FREE SPEECH: A house on Harrison Street has raised aesthetic questions among neighbors and code enforcement officials.
BUT IS IT ART?
Frenetic Heights lawn decor elicits mixed reviews from neighbors, trepidation from code enforcement officers and soul searching for Arkansas aesthetes. BY LESLIE NEWELL PEACOCK PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN CHILSON 28 MARCH 2022
ARKANSAS TIMES
A
n “overzealous” (his boss’ word) city code enforcement officer gave notice to a Southwest Little Rock resident recently that she was in violation of the city’s nuisance code for having “excessive balls” (the playing kind, per the citation’s description) in her yard. She didn’t want to be fined, so she removed most of the balls rather than contest the notice. But code enforcement has not acted on the many complaints — which it calls service requests — about piles of rocks and other items on property at the corner of Harrison Street and Kavanaugh Boulevard in the Heights. The difference, new city code enforcement division chief Brian Contino insisted in a telephone interview, does not have to do with location. The Heights house’s assemblage — which includes painted croquet mallets in a bucket, a chalkboard hung from a post and a straw-covered yard and driveway — is art, which is not a violation under city code. It’s art because the property owner says so; it is free speech.
