Our antennas (visible at http://www.mxg.com) cross the property line between
the two adjacent houses we have owned since 1988.
This past July we were cited by a City of Dallas Building Inspector (who had
been called, not by a neighbor, but by a COMPLETE
STRANGER driving down our street), who called and said:
"My friend and I were driving down Cromwell and we noticed this
antenna tower, and saw that if it fell to the South, it could
damage that house, and we wondered if the people in the South
house should be notified that there was a tower that could fall
on their house? How close to a neighbor's house can a tower be?"
which, of course, forced the inspection and the resultant citation for both
side-setback-violation and property-line crossing.
The tower is 7.5 feet from the property line, with a 25-foot and 39-foot radius
antenna at 42 and 26 feet height in the normal down
position.
After several positive meetings with Building Officials, who tried to find a
way to USE the existing Antenna Ordinance to let the
existing antenna cross the property line, they concluded there was no
common-sense asterisk that said crossing a property line, when
it's your own property on both sides, is okay, so they had no choice but to
decide I was in violation.
We paid our $900 fee to appeal the decision (with excellent cooperation, again,
from the staff in the building office) and knew this
issue would
be: does the Zoning Board of Appeal have the authority to grant the exception.
As this was a quasi-judicial meeting, the City
Lawyer cross examined, etc., and every single board member stated they were
completely in favor of overrulling and permitting the
antenna to cross our property line, and how justified our appeal was, and how
sad they were that the City of Dallas lawyer's
testimony was that they did not have the authority to approve the property-line
crossing, so our appeal was rejected. One neighbor
testified in our behalf, and there were no complaints from any other neighbor.
At the end, one board member even said "I'm really
sorry we can't grant this, but I hope you have many more high sunspot cycles!"
The board did indicate that we do not have to change anything at this time,
since we are pursuing an alternative resolution. We
could appeal their decision directly into state court (City Council does NOT
touch Board of Appeal decisions - used to, changed law
2 years ago), but we have alternative administrative paths to consider first:
- replat the two properties and remove the property line between our
two houses; however, this appears to require that we actually build a
physical connection - expensive, unwanted, unneeded, but a possible
circumvention. Thought to be extremely difficult in our neighborhood
of identical lot sizes.
- re-zone the two lots into Multi-Family-2, which would not require the
physical connect. Unlikely, but less so than replatting.
This would be thru the Dallas Planning Commission, whose representative
for our area is appointed by our areas city councilman, so this is a
move into political, rather than adminstrative, decisions.
- receive a special exemption from the ZOAC (Zoning Ordinance Advisory
Council) - this appears to be the most likely path to pursue first.
Also an appointed board.
- receive a special exemption from the Dallas City Council.
While they cannot override the Board of Appeal, they actually write
the rules.
But in the end, it may end up in court, invoking FCC's PRB-1 ruling.
We will keep you advised of our progress.
Barry and Judy, W5GN & KA5PQD
P.S. The rear 15 feet of both lots is an easment to Texas Utilities,
whose Distribution Lines (a 12KV line on top, the 220 V lines
below, Times Warner Cable, Cingular Telephone all cross the
same property line that we are not allowed to cross.
P.P.S. We pointed out that not only was the structure temporary, but
we only needed temporary approval - at 65, I hope to live to
100, so 35 years of temporary relief is probably sufficient.
They laughed, but it didn't help their decision.
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