What is a Front Door: Issue Facing the Zoning Board Fuels Passion in Sparta Lake Community

SPARTA, NJ – A crowd turned out for the zoning board meeting on Wednesday, August 14. The meeting included a visit from police and the chairman telling residents they could sue the zoning board if they were not satisfied with the outcome.

The issue is a front door.  Residents in Sparta Lake contend a house being renovated on Dandelion Road does not have a front door.

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The house in question sits on the corner of Dandelion and Fairmont Road and has three doors but none of them face a road.  The door count does not include an attempt to create a “fake door” with trim molding. Or does it?

On June 12, 2024, the zoning board heard Glenn Macierowski’s argument appealing the zoning permit for 25 Dandelion Drive.

Following the hearing, the zoning board members approved a resolution, memorialized on July 10 that  said the application “seeking a reversal of a zoning permit, be and is hereby determined to be affirmed.”

The requirements in the resolution are clear:

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1. The previously issued zoning permit is declared null and void based on the determination in this Resolution.

2. The Applicant shall install a front door on any of the sides of the property which front on an existing municipal roadway.

3.  The Applicant shall restore the facade along Dandelion Road so as to be consistent with facades in the neighborhood subject to final review and approval of the Township Planner and Zoning Officer. If there is any question as to how this is to be resolved, the matter shall be brought back to the Board.

4.  The property owner shall be allowed to continue to move forward with building permits provided it corrects and fixes to the satisfaction of the Zoning Officer and Construction Official the front facade located along Dandelion Road.

According to Zoning Board attorney Glen Kienz, the purpose of the August 14 discussion by zoning board members was to have zoning board engineer David Simmons get questions answered.  They did not allow any public comment.

Simmons said looking at a photo of the property, he wanted to know if it was the intention of the board to have the homeowner “take a physical real door, splice it into the siding, have hardware on it so it looked functional from the street but it wouldn’t be functional, it would be faux door, but it would look like a real door from Dandelion Way.”

Kienz said “That certainly was my understanding. You wanted to have the façade along Dandelion look like it should be. The board didn’t say it had to be a real door, but it had to actually have the appearance of it.  The resolution is actually straight forward in saying that.”

Simmons also discussed the need for landscaping along the foundation.

Macierowski offered to give each board member a copy of the resolution. Responding to Simmnos he said, “He’s wrong” and another person said “You’re going back on your word,” while the property owner insisted “it was not open to the public” and asked them “to proceed please.”

“You are in egregious error, it’s in black and white,” Macierowski said.  He insisted the clerk of the board told him he would be able to speak, as the property owner shouted “I don’t think that’s fair. If I don’t get to talk he doesn’t get to talk.”

Laury said, “I don’t want to do this,” to which someone in the audience said “then where do we do it.”

Laury said, “Let me finish. The police have been notified downstairs.  I don’t want to call them and have them come in here.  So please just remain calm. Let us do our job.”

The chair continued.  He told the audience “and you Glenn” that  if “anything at the end of this doesn’t sit” with them, they can “always sue the board and go to court.”

Police Det. Poon did stand in the back of the room and a patrolman arrived later in the meeting.

Laury polled the zoning board members for their comments. Member John Finkeldie had no comments.

Member Richard LaRuffa said he wanted improvements including landscaping.  “You have a walkway going to nowhere.” He wanted a front door to “make it look like that was the front of the house.”

Member Michael Joszefczyk said, “More needs to be done to make it look like a door,” and add steps. “Right now it looks like the back of a house.”

Member Richard Rohrbacher said he agreed with Macierowski.  “There needs to be something there that looks more like a door…some sort of landscaping to inform anyone who comes to the house that this is not a real door it is just an appearance. This does not look like a door in a residential area by any means. It doesn’t look right.”
Alternate Member Landon Tanyeri said, “There is work to do and I don’t believe this was the intention of the board members,” referring to the photos of the existing conditions.

Kienz asked Simmons if he had enough information to go forward.  Simmons said the applicant needs to submit plans before they do any additional work.  Kienz said he wanted steps and landscaping. Simmons agreed and added there should be a walkway.

Laury summed up the proceedings by saying everything they spoke about would be memorialized.

“Marissa from the zoning office will be contacting you,” Laury said to Macierowski.

Macierowski continued to challenge them.  Kienz said it would be a faux door because they were "not going to have the kitchen ripped out," which got a response from the audience. Macierowski said construction had continued while the permit was rescinded.  Kienz said the zoning board is not tasked with enforcing zoning matters once they are codified.  That is the purview of the zoning department and zoning officer.

“I am usually not that disrespectful, but when they had it so wrong, I had to say something to get in on some type of record for last night,” Macierowski told TAPinto Sparta.

History of the Zoning Board Appeal

The June 12, 2024  hearing on the appeal of the zoning permit for 25 Dandelion Drive was led by Macierowski, a resident in the neighborhood. He gave the zoning board members the history of the house since it was initially abandoned in 2007 along with construction efforts that started and stopped and started again and again since 2016.

Presenting several exhibits, Macierowski argued the placement of the door is not consistent with homes in the neighborhood and township.   He showed photos of homes in the neighborhood and plans for the house in question that show a front door facing Dandelion Road.

He acknowledged, while the township ordinances do not directly say a front door has to be on the front of the house, it does define the façade of a home facing the adjacent roadway. Macierowski’s argument was supported in the zoning board’s resolution.

The resolution said, “Mr. Macierowski did an excellent job in laying out not only the history of the property but various other items in support of his position.”

“Simply put, while the Ordinance may not require it with any degree of specificity, it can easily be ascertained that the development pattern and scheme for Sparta Township in its single-family residential zones is a traditional one wherein the vast majority of homes have a front facade with the main entrance door fronting on a roadway. Having a rear facing structure on these streets is not consistent with good planning nor the way the municipality has developed. What makes this decision easier is the fact that a front door was shown to have previously existed along Dandelion Road in the past but at some point after that survey was completed, the door was eliminated.”

The property owner submitted photos of homes in Sparta Lake with doors they said were on the side but the zoning board members said that was disingenuous.

“The Board also notes that those examples supplied by the property owner were misleading in that the vast majority of them failed to indicate the properties being shown which did not have a front door on one street were almost universally corner lots therein having a front door on the other roadway.”

The veracity of testimony is mentioned again in the summary statement of the resolution:

“…the Board points out that the information provided by Mr. Macierowski was helpful, well-intended, and established a baseline for this decision. Conversely, the information provided by the homeowner was not as beneficial and useful to the Board in making this decision.”

Macierowski said he is “pursuing an attorney and looking into a ‘show for cause’  from the Superior Court Judge, if needed.”

The house at 25 Dandelion Road has two for sale signs in the yard, one on each street.

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