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In the backyard of their home overlooking The Pie Pizzeria, Zack Bray, 22, listens as his mom Cindy Bray explains the problems the family has faced with property owner Brad Naisbitt . Bray has tried since 2014 to get Naisbitt to build a fence and sound wall to buffer their home from noise. Photo taken Friday, June 9, 2017.

SARAH WELLIVER/Standard-Examiner

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Zoe, a 5-year-old German shepherd owned by the Bray family sniffs around the dead end sign near their home in Ogden. “We’ve had kids throwing gravel at her from (The Pie) parking lot,” explained Cindy Bray.

SARAH WELLIVER/Standard-Examiner

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Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to note the location of the Hutchins home north of the Brays.

OGDEN — Even with their windows, noise from a nearby pizza & beer eatery invades one Ogden family’s home most nights, and on weekends the fun can extend into the wee hours of the morning.

In 2014, landowner and developer Brad Naisbitt added a patio to an existing building at 4300 Harrison Blvd. to house The Pie Pizzeria. The Pie relocated to that spot in early 2015 and Stephen and Cindy Bray have since sought relief from noise, traffic and other detrimental effects of the business. 

“My 94-year-old, hard-of-hearing grandma was in town, and it would wake her up,” their son Zack Bray said. “Brad told us we’ve always had the noise from Harrison — we knew that. But this is like having a party every night in your living room.”

And the irritants extend beyond noise. Cindy Bray said that unattended youth — she assumes some might have parents waiting inside for a table — pass the time by throwing rocks at their German Shepherd from The Pie’s upper parking lot.

This past Tuesday, Zack Bray addressed the Ogden City Council during public comments, citing a section of City Code that states “Whenever (commercial) development abuts property in a residential zone, screening is required to protect residential properties from the impact of lights, noise, increased pedestrian and automobile traffic, invasions of privacy and physical intrusions on property.” He urged them to do their job and enforce their own laws.

However, the structure in question was “grandfathered” to fall under prior zoning conditions.

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Ogden City

In April 2015, the Brays, joined by several neighbors on their dead-end street, filed a nuisance suit against The Pie in 2nd District Court in hopes of getting the desired buffers designed and installed. That case was dismissed May 24, 2017 due to “inactivity,” but Cindy Bray said they’ve asked their attorney to refile the lawsuit.

Their ongoing battle was detailed in a July 12, 2015, Standard-Examiner story where Naisbitt said he’d been researching sound walls to find an aesthetic solution, but doubted if it would help the Brays much because “it’s all uphill (to their home), and all the noise goes straight up to them.” The issue gets further complicated by a strip of land between the Brays and The Pie owned by the U.S. Government and leased to Pineview Water District. Naisbitt said he’s not at liberty to erect a fence in that strip, but considered putting up some kind of barrier along the rail next to The Pie’s patio.

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Cathy McKitrick

Shortly after that story ran, Cindy Bray said they seemed to make progress. Stakeholders and their respective attorneys met together and agreed that Naisbitt would install a vinyl fence on their hillside along with a sound wall to block sights and sounds from The Pie’s patio and lower parking lot.

“We measured it all out,” Cindy Bray said. “They were going to write up an agreement for him to be able to come on our property.”

The Pie has done its part to be a good neighbor, she added, by agreeing to stop hosting live music, no longer blasting loud speaker announcements about someone’s pizza being ready, and asking delivery vehicles and large trucks to shut down their engines rather than idle in the upper parking lot. 

At an impasse

The Brays said Naisbitt had agreed to do his part as soon as attorneys on both sides finalized details. But that deal fizzled after The Pie switched attorneys, and now the family hopes the city will intervene on their behalf. 

“Our beef is still that they added that 2,000-square-foot patio, and then the city planner ‘grandfathered’ the building so it didn’t have to follow the city’s zoning law,” Cindy Bray said.

But Naisbitt claims he went “above and beyond” in trying to resolve the situation.

“I gave them the opportunity to drop their lawsuit, have everyone sign off and we’d put up a basic fence. And 18 months later they weren’t able to come to terms. So I backed out,” Naisbitt said by phone Wednesday. “You can’t please them.”

He also noted that when the Brays purchased their home almost twenty years ago, they knew it abutted his commercial property.  And in 2014, when he renovated the building and added the patio, Naisbitt said Ogden City engineers approved all the details. Furthermore, the city is not requiring him to put in a fence or sound wall.

Taking matters into his own hands

Jim Hutchins, one of the neighbors who joined the Brays in their 2015 lawsuit, owns the home just north of theirs, a structure he said was built in 1956.

In addition to The Pie property, Naisbitt Investment Co. LLC owns other parcels on the southeast corner of Harrison Boulevard and Country Hills Drive.

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“I don’t fault The Pie or their business, but because of their relocation, that alleyway (west of his house) became a good cut-through,” Hutchins said. “I just want (Naisbitt) to be honest and to be a good neighbor. My attorney said I could sue him, but the city has taken his side — and he said I can’t win if the city takes his side.”

So Hutchins installed his own freeway-style sound wall last November at significant cost to himself.

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CATHY MCKITRICK/Standard-Examiner

“It makes sense to have a barrier, and all I wanted was for him to bear the cost of a chain link fence, and I would fund something heftier,” Hutchins said. “I understand that Naisbitt doesn’t have to do anything legally, but ethically I believe he has a responsibility to not screw up his neighbor’s property values.”

But Naisbitt slammed the door on the notion he’d help finance a wall he considers unsightly.

“I’m not paying for it, nor did I want it,” Naisbitt said. “I would not want to be a neighbor having to look at it every day.”

Balancing competing interests

When Zack Bray addressed the City Council this past Tuesday, he asked for a meeting with Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell. Cindy Bray said that request resulted in an appointment with Caldwell later this month.

“Three weeks ago, Brad Naisbitt told my mother ‘I won’t do a thing unless the city makes me,’ which is why I’m here pleading with you today,” Zack Bray told the Council. “Until now, it seems Mr. Naisbitt has been attempting to bleed us dry because the city has not yet taken action. It’s worth noting that we have paid for our attorney through my dad’s disabled veterans benefits and social security.”

It remains to be seen what action Ogden City can take, but Hutchins hopes they can find some middle ground because “what they have done in my case and the Brays is to create a business-friendly environment that is residentially-unfriendly.”

Contact reporter Cathy McKitrick at 801-625-4214 or cmckitrick@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @catmck.