The recent summer rains that have soaked Key West have also led to a resurgence of rainbows around town.
In the wake of the state-mandated removal of the city’s pride-painted crosswalks at Duval and Petronia streets, homeowners across the island have made their yards a little brighter by painting seven of their fence posts in rainbow colors.
The colorful little surprises are worth taking a walk through neighborhoods you don’t typically wander.
But of course, one can’t please all the people all the time and alas, the rainbows, while impromptu, are also unpermitted in the historic district, which starts west of White Street.
One Windsor Lane resident, Susan Kent, learned the hard way that a neighbor a few doors down, Penny Walker, opposed her seven colorful fence posts.
The longtime homeowner received a letter from the city’s code enforcement department, alerting her that the city had received a complaint Walker, who wrote to code enforcement, “Please inform the owner at 821 Windsor that the fence is painted in non-approved colors per HARC. If this is not the correct place to report this violation, please direct me to proper authorities.” Code enforcement officials included a copy of the complaint, along with the dissatisfied person’s name and address, as the city no longer accepts anonymous code complaints.
In speaking with the Keys Weekly, Kent fully acknowledged that she had not sought approval from the city’s Historic Architectural Review Commission (HARC), and thus would paint over her rainbow to come into compliance, much like the state required of the city’s crosswalks.
“But don’t worry, I have something else planned,” Kent said happily after posting about her painted fence on Instagram earlier this month.
