Your House - How much control should city government have?

[Lynda/WA]

The question a while back about neighborhood associations got me thinking. How much control should the city have over what you do with your house?

Should they be able to tell you how long the grass can be? How many cars you can have parked in your driveway (not the street)? Should you have to request permission to cut down a tree on your yard? The Nike CEO's wife was just fined 20,000 for having a contractor come in and cut down 8 trees on one of the properties.

Should a city be able to tell you where you can put a basketball hoop on your yard? In one city it can't be x number of feet from the street. I've heard that some people can't have one attached to their garages because the distance is large enough.

This is the one that really blows my mind - How about requiring you to make all home improvements follow the handicap rules. So if you redo the front walk and porch, you have to make it wheelchair accessible? A city in CA has enacted this rule.

[Angie L]

I don't think they should be able to control things on your property if it is not hurting anyone. I know where I live they have been sending out warning letters about parking in the grass and if the grass is so high they will come and cut it and charge you.

[Mickey]

This is interesting, but did you know that the government can take over your property if it deems that doing so is for the "good of the community"? I had heard this before and just saw a Primetime (or one of those kinds of shows) about a town in New York state, I believe--the mayor decided to level the neighborhood so an IKEA could build a super center. The homeowners were offered what the town deemed a fair and reasonable amount and the townspeople were protesting and picketing over it--one guy was around 80 years old and it was the house his grandma lived in--handed down from generation to generation, to be left to his kids. He got choked up talking about all the memories the house and neighborhood held for him. IKEA eventually backed out and they kept their town, but it left them wondering---for how long?

Didn't mean to get off topic, but it's interesting that "your" property isn't really yours no matter what.

[AnnW]

Mick..it's called Eminent Domain and been around for years. That's how the city gets land for streets, highways ect. We joked about some rental property that we wanted to sell being near a new toll road that the county was building and praying that the city would come in and take it under ED! LOL Usually, it's a pretty fair price, but in some instances it's not.


I think a buyer needs to really look at the deed restrictions and property covenants before they buy a house. If you don't like them, don't move into that neighborhood.

[Jeff]

Some of the examples may be a bit extreme, but I think its great they have restrictions on b-ball goals. I've noticed quite a few in our region that are a bit close to the road. I'm sorry but in the midst of a heated game of b-ball children AND adults are too focused on the game to be fully aware of traffic and other potential hazards that could be harmful or even fatal.

As far as the trees, colors of homes, etc., I feel thats not a bad thing either. I think when people purchase homes most of the time there is an expectation that the status quo is going to remain or improve. Why would anyone buy something where they are going to be unhappy down the road. So if all the homes have at least 10 trees in the front yard and it is a rule, then follow the rules, get them changed, or don't move there in the first place.

On the handicapped issue...are the residential homes in an area that is zoned multipurpose? If it is property that can be used for residential or commercial/etc. then I can see why that is the case.

[KarlaB]

I personally don't mind many of the laws and agree that a person should look into things before moving into a neighborhood. I feel that most of them are out to protect the betterment of the neighborhood as a whole...

We also have the law where people are charged to have their yard mowed if they don't do it. I have no problem with that. We mow our yard, but if we had a neighbor that didn't I could see where that would be annoying.

Here we can have fire pits in our back yards, but I believe they have to be a certain distance from houses/buildings. Same if someone wants to add onto their garage/house - it has to be a certain number of feet away from the property line.

We also have covenants in our new neighborhood, however, no one follows them. (Like no campers/ boats parked out front. Pets must be on leashes - we have dogs in our yard every day.) So, my question is, why have them if no one is going to follow them???

[Peggy/MI]

This is an interesting subject in our neighborhood. In one of the neighboring subs a family had a new home built and landscaped according to their sub's homeowner's guidelines, however, they put up a beautiful statue of the Virgin Mary and now some of their neighbors are complaining that they should not have religious articles outside. That it is pushing their religion on others. It's been quite a story and From what I hear it's actually going to court. I'v heard of complaints about religious articles on public property but this is the first I've heard of it on someone's private property. We're watching this with a great deal of interest.

[Lynda/WA]

I can agree with not moving into an area that has existing restrictions. Our home has some written in the deed. Things like not building to close to the property line. What I'm talking about is city laws. With the deed it's wither already stated what the rules are and they won't change or it states you are part of a neighborhood association and have a say in the rules. With the city laws you don't. A neighborhood association can't just form after people already own the homes against their will. In otherwords my neighbors can't form an association and TELL me I have to become a member. It's either part of the sale (ie a developer sets it up) or you agree to it.

We had a case here were a family wanted to build on property handed down through the generations near the Columbia river. The buliding permit was approved. Midway through building they were told they had to move the house. The area has rules to keep the river *scenic* for boaters. The whole thing went through a huge court case with the Bea family finally winning since they had approval permits. It costed them a huge amount of money in court cost though!

I can see the grass thing if it is a burning hazard. Kind of hard to buy here though. I've got a farmer's field behind my house. If the neighbor's lawn is a fire hazard then so is the alfalfa in the field!

