Homeowner challenges Baker City rules on large backyard structures

Baker City homeowners can see a sizable backyard structure go up next door without getting advance notice if the project fits the city’s code. Michael Russell says that leaves neighbors confronting a detached shop, greenhouse, garage or similar building only after the decision is already made, and he is again pressing city officials to revisit the rule.

The dispute centers on how Baker City classifies accessory structures and whether they trigger public notice. Under the city’s planning FAQ, a detached accessory structure can be built up to 1,200 square feet and 20 feet tall without a conditional use permit. Structures connected to a house only by a breezeway or other minimal connector are still treated as detached. If a project exceeds those limits, the owner needs conditional use permit approval, which carries a $450 fee, typically takes 6 to 8 weeks and goes before the Baker City Planning Commission.

That matters because Baker City’s public-notice rules require mailed notice to all property owners of record within 100 feet only for Type II planning actions, along with a 14-day comment period before an administrative decision is made. Type I decisions, by contrast, can be approved without public notice or a public hearing. The result is a split system: some backyard projects are handled quietly at staff level, while others bring neighbors into the process.

Russell has fought that approach before. In 2022, the Baker City Herald reported on his objection to a 40-foot shipping container approved for a residential yard at 1620 Valley Ave. The container, partly covered with barn siding and marked by a bright blue door, stood about 18 feet north of the sidewalk and measured 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet high, with 320 square feet of space. The lot owner, Kim Lethlean, filed the application on Aug. 20, 2021, and the planning department approved it as a Type I request in August 2021.

City staff said then that Type I decisions are based on clear and objective standards and can be approved without notice. Senior planner Eva Henes suggested Russell take his concerns to the Planning Commission, and Russell replied by email that the area was a historic downtown gateway neighborhood being allowed to decline. His current objection follows the same line: a code-compliant project may be legal, but nearby homeowners still want warning before it changes the feel of a street.

Baker City’s development code, adopted by Ordinance No. 3296 effective Oct. 21, 2009 and amended by Ordinance No. 3384 in 2025, governs land use and development inside the city limits and the urban growth boundary. For residents who want the notice rules changed, the pressure point is now the same one Russell has identified before: the Planning Commission and the city’s code itself.