Rules to Ruffle One’s Feathers

Bill Kratzert bought his ranch-style Fullerton home nearly 25 years ago hoping he would retire there. But now that the mortgage is nearly paid and he and his wife, Mona, are closing in on that dream, they are considering moving--all because of some chickens next door.

“We didn’t mind it until all the clucking began,” says Kratzert, 60. Not to mention the flies and the smell, which he says have made his backyard patio useless.

The hens--11 at last count--hatched a feud between the Kratzerts and their neighbors. There’s even been a hurled egg or two.

The trouble began when the neighbors moved in four years ago and erected a red shed and then a chicken coop for their teenage daughter’s ongoing 4-H projects. Kratzert soon discovered that his neighbors could own as many hens as they liked, thanks to a city ordinance that dates to Fullerton’s agricultural roots.

“When you buy a house,” says Kratzert, “you better darn check the city ordinances.”

Though many prospective buyers check out a neighborhood’s schools, traffic patterns and crime statistics, few think to look into city ordinances. Ordinance-related problems can arise long after escrow has closed and the moving vans have gone.

That was something Kratzert regrets not doing when he purchased his home in 1976. The Fullerton ordinance, adopted in 1941, requires only that the hens be kept 30 feet from an adjacent home and that they are clean.

“We had no knowledge of this ordinance, zip,” Kratzert says ruefully. “Then all of a sudden, we learned this the hard way. We are one of a few that this has happened to, but it could happen to anyone in the city.”

According to city officials, Fullerton has only received the Kratzerts’ hen complaint--compared with the 30 or so calls it receives each year about roosters, which are prohibited. What makes hens OK and not roosters?

Hens “don’t cock-a-doodle-do like roosters do,” says Jinny Barton, code enforcement supervisor.

Here is a sample of unusual city ordinances prospective homeowners might not know to look for.

Glendale

To keep a more open feel to the community, Glendale prohibits fences in homeowners’ front yards.

Homeowners “want fences because they keep strangers out or old relatives or pets in ... or because it just looks good--like the white picket fence,” says Sam Engel, neighborhood services administrator. “But this has been consistent since 1922.”

The city reviewed the fencing ordinance three times in the 1990s but decided against changing it because of the “potential for hodgepodge,” Engel says, and because fencing height requirements and other controls would be difficult to enforce.

Palmdale

After so many foreclosures in the mid-1990s turned this growing community into a patchwork of boarded up homes with ignored landscaping, the City Council is expected as early as this month to adopt a controversial ordinance requiring homeowners to install frontyard landscaping, and another that says all landscaping must be maintained.

The council recently heard six hours of testimony and public comment on the matter, which has split the community.

According to Laurie Lile, director of planning for the city, about 3,000 homes--less than 10%--would be out of compliance if the installation ordinance is passed. “These are eyesores on nice looking streets,” she says.

If approved, the city expects to hire a new staff member--at an estimated $65,000 for the first year--to enforce the new codes and to provide financial assistance for those who can’t afford landscaping or its upkeep.

Pasadena

You’d have to be crazy not to ask a broker about the potential impact the Rose Bowl has on the lovely neighborhoods that encircle it.

But what some prospective homeowners may not know is that the city is reviewing a 1990 city ordinance that limits the number of major events held there--those with more than 20,000 in attendance. A plan being studied would allow such events to increase from 12 to up to 25 yearly.

Few fear that the change would have a dramatic impact on the neighborhoods because the City Council already allows the venue to exceed the current maximum on a case-by-case basis.

Would the ordinance lead to more events than 25? It could. But according to Rose Bowl General Manager Darryl Dunn, “The chances of us getting over 25 events are slim to none.”

Costa Mesa

If you’re planning a move to this Orange County city, don’t expect to be able to hang your wet laundry out to dry--at least not where the public can see it.

“Our overall goal,” says Sandi Benson, Costa Mesa chief of code enforcement, “is to have an aesthetically pleasing city” and for homeowners to “enjoy increased property values.”

And you know those tarps that homeowners use to cover everything from fancy cars to leaky roofs? Well, excluding emergencies or temporary construction sites, they’re a no-no too.

Rolling Hills

In this exclusive gated equestrian community, residential lots are required to have space set aside for a horse stable or corral area, which must be reachable by a vehicle for the delivery of feed or removal of waste.

Anaheim

After a homeowner convinced the City Council in 1998 that she would keep a pig and its area clean after neighbors complained, Anaheim homeowners are now allowed to keep one potbellied pig in their fenced yards.

According to the ordinance, the pigs--which had been banned in other cities--must be licensed and vaccinated in the same way as a dog, as well as spayed or neutered.

Calabasas

Like many cities concerned with maintaining their verdant look among city sprawl, Calabasas has an oak tree ordinance to preserve and protect the native oak tree.

“If you’re planning on doing anything with an oak tree--prune it, take it out, or if you’re planning on building a swimming pool and it [disturbs] a root of an oak tree,” says Kurt Christensen, a senior planner, “you have to get a permit to do so.”

Other homeowners, on the other hand, might be surprised at the lack of regulation in some cities.

Los Angeles

Some Los Angeles homeowners are concerned about frequent feature filming on residential streets. The ordinance on the books indicates that filming should only be done with “a minimum of interference” to the surrounding neighborhood.

“We had no clue,” says Ina Coleman, who recently purchased a home in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, a popular location for filming. “I did all my homework,” she says, “but I never would have thought to ask about this.”

Within three months of moving into the home, there were three production shoots across the street or behind her house--complete with trucks, loud generators, milling crew and two-story banks of lights flooding into the night.

“Would knowing this have changed our mind to move here?” she says. “Probably not. But it would have been important information to have. I think it’s terrible that the agents don’t tell people I felt a little betrayed.”

A task force is forming between the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., which issues permits for shoots on behalf of the city, homeowners groups and industry representatives to look at homeowners’ concerns, said Morrie Goldman, vice president of EIDC. The task force should be in place by this summer, he said.

Beverly Hills

In Beverly Hills, those unlucky enough to move in near the rich and famous, be they alive or dead, might be disturbed by the stream of tour buses that go up and down residential streets with looky-loos gawking to see the homes of the stars.

Louis Lipofsky, 62, a Beverly Hills homeowner for 30 years, says the problems have increased in the last few years. Weekends, he said, are the worst. “I’ve seen as many as two or three [tour buses] in a five-minute period ....It feels like it’s an invasion,” he says.

The city code has no restriction for tour buses, except that they not exceed 3 tons. According to Beverly Hills police Sgt. Robert Smith, supervisor in the city’s traffic division, a majority of buses are over that limit. But the city’s not worried about it, because they haven’t heard any official complaints from homeowners.

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Once you’ve figured out city ordinances, don’t forget to check on them occasionally, because they may be revised. Casey Pierce, 52, the Kratzerts’ neighbor and owner of the Fullerton chickens, did just that after the Kratzerts’ initial complaint and the feuding began. Pierce called the city to ensure the ordinance hadn’t changed from 10 years ago when she had first researched it after her daughter, Courtney, who is now 15, got chickens as an Easter gift. The city even came out the second time, at Pierce’s request, to ensure that the chickens were exactly 30 feet from the Kratzerts’ house.

“We tried to do everything we could,” Pierce says.

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Cohen is a Los Angeles freelancer.