By Phil Trubey
October 10, 2021
Before the October 7th RSFA board meeting, district fire chief Fred Cox penned a letter to the Association where he said (Fiber cement is the generic name for Hardie board):
The Fire District whole heartedly supports the use of Fiber Cement building materials … most Fiber Cement products … are considered noncombustible. This makes the application extremely appropriate in areas of high wildland fire danger. … insurance companies may offer discounts to homeowners vs. standard wood siding. In fact, the use of Fiber Cement products may even be the determining factor in receiving fire insurance at all.
You can read the whole letter – it is short and to the point.
During the board meeting, director Greg Gruzdowich made a motion to rescind board resolution 2019-103 which codified both the wood usage restrictions and the Hardie board prohibition.
Director Laurel Lemarié asked building commissioner Maryam Babaki whether the Hardie Board prohibition was currently impacting anyone. Babaki answered in the affirmative noting that the most recent Art Jury meeting had an applicant wanting to use Hardie Board, but was denied. Moreover, she noted during the next 2-3 months, an estimated further 5-10 applicants would be impacted by this prohibition.
Art Jury president Bill Danola, speaking from the audience, stated that the Art Jury doesn’t have an opinion either way, but whatever the board did, it would be nice to have clarity. For instance, if the board rescinded 2019-103, adopt another resolution making it clear Hardie board is allowed.
After more discussion back and forth mostly about process issues, board president Bill Weber stated “I don’t hear disagreement with where this is going. We have general agreement to allow Hardie board. We have general agreement to rescind resolution 2019-103.”
And then … and then …
Greg Gruzdowich withdrew his proposed motion rescinding 2019-103 and the board voted 7-0 to not change the restriction at this meeting.
To be more precise, Gruzdowich changed his motion to be to “Rescind Resolution 2019-103, Covenant Interpretations, as soon as language addressing Hardie board is available as a replacement.”
The cherry on top was board president Weber congratulating the board for doing a great job on this issue after the 7-0 vote to keep the restrictions in place.
I doubt the 5-10 people that won’t be able to use Hardie Board in the next few months think that.
For those keeping score, that’s the fourth meeting in a row that the board failed to overturn the Hardie Board ban.
If I sound salty it’s because this board knows how to move very fast when they are restricting our building rights. This same meeting saw the board restrict how much of our lots we can use to build buildings, with zero prior notice, discussion or warning. But give back our rights? Even with the fire chief doing everything short of ordering us to? Well, that takes years.