Buffalo Grove fence debate no closer to resolution
Buffalo Grove trustees remain on the fence over a new fence surrounding Cambridge on the Lake.
Neighbors in the adjacent Cambridge subdivision whose property backs up to the fence on the other side, are unhappy the new fence will be white vinyl, not wood, as the present fence is made of.
The fence has been there 40 years, and over that time Cambridge homeowners have put up fences on their own property specifically to match the wood of the Cambridge on the Lake one.
White vinyl won't go at all, neighbor Betsy Altman told the village board this week.
"We have very small yards; this fence is the largest presence in our yard," she said.
In the end, Buffalo Grove trustees recommended the Cambridge on the Lake homeowners association meet with some Cambridge residents to try to find a compromise.
The board also kicked the issue back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for its Sept. 21 meeting. The ZBA has already recommended the new fence get the same height variance the old one had - 6 feet instead of the standard 5 feet.
The attorney for the Cambridge on the Lake homeowners association, Daniel Wolf, said the 40-year-old fence is falling apart. The proposed vinyl fence costs $87,000, although for $10,000 more the supplier offers a tan version. But even that is nowhere close to the look of a wooden fence, he said.
Other alternatives would double the cost, he said.
"The board of directors (of the association) truly does not want you to believe that after 40 years we're going to be bad neighbors," he said. "We'll certainly listen to you."
But he said he could not promise anything.
Located along Dundee Road east of Buffalo Grove Road, Cambridge on the Lake has six buildings with 392 units. Many of the 503 residents are seniors. The complex is next to Cambridge Park and a strip mall. It also abuts the Cambridge subdivision, with 50 single-family homes on Cambridge Drive, Anthony Road and Harvard Lane.
Buffalo Grove Trustee DeAnn Glover said she can sympathize with homeowners on the other side.
"I wouldn't want it behind my house, and so why am I going to say these people have to take it behind their house?" she said.
Trustee Steven Trilling said Cambridge on the Lake could simply take the down the fence and not replace it, or replace the 6-foot fence with a 5-foot fence and not have to get village approval at all.
Still, Trilling hopes a compromise can be reached.
Marlene Greenberg, a Cambridge on the Lake resident said she and others want to be good neighbors, but "you're overlooking is who is paying for this fence. We are."
Wolf thinks consensus will be nearly impossible and suggests homeowners be allowed to put up their own six-foot fences to cover up the vinyl.
He said the decision to go with vinyl was made out of consideration for maintenance costs and the material's longevity.