OUR VIEW: City pushes to vandalize beautiful brick wall (vote in poll)
Officials could choose to leave couple alone
Dear city planning officials, city lawyers, city manager, Mayor Lionel Rivera, and council members:
Life is short. People are fragile, and too often mean to one another. You have an opportunity to do something kind, positive and constructive that will cost taxpayers nothing and win you support. You have the option to walk away from the needless conflict involving the beautiful brick wall at 1221 N. Cascade Ave.
(Click on map marker for picture, then click on thumbnail photo to enlarge. For another view click here.)
To summarize an arduous story involving mind-boggling bureaucratic waste, Holger and Sally Christiansen built a wall around their home in 2007, making some procedural mistakes. They had partially finished when city officials told them to stop in October 2007 because of height concerns. They applied for and received an administrative relief certificate from the city planning department that would have allowed them to continue if self-appointed members of the Old North End Neighborhood Association’s board of directors hadn’t indulged a power trip. A member of the board, who also serves on the city’s Historic Preservation Board, did everything possible to stop the wall. City officials eventually ordered the Christiansens to shave down the brick wall — imposing enormous expense and hardship on the couple. A court recently upheld the order.
No immediate neighbors of the Christiansens have complained about the wall. Neighbors Edward and Amanda Clark call it “a tasteful and unimposing work of art.” Mark Nelson, an architect who co-authored the city’s North End Historic Design Guidelines, wrote: “It is an excellent example of the inventive and varied detailing with traditional brick and masonry materials that sets a high standard for all of us in the North End and the city to aspire to.”
Three city employees showed up at the Christiansen home Monday, by invitation, to chalk mark bricks and show the couple where to shave off the wall. When all is said and done, a beautiful work of architecture will be desecrated by an act of bureaucratic vandalism.
Sitting in a room of the Christiansen home, Land Use Review Manger Dick Anderwald said this: “Every fence in town is potentially in violation of the code.”
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That’s for sure. The Christiansens have a 3-inch thick notebook filled with pictures of fences and walls in the city that violate code. Unfortunately, their wall became the object of a gratuitous exercise of power and control. At issue is how high the fence extends above “natural grade.” The Christiansens believed natural grade was one level, and city officials claim it’s another.
“I think natural grade is a term of art,” Anderwald said, in the Christiansen home.
If the measurement is art, it’s subject to artistic license. That means Anderwald, who’s paid to review matters of land use, could choose to declare “natural grade” a foot or two higher at 1221 N. Cascade and leave this couple in peace. It would be the kind and civilized decision — one ranking city officials have the option to impose. — Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial board
