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[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Dear Brain Trust:

The church we attend is in a densely developed residential neighborhood -- 5,000 sq. ft. lots and overbuilt so not much for backyards. All of the adjacent neighbors are single family residences. The back fence runs about 400 feet and is the shared property line fence with six neighbors. Under California law, a property line fence is jointly maintained by both affected owners. In the past, when stretches of the fence were on the verge of collapse, the church would repair the fence with an agreement the neighbors would reimburse 50% of the repair cost, consistent with the law, but because the labor was always volunteer and the materials were typically less than $200 for each repair, we always ate the full cost, as a gesture of goodwill to the neighbors. One neighbor has been a bit of a dick by anonymously calling Code Compliance about visible recycling bins and such, but mostly we all get along with minimal contact.

Recently one of the houses changed hands and the new neighbors, as part of some landscaping work in their (tiny) back yard, installed a gate (?!?) in the fence. The church has been there since 1950 and there's never been a gate -- that part of the property is steeply sloped and overgrown -- kinda treacherous. The place they installed it is in the understory of a massive pine tree and was so heavily screened that we didn't even know about it until several days after it was installed. We'd planned on politely contacting our new neighbors to introduce ourselves and gently say WTAF but before that could even happen, a charity concert at the church was interrupted by 20 kids playing baseball (loudly) on our front lawn -- the overflow from a First Communion party the family was holding at the same time (they are not parishioners). Fortunately our priest was at the concert and walked over to address the noise/trespass issue. The dad was very apologetic but the mom was defensive -- "It's our fence, too; we can put a gate in it" etc. And then she says (and this is the part I'm curious about) "We didn't realize it was private property."

Okay, so, I'm thinking that's a flat-out lie -- that it's impossible to be a grown adult who can afford a $900K house and somehow think that churches are public facilities. Am I too deep into it to really know what's plausibly believed about the relationship between churches and the public? From contextual clues I think they're Catholic but I'm not sure most Catholics know how rigorously use of their church's property must be reviewed. I want to be fair rather than jump to the conclusion she's a chiseler.

Anyway, they broke up the baseball game at our request, and our priest e-mailed them days later inviting them to coffee -- no response yet.

All thoughts appreciated, including how you see this playing out. The priest looks to me on land use issues but I would advise him to be conciliatory if anyone thought the issue was at all close. I've got to reconcile the folks who want to bolt the gate shut on our side with others who think that will make things worse.

Kill them.