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Couple wins battle to have horses, but loses farm, marriage

Barbara Mays visits with Cruiser, her 9-year-old Tennessee Walker, recently at her home near Trenton. Mays says the court battles she won to keep her horses on her property may cost her her marriage and home.

Staff photo by Pat Auckerman Barbara Mays visits with Cruiser, her 9-year-old Tennessee Walker, recently at her home near Trenton. Mays says the court battles she won to keep her horses on her property may cost her her marriage and home.

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By Rick McCrabb, Columnist Updated 6:53 AM Tuesday, March 22, 2011

MADISON TWP. — Kelly and Barbara Mays couldn’t have been happier.

It was four years ago, and they had just purchased their “dream home” on two acres on Hamilton Avenue just outside Trenton.

The property provided them adequate acreage and a barn to board their three horses, which Barbara called their “family pets.” They had saved enough money to make the necessary repairs to the four-bedroom, two-bath house.

They frequently sat around their rustic home and talked about how they could play in the backyard and watch the horses gallop in the pasture. They even thought about buying chickens.

“We were going to grow old here,” she said recently while sitting in her living room as her 20-month-old daughter, Madeline, took an afternoon nap.

Then a neighbor made a phone call that changed everything.

When an adjoining neighbor complained to the Butler County Zoning Board the couple boarded three horses and didn’t own the proper acreage, it set off a series of hearings that Barbara Mays said may cost them their marriage, their home.

Because of the financial strain caused by the constant court battles and attorney fees, the Mayses have separated and recently listed their house for sale. Attorney fees have reached $20,000, every dime it took them years to save, she said.

“I lost everything,” Barbara said quietly. “This shows that government can ruin peoples’ lives just by blowing hot air.”

When asked what lesson she learned during the past four years, Barbara Mays, 41, simply answered: “Pick your neighbors wisely.”

Before they purchased the property, they checked with all their potential neighbors to see if anyone objected to horses. No one complained.

But right after the couple built a fence for the horses in the back of their property, a neighbor contended their property wasn’t large enough to board horses.

Since they reside on two acres, they can’t own more than two horses, so they sold one. They are down to one horse, Cruiser, 9, a Tennessee walker.

The neighbor, who wanted to remain anonymous, called himself “an animal lover.” He didn’t care if the property owners boarded horses. What drove him to notify authorities of the potential rules violation, he said, was because he alleged the Mays failed to clean up after their horses.

Eventually, when the complaints continued, the Mays hired an attorney, Jay Bennett of Oxford. He said 75 percent of similar complaints are made by neighbors.

“It’s a reoccurring story,” said Bennett, who has handled such cases for 37 years.

Jim Fox, an inspector for the Butler County Board of Zoning, said his department felt the Mays property was in violation of the zoning ordinance, which requires 200 feet of frontage and at least two acres to accommodate two horses. He said the property is located in a “residential type” area.

They were notified of the violation. They appealed the decision by the Butler County Zoning Board. Their appeal was rejected, but the Butler County Common Pleas Court ruled in the Mays’ favor.

Just recently, the 12th District Court of Appeals in Middletown also ruled in their favor. Late last month, the three judges — Stephen W. Powell, William W. Young and Robert A. Hendrickson — ruled that Butler County “did not have the authority to prohibit” them from having horses on their property.

The court ruled the couple used their land for agricultural purposes, which includes, but limited to, the care and raising of equine.

William Balsinger, Butler County zoning inspector, could appeal the decision again and take it all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court.

That won’t be necessary. They’re done fighting, done dreaming.

Kelly and Barbara Mays won the battle. There were no winners in this war.

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