SIDE STREETS: Workers begin painstaking task of shrinking Cascade wall to comply with court order

Brick by brick, the towering wall around the Old North End home of Holger and Sally Christiansen is coming down.

Not all the way to the ground. It’s shrinking just enough to comply with a judge’s order and adhere to city codes mandating fences and walls not exceed 6 feet in height without special permits.

Workers are painstakingly removing bricks. See photos on my blog.

The deconstruction underway on Cascade Avenue, just north of Uintah Street, would seem to be the final chapter in a three-year fight over the wall, sculpted of imported red Virginia brick and highlighted by pillars topped with decorative pineapple-shaped finials. Not quite, but more on that in a minute.

The fight pitted the couple — he’s an architect, she’s in real estate — against their neighbors, the city and the historic preservation board over the rules governing the height of fences and just what can be done inside a historic district.

Like most fights, this one got real unpleasant.

Neighbors were not happy to see the wall going up in July 2007 and started calling the city to complain. Public meetings did not calm them. After all, they had voted in September 2000 to declare their neighborhood a historic preservation district and impose strict rules governing changes made to the outsides of their homes and properties.

So, in addition to meeting general city codes, the Christiansens’ wall had to satisfy the Historic Preservation Board, which is a sort of homeowners association board on steroids. They failed. But they pushed on with construction, despite lacking the necessary permits, variances and approvals.

Neighbors howled and the city stepped in. That’s when it got really ugly.

“The Christiansens have vowed to not take the wall down,” said Dick Anderwald, city land use review manager, describing the dispute in 2008. “And neighbors have vowed to not let the wall stand.”

You get the picture.

Ultimately, the City Council voted to sue the Christiansens to force compliance with the codes. The couple countersued. After a three-day trial in February, the verdict came in: the wall must be lowered to 6 feet within 90 days.

“The vast majority of the neighborhood was unequivocally in favor of the ordinance being enforced,” said Dave Munger, president of the Council of Neighbors and Organizations and an officer in the Old North End Neighborhood Association. “We could have seen a dramatic change in the historic character of the neighborhood.”

So the wall is shrinking. Since the Christiansens won’t talk to me, I wasn’t able to ask about their latest request to City Hall. They want a variance to keep their pineapple-shaped finials, which currently reach nearly 11 feet.

It’s pending, so stay tuned!

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