Condo crowding: Cul de sac dwellers feeling squeezed by development

Erin Neff

Monday, Oct. 9, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

Jim Davey and his neighbors aren't your classic NIMBYs.

In fact, they bought homes on a lengthy cul de sac near the city's western end in 1992 accepting that their view of the mountains would someday be blocked by other development.

So while they weren't thrilled in 1996 to learn that the property to the west of them was zoned for multi-family dwellings, they took solace in a map showing a 20-foot wide landscaped buffer between their backyards and the new development.

The problem in the year 2000 is that the development is almost finished, there's no buffer in sight and there's nothing city government can really do about it.

"This is my version of an army barracks shoved in my back yard," said Judy Nielsen, one of more than a dozen homeowners on Marble Gorge Drive who oppose the condominium complex to their west. "If they could have come closer, they would.

"They squeezed everything they could out of it," Neilsen said.

Davey, a retired U.S. marshal, said he and his neighbors have been misled by nearly everyone involved -- starting with Signature Homes who sold them their property and ending with Pulte Home Corp., the developer building the condominiums.

In between there's the homeowners association Davey alleges is politically controlled by Signature and a former city Planning Commissioner. But there's little in between the $200,000 to $300,000 homes and their new neighbors in Peccole Ranch.

"This case literally shows the need to conform to residential adjacency standards," said City Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald, in whose ward the residents live. "If this development came to me today with the same specifications, I wouldn't approve it."

But when Pulte came to the city in 1996 with plans for Stone Ridge Condominiums, the current residential adjacency standards were not on the books. Today, the height of the proposed building is tripled, and that amount becomes the distance required between it and the existing buildings.

Thus, if the 2-story Stone Ridge is 100 feet tall, it would have to be 300 feet from the homes on Marble Gorge Drive.

But behind John Ginty's home, the condos are just 35 feet away.

"This is just a nightmare," Ginty said. "We had our home on the market nine months ago, and it didn't sell."

In 1996 residents expected at the very least to have a 20-foot-wide landscaped buffer required as a condition by the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission minutes do show the approval was subject to a number of conditions, including that Pulte "provide minimum 24-inch box evergreen trees 20 feet on center with ground cover in a minimum 20-foot wide landscape planter along the east property line."

City staff today believes Pulte has met the requirement.

"We went out to the site and took a look at it, and I felt that it absolutely did meet that condition," said deputy city attorney Steve George.

One of the problems is that the condos are on higher elevation than the homes, and anyone on the second-floor of the condos will have a clear view of the back yards and bedrooms of the homes.

Boggs McDonald said the best thing she can do is meet with residents and try to forge some sort of compromise. In the Marble Gorge case, Pulte has agreed to add more landscaping to combat the glare of lights shining from the condo development into the homes.

In fact, Boggs McDonald said, the only area in which Pulte did not comply with city conditions or regulations, was in lighting. Headlights from vehicles in the condo complex shine directly into living rooms, bathrooms and master bedrooms of the homes.

"Every room in this house is affected," Davey said. "We can't sleep."

George said Pulte has no choice when it comes to remedying the lighting problem.

"That's not an option," George said. "If they don't address it, they won't get a certificate of occupancy."

Boggs McDonald said that while it won't be any comfort to the Marble Gorge residents, their plight is leading to change.

"The bad news for those residents is good news for others," she said. "I have seen the problem with my own eyes, and I won't let it happen again."

In fact, Boggs McDonald said she recently cited the Marble Gorge dispute as an example when talking to developers of a planned Boca Park development with similar residential adjacency issues.

"Why even go there again?" Boggs McDonald said.