By Leslie Moriarty
Herald Writer
MARYSVILLE — Sometimes fences make great neighbors.
Other times, trees are better.
And that’s the case for Edward Reynolds, a longtime resident of Marysville who has lived on 94th Place SE since July 1979.
Back in those days, there was nothing but open fields beyond his property line looking north. But in 1986, a mini-storage business was built.
Although Reynolds hoped for something else for a neighbor, he accepted it as a part of a growing community.
From time to time there were troubles with kids hanging out between the buildings and racing cars up and down an access road.
Reynolds just made it a habit every morning to collect trash from his back yard, where kids threw bottles and wadded up hamburger wrappers each night.
Eventually, kids started writing graffiti in the area, and that led to more problems. Soon the access road was blocked to keep the kids away.
In 1994 the city approved a revision that added a caretaker’s cottage and the enclosure of some of the vehicle storage area. Robert Lando, Prime Square Storage property owner, agreed to add a sight-obscuring green belt .
Trees were planted at the property line. A chain-link fence was added with a barbed-wire top to keep kids from climbing onto the storage unit property.
All was well for several years, and the trees grew to more than 15 feet tall as required by the agreement with the city. Then, a year ago, landscapers for the storage company trimmed the bottom limbs from the trees.
While owner Robert Lando said it was done to make maintenance below the trees easier, it created what the Reynolds say is an eyesore.
Now when he and his wife, who are both retired, look out their back door, they see their 6-foot-high wooden fence, a couple of feet of barbed wire and then the trees.
"Who wants to look at barbed wire?" Louise Reynolds asked. "We don’t live in a concentration camp."
So Reynolds and four other neighbors along his street sought help from the city.
A compromise between the city and the storage company owner resulted in green material being laced through the chain-link fence to create the impression of a "green belt."
But that didn’t satisfy Reynolds, who can still see the two feet of barbed-wire fence. Reynolds has spent the last year trying to get a green view back.
Because the fence top is barbed wire, green slats can’t be added. City officials and Lando have been meeting with Reynolds to try to come up with a solution, but they haven’t been successful.
They offered trees to be planted in Reynolds’ yard but he didn’t want to maintain them.
Reynolds thinks the property owner and the city should plant mature trees between those that are there to fill in the gap.
He also wants the barbed wire fence to be moved behind the trees, farther from his property line.
All that, however, doesn’t seem to be the fair answer because of the costs, said Paul Rochon, code enforcement official with the city of Marysville.
"We’re trying to come up with an answer," he said. "We want to please Mr. Reynolds, but we want the solution to be an equitable one."
You can call Herald Writer Leslie Moriarty at 425-339-3436
or send e-mail to moriarty@heraldnet.com.
Do you have a concern about how something looks in your neighborhood? The best bet is to begin with filing a complaint at the city hall in your town. Then follow up with a call to your city’s code enforcement office to see if there is a violation of a city ordinance.
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