Jeff - I never considered the zoning issue. Can't remember the name of the city. Something with an M in CA. But since zones can change is it fair for someone to buy a house, then have the zone changed on them? Any further upgrades to their own home would have to be handicap accesible? Would you want to be told you have to make all improvements handicap accessible to your home? Makes more sense for the handicap person to either find a house suitable or modify it themselves. Some of those handicap things can be harder on non-handicap people. For instance the fire department has to be handicap accesible even in their private living area. If you think about it will there ever be a firefighter in a wheelchair? But the counters had to be lowered. Now the healthy firefighters are complaining that it's hard on their backs. Imagine if that was your home? You remodel the kitchen. You have to allow enough room for a wheelchair. There isn't between my fridge and cupboard! A countertop has to be lowered. Ect. I think if a house isn't used as a business they shouldn't need to be handicap accessible regardless of the zoning. If anyone wants to convert that house to a business then they can modify it at THEIR expense.

AnnW & Mickey - there are more laws allowing this. My parents own some land that will have a power line running through it. They've been told they can't do anything (grow crops etc) withing a certain number of feet. They will still own the land and have to pay taxes but they can't do ANYTHING with the land. In fact it may even be dangerous. A boy was electracuted playing under a power line. This is a power line running from Canada where it's cheaper/ easier to set up a power plant all the way through Wisconsin to Illinois. Not a city thing. In fact its for a private company. Also, DH's family owns a ranch. An inactive railroad runs through it. The origional agreement when the land was taken (sort of) was that if the railroad became inactive it would be returned to the landowners. Instead an enviromental group interceded and the land was turned over to the park service. The railroads are left in place and used for hikers. I think the railroads were left in place to get around the origional agreement. The program is called Rails to Trails. It's a national program run by each state so the name may vary slightly. Our understanding (and the government doesn't like answering questions!) is that technically we still own the land, we pay taxes on the land, but can't do anything with it. Technically since it crosses our land we can't walk from one part of our land over this small area to the rest of our land with a gun. The land falls under the rules of the parks department. And we suspect we would be liable if someone was hurt walking on this railroad. To protect ourselves we placed the land in a business. The business may get sued and lose everything but we'll be able to keep our own homes.

Peggy/MI (Welcome to the board!) Interesting point about religious items. What about at Christmas time? My neighbor made a cross the height of a house. Stung up with lights. Would that be banned? Will nativity scenes and such be banned? How about if you can see the angel on top of someone's Christmas tree through the window. Should that be banned? Easter? How about if you open your window while listening to Christian music? Should you be fined?

[AnnW]

Lynda..those are utility easments..we have them running through the back of our lot. Again, that's info that was disclosed at the time of purchase.

Where is it that they are forcing people to make their existing homes handicap accesible?


a funny story about deed restrictions..in one of the neighborhoods around here, they are scraping off the old houses and building new ones. One guy wanted to have some sort of gable on his house, but it was against the deed restrictions which he felt was unfair since the restrictiosn were written years ago when the houses were smaller and no longer applicable to all the new construction going on. He tried to fight but lost. He did find out that there was no set restriction on paint color so as an F-U to the home owner's association, he painted his house 6 different pastel colors!!!!

[Melody]

Peggy,
Here we have a lot of people with statues of the Virgin Mary on their front lawns. No one complains about them, at least not that I have heard. I haven't seen any in my little town yet, but in the city there are quite a few, especially in Italian neighbourhoods.

I think what you do with your own property is your business but within reason. If the grass is too long, I can see the city cutting it, this summer has been very dry and it could be a fire hazard.
The tree cutting thing annoys me. We had to cut down a few when we bought our house because they were dead. The nosy neighbours still complained to each other that 'we were cutting down every $*(%^&& tree in the yard. Well, it's better than a dead branch falling on my kids or dog. A lot of trees were severly damaged from the ice storm a few years ago. Anyhow, we still have quite a few but one of them was a maple in the front.
As far as home improvements being made wheel chair accessible...that's nuts! I could not imagine having something like that. If someone buys my house, they are welcome to do whatever they like. But any homeowner should be able to do what they please on the inside of the house without getting permission. It really annoys me that if you have an unfinished basement then finish it, taxes go up because it goes by 'livable' space.
Jeff, I have a basketball net at the end of my driveway closest to the road. The pole was there when we bought the place and never bothered to take it down. We use it sometimes but would rather it go above the garage. Oldest ds loves it but I agree about getting carried away with the game. I am usually right there when he plays or dh or my nephew is there.
Ann, I think it is hillarious what the man with the colorful house did. I would probably want to do the same thing. LOL Not sure I would like it though. At least it's better than neon green and orange.
:)

[Lynda/WA]

AnnW - no it wasn't in any deed in my parents case. The land has been in the family for over 100 yrs. This has only happened in the last 2 years. When they sell, if they can, it will be in the deed. They had just listed some of this land prior to finding out about this business. At the time they had 4 people interested that have all backed out.

Not sure if DH's Grandpa bought the land before or after the railroad was installed. We are talking about 50 yrs ago and it was around the time he bought the land. The railroad itself wasn't a problem. They didn't mind having the railroad and knew because of the agreement that the land would be returned when the railroad was no longer used. They didn't expect enviromentalist groups to find a way to twist the origional agreement. Sort of what *is* the meaning of *is* tactics! Now their main worry is being liable for injuries of people hiking on old railroad tracks. They were hoping to sell the land to a neighboring rancher. May not happen with the current problems in Klamath Falls. With the government turning off the water to the farmers land prices have plummeted from 2,000 an acre to 28 dollars an acre!

I'll try finding the name of the city requiring home improvents to meet handicap laws. I was going through the paper while listening to the radio and grabbed a pen, writting the name down on the newspaper. Like I said, it was in CA and the name started with an M. I know it was a name that struck me as familiar. Maybe Monterary. The M may even have been the start of the second name like Santa Monica.