This is why I live in Farmersville, 30m n of Dallas...unincorporated...no
tower restrictions at all....
Bob/WF3H
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Merrill" <barry@mxg.com>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 3:29 PM
Subject: [TowerTalk] W5GN Antenna Issue - Lost First Round
>
> 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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