FRANK NIEMEIR/AJC STAFF Scott Korowotny's car collection includes this 1972 Ford LTD full-size convertible, which the Ford buff is restoring. His family also lives in the garage.
Posted on 02/23/2004 11:27:31 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Outback, a subdivision in rural Pickens County that advertises "Mountain Living at Its Best," has turned into a neighborhood at its worst.
Former friends and acquaintances have fallen out bitterly over the neighborhood covenants, the rules governing what residents can or cannot build on their multi-acre, forested lots.
The building in question is a garage.
But it's not just any garage, housing the family sport utility vehicle and a sedan. It's an industrial-looking metal building that any monster truck would be proud to call home. It covers 5,000 square feet and sports roll-up doors 12 feet tall.
"I'm like Jay Leno, I'm a car guy," says its owner, Scott Korowotny.
He built it two years ago for a collection of seven vintageFords he's restoring, and he says he thought he was following the covenants when he did so.
The rules specifically forbid storing non-running cars — outside. The same rules are vague when describing what buildings — garages or houses — must look like. Four short paragraphs govern building materials, size, colors and locations. And they say metal siding is OK.
"Some people may feel I have violated good taste, but that's a matter of opinion," Korowotny says.
Residents of the Outback, where house prices range from $200,000 to $500,000, have discovered, too late, that what seems appropriate to one may be the worst fear of another. Does metal siding mean aluminum siding shaped to look like wooden boards, or the sheet metal typical of industrial buildings?
A judge will have to decide.
The subdivision, which lacked precise covenants and an architectural review committee to arbitrate disputes when Korowotny built, is now entangled in a divisive and expensive lawsuit. And the disagreement has set off the kind of bickering over aesthetics and subdivision politics that often pits neighbor against neighbor in developments across the Atlanta metro area.
Residents disagree over whether the garage is permitted under the covenants and whether the neighborhood association or just those who oppose the garage should be paying for the two-year-long court fight. An association newsletter shows legal bills near $20,000. And there's no end to the court dates in sight.
Destroying a dream
Pickens is a pastoral county of 23,000 people. Its only town of any size, Jasper, sports a pretty, turn-of-the-century main street and is home to only a little over 2,000 residents.
Locals cling fast to their property rights and freedoms. Diane Marger Moore, lawyer for those who are suing Korowotny, says, "You don't say the 'zoning' word up here."
The Outback is the kind of spread-out neighborhood that has lured people from more urban areas seeking a quiet, undisturbed life. About 40 houses have been built so far. There's room for 90.
Harold and Sharon Salinas retired there in 2000, moving up from Cumming.
"That was a dream we had always had," Harold Salinas says. "We built a custom-built home and invested just about all our life savings in it."
They enjoyed the views of green mountain peaks and blue horizons and began settling in with new friends and neighbors. "The first year or two before this fellow started [the garage] were the best years of my life," Salinas says.
He watched with interest as steel beams and panels arrived on a flatbed truck at Korowotny's lot, which is across the street from his dream house.
"I went over to ask him what he was building," Salinas says. Korowotny showed him the steel siding, painted beige to blend in with the "earth tones" the covenants call for. It also would have a more stylish peaked rather than flat roof, with overhanging eaves and gutters.
Salinas was not impressed.
"We realized then we had made a terrible mistake," he says. "That building across the road, which we can see quite vividly, pretty much destroyed our dream."
Lobbied neighbors
He lobbied other neighbors to take action. The Salinases were one of 12 couples and 11 individuals who hired Moore to send the Korowotnys a letter the same week the garage started going up. They believed the building violated the covenants and asked him to stop. When he didn't, they filed a lawsuit in Pickens County Superior Court.
Korowotny argues that he had asked subdivision managers about building a large garage with metal siding, and they told him it seemed OK under the covenants.
Tom Page, the manager for developer Four Seasons Properties, says covenants were intentionally loose — better suited to country lifestyles than metro suburban living. "It's a rural area," he explains. "People don't want a lot of restrictions."
After Four Seasons wrapped up its work and pulled out, the homeowners took over the neighborhood association and inherited the loosely written covenants — and Korowotny's garage.
Some of the most vocal plaintiffs have been elected to the board of the property owners association after the turnover. Under their leadership the group took over the lawsuit.
The suit says the garage is prefabricated, which is forbidden by the covenants, and is inappropriate among the brick, wood and stone-sided homes. It depresses property values and has cut into lot sales, the suit says. If it remains, it will open the door to more ugly buildings, the suit warns.
It also contends that Korowotny is running a business from the garage that violates a covenant saying that no noxious or offensive trade activities can take place.
Korowotny is an engineer who designs small electronic custom-car parts for high-performance Ford engines. The parts are made to order elsewhere and sent to him. He then ships them to customers.
The suit also claims that Korowotny has failed to complete a house within a year of the beginning of construction, which infuriates him.
He says he also spent his life savings to buy his 10 acres and build the garage. He had planned to use the property as collateral to take out a loan to build his dream house, but then the neighbors sued. That's a red flag for banks, which now will not give the Korowotnys a loan to build a house.
Korowotny's house in an equestrian neighborhood in Cherokee County was already sold. With no place to live, he built a cramped, 800-square-foot apartment inside the garage for his family — wife Jamie and their 4-month-old son.
The Korowotnys accuse the association of trying to enforce the covenants selectively against him, while others, especially those pushing the lawsuit, get a pass.
He says, for example, that another neighborhood resident has lived in a trailer while building his yet unfinished house and that others in the neighborhood also have home offices. What's more, the garage, he says, is not prefabricated but was built on site.
Read before you buy
The tense situation has dragged on. The Korowotnys are determined to keep the building; Salinas and some others are just as determined to see it go.
The only thing the lawyers agree on is that the situation might have been avoided if the covenants were better written or if a review committee had been in place early on.
John Lueder, a specialist in the field of neighborhood association law with Weissman, Nowack, Curry & Wilco of Atlanta, says typical covenants for metro Atlanta neighborhoods take up about 20 pages. They should be broad enough to allow some freedoms but tight enough to protect neighborhood property values, he says.
And associations should put architectural review committees in place early to interpret and rule on specific cases, Lueder says.
He says he is surprised at how often buyers don't bother reading covenants carefully before signing to buy a home.
Morris Martin, Korowotny's lawyer, agrees.
"Review those thoroughly and make sure you understand what they say," he advises. "If it appears too loose, they may find their money going to try to enforce vague and poorly written covenants."
Even when her legal troubles are resolved, Jamie Korowotny says her dream of raising her family in a rural mountain setting is gone.
"Regardless of how it turns out, [the neighbors] are never going to be friends," she says. "The people next to us and across from us are going to hate us until one of us dies. That's fun? That's living? It is just a waste."
Anybody remember the 0 Cents stamps??
That does afford some protection.
A '72 LTD is part of a "collection"?
Hmmm. . . maybe I can sell him part of my "collection".
Can't we just all get along?
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