White picket warfare

North Jersey Newspapers ^ | 08.19.05 | ALLISON PRIES

[Coleus]

White picket warfare

Friday, August 19, 2005

TARIQ ZEHAWI / THE RECORD

Hayden Mobbs, 5, rounding the bases in his Ramsey yard. Officials say the family's fence is too high and too close to the street.

Cars, cement mixers and landscaping trucks thunder by Hayden Mobbs as he whacks a baseball and scurries around the bases - kept safe from the traffic by a white picket fence that borders the front yard of his Ramsey home.

The 5-year-old is oblivious to his parents' $6,000 headache - the very same fence that protects Hayden and his 3-year-old brother Ian from running absent-mindedly into traffic.

By Saturday afternoon, it may be gone.

Borough and county officials have waged a battle against the fence Amy and Geoff Mobbs installed, saying it obstructs the view of traffic at the corner of South Central Avenue and Orchard Place and encroaches on the county right of way.

"It shouldn't have gotten to this point," Amy Mobbs said Thursday.

The Mobbses thought they were following all the rules when they went to borough hall with their fence plans. They were no strangers to the Building Department - spending thousands on permits and variances to renovate their two-story colonial.

But on Wednesday they received a letter from the county saying the fence must be removed immediately.

The county laid out two problems with the fence, saying it is a "hazardous sight restriction" to motorists and that it interferes with the road-widening easement, which extends 33 feet from the center of South Central Avenue - and squarely on the Mobbses' front porch.

"If they're coming after me, every corner lot property owner in town should be warned," Geoff Mobbs said.

In March, Mobbs said, he presented the borough's zoning official with a drawing that included a highlighted line around the property showing where the fence would stand. At the time, Mobbs said, the zoning official said Mobbs needed to write a letter saying workers could access the right of way and that the homeowner would bear the costs if the fence were damaged or needed to be removed for road widening.

With the letter written, the fence went up and the L-shaped patch of lawn became a play area for the couple's four children.

Then, residents started to complain.

So, with the borough zoning officer Richard Mammone and a traffic officer present, Mobbs staked out a new fence line, moving one part of the fence back two feet and another section back 6½ feet.

"At that point, he was stuck with the fence well in the county right of way," Mammone said. "I was trying to help get it to a point where there wouldn't be a sight-distance problem."

Officials from the Department of Public Works even came and moved the stop sign on the corner of Orchard, Mobbs said.

But "a week later, the county was standing on my corner saying we can't do this," Amy Mobbs said.

"That was a location that we suggested he try and we said we'd look at it again," Mammone said. "He was never told 'Move the fence three feet and everybody would be happy.'Ÿ"

Complicating matters is Mobbs' contention that Mammone initially said the couple didn't need a permit to put up the fence. But Mammone says they failed to get a permit.

Borough officials are now saying it's the local police and county engineers that have a problem with the fence's location.

County officials declined to comment Thursday.

According to a borough ordinance on traffic visibility, the fence would have to be set back 30 feet from the center of the road, Ramsey Sgt. Angelo LaManna said. The fence is now 20.8 feet from the center of the street, according to the county.

The borough ordinance also states the fence on a corner lot can be no taller than 30 inches. The Mobbses' fence is 48 inches high because they have an in-ground pool on the side of their house.

Mobbs has spent the past few weeks driving around town looking at other intersections. So far he says he's found 21 places where the sight distance was "inadequate or impossible" based on the criteria given to him.

"Are we the only ones who have to be held to the standard?" Amy Mobbs said.

At this point, Hayden's days playing baseball and racing around the front yard may be short-lived.

"I want some kind of compromise that doesn't put my children's safety at risk," said Mobbs, who plans to remove the fence Saturday.

"If one of my kids gets hit by a car, who do I call [the borough] or the county," he said.