I am one of the neighbors whose back yard is next to the Kenwood Village property. The City Council is voting to rezone the property from single family housing and agricultural land to high density housing. This reclassification will currently allow the possibility for the owner, Ken Alker, to build up to 190 housing units. The owner is trying to get the number of housing units increased to at least 284. I would like to correct the owner's misstatements in his previous letter .
Regarding the weeds on the property, the Fire Department, to the best of my knowledge, generally requires a perimeter of a vacant lot to be mowed 20 feet around the neighboring houses. They generally do not require the middle of the field to be mowed. Ever since he bought the property over a decade and a half ago, the owner has received a violation in 2019 for not mowing the perimeter, according to the Fire Marshal. Further, this very year, the Fire Department also sent me an email regarding a complaint from another unknown neighbor stating, “[I]n spring 2023 upon contacting the owner after a concerned neighbor contacted me, he explained that he (the owner) was waiting for tractor parts to complete the requested hazard abatement.” Even Mr. Alker admits “they (the Fire Department) have called me to remind me to mow and that every time they have called I have cleared the field.”
There have also been two "brush" fires on the property since he purchased it. The 2013 fire was started by a marijuana cigarette. The brush/annual grasses caused it to expand to 0.75 acres and to burn the bottom of a telephone pole. I was evacuated from my home. The picture in the newspaper showed the weeds to be taller than the firefighters. Deputy Fire Marshal Tan stated, “I do not have record of a perimeter clearing in 2013.” Also, there is no indication the fire came “from smoking from a sidewalk,” as the property owner claims.