Officials deny dock on Lake Maitland

In a rather short meeting Monday, Dec. 11, the Maitland City Council saw only two items that involved any real discussion.

The first topic of note came in the form of a motion to deny the waterfront structure permit for the property located at 2035 Summerland Ave. 

Property owner Kevin Wendelburg re-submitted a Waterfront Structure Permit application to construct a small dock behind his home that sits on Lake Maitland.

After hearing Assistant City Manager Mark Reggentin detail specifics regarding the situation, Wendelburg had the chance to speak during the open period of the public hearing.

“This structure that I want to put in — the neighbors won’t even see it, they literally have one boat dock to my left and one boat dock to my right,” Wendelburg said. “I just want a little three-foot-wide — basically a fishing pier — so the kids can go out and drop a fishing line.”

This isn’t the first time that the discussion of a dock at this location has been held in the council’s chamber. Wendelburg’s appeal was originally denied by the council in July.

The original dock included a walkway, boat lift and upper-deck platform that encroached the setback. The re-submitted permit asked for the dock — minus other accessories — but still faced issues regarding size.

The new application asked for a single walkway that would be 44 inches wide and 30 feet long, but Wendelburg property’s only includes 23 feet of waterfront.

A city ordinance requires at least a 10-foot setback from the property’s riparian line — which leaves a 3-foot-wide area for a dock. At the same time, the ordinance also calls for a walkway with a minimum width of 44 inches — leaving Wendelburg at an impasse.

Part of Wendelburg’s appeal was requesting the council give him a waiver to the setback requirement, but council members were worried about being bombarded with other requests, as well as safety.

“I can tell you that I was sitting on the Lakes Advisory Board when we updated this code, and we didn’t spend weeks on the update, and we didn’t spend months on the update — we spent years,” said Councilwoman Bev Reponen. “Because at that time, we had a council that just couldn’t agree on anything proposed, and it was just very firm that these are the rules and that’s the way it’s going to be.

“That’s why it’s an odd 44 inches, because we didn’t want it real slender — some people would put a secondary access to their boat and it was so narrow that people would actually fall in,” she said. “So, it’s for safety reasons.”

TREE CLEARING

During the public period of Monday night’s meeting, Heidi Barry came to the council to speak on behalf of her community regarding questionable landscape clearing on Lake Hope.

In a presentation, Barry highlighted a years-long battle with the development group working on Maitland Concourse North.

“The residents in the area were promised by the council and the city of Maitland, during the negotiations of the Maitland Concourse North development, that barriers and buffers would be kept to protect the residents,” Barry said. “On Nov. 10, Aquatic Weed Control was contracted to remove exotic and invasive (plants) from the shoreline — a section of that property was clearcut to the dirt.”

After a site survey and review of the tree survey map conducted by Barry, Maitland Chief Planner Sara Blanchard, Community Development Director Dan Matthys and Building Official Allen Johnson, the trees that had been taken down were not marked to be taken down or retained. In fact, they didn’t show up on the map at all, Barry said.

Barry’s concern was shared by the entire council, which agreed the issue needed to be examined.

“I want to be sure that the trees that were removed are replaced,” Barry said.