Couple Fights City Hall Over Bit of Americana

A drive around the city reveals what lucky homeowners have: fences.

There are chain-link monsters that collect leaves and twigs, and brick walls that utterly hide a home from view.

And there are traditional white picket fences, such as the one built by Daniel Trevor around his charming home on a charming street in a neighborhood that conjures up New England.

But Trevor’s fence is illegal and has become the center of a controversy that will soon come before the City Council.

“All I wanted was a white picket fence,” said Trevor. “Just a little piece of Americana.”

Instead, the fence, built for less than $800, has cost the Trevor family nearly $5,000 more and months of frustration.

Trevor and his wife, Melanie Coto-Trevor, moved to Glendale from West Hills two years ago and found, much to their delight, a quiet neighborhood shaded by large trees and a clutch of neighbors who seemed friendly.

The couple also saw that many of the neighbors had fences.

So they built their 3 1/2-foot-tall fence, and taking a cue from a Norman Rockwell, painted it white.

But then the couple discovered that frontyard fences taller than 18 inches are illegal in single-family neighborhoods, unless they have been standing for at least a year. The Trevors’ fence was cited. The neighbors’ fences have been up for more than 10 years and are therefore beyond the scope of zoning inspectors.

“I feel for his problem, in his neighborhood,” said Sam Engel, director of Neighborhood Services, which enforces zoning laws in Glendale. “There’s a lack of sidewalks and curbs, the street runs right into the grass. But I philosophically disagree with the fence as a solution.”

Instead, Engel said, bushes or a hedgerow could be planted that would keep kids from the nearby elementary school and U-turning cars off the Trevors’ front lawn.

The city’s fence law, on the books since 1922, was designed to keep views unencumbered. Roughly 70 homeowners are cited for illegal fences every year, according to city officials, with most of those citations leading to the removal of the prohibited fences. Fewer than five variances allowing fences to remain have been granted in the last five years.

Before 1990, however, the law was lightly enforced, Engel said.

“People like to see open vistas,” said John McKenna, Glendale Planning Department director. “It keeps neighborhoods more open. It encourages community.”

Totally legal are the massive hedgerows and bushes next door to the Trevor home. Driving past the two homes, one can easily see the Trevor house but the other is obscured by the greenery.

“So what’s the purpose of the fence law if they want to keep open views?” Trevor wondered aloud. “There needs to be consistency.”

Already, the Trevors have taken their case before a zoning administrator and the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustments, to no avail. They’ve hired a lawyer to help them wade through the bureaucracy. Today they are scheduled to speak before the City Council, which will either declare the fence illegal and order it removed or allow it to remain, pending another variance hearing.

Although members of the board sounded sympathetic to the Trevors, they stood by the law.

“Fences, in our society, have made us more introverted; we’ve made jails for ourselves,” said Bob Yousefian, a zoning board member. “But they haven’t made things more safe. I understand with this white picket fence, it’s a matter of aesthetics, but communities have laws and this is the law.”

The question many homeowners are left asking, then, is why does the law seem to be enforced so sporadically?

“It’s totally ridiculous,” said George Knutsen, who owned the Trevors’ house between 1970 and 1975. Knutsen built a log fence around the house in the ‘70s and it was never cited, he said. The fence was removed by a later owner, not the city.

“The fence looks good and it protects the Trevors’ kids,” Knutsen said, referring to the couple’s two infant children. “What is the big deal anyway?”

Now it is up to the City Council to determine if the Trevors’ little piece of Americana, their white picket fence, will remain. If only it had been covered for a year, “or built to look antique-y,” Trevor joked. “Then no one would have known it was new.”

Council members interviewed said they could not predict how they would vote on the Trevors’ fence.

“I’ll go in with an open mind,” said Mayor Larry Zarian.