Jun 6, 2008
Citing hostile reaction, commentator seeks fence
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Less than an hour after conservative political commentator Glenn Beck’s nationally syndicated radio and television shows air, his Ponus Ridge home is besieged by angry audiences, his attorney told the Planning & Zoning Commission Tuesday, May 13.
Mr. Beck and his wife, Tania, who were seated next to a guard at the meeting, have been advised by “their security people” to build a six-foot fence around their nearly three-acre property, Wilton Attorney James D’Alton Murphy said.
He claimed that the CNN Headline News host’s opinions have subjected the family to a number of security and privacy threats. He described people stopping in front of the home, taking pictures, filming and driving in the driveway. Other threats have surfaced in mail, e-mail and Internet chatrooms.
On several occasions across the country, he said, the family has sought the aid of law enforcement.
“(The fence) won’t stop them, but it will slow them down,” said Mr. Murphy. “It will stop anything people send into the property, whether photographs or bullets.”
New Canaan Police said a report was received in March about an individual banging on a door.
The Becks are applying for permission to build a four-foot stone wall, topped by a two-foot wooden fence at the edge of their property along Ponus Ridge. They also seek permits for six-foot wooden fences within 10 feet of property lines along two sections of Lake Wind Road.
Because roads border his clients’ land on three sides, the lot is considered by zoning regulations to have three front yards.
In the two-acre residence zone where the Becks reside, fences and walls that are in a front yard and within 45 feet of a property line are limited to a height of four feet. Anything higher requires a special permit from P&Z.
Mr. Murphy admitted that already, some of the fence had been “mistakenly put up” with the permission of Town Hall, and before construction could be stopped by what he called “The Beck Team.” Some of the fence extended over a property line, he said. Mr. Murphy declined to elaborate in a later phone call.
Town Planner Steve Kleppin said later that the Becks did not have a permit and his office would not have given permission for a six-foot fence in a front yard.
Mr. Kleppin said he had not received any complaints about the fence, and no enforcement action would be brought while the application was pending.
Last Monday, a green, approximately six-foot-high privacy fence was visible along Lake Wind Road.
Attorney Murphy said at the meeting that if the Becks were to erect their barrier 45 feet from their front property lines — where regulations allow six-foot fencing — they would cut themselves off from 1.2 acres of yard that they wouldn’t be able to see or use.
Commissioner Bill Redman replied, “That’s your choice.”
Pointing out that the purpose of the Town’s fence regulations include the protection of property, Mr. Murphy argued that the fence would be compatible with its surroundings and wouldn’t devalue or hinder the use of adjacent lots.
He posed the question of whether the fence would cause any harm to neighbors and answered it, saying regulation wouldn’t forbid the fence from doing so.
Only recently, he added, was permission needed with regard to fence height.
Regulations were amended in 1997 because fences higher than four feet were “causing deterioration in the quality of the town,” P&Z member George Wendell said.
“If you drove you felt like you were in a track, like a little rat running around a maze.”
Exceptions are made in rare cases, he told Mr. Murphy, but he was “not exactly sure you’ve met that.”
Chairman Laszlo Papp said it was not P&Z’s duty to regulate personal issues.
No effort had been made to use landscaping to enhance privacy beforehand, he said.
Neighbor Ilona Sheehan of Lakewind Road told the commission that she and other neighbors were in agreement that high fences were not suitable for their neighborhood.
She added that she was not acutely aware of security problems in the area.
Mr. Beck purchased his home in late 2005.
A second public hearing on the application will likely take place on June 24.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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