From inside his lakefront home in Crystal Lake, Illinois, Ronald Orist says he can no longer see Main Beach. The view he and his wife, Doreen, had of the water now runs into a row of 15 emerald green arborvitae their neighbors planted beside the couple’s 3-foot fence. In May the city ordered the trees out. About a month later it reversed itself, and the hedge row is still standing.
The fight has since turned into a question for the whole city: whether a line of shrubs counts as a fence.
Fifteen arborvitae along a 3-foot fence
The Northwest Herald reported on Oct. 20 that the neighbors planted the arborvitae about 2 feet apart along the Orists’ property line. On lakefront lots in Crystal Lake, the side facing the lake counts as the front yard, and the city code limits fences, walls and screening in front yards to 3 feet.
That rule is why the city first sided with the Orists. In May, it issued the neighbors an ordinance violation asking them to remove the trees for exceeding the height limit. Roughly a month later, the city took the violation back after deciding the hedges do not fit the code’s definition of a fence. The current definition says a fence “may include” hedges, wording city staff have described as ambiguous…