Backhoe Sparks House Fire, Calls for Regulation

By: Taylor O'Connor
Source: The Kansas City Star (TNS)

Jenny and Chris Garmons’ house caught on fire last year when construction workers rebuilding a home on the lot next door used a backhoe to knock down a tree, ripping the electrical wires off the couple’s home.

“We knew something bad had happened. We ran out and … the poor man, clearly it was an accident, but you could tell he was taken aback by that (happening),” Jenny Garmon said. “Luckily, we were here and we put it out and the builder was very good about getting the electricity back up, but still, that was pretty scary.”

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Their house aflame was a more extreme aftermath, but the Garmons said that on a more regular basis their home shakes when construction next door is happening, with the noise carrying over into their house easily. Gravel flies into their yard, with no one picking it up afterward.

And this summer, their Prairie Village basement flooded three times because nothing redirected the heavy rainwater away from the homes.

As homes in their neighborhood continue to be torn down and rebuilt, the near-constant construction is starting to take a heavier toll on their quality of life, the Garmons said.

“I like our new neighbors. We have great neighbors. I’m glad they’re here,” Garmon said, but, “it doesn’t make sense to me that there is no limit for how many houses … could be torn down and rebuilt at the same time.”

“What I realized that I really cared about is that it’s progress with compassion,” she said.

Garmon said she wants to see the city try to limit the number of teardown-rebuilds that could happen at the same time in the same neighborhood.

The couple isn’t alone in seeking relief in the northeast Johnson County city from the disruption and destruction that comes with building new homes on lots next to existing homes in longstanding neighborhoods.

A growing number of residents have been bringing similar concerns before the Prairie Village City Council.

In response, the City Council discussed the possibility of placing a quota or cap on the number of teardown-rebuilds that could happen in city limits. But the rights that people have on their own property quickly makes that complicated.

Ultimately, legal concerns led council members to direct staff to explore tightening the city’s enforcement mechanisms for those who violate quiet hours or finding ways to set a limit on the days construction can happen—which the City Council will discuss during its meeting on Monday.

“We don’t want to stop rebuilds. We get that not everybody is going to be OK with … living in an older home,” Garmon said. “It’s just about figuring out a common sense plan because … I really believe that it’s possible to respect everyone’s rights.”

Why can’t the city limit the number of permits?

The Garmons moved to Prairie Village in 2017 after Chris got a job as a professor at UMKC.

Before they moved, Jenny flew out to Kansas City and connected with a local real estate agent to tour houses in the area.

“I always wanted, I call it a Halloween neighborhood. I wanted a place where kids could come knock on the door, where neighbors talk to each other,” she said. “We had that in Maryland and I was really hopeful to find something like that here. And it’s been, it’s been very special.”

They moved into a brown, Cape Cod-style home in Prairie Village that was built in the 1940s. The home is filled with photos of their children, and the kitchen has a door frame that shows the tick marks of their sons’ growth over the years. A bay-shaped sunroom sits in the back of the house with plants by every window and big chairs facing one another.

From their backyard, they can see the torn up backyard next door as one rebuild wraps up.

Prairie Village residents are required to get a letter to notify them when construction will happen within 200 feet of their property. The Garmons received their fourth letter in a few months, she said.

While Garmon would like to see limitations on the construction, protections around property rights are pretty robust, said Nickie Lee, the Prairie Village deputy city administrator.

“In the United States and Kansas, property rights are a very important core value in the country or in cities. There’s a lot of sensitivity about what people can do on their own property,” Lee said. “When someone owns property, as long as they’re building what’s allowed … they can do what they want to do.”

A fairness element comes into play when trying to cap the number of individuals who can get permits to do construction on their property, Lee said.

“They could actually challenge that and say that we were taking their property. Meaning we were making their property less valuable or somehow preventing them (from doing) something when they bought the property,” Lee said. “That’s the general concern with doing something like this if you are taking someone’s right to do what they’re able to do with their own personal property.”

And even just trying to regulate the timing of construction projects to space them out can be untenable.

“Practically, timing is really hard to play with because every build is different,” Lee said. “We are dealing with a build that’s taken three years and another that takes a year. People have to show progress but we don’t say, ‘you have to be done in 11 months.”

“There’s a lot of complications with trying to stagger builds.”

Teardown rebuild history and moving forward

Teardown rebuilds have been an evolving conversation in Prairie Village in the six years since the city first established design guidelines in an attempt to get new builds to match the character of existing neighborhoods.

“I wasn’t here at that time, but really it kind of came out that a lot of properties were being built in the community that didn’t have the look and feel that the community wanted,” Lee said. “So we have been operating under those design guidelines for about the last five years.”

While the guidelines helped homes match the aesthetics of the neighborhood they’re in, the city still got complaints about the noise, nuisance and traffic impacts of new builds, Lee said, which led to the City Council looking into its enforcement mechanisms and limiting the hours or days of construction.

“I was glad that we were having the conversation again. I was incredibly frustrated we weren’t looking at tweaking the guidelines for size and scale,” Councilmember Inga Selders said. “This was just another way to approach it so we can keep this discussion going.”

Selders represents Ward 2, an area of Prairie Village that’s seen a lot of teardown-rebuilds in recent years. She bought her childhood home, which she’s lived in since she was 10, and has seen the community change alongside her constituents.

She agrees that tightening enforcement and limiting construction hours could bring a little bit of relief from the noise and hold builders accountable. While she understands that they legally can’t go down that road, she wishes they could have more of a discussion around a quota option.

“There’s good and bad, change is inevitable. I see that as a positive. I think we just need to be very deliberate and intentional because there’s a lot of things you can’t (undo),” Selders said.

The Prairie Village City Council will discuss enforcement mechanisms during its Aug. 4 meeting. Meetings start at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Building – 7700 Mission Road.