he gave them 90 days to take their brick wall down to six feet. Pow!

It was a stinging 11-page ruling from Simmons, who said the Christiansens simply didn’t abide by the rules that apply to everyone in the city when it comes to fences and walls. He noted the couple — he’s an architect and she’s a real estate agent — were familiar with the rules and had followed them on a previous project.

Will Bain, senior city attorney, argued the city had explained the process, even granted them one variance, and city staff urged them to appeal to the Planning Commission and Council.

Simmons tossed out as irrelevant their defense that they were unfairly singled out. They had cited dozens of other properties not in compliance with the Historic Preservation overlay or the six-foot maximum on fences and walls.

“The sole issue is whether the city violated the claimed constitutional rights of the Christiansens,” Simmons wrote. And it did not.

The decision came after a three-day trial during which the couple argued they were victims of selective enforcement of city codes. The accused the city of misinterpreting its own building codes and denying them their rights to due process.

Holger declined to talk about the ruling or whether he’ll appeal. In fact, he slammed the phone down on me without a word.

He’s upset, understandably, after beating his head on a wall for three years.

The stress got to Sally too, when she testified about the impact of the controversy. The Gazette’s John Ensslin reported from the courtroom on his Sidebar blog that she choked back tears at the thought.

“An immense toll,” she said.

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