Five attorneys faced off this week at the Huntsville Board of Zoning Adjustments meeting over a new kind of development in one of the city’s older neighborhoods.

Eleven neighbors who live in the Blossomwood neighborhood near 1005 Hermitage Avenue filed a complaint with the Board during the summer, objecting to the zoning administrator’s decision to not only divide a plot of land into two as they saw it but also allow for prefabricated homes on the property.

The neighbors said those decisions were against the zoning ordinance’s guidelines for the neighborhood, tagged an R1B, and asked the Board to declare the structures a “nuisance.”

GSH of Alabama, LLC had purchased the property in the post-war neighborhood at an auction and has since put a prefabricated structure on one of the lots.

Zoning Administrator Travis Cummings said Tuesday at the board meeting that such modular homes are all over the City and that he did the right thing. The Board agreed with him and rejected the neighbors’ demands, with no member moving any of the five motions board chairman Martin Sisson outlined for the case.

Demet Jerkins, who lives close to the divided lot, worries about the impact of having the modular home near her property on the value.

“They put the structure up, and now they’re going to compare it to everybody else’s property,” she said. “They’ll probably cost them, I don’t know, a dime on a dollar in comparison to what we paid in our investments and our hard-earned money, and so they’re going to increase their property value while they’re decreasing everybody else’s property value over time, and that is not fair.”

“I have nothing against people trying to make a good investment, but don’t make your investment on everybody else’s expense,” she added.

Josh Guffey, another neighbor, also objects to the Board’s decision.

“This really sets a precedent going forward on what can and can’t be done,” he said. “Builders of modular types of homes can come into the future, not just R1B, but other residential areas, pay inflated prices that other people simply cannot afford to pay because they have cheaper homes that they’re putting on these lots.”

GHS of Alabama, LLC attorneys Jody Schilleci and Patrick Miller said any attempt by the Board of Zoning Adjustment to grant the Blossomwood residents’ plea could leave the City of Huntsville carrying the bag for the high financial cost the company had borne.

“GSH has invested almost $1.2 million in this structure we’re going to be talking about today,” Schilleci said. “It has every intention of building similar modular homes throughout the city of Huntsville, which are, to my knowledge, fully allowed and approved in the city of Huntsville.”

“But because of this appeal, through no fault of GSH, they’ve been delayed and been prevented from doing that; they’ve been prevented from getting a final certificate of occupancy on this structure,” he added. “So despite their investment, despite their every good intention, despite their reliance on what’s been told to them about this property, they’ve been prevented from doing that.”

“And now they’re being harmed further from the loss of their use of the house, loss of their income, their income from use of it, loss from their investment, and it’s our view that the appeal as it’s done really is not correct and should be dismissed. And more importantly, from GSH’s perspective, GSH is going to look for remedies somewhere for having to be put through this thing, and we think the certificate of occupancy should be issued.”

Miller said an order to remove the structure if declared a “nuisance” would be “inappropriate under the law, but a grave injustice and impractical and economic waste to declare this structure, which exists and has been built.”

Attorney Patrick Chesnut said the zoning administrator’s decision violated the zoning ordinance, which he believes provides the treatment of two contiguous 50-foot-wide lands owned by the same individual as one lot in that part of the City. He added that the city council would need to create a law guiding the placement of modular homes in the City as a legislative initiative.

“There are 50-foot lots all up and down Locust and Hermitage, yes..that has nothing to do with it,” Patrick Chesnut said. “Also, if they have done it wrong in the past, that doesn’t mean it is right to do now.”

“They’ve been doing things wrong for years,” he added. “So just because we caught him now and they’ve done it wrong in the past doesn’t mean they can steamroll over all these people.”

Other attorneys who represented the neighbors are Richard Chesnut and John A. Brinkley, Jr. “The appellants disagree with the opinion of the board,” Brinkley Jr told AL.com and said the neighbors may appeal the Board’s decision to the local circuit court.