My life has been packed these past few days with family, business, and opposing an outrageous development in my own/our condo association's backyard that would shatter our quality of life and quiet enjoyment, reduce our property values, steal our sunlight and put us in noisy shadows all day. That's just for starters. BIG meeting tonight with deep pocketed developers and architects that I'm preparing for. We've hired a fine lawyer who is coming here in a few minutes.
Meanwhile, the election marches on. I voted early last week. As soon as I return from the meeting with developers tonight, if I'm not too exhausted, I plan to write a final post before the election.
Many of my libertarian friends oppose zoning laws. Not sure I can understand what a world without zoning would look like. My guess is that lawyers would be even wealthier and we'd all fight the same issues in a diferent theater.
ReplyDeleteIs the outrageous development in your backyard a product of zoning laws or of absence of zoning laws?
John Dewey
Interesting question, John.
ReplyDeleteDevelopers are seeking a zoning change to SP (for an independent living facility which will subsidize an Alzheimers unit on another side of the property.). This would allow the city planning department to be smoozed into giving developers basically whatever they want outside the normal processes. But a zone change request allows us poor wretches to enter the public process. And enter we have.
There is an adverse possession case that we have that is stunningly in our favor, though we hope to work this out outside of the judiciary.
So we're speaking softly but have a rather nice size stick.
The meeting last night couldn't have gone better. Developers agreed to a deferral of the matter in front of the Metro Planning Commission and also agreed to looking at redesigning the controversial part of the project and letting one or two of my co-conspirators and me meet with architects and engineers....who knows where this all will lead...but if you don't try, if you don't ask, then you'll never know.
We came away very heartened.