By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Robert Holmes says he just wants to keep his dog in the backyard and thieves and vandals out.

But he'll have to take his request for a zoning variance to allow a backyard fence to the City Council. The Planning Commission last week turned him down.

Holmes said he recently caught a peeping Tom looking in the rear windows of the house he leases, and that's not all. “My tomatoes were taken right off the vine, and I've had yard equipment taken.”

The home faces McIntosh Place Drive, a subdivision street, but the rear of the house is just a few feet from Creekwood Trail, a collector road that serves the neighborhood off Ga. Highway 314 just beyond the highway's split with Ga. Highway 85.

According to city ordinances, the home has two front yards and no backyard. The law allows ornamental fences of up to four feet in front yards, but Holmes says that's not enough to solve his problems.

The fence Holmes wants the city to approve has already been built. He didn't know he was breaking the law, he said, adding that other homes near his have fences just like his.

But those fences, and others in the area around White Road and Creekwood Trail, are a bone of contention for neighbors, said Mike DeLowe, who spoke in opposition to Holmes' variance request. Not only are the fence builders breaking the law, he said, but they're also breaking neighborhood covenants.

“We moved into a subdivision with protective covenants understanding that there would be restrictions,” he said. “We've complained about every one that's gone up,” he said of the fences.

Fence concerns are creating headaches for the city government. Double frontage lots like the one Holmes lives on are commonplace in the city, and residents complain that they have no way of knowing when they buy the homes that they can't build fences on them.

City Council recently set a precedent by granting a variance for a similar home in Stonebrier subdivision off Old Norton Road, but Planning Commission members say they don't have that kind of authority.

“If the City Council wants to go change an ordinance, it's their prerogative,” said commission member Allan Feldman. “I don't think it's our prerogative.”

“I still think it's a safety issue,” said commissioner Segis “Al” Lipscomb, “covenants or no covenants.” She voted against the motion to deny the variance. If Holmes' landlord decides to file an appeal to the City Council, it could be heard at the group's Jan. 3 meeting.