IT AIN’T CHILD’S PLAY
Extraordinary Swansea treehouse should go through ordinary approval process, writes Edward Keenan,
In general, I am pro-treehouse.
Pro-treehouse, pro-lemonade stand, pro-basketball net in the driveway, pro-backyard ice rink, pro-patio, pro-playground and splash pad.
That is, in ordinary circumstances, I am in favour of children — and people in general — in the city having fun and building the necessary infrastructure to do so. In ordinary circumstances, I think that busybody neighbours bothered by the signs of other people enjoying themselves — those who find it all too loud or colourful or messy or just random — should just suck it up, maybe buy some earplugs and mind their own business.
And in ordinary circumstances, I think the municipal licensing and standards officers who enforce things like the length of your lawn and the appropriateness of your backyard shed ought to be cut from the city’s payroll or redeployed to a sjob that doesn’t actively make urban life crappier.
But these aren’t ordinary circumstances, and this isn’t an ordinary treehouse. This treehouse in a Swansea backyard that on Wednesday morning captured the attention of the city, launching a thousand debates — the one shaped and decorated like a pirate ship that homeowner and dad John Alpeza says he spent $30,000 building gradually over years — the one the city had suddenly, in a voicemail message, given him one week to tear down. Nothing about it is ordinary.
Which doesn’t mean I’m against this particular treehouse — the extraordinary is often extra-good! — but it does mean that perhaps it’s worth considering the specifics, rather than jump, as all too many of us were ready to do, to our knee-jerk ordinary reactions, seeing this as yet another example in our ongoing debate about the NIMBY Fun Police versus the Inconsiderate Hedonists. And finally, by the end of the week, it seemed that considering the specifics in detail is what the city decided, rightly, to do.
For one thing, this particular treehouse blocks all the sunlight to the backyard flower garden of Alpeza’s neighbour, Marita Bagdonas, whose daughter (who lives on the same block) filed the formal complaint against the treehouse. Bagdonas, as it turns out, filed an OMB complaint in 2008 that prevented Alpeza from building a third-storey addition on his home. This background raises the uncomfortable possibility that the treehouse was built, at least in part, as an act of revenge. Alpeza strongly denies the suggestion he might have been trying to irritate his neighbour in building the treehouse.
“We are not there to provoke them, no way. That’s amazing. If anybody ever said that, I would like to take them to task and say, ‘Why would you say such a thing?’ Because it’s a lie,” he told the Star.
It seems fair to take him at his word. It also seems fair to note that even if he didn’t intend it as an act of spite, it succeeds as one in practice — Bagdonas says she can no longer grow roses in her garden due to the lack of sunlight, and the ugly woodpanelled rear face of the towering play structure hugging the very edge of the fenceline dominates the vista from her kitchen window. She has, it seems, a legitimate enough complaint.
But for another thing, it’s not clear that Alpeza is the careless scofflaw that much of the immediate social media reaction about his disregard for “permits” made him out to be. At least, it’s not clear he intended to be.
His protestations in early media interviews that he didn’t think he’d need a permit to build a treehouse were validated when the city confirmed that, indeed, the building department ruled in 2014 that no permit was needed for the structure because it was too small to require one.
But Alpeza’s further claims that the call from the city to tear it down without warning seem contradicted by the city’s further clarification of the history: Mark Sraga, director of investigations for the city, said that though no building permit was required, Alpeza was notified in 2014 that the structure was too tall to comply with zoning regulations.
“The owner was issued a notice of violation and provided with the options to either apply to the committee of adjustment for a minor variance to the zoning bylaw or alter the structure to comply with the bylaw. To date, there has been no action taken by the owner,” Sraga said in an email through the city’s communications department.
Alpeza has said all he wanted was a chance to apply for a zoning variance. The city says it offered him the opportunity in 2014, but finally they have decided to again allow him to go through the process.
Which seems a reasonable conclusion to what had seemed a sudden and unreasonable debate. Despite my general live-and-let-love, profun tendencies, it isn’t obvious to me that any structure, no matter how big or elaborate or intrusive or pirate-themed, should be above the reach of law. What was obvious is that it would be a shame to require such an elaborate, expensive, longrunning labour of love — and such an absolutely kick-ass playhouse — to be destroyed without a clear hearing that everyone involved could understand.
The extraordinary treehouse, finally, will be subject to a very ordinary process. Fair enough. With files from Sarah-Joyce Battersby. Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire