Good luck C-Dub, I know how frustrating it is to want to preserve the scenic beauty but having to weigh that aganist potential lawsuits from people.C-dub wrote:It is a bit of an odd situation. Our lots are the normal width, but deep enough that we all have close to a full acre that is bisected by a creek with lots of trees and open space on the other side from our homes. The appeal of the area for kids and others does not escape any of us and is a nice area for one of these geocache things.puma guy wrote:C-dub, I curious about not being allowed to build fences. Has no one challenged the city on that? What possible grounds could be applied to prevent a homeowner from protecting property and privacy with a fence? How can you keep an outside dog without having it tethered, which is to me a very bad idea. Beside the safety risks and lack of real exercise, is inhumane and you potentially lose any security benefit of a dog in the back yard to prevent a rear door/window breakin. From your description it sounds as though access is easily gained from a creek area. Maybe your neighborhood should petition the city for special police patrols to protect your homes.C-dub wrote:That sounds cool. I may try that. I think it is in a creek bed area that turns into a small river that pretty dangerous when it rains hard. It must be up in a tree to have not been washed away so far.S&Wfanatic wrote:If you cant find it on the website, there is an app for both IOS and Android. Once you download it and open it, it will mark on the map geocaches close to you. I believe it has a blue dot on the map that represents your position so the green dot, the caches, close to your location would likely be the one you are looking for on your property.
My kids and I play this game all the time, and there are rules, and one of them is, if it's on private property get the owners permission first.
However, someone tried starting a campfire back there a little over a month ago and if any of those folks get injured or worse on my property I'm worried they will find a way to hold me responsible. All the residents are allowed and most have installed fences on the same side of the creek as our homes. They have been there for more than a few decades. It is the opposite side of the creek that the city won't approve permits for fences. It has been many years since anyone has attempted to do that, so I'm not sure what the city would do about it now. I'm not even sure it would be reasonable to install a fence because of the creek. It is easy to cross right now, but when there is a significant amount of rainfall it becomes extremely dangerous and could be deadly. A fence in or across the creek would likely be destroyed by either the water or debris that gets washed through or create larger flooding problems if it held the debris and was not destroyed.
I did paint purple lines on many trees according to 30.05. I'm hesitant about putting up actual no trespassing signs because I think the kids would probably just vandalize them or take them down. The traffic has decreased a little compared to two months ago. I'm not sure if the purple lines are the cause or if it was catching several people back there and warning them that it was private property or the police being called out a couple of times and the word has gotten out.
I did contact a geocaching site and they are going to try and help me determine if there is one located back there somewhere. I will also try and find it myself and give them more details about it if I do find one so we can have it and its information removed or relocated to public property.
If you do decide to fence it, depending on the city restrictions, you might look into something like this for the creek :
Lots of folks around my area that have creeks that flood, install these, or similar designs, and it allows debris to go through without damaging the fence.