Fences are back in the city spotlight

TRAVERSE CITY City officials will take a peek at regulating fences after hearing complaints about 10-foot high masonry walls around residences along Division Street.

Traverse City planning commissioners directed staff to research a fence ordinance after decades of straddling what's been a contentious issue. Planners have considered an ordinance four times since 1977, but never acted.

The lack of city guidelines for fence building coupled with recent construction of a nearly 10-foot high cement wall on the west side of Division Street prompted residents Pat and Dennis LaBelle to request city action.

"It's a perfect time to address this because it's so ugly, it just sticks out, it really does," Pat LaBelle said of the new wall. "That's a good example of how bad it can get."

Such walls reduce neighborhood safety by obstructing views and give tourists the wrong impression of Traverse City, the LaBelles said.

"The unintentional message these high, solid walls sends to visitors is that there are potential crime issues and that people are not welcome in this area," the LaBelles wrote in a letter to the planning commission.

Kathie Scott lives at Fifth Street and Division and has heard criticism that residential walls make Division Street look like Detroit. She shrugs it off.

"Tough, you don't live here," she said of wall critics.

Scott tried wood fences and cedar shrubs but said they didn't help block traffic noise from busy Division Street.

"We were not able to have a conversation in the back-yard until the traffic clears, and do you know how often the traffic clears on Division?" Scott said. "Not very often."

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Fences are back in the city spotlight