JACKSON - A two-story Victorian-style tree house in the front yard of a Clinton home must come down, a city attorney told the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Ken Dreher said the city would like to let the tree house remain, but there appeared no legal way to do so. He said the city even offered volunteers to help move the elaborate structure to the back yard. "The purpose of the ordinance is to prevent items in the front yard that devalue the property," Dreher said.
Last year, a Hinds County judge ruled that the aldermen had no legal right to order removal of the structure. The judge said that nowhere in the city code was there a provision banning tree houses. The city appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
During Wednesday's hearing, Justice Jess Dickinson said the question is when the tree house was started - before or after a 1997 revision to the city's zoning laws.
The city said it went up after the April 1997 adoption of the ordinance. The family's attorney, Steve Smith, said the tree house was started before.
Dickinson said the ordinance as it was explained by Dreher makes it appear the city is trying to prohibit a private landowner from using his own property. He said it appears the ordinance would bar "anything God didn't make or didn't grow wild."
The justice said the ordinance refers to a ban on items that are in a "fixed location or attached to something that's fixed on the ground. Is that a bird house or bird bath?"
Smith told the court that the city took action against Scot and Mary Welch, who have four children, only after one complaint from one neighbor who has since moved.
"For six years, there's been no complaint on noise, fights or disturbances, nothing," Smith said.
Smith said the Welches told a zoning board hearing that they were told by a city official before April 1997 that they did not need permission from the city to erect the structure. Scot Welch, 39, said after Wednesday's hearing that the city came across "more like a tyrant trying to punish someone, or use them as an example."
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