By Khalida Sarwari
A house on Oak Street has made some neighbors so upset that they’ve brought their complaints forward to the city. The residents are grumbling that exterior colors clash with the historic look and feel of the neighborhood.
The matter was brought up by Sung Kwon at the Heritage Preservation Commission’s final meeting of the year on Tuesday, Dec. 12.
Kwon, a senior planner for Saratoga, informed the commissioners he’d received inquiries about a house on Oak Street, which, he said, looked as though it had an abundance of kids’ toys in the front yard and was possibly running a day care.
Saratoga spokeswoman Lauren Pettipiece said no formal complaints have been filed with the city and that the location of the building is zoned residential and doesn’t have a business license.
Regardless, that didn’t stop the commissioners from having a spirited discussion about how and when a city can or should regulate the color of house paint, especially those in or near historic areas.
The house in question is a two-story single-family residence built in 1886 in the Glen Una neighborhood. The door and window frames, along with the fence around the front yard, are painted a bright color while the structure itself is a muted color.
Commissioner Marilyn Marchetti wondered if the city could use the opportunity to put forward an ordinance regulating how residents can paint homes that are on the commission’s heritage resources inventory.
“This house has had so many complaints, I can’t tell you,” she said.
Commission Chairwoman Rina Shah and Commissioner Alexandra Nugent suggested that, at the least, the city should send the residents a letter to make them aware of their offense. But, Kwon told the commissioners there’s very little the city can do in terms of code enforcement restricting building colors.
“They have to do something that’s not legal for us to even send them a letter,” he said.
Sandy Baily, a special project manager for Saratoga, reminded the commissioners that other cities that have dealt with this issue have had to consider and respect that house paint can be a form of cultural expression.
“Their comment is that painting is cosmetic, so it’s not impacting the actual structure,” she said.
Citing a similar case in Pasadena, Kwon noted that the only course of action available to the commission is for the neighbors in the area to unify and create a historic district. Only then would a city be allowed to regulate building colors.
“If you wanted to do something like that, it would have to start with the property owners,” he said.
But at the end of a nearly hour-long discussion, it looked like the issue would have to be resolved another day as the commissioners didn’t come to any conclusion on how to deal with the Oak Street house. The commission is set to meet next on Jan. 9.
Link:
Heritage Preservation Commission unsure how to deal with brightly colored house
