Inver Grove Heights playing catch-up on driveways

So you're an outdoor lover who lives in Inver Grove Heights and when you want more space to park your recreational vehicles, you have asphalt poured to make your driveway a lot bigger.

That satisfies your needs. But what about those of your neighbors?

In Inver Grove Heights, there hasn't been a permit process in place for such projects. That's led to complaints from residents who say their neighbors have expanded their driveways so much that they're now too close to the lot lines. In some cases, the unhappy neighbor's visual landscape has been filled with trailers, recreational vehicles and cars they don't want to see day in and day out.

Such situations pose a dilemma for city officials, who are considering setting up a permit process -- and studying what to do with those widened driveways that are already in place and too close to lot lines.

"That's a sticky wicket," said Joe Lynch, the city administrator. "Are we going to make them rip it out? I don't know."

The City Council is to take up the issue in the coming weeks.

"We do have regulations about how close paved surfaces, driveway, parking areas, buildings and structures can be to lot lines," Lynch said.

With the driveways already widened in violation of setback requirements, the owners would need to get a variance to the regulations approved by the city, Lynch said.

The city's community development staff members are now checking with surrounding cities, researching the issue for the City Council, Lynch said. He outlined the main questions at hand:

"How do we deal with this issue, given the fact that there are probably multiple numbers of these that have been installed because we didn't have a permit, or a permit process? Are we going to go to a permit process? And if we go to a permit process, what's going to be involved in that? How do we enforce making sure that people obtain a permit and then do things according to that plan?"

Even enforcing such compliance is a challenge -- given that a new regulation would come at a time when the city has been forced to reduce its staff because of budget cuts and shrunken revenues.

Other cities employ a wide variety of tactics over such driveway issues, from not requiring a permit at all, as was the case typically in Inver Grove Heights, to having a fairly lengthy permit process that could include surveys to pinpoint lot lines and a requirement that owners show changes won't create water runoff at greater rates and volume.

"Rather than deny that outright, the city has said, 'Well, let's hold these for now. Let's complete that research. Let's make a determination what we're going to do about driveways and driveway permits'" Lynch said.

"If we have a building permit process, they probably won't need a variance."