The recent council decision to not reconsider the ban on carports drew more complaints and protests at last week’s Ceres City Council meeting.

Property owners who erected carports without first consulting the city to hear that the municipal code doesn’t allow them have been told to take them down.

The city gives owners 10 days from the time of notification to remove carports but also will extend the time if the owners contact the city and show efforts are being made.

Recent stepped-up efforts to enforce city code resulted in a number of residents being informed by letter that carports are not allowed because of setbacks on residential lots.

In January Community Development Director Lea Simvoulakis explained that the city has development standards for buildings and structures relating to front, side, corner side, and rear setbacks. The residential front setback line is a minimum of 20 feet for the main structure, and 35 feet for a detached accessory structure. City code also states that no accessory structure shall be located within the front yard or exterior side yard area of a single-family lot.

Setbacks, she said, help maintain consistent street frontage, provide adequate spacing between buildings, ensure sufficient natural light and air circulation between structures, minimize fire spread risk and “generally promote a cohesive looking neighborhood and esthetics.”

Jose Magana said he received a letter from the city on Thursday, Feb. 6 telling him that he had to remove his carport within three days.

“How am I going to do that?” Magana quizzed the council. “That’s like three days.”

Magana said he understand that the city was going to give an extension to abate the structures.

But Simvoulakis told the Courier that the city’s letter gives carport owners 10 days to come into compliance but will work to extend if an effort is being made and they need more time.

“So as long as they’re showing that they’re actively trying to come into compliance, Code Enforcement doesn’t fine them every day,” Simvoulakis told the Courier.

Magana claimed only four owners had been cited for carports while saying there are 832 carports and pressed the city to do more code enforcement to cite all of them.

Simvoulakis questioned the number of 832 noted by Magana as being too high, and adding that the number didn’t come from the city.

Magana told councilmembers that he has formed a citizens group to go around and get addresses where carports exist and make sure the city goes after them, too.

“If you take one down you guys are going to have to take all of them down,” said Magana. “I agreed to take mine off but we have to be fair. We can’t just say ‘Oh, I’m going to take his off but I’m not going to take his off.’”

He claims the city cited one carport owner but not the neighbor next door who had one also.

Simvoulakis said the city will be advising other carport owners they are in violation in a methodical manner but it will take time since Code Enforcement personnel are extremely busy.

Ceres resident Gene Yeakley commended the council for doing “the right thing” last month by keeping the setback restrictions which disallow carports. Even though he commended the citizens with carports for trying to change policy, Yeakley said “for them it was a want and a need but it didn’t benefit the rest of the city.”

He also predicted it would take a long time to see all carports removed “and it’s going to make people mad.”

“The people that have the awnings, I feel bad for them,” Yeakley told the council, “but there was one gentleman that I talked to several meetings back. He happened to have his home on the front page of the Ceres newspaper. I explained to him that nobody likes rules but we have rules … and sometimes we just have to abide by them.”

Being the owner of private property does not give a person the right to violate city code, Yeakley commented.

Dalton Pellanda took on the city’s justification for setbacks being in part due to the need for uniformity by suggesting Ceres lacks any sense of uniformity.

He suggested the city was “unfairly targeting” those with carports.

“If we actually take an objective mind here, you know, you can go around and it takes about five minutes to see absolute eyesores in every neighborhood of this city and yet you guys are targeting actually very nice carports,” Pellanda said.

He went on to mention “houses with beat-up cars in their front yard, there’s mismatched fences, there’s these horrible white picket fences that look awful and then there’s people that actually put in the money and the time and effort to make their house look nice. I think the argument here is ridiculous.”