A landscape architect hoping to get a zoning exception to allow his client Marci Asay to keep a marquis-type decorative entrance to her property was out of luck at the March 13 Centerville Planning Commission meeting.

While several commissioners agreed that the entrance was beautiful the commission ultimately decided that the zoning code amendment proposed by landscape architect Bill Richter would just have too many implications for other applications.

That evening Richter asked the commission to recommend to the city council that they change fencing requirements in front yards to allow fencing up to 10 feet high to accommodate his client’s entrance. The current maximum height allowed is 4 feet high but he had driven through Centerville and seen many properties that violate this particular ordinance, he said. “I did that not even knowing that if I did construct that I was in violation because it’s everywhere.”

Even after hearing from three neighbors who all said they love the entrance structure, commissioners seemed leery of changing fence heights just to accommodate this particular home.

“The question in front of the commission is not whether this is a good idea for this house Commission Chair Mason Kjar told the neighbors. “The question is whether or not all houses should be allowed to erect a wall or a fence up to 10 ft tall.

“The only decision we have in front of us is whether to open the floodgate and give rise to this. That is my concern …  is that if we were to change the code to allow fences and or walls to have a maximum height of 10 feet you could have a privacy fence under that amendment that would just be like a Berlin Wall,” he said.

“The biggest concern I have is that your application isn’t for this site it’s for every home in the city … the only decision we have in front of us is whether or not to allow the code to be permitted for every single home,” Kjar said later.

Hearing that, Richter asked that the commission consider splitting definitions for walls and fences from those for entrance structures.

While some acknowledged this could be a good idea, it was not something they could take action on that night, commissioners said.

In the end Commissioners LaRae Patterson made the motion to deny the zoning change amendment.

“My reason for doing that is because I think it opens a floodgate of problems as proposed to us,” she said.

Patterson said if evaluated on a case by case basis she might be in favor of allowing taller fences but “we need to have a greater definition or possibly separation of fence wall structure in [the city ordinance].”

The planning commission voted unanimously in favor of Patterson’s motion.

The issue will go before the city council in the coming months.

If they decide against a zoning text change, the marquis structure will have to be removed. Centerville City cited Asay for non-compliance in December.