City said he couldn’t tear down his old house. So he painted pink polka dots on it

About a year ago, builder Allen Rutter bought an old duplex at the corner of Rosewood Drive and Walker Street in Columbia, one of the gateways to the upscale Shandon neighborhood in the Capital City.

The Columbia developer intended to tear down the structure and build a single-family home to sell. But last month a city design commission said no. It deemed the 1940s structure at 140-142 Walker St. historic and said tearing it down would erode the character of the neighborhood.

So recently, Rutter gave the duplex a new paint job — large, pink polka dots on all sides.

“It’s not my proudest moment,” said the builder, who makes a living renovating houses in downtown Columbia.

“But I wanted to draw attention to the situation,” he said. “And I wanted to do something that wasn’t too offensive to the surrounding neighborhood. So polka dots seemed like the way.”

The city’s Design Development Review Commission was able to block the demolition because Shandon residents years ago voted to install a “community character” zoning overlay, which requires all demolition permits to be approved by the commission.

The commission turned back Rutter’s request for a demolition permit even though Rutter had the backing of many in the Shandon neighborhood.

Twelve Shandon neighbors signed a petition in support of the permit, as did the Shandon Neighborhood Council. They preferred the new single-family home to the old duplex, they said.

“”Far from a negative impact, the proposed demolition here is part of a project . . . that will improve the character . . . of the neighborhood as a whole,” Rutter’s attorney, Ben Bruner, told commission members.

After the ruling, Rutter and his kids painted the polka dots from the middle of the walls down and had a professional do the top.

It’s a silly paint job, Rutter admits. “But the average citizen doesn’t know some of the silliness that goes on in the planning department. Maybe this will draw some attention to it.”

It was the second time the DDRC had denied the permit. It also ruled against it in August 2017. But the most recent denial prompted Rutter’s protest.

Rutter has since challenged the commission’s ruling in circuit court. That case is pending.

Rutter, according to commission records, claimed the $150,000 or so it would take to renovate the duplex didn’t justify keeping it. DDRC staff, however, said that after the renovations, the two apartments could be rented for at least $850 a month, causing Rutter no financial hardship.

The staff ruled, and a majority of commission members agreed, that removing the house would both raze a historic structure with architectural significant features and degrade the character of the neighborhood.

Contacted Tuesday, DDRC Chairman Tom Savory, a Columbia architect and Shandon resident, was bemused by the polka-dot protest.

“We have no purview over color, so I have no official opinion,” he said. “But as a person about town, I think it’s pretty funny. “

Savory added that although the demolition of one old duplex might seem a small thing, the cumulative effect of multiple exceptions to the law would be detrimental to the neighborhood.

“A community votes to create a historic district overlay for their neighborhood, so everybody is duty-bound to comply,” he said. “And if a commission makes individual concessions . . . where do you stop?

“You have to look at it in the aggregate,” he said. The duplex and other structures threatened with demolition “have to be taken as part of a whole. They are the threads in a tapestry.”

This story was originally published July 24, 2018 at 3:57 PM.