The village’s Planning and Zoning Board voted Thursday to recommend a zoning ordinance amendment loosening setback requirements for playground equipment and clotheslines.
The change, which still must be voted on by the Pinehurst Village Council, would let 5-year-old Karlyn Ferguson keep her swing set. The Fergusons erected the equipment on their small lot off No. 6 golf course without knowing they were first supposed to get a permit from the village Planning Department.
A neighbor behind the Fergusons’ home in the No. 6 residential development objected to the presence of the play set. Consequently, the village zoning code enforcement officer, Angel Smith, found that the equipment was too close to the back neighbor to comply with setback requirements in the R-10 district. The code requires a permit for putting such items in a yard.
Once the equipment was up, the Fergusons found they couldn’t comply with the ordinance setback requirements for its placement because their lot is too small. They decided to go to court if they couldn’t get the village government’s permission to let them keep the equipment where it is. The Board of Adjustment rejected their appeal, so they asked the Planning and Zoning Board to write an amendment to the ordinance to submit to the Village Council for final action.
On Thursday, the Fergusons and some of their neighbors attended the meeting to speak in favor of changing the ordinance. No one spoke in opposition. A total of 17 neighbors — and others in other parts of town — also have playground equipment or playhouses on lots that are too small to comply with the ordinance, according to the Fergusons and one of their neighbors, Dr. Christoph Diasio.
“It’s not as if we want to put a hot pink, Day-Glo swing set on No. 2,” said one member of the audience.
The new families are moving into many residential developments whose small lots in the R-10 zoning district can’t comply with setback requirements, argued Diasio, a pediatrician.
An estimated 80 percent of the village is composed of R-10 sized lots. They were platted years ago by the Diamondhead Corp., which owned the village and the resort 30 years ago, according to Planning and Zoning Board Chairman Lou Clay.
“I wish we had known we had to get a permit,” Brittany Ferguson said. She expressed hope that the Village Council will give final approval to the amendment.
“We wanted to avoid taking the village to court,” she said. “The village needs to find a way to let people know about these requirements.”
Their daughter continues to swing happily away.
“Our neighbors have been supportive,” said Ed Ferguson.
In an interview after the meeting, Mayor Pro Tem George Hillier told The Pilot, “The demographics are changing, and we have to learn how to manage that.”
Hillier and Councilwoman Lorraine Tweed were present in the audience during the meeting. Hillier said he was there to observe, but not to draw conclusions. Tweed expressed her interest in a separate matter: her own push to require fencing to seal off home swimming pools and protect small children and others from the danger of drowning.
Before deciding how to vote on the swing set amendment, Hillier said, the council will have to wait “until the Planning Department gives us a package we can sink our teeth into.”
If the elected Village Council votes to approve it, the amendment would change setback requirements to 5 feet from adjacent property on the back and sides. The current ordinance requires a setback “equal to the present building setback.” In the case of the Fergusons, that is 25 feet from the property line.
Their home is 28 feet from the line, and the swing set is 10 feet from the rear property line. If the swing set were moved 25 feet back, there wouldn’t be room for the child to swing, the mother argues.
Their home sits near the back of the property. More screening vegetation may be needed to the side of their property if the swing set were to be moved, although in the back there is a stand of pine trees that could serve as a buffer to suit the ordinance.
The amendment would also require playground equipment and clotheslines to be placed only in the rear or side yards.
The Planning Department is to write a text amendment, which will then go to the council, probably in August. The council would hold a public hearing and then vote on the amendment.
Planning Board members spent the most time talking about screening requirements. Member Carol Wiesenauer and Vice Chairman Howard Warren both insisted on having some type of screening requirement, although Brittany Ferguson’s suggested amendment didn’t include one.
Planning officials said the ordinance did not require any screening from 1995 to 1998, when screening requirements were added.
Planning Board Chairman Lou Clay reminded the audience that the village has to consider the needs of two groups of people: those who utilize the swing sets and those who are looking at them.
“We can’t forget either group of people,” said Clay.
Planning Director Andrea Correll said people reason that if “we have to get a permit for a deck, we should get one for playground equipment.”
She assured the board that the department could work out the details of an ordinance amendment. There are fast-growing shrubs and trees that could be planted to provide necessary screening, she said.
What is needed, she said, is “common sense and discretion.”
