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Angry Homeowners Hedge Their Bets In Fight With City Is Now Trimmed, With Sarcasm Code Defiance At 10 Feet High

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By CARLOS MONCADA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - The great hedge debate is over.

Or is it?

Jim Shanklin, who has waged a nearly four-year battle against the city to defend what he says is his constitutional right to keep his front yard hedges as tall as he wants, has been ordered by a judge to comply with the city's hedge-height limit.

Yet Shanklin still may end up keeping his too-tall hedges, or at least the appearance of them.

City regulations limit to 6 feet the height of front yard hedges along major streets. Shanklin's hedges along busy 22nd Avenue North, which feeds into Interstate 275, are about 10 feet high.

He and his wife, Debbie, who have two children, say they kept the hedges that high to help shield their two-story house against traffic noise, trash hurled by passing motorists, including bottles, and prying eyes.

The city, though, said the hedges violate city codes and cited the Shanklins. The couple contested the citation in court, arguing their free speech rights were being infringed upon. They hired First Amendment attorney Luke Lirot to argue their motion to have the city's case dismissed.

Last month, though, a county judge ruled against the motion and ordered the Shanklins to comply with the height requirement, which city officials say is for health and safety reasons as well as aesthetics.

Rather than continue the court fight, which Shanklin estimated has cost him $10,000, he and his wife changed their pleas from not guilty to no contest on Oct. 11 and paid $240 in fines.

To comply with the judge's order, Shanklin removed all vegetation from the hedges from 6 feet down, which he says now makes the hedges 'trees' that are not subject to height restrictions.

Then he erected a 6-foot-high wooden privacy fence to cover the sticks and stumps left after the hedges were cut back. Shanklin, who works for a sign company, also hung a banner along the fence that reads, 'Your Tax Dollars at Work.'

Last year, the Shanklins put up a similar banner that said they were being 'Censored.' The city said the 29-foot-long sign was too big and cited them. They pleaded no contest to that violation as well, Assistant City Attorney Jeanne Hoffmann said.

In a few weeks, Shanklin said, he will cover the fence with artwork: a vinyl print of the same hedges he was forced to cut back.

Unlike signs, art is exempt from the city code, he said. Hoffmann said it would depend on 'what is actually on the fence, if and when it goes up there.'

'Driving down the street, when you look at it, it's going to look like a hedge anyway,' Shanklin said. 'The court case might be over, but they're not going to be happy with what I've done. But I'm well within the law.'

Reporter Carlos Moncada can be reached at (727) 451-2333 or cmoncada@tampatrib.com.

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