02/22/2014
A Hutchinson man has been battling the city for more than a year over his fence he built. Greg Clark was going to court because the city said he actually had two front yards and the fence had to be torn down.
From the look of things it appears as though Clark has a fenced in “backyard” but it depends on who you ask.
“I got a letter from the city that tells me that this is actually my front yard. I don’t even have an address out here. i don’t have a mailbox, but it’s my front yard and i’m not allowed to have a fence this high in my front yard,” said Clark.
Clark has been in an ongoing battle with the City of Hutchinson since last summer over the fence.
The home project started back in 2012. Clark says he got approval from the city to build a garage in his backyard but got a different response when it came to the fence.
“They have definitely backed off removing it and are saying you can cut it down to 3 feet, but i can’t comply with that because they haven’t established a road grade or a street grade,” said Clark.
In order to get both sides of the story, KSN went to the City of Hutchinson and got more answers.
“Our zoning ordinances really treat any yard that’s adjacent to a street as the front yard. Any yard that’s adjacent to a street is required to have a front yard set back,” said Casey Jones, a planner with the city.
Jones told KSN that because of the zoning regulation, some homeowners could have more than one front yard.
“If your lot is a double frontage lot which is also referred to as a through lot where you have a street in front and back of the house then you are treated as having two front yards even though you would normally think of it as a rear yard,” said Jones.
Greg Clark is planning to represent himself in court next month. Right now KSN has been told he’s being charged with putting a fence in the front yard that’s greater than three feet in height.
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