The concrete bunker under construction in the heart of historic Cabbagetown is the house nobody wants.

It has no front door, it has outraged neighbours and it’s a reach from the 1860s-era livery-turned-historic house it was meant to replace.

Even the driving force behind the unusual home, Norm Rogers, would prefer to be sinking his money, and poured concrete, into something akin to the replica Victorian row houses neighbouring his St. James Court property.

“It’s a big modern box. It’s going to look awful, although a little nicer than the dilapidated shack it was before,” says Rogers. “I can build beautiful, but the city won’t let me.”

The tiny property on a laneway behind homes that front on Wellesley St. E. is locked in a fight to build that has exasperated civic officials who’ve spent thousands of man hours trying to sort out the bitter battle of wills.

“It’s a castle on a postage stamp,” says neighbour Ken Hirschkop who has lost a fence and his patience to the project which he says has impacted property values and prompted at least one homeowner to sell.

Where there once was a wooden fence, now there is a Berlin Wall at the end of Hirschkop’s 15 by 17 foot backyard — a 10-inch thick concrete barrier Rogers has constructed around the perimeter of his tiny property.

“I can’t believe that the city has allowed one person to run roughshod over the neighbourhood like this,” says area realtor Richard Silver, who’s already helped sell one abutting home and warned Hirschkop his Victorian is worth $50,000 to $100,000 less because of the disruption.

Rogers has been trying since 2004 to build a bigger home — ideally a brand new three-storey faux Victorian — on the site of the 965-square-foot former livery.

But he was prohibited from razing and rebuilding under provincial heritage laws.

So in 2005 Rogers applied to build an addition, a garage topped by two bedrooms. It was rejected as too big for the 28 feet wide by 61 feet deep lot, 9.5 feet of which is a right of way — now blocked by construction materials — that provides access to neighbours’ parking spots.

After a second smaller addition was protested by neighbours at Committee of Adjustment, Rogers slapped a four-page typewritten letter on the windshields of area cars.

Repairing the livery “would be an enormous waste of money,” he noted, citing rot, the lack of a proper foundation, a sewage smell in summer: “You need to understand that I will not quit.”

When that plan went all the way to the Ontario Municipal Board and was rejected as too big, Rogers came up with a smaller addition that got city approval. But after Rogers ripped the back off the livery, the city deemed the home unsafe, trumping heritage laws and allowing for a teardown.

The door was opened for Rogers to build a brand new home. There was just one unexpected caveat: It had to look just like the livery.

That meant it couldn’t have a front door (the livery had a back entrance), had to have wooden (not cheaper vinyl) windows and be covered in the same shade of grey stucco.

Rogers went one better — in an effort, he says, to prevent rot — fashioning it all out of expensive concrete, including the perimeter fence.

Deputy chief building official Mario Angelucci calls it “a garden wall.”

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“We are monitoring the site and inspecting it closely and will continue to do so,” says Angelucci, acknowledging that civic officials have a thick file on the St. James Court property. “We have taken action when he has deviated” from the plans.”

A concrete fence is allowed — as long as it’s less than two metres high.

For now it surrounds a parking area and garden Rogers has planned. But he’s heading back to the OMB and hoping to get approval to use it as the foundation for a garage topped by two brand new bedrooms.