By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Residents of Stonebriar subdivision at Lester and Old Norton roads in Fayetteville may be able to put up privacy fences after all.

City Council Monday tabled requests for an exception to the city's normal regulations, and asked residents to work with their homeowners' association to come up with a fence design that will be acceptable to the association and to the council.

Newton Galloway, presenting arguments on behalf of his former wife, Teri, said the city's ordinances have his family in a catch-22.

Several home sites along Lester Road, and Teri Galloway's home on Old Norton, have back yards that face the roads, while their front yards face the subdivision street Verdon Hills. For legal purposes, city ordinances define the homes' back yards as front yards, and city regulations don't allow fences in front yards.

Six-foot privacy and safety fences already are in place in the subdivision, because residents didn't know about the city's ordinance banning fences for double frontage lots.

During recent Planning Commission, resident Larry McMichael and Galloway argued that the city's rules leave their back yards open to traffic and create a safety problem.

And Galloway argued that the city's aesthetic reason for banning fences on the “double frontage” lots is flawed. “Aesthetically, the city is better served by allowing some fencing,” he told City Council during a work session last week, adding that back yard furniture and children's toys are less attractive from the road than a fence would be.

But owners often don't maintain their fences, and they become eyesores, argued Councilman Al Hovey-King. “Unless that fence is properly maintained, I dare say you could drive around the city and csee a number of wood privacy fences that are in bad shape,” he said.

In tabling the matter Monday, council members directed Galloway to meet with the homeowners' association and bring back a specific recommendation for a type of fence that all homeowners in the subdivision with double frontage lots would use.

The type of fence, landscaping and maintenance requirements should all be addressed by the association, council members said.

Council will take the matter up again at its Monday, Aug. 2 meeting, 7 p.m. at City Hall. A work session to discuss agenda items for that meeting will be Wednesday, July 28, at 7 p.m.