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Port Richey To Examine Vague Rules

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By CHRISTIAN M. WADE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 23, 2008

PORT RICHEY - When Aaron and Alison Jenke wanted to put a fence along the border of their waterfront property, they followed what they were told were the code requirements.

They got a permit from the city's building department and installed a 4-foot tall white plastic fence.
Bruce and Linda Koenig, their next-door neighbors, objected. They argued that the fence was illegal under the city's building codes because it obstructed their waterfront view.

A ruling by the city's Board of Adjustment upheld the decision to grant a permit, saying it followed the code. The Koenigs appealed and the matter went before the city council.

Attempting to resolve the neighborhood dispute, council members debated the issue for hours at their April 22 meeting. Ultimately, they voted 3-2 to reject the Koenigs' appeal.

However, the squabble over the fence highlights what city officials say are vast deficiencies in city codes that have caused confusion and controversy for residents and businesses.

"The way the codes are written," Councilman Perry Bean said, "they are way too vague."

In the fence dispute, the confusion centered on a lack of criteria for obstructing a waterfront view, Bean said. Those standards are not clearly defined in the city's building regulations.

If the fence code were more specific, the dispute could have been avoided, he said.

"That should never have come before the council in the first place," Bean said.

City Manager Richard Reade agrees.

He said there are dozens of other codes that need clarifying and plans to hold a series of council workshops to discuss and hopefully resolve many of the code's shortcomings.

"These are long-standing issues that we desperately need to resolve," Reade said.

Besides fencing along waterfront properties, other areas of concern are noise levels, permitting of commercial and residential docks, boat slip requirements and parking.

Reade said the wording of some of the codes, especially when it comes to parking and permit issues, has made it nearly impossible for city staff to enforce the regulations.

The process of revising Port Richey's antiquated codes has been under way for years.

Two years ago, the city reworked its land development code to clarify issues such as planning and zoning, landscaping, stormwater management and off-street parking.

The process took several years and cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The building requirements and other codes were never tackled, though.

Bean said he doesn't think making the code changes will take too long.

"We can rewrite these codes quite easily," he said. "This isn't rocket science."

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (727) 815-1082 or cwade@tampatrib.com.

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