By Kelly Young

kyoung@jacksonvilleprogress.com

City officials are considering putting a halt on building code variances in the area of Lake Jacksonville. Mayor Robert Haberle shared the idea at last week’s Jacksonville City Council meeting.

“It will ultimately be a council decision, but the idea was to place a moratorium on variances for building and development at the lake until such time that we can get all the lake rules and all city rules that apply to the lake codified into one easily understandable document,” Haberle said. “Variances have not been a difficult acquisition at some points in the past, and I think how we handle them needs to be more structured. Variances are to be given for circumstances of hardship and difficulty, not just because my neighbor’s pier sticks out further than mine or because they have a bigger boathouse than I do.”

Haberle said that during the moratorium a committee of lake residents, city code enforcement officials and city leaders would be formed to compile the various rules, re-evaluate them and revise any that need to be updated.

“There is a packet of rules and regulations that are applicable to the entire lake and then there are building codes and ordinances that only apply to the city side of the lake,” he said. “All the rules and regulations are currently out there to be found; nothing is hidden, but the rules have never all been consolidated into one document — and as a result it can all be pretty confusing.”

The mayor said any ban on new lake variances would not take effect until all active applications had been settled. Currently two variance applications are in the midst of the process, including one which will appear on the agenda of the July City Council meeting. That application, seeking permission to convert a single-family dwelling into a bed and breakfast, recently received an unfavorable recommendation from the Lake Jacksonville Advisory Board.

Haberle said he believes the rest of the council would favor a suspension of variances. During last week’s meeting, he asked that council members contact City Manager Mo Raissi in order to let him know how they feel about the idea.

“Several of the council members have spoken with me about their feelings on the subject. One was strongly in support of the moratorium, and the others were interested in it, but wanted to make sure it won’t tie the hands of the citizens too much,” Raissi said. “We have also talked with the city attorney regarding the legality of it, to ensure we wouldn’t be bending any laws by doing this, and we have not heard back from him yet.”

Both Haberle and Raissi agree the city needs to be more vigilant in restricting variances to cases of hardship.

“There is definitely a need for variances, for any circumstances which occur that couldn’t be foreseen, but we need to get a handle on them. Why have rules at all if people can just violate them and then get a variance afterward?” Haberle said. “We are a society of rules and regulations, but if we are going to issue wholesale variances, then why even bother with having rules?”

Raissi said he doesn’t believe an item for a moratorium resolution will appear on July’s agenda, but August is a possibility.

If the city decides to move forward with a moratorium and a lake regulations committee, Haberle said the resulting document would be made available to all citizens on the city’s Web site, www.jacksonville-texas.com.

“The council has been getting a lot of phone calls and letters from citizens about variances, and I think when there is that much buzz and activity about a single topic, somebody needs to be looking into it and working to smooth the waters,” Haberle said. “We have many lake people who care, who know how things need to be done properly, that I feel we could get a cohesive, well-organized document out available to the people fairly quickly.”