Tag: zoning

Categories
ballot access initiative, referendum, and recall

Petition Rights and Wrongs

Quite a theory: No law is unfair if only that law is being followed.

According to an election board attorney in Howard County, Maryland, tossing 80 percent of the signatures on a voters’ petition does not add up to a “right-​to-​vote case” at all. Gerald Richman says the board merely “[carried] out the dictates of the law.” He denies that “fundamental fairness is an issue.”

The proposed referendum aimed to stop a rezoning in Howard Country permitting the building of larger grocery stores. I’m skeptical of zoning as an instrument to protect citizens and their property, so if I resided in Howard County, I would not likely vote Yes. 

But as things stand now, I also would not be allowed to vote No.

Two months after the election board okayed the first batch of signatures, the board turned on a dime and began massively nullifying signatures, essentially killing petition rights unless voters can win them back in court.

Were the tossed signatures deemed fraudulent? No. The only “problem” is trivial variations between how voters signed their names on the petition and how their names are registered. Things like omitting a middle initial. An attorney for the residents notes that under such restrictive requirements, the signatures of Ben Franklin and John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence could not have been counted.

That notion of fairness is one King George would’ve been mad for.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights property rights too much government

California Crackdowns

A government agency practicing extortion … who’d’a thunk it?

In 1987, the California Coastal Commission lost a Supreme Court case about its attempt to demand beach access from property owners in exchange for building permits. One justice said it was practicing extortion.

Nevertheless, the agency still dictates what land owners must do to receive permits — which are required even to move piles of dirt around. In one instance, the unelected Commission ordered that most of an owner’s land be given over to farming. The Pacific Legal Foundation is fighting this insanity in court.

Richard Oshen decided to produce a documentary about the CCC after friends told him how it was interfering with their own property. The agency had even gone so far as to prohibit them from tape recording its inspection of their land.

Oshen spent years conducting interviews. He even managed to film a conversation with CCC head Peter Douglas in which Douglas downplayed the agency’s dictatorial powers. But Reason magazine reports that Douglas now wants to revoke the permission he gave to use that interview. He’s also demanding to see a pre-​release version of the movie — either to try to prevent its release or just on general principles of harassing critics of tyranny.

I’ve reported on the commission before. It behaves as a kind of environmentalist mafia operating under color of law — and clearly the CCC is no fan of free speech.

Let’s hope that Douglas fails, Oshen succeeds, and California land owners get a reprieve.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights too much government

No Bible Studies Allowed

In San Diego, in May, a pastor and his wife found out how tyrannical a simple thing like a zoning law can be. 

They hold Bible studies in their home. Being Americans, they expected the freedom to associate and practice their religion.

But a county employee grilled Pastor David Jones and his wife about what they were up to with their Bible studies — did they pray? did they say “amen”? Then they were told that the study group, averaging 15 people per meeting, violated county regulations.

“Unlawful use of land,” you see. It had nothing to do with suppressing religion, everything to do with how many cars appeared Tuesday nights. County officials said the ominous grilling about religion was done simply to find out which land-​use regulation to use in filing the complaint.

And there was a complaint. Too often, these days, instead of neighbor taking up the matter with neighbor, the government gets called in. So, before these students of the Bible could even consider carpooling, to respect the Joneses’ neighbors’ parking concerns, government employees told them to cease and desist — or else apply for a major use permit. Which could take a lot more money than found in your average Sunday passing of the offering plate.

This story is almost a parable — of why zoning laws don’t make good neighbors. Zoning is a blunt instrument, indeed. There are alternatives.

But the alternatives require a bit of common sense. 

I’m Paul Jacob. 

Categories
property rights too much government

Light Rail, Too Heavy for Developers

American city planners tend to obsess over trains. Though not nearly as economical as buses, light rail trains are regarded as the gold standard in public transportation.

But ten years after Portland established its westside line, just how bad an investment light rail can be is becoming clear. So argues John A. Charles, Jr., president of the Cascade Policy Institute.

The area’s light rail system is called MAX. The westside line put up in 1998 maxed out at $963 million. Taxpayers nationwide footed nearly three-​quarters of the bill, which went through over the protests of the Federal Transit Authority.

The FTA didn’t like the route, because it was run through a lot of empty area. Why? Because planners hoped that developers would build high-​density housing along the line, thus justifying the route as time went on. It was a grand experiment in metropolitan planning.

Metro planners then cajoled and forced various city governments to redo their zoning laws to make the high-​density developments more train-​dependent. They specified an extremely scarce supply of parking.

And the developers? They stayed away in droves. As a landowner put it, “it’s never been developed” because of that very “mandated lack of parking.”

Government geniuses might think they can force people into the types of communities that people don’t want, like people were lab rats. Peculiar thing is, folks just naively thinking they are free, tend not to jump aboard that train … so to speak.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Castle in the Hay

The haystacks, covered with tarps and old tires, were ugly.

And yet no one complained.

The people near Honeycrock Farm, Salfords, Redhill, Surrey, knew that Robert Fidler was building something behind his haystacks. But, maybe because they were, at heart, good British people, they said nothing.

But what Fidler had built behind the stacks of hay was a mock Tudor mansion, complete with cannons and turrets and such.

Tastes differ as to its beauty, but hey: it was a lot better than hay.

After building it for two years, he and his family lived in it for four. Without telling anybody.

And then came down the haystacks.

And came trouble.

Fidler thought that he had gotten around the local planning laws by living in his structure for four years without complaint. Too bad, then, that the Reigate and Banstead Council says that rule is void — because nobody had been given a chance to see it.

They had seen ugly haystacks, instead.

Now, you probably thought that zoning laws and building codes were there to protect neighbors. But the neighbors had no complaints about ugly haystacks with blue tarp. A nice house in olden style?

Why complain about that?

Well, some did. Why shouldn’t Fidler have to go through the same Kafkaesque nightmare they did?

I guess they didn’t appreciate the cleverness of the ploy.

Not so clever, however, that he’ll be allowed to keep his house. Too bad.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.