In the 25 years her family has owned Scott Exteriors and the 21 years they’ve operated their small business where Church Road, Plano Road and LBJ Freeway come together, Christine Scott has worked hard to be a good citizen. She’s a leader in the Lake Highlands Women’s League, and she’s proud that Scott Exteriors supports LH causes where they can.
That’s why the visit from city code inspectors caught her by surprise.
City of Dallas code compliance officers issued her a “notice of violation” last week, warning that her 21-year-old sign was “causing a light glare to neighboring properties across the street.” The inspector said a neighboring homeowner had complained of light coming through her window, and he issued warnings to Scott, Bo Bo China and the Chevron gas station. The inspector said he’d be back to reinspect May 2, and if no correction has been made, $2,000 citations would be issued “for each day a violation is committed.”
According to Dallas City Code section 51A-6.104, signs may not “produce a glare or illumination across a property line of an intensity that creates a nuisance or detracts from the use or enjoyment of adjacent property.” Outside lights must be “controlled and not directed across a property line.”
Scott isn’t the argumentative type – she plans to turn her sign off each night and avoid the daily $2,000 fine – but she’s confused. She and her business neighbors have endured repeated crime she calls “petty,” and it’s been ramping up over the last few years. During a recent incident, a responding police officer urged her to take crime-fighting measures into her own hands by increasing outside lighting. Doesn’t one group at City Hall know what the other group is advising, she wonders?
Over the past 3 years, Scott Exteriors has had their front window broken in, their back fence cut and their outside metal building repeatedly kicked open. Large numbers of homeless individuals use the bridge area around Plano Road and LBJ for shelter, and construction there has sent them scurrying for new accommodation. Unsheltered persons are found loitering on Scott’s front porch most mornings, and they try to slip inside her showroom so often to sleep or ask customers for money that the front door is now kept locked all day. Scott believes illuminating the sign keeps her business, the businesses around her and nearby homeowners safer.
The Chevron gas station, taqueria and mini-mart across the street from Scott Exteriors stays open 24/7. Jamal was working the cash register behind a plexiglass shield when I stopped in (he declined to give his last name in fear of retaliation by city inspectors) but said they’d “solved the problem” by paying to install light deflectors on the fixtures over the gas pumps. Less light will travel over his fence, across the back alley and into windows on Robindale and Yorkford, he said.
The inspector declined to speak to Lake Highlands Advocate and said he’d have someone at the city contact us, but no one had by press time. He didn’t make it clear to Scott what aspect of her sign had become a nuisance and how she should solve the problem.
“We’re over here in this little strip of Lake Highlands that’s been forgotten,” she laments. “Our burglar alarm goes off, and it takes the police 2 hours to get here. We’re just not a focus. I’ve been told to up our lighting, up our alarm systems, and I get it. The police can’t be everywhere at once. All the businesses on this block have had crime, big time. We feel like we’re sort of a buffer to the neighborhood.”
Construction will continue for some time as crews install new service roads along 635 on both the northbound and southbound sides. Ironically, new roadway lighting is part of that plan, as well.
“I understand there are codes and rules,” says Scott, “but we’ve been here for 21 years. My question is how does one person calling in to the city override the concerns of all the neighbors? To me, it starts an interesting conversation. If this block of Church Road dims, is everybody more happy or less happy? More safe or less safe?”
