A Man’s Hay is his Castle

You’ve got to give the guy credit for um, ingenuity, maybe? Roanoke City’s Architectural Review Board comes to mind in reading this.

Farmer hides castle from building inspectors

LONDON (Reuters) – A farmer built an entire mock castle behind a screen of hay bales and lived there concealed for four years to evade planning regulations, officials said on Friday — but it may be torn down anyway.

Robert Fidler hopes to take advantage of a provision of planning law that allows buildings without planning permission to be declared legal if no objections have been made after four years
But Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in Surrey is not impressed.

“It does not count because the property was hidden behind hay bales,” said a spokeswoman. “No one knew it was there.”

The council wants the building near Redhill some 30 km south of London to be demolished, along with an associated conservatory, marquee structure, wooden bridge, patio, decking and tarmac racecourse.

“It looks like a mock-Tudor house from the front and it’s got two turrets at the back,” the spokeswoman said. “I understand there is also a cannon.”

The couple would have been unlikely to get planning permission as the farm was in “green belt” land where building was restricted, she said. A hearing takes place in February.

Fidler’s wife Linda told the Daily Mail newspaper the children grew up looking at straw out of the windows of the house and that they kept their son away from playschool on the day his class were due to do paintings of their houses.

“We couldn’t have him drawing a big blue haystack,” she said. “People might ask questions.”
Planning inspectors had been called to the site by concerned neighbours shortly before Fidler took the hay bales down in summer 2006 but had not seen the house.

“When the inspectors went there, all they saw was hay bales and hay bales on agricultural land are not that unusual,” the spokeswoman said.

“I think the neighbours thought there might be something going on but it is difficult to tell, isn’t it?”

Power corrupts

The last time I checked, city governments are supposed to be run by mature, level-headed adults. Then along comes the Roanoke City’s Architectural Review Board and the city council to prove me wrong. Thankfully, there are babysitters for this type of inane behavior, someone who can slap the wrists of immature minds and provide some decent decision making.

Last October, Aubrey Hicks needed to replace the roof on his house in the historic Old Southwest district. As if replacing a roof wasn’t costly enough, Hicks faced the prospect of having to shell out even more for a tin roof simply to satisfy the city’s desire to preserve the neighborhood’s “historical character.” (Now, how putting a shingle roof on a house destroys the historical character is beyond me. I drive through Old Southwest everyday and I haven’t once had to stop my truck in utter dismay as I glance at a shingled-roof house, thinking that the city is now going to pot. But I digress.) Not having the funds to put a tin roof up, Hicks decided to go ahead with a shingled roof. The City Board got wind of it and got the panties in a wad because *gasp* – Hicks didn’t get permission to fix (his own) roof! Oh the horror! So what does the city do? They order Hicks to stop work on his roof, preventing him from finishing the roof or even putting the old one back up, and even threaten him with jail time. All for not getting their approval.

“Ok, everyone out of the pool”

Hicks had requested permission to finish the roof, the board turned it down. Hick’s appealed and the city board rejected his appeal, “not because of the house’s needs but because Hicks didn’t follow proper procedures.” (Roanoke Times) So from October 2006 to August 2007, Hicks’ house has not had a finished roof simply because a power-hungry city council wanted to prove a point.

Thankfully, Judge William Broadhurst has stepped into the fray like a teacher reprimanding a schoolyard bully. He has ordered the city council to allow Hicks to finish his roof, saying the board’s and council’s refusal to grant authorization was “arbitrary and capricious.” Naturally, much whining ensued from both the board and the council saying that this would send the wrong message to other residents and encourage them to circumvent the review board’s authority. Honestly, I hope this is exactly what happens, subsequently making the Architectural Review Board (in this issue, at least) obsolete. Considering that the majority of the residents (NOT businesses) of the Old Southwest area are not exactly in the best place financially to put up a tin roof on a 100-year old building, this issue of needing permission for replacing a roof needs to go the way of the dodo. If the argument is made that, if gone through the right channels, a shingled-roof would be permitted, I would ask why in the world would someone need to go through the hassle of applying for permission in the first place?

Power and immaturity never go well together. For proof, just look at the Roanoke City Council.