'Junk' is in the eye of the beholder

Errold Asbury acknowledges there is stuff on his lawn.

His farm tucked behind pine trees off Borley Road in Coeur d'Alene includes a cow hatch, he points out. From the road, his boat can be seen behind the trees, as well as wood crates for his orchards.

But none of it he would call junk.

"Everything I have I use and have a purpose for," the 55-year-old said, standing beside his front gate on Thursday. "I'm not storing it, and I'm not selling it."

Kootenai County says otherwise.

For the past five years, the county has sent Asbury notices and filed legal action for running an illegal junkyard, which code inspectors have cited as including scrap metal, inoperable cars and auto parts, salvaged materials and lumber.

The county was granted authority by a U.S. District Court on Aug. 5 to remove such materials from his lawn.

"Our code enforcement is based on complaints, and we did receive complaints from neighbors," said county attorney Pat Braden. "There may be junkyards in the county that are worse that we haven't received complaints about, but that's what the qualitative determination is."

In photos that county planners have taken of Asbury's property from neighbors' properties, Braden said, the images show cars, lumber and other materials. What's in the photos is equivalent to a junkyard, Braden said, which isn't a legal use on agriculture zoned land.

It is also illegal to store materials that aren't related to the main use of the property, he said.

"We want to get it cleaned up and get in accordance with our zoning ordinance, is basically the bottom line," he said.

Asbury, who has lived on the property 23 years, said everything on his 10 acres is associated with his farm, his orchard or construction work on his home.

"Nobody ever asked me what anything was for on my property," he said.

There are only three cars and one boat on his property, he added, all working.

He insists there is no scrap metal.

"They've decided this to be an operation with auto parts and disassembly of vehicles, but there's nothing you can construe for that," he said, adding that he has put his home up for sale after all the back-and-forth with the county.

Asbury doesn't understand how anything in his backyard would bother anyone, he said.

"How many backyards have you been in in Kootenai County? There are multitudes you can find in any of them," he said.

Still, he has refused to let county planner walk through the property with him to look at the fence or the alleged junkyard.

"It's a matter of them wanting to get on my property to obtain allegations against me," he said.

The property's original address was 6555 Borley Road, but Asbury recently changed it to 7085 Borley Road.

Braden said he would dispute Asbury's claim that he is using all the materials on his property.

The attorney added that though Asbury's home and materials are set far back on his property, that doesn't mean the materials aren't visible to some.

"It is well back from the road, I have no argument about that," Braden said. "The fact is, you can go back along the neighboring property lines and it's clearly visible at that point."

According to court documents, the county first received complaints of Asbury operating a junkyard in February 2005.

Building and Planning Department staff monitored and photographed his property off and on, and first issued Asbury a zoning ordinance violation for an illegal junkyard in November 2006.

Asbury didn't appeal or remedy the violation, according to court records.

When planners observed that the property was still in violation in 2009, the county filed a complaint for injunctive relief that stated Asbury was using the property for waste, scrap material and salvaged materials.

The county filed a motion for summary judgment later that year.

An agreement was made with Asbury in September 2009, Braden said, stipulating that the issue would be settled if Asbury installed a 100 percent site-obscuring fence around the perimeter of his property before Dec. 31, 2009.

But the fence was never built.

"We did come to an agreement with Mr. Asbury, or at least we thought we did," Braden said. "We went and got the judgment (to remove his materials) because he just didn't do what he agreed to do."

Asbury said his attorney made the fence arrangement without telling him.

"I figured that building that fence would run anywhere from $60,000 to $80,000," Asbury said. "I don't have the resources for that."

His attorney, Larry Purviance, did not return messages.

The county hasn't set a date to remove items from Asbury's property, Braden said.

Staff will decide what to remove on a walk-through of the property, he added.

"I actually don't think it's as bad as it was when the complaint was filed, but there's still plenty of stuff there," he said.