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Published on 01/19/1998 All articles from this issue

Sunkist debacle, from cottage to 'construction shed,' bewilders neighbors

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

Residents are wondering how the gingerbread-like cottage that was approved by city council has turned into something else entirely.

"It looks like a construction shed," said Mayor pro tem Lou Becker. "The architecture changed. I was very disappointed."

Another resident called the structure "an overgrown outhouse."

City council approved the building. It's built entirely to code. Folks can't understand what happened.

"The code really is pretty good," Becker said. "But there are certain loopholes because of unusual lot sizes."

And it was lot shape, a curious configuration that has 103 feet of frontage on Avalon Drive and a thumb of land with 50 feet on Sunkist Lane, that posed the challenge for this cottage. It's "probably the only lot in town with unrestricted access on two streets," said city planner David Kornfield.

The builder wanted to put a main house facing Avalon and a second living unit facing Sunkist.

But that required a variance because the city's second living unit ordinance requires that the entrance to a second living unit be screened from view.

Most Sunkist residents opposed the variance. They told council they did not want a little house visible that was out of scale with the other houses on their street.

Planning commissioners and the city staff recommended the variance so the second living unit would be "more like a little cottage with a front yard," making the front "compatible with the street scape on Sunkist Lane," Kornfield said.

The plans council saw showed a cottage with a gabled roof, set back 25 feet from Sunkist, a little house that was a miniature of the main house.

Council denied the variance, said to turn the second living unit around, put up a fence, and for staff to handle the changes, Kornfield said.

"By turning its back on the street - which council directed - it produced a different effect," Kornfield said.

So the house was turned around. To make room for a driveway and turnaround for the cottage, it had to be moved to the rear of the lot - Sunkist Lane - making that the rear lot line, or backyard, for the property.

That made the little house subject to city codes pertaining to rear yard accessory structures. And regulations that govern rear yard accessory structures don't allow anything over 12 feet in height, Kornfield said.

So the roof line was lowered, creating more of a flat roof effect, and what got built is set back 10 feet from Sunkist, with its back to the street.

"It doesn't look anything like the drawings we saw," Becker said. "Yes, you turn it around, but we thought it would come out like the drawings. We thought the architecture would stay the same.

"At least it'll have a fence," Becker said.