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From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Living in RV on private land in FL
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:15:02 -0500
Message-ID: <pgehtvg7ben6oktcaen3s2of0pcn58qifb@4ax.com>

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 02:56:43 GMT, Peter T. Arnold <PM7088@comcast.net> wrote:


>OK, so I build a 4,000 square foot home on a piece of property and you
>are determined to live next to me in an RV.
>
>No matter how you color it, you are going to hurt me.  My property
>will be devalued through your actions.  Why would you want to do that?
>The only defense I have against you is to live in an area where the
>zoning laws protect me from your actions. Don't be surprised when I
>complain to the enforcement authority, why should I take a loss?

So you think you have the right to control someone else's property, eh?  If
you do that with, say, money or a car it's called "theft".  If you want to
control what is done with that property then you buy it.  That's what I did at
my first house to stop development around it.  Oh, but that costs money and,
booo-hooo, you don't want to spend it.  You want to take, using the force of
the state if necessary, your neighbor's property rights without paying for
them.  I bet you'd howl like a moose with a cob up his *ss if the tables were
turned and your neighbor tried to stop you from doing something you wanted to
do with your property.

You socialist pricks who pull these stunts are the most despicable of
society's parasites because you nibble like termites at the foundations of the
private property rights that are the bedrock of this country.  Jefferson wrote
about your type when he described the kings men, sent out to "eat out our
hearts".

I had a neighbor like you in Atlanta.  I owned the ranch house of a farm that
was subdivided.  I had a 2 acre front yard and about 25 feet on the back.
These yuppie assholes bought a lot across the street and built a $300k house
(Ca residents read: $2 million) in a neighborhood of $60-120k houses.  they
started bitching immediately.  They didn't like my parking several (good,
running, not junk) cars in my front yard.  They sent the zoning nazi out to
threaten me.  Bad move.

Rather than be intimidated, I did my research.  Then I met 'em on the street
one day and had a chat.  I told them that I had discovered some things in my
research.  I discovered that the offending regulation only addressed parking
cars on the grass so that I would simply Roundup a strip of grass near the
road across from their house and park my cars in the resulting mud.  I also
discovered that my property was grandfathered in the zoning to agricultural.
I therefore planned to put up an electric fence around an area that I allowed
to grow wild as a visual buffer, and put some hogs in there to control the
weeds.

I then told them that, so as not to make them look at my place and I wouldn't
have to look at the hogs, I would construct a fence.  I was allowed 8 feet.
Since I didn't want to spend much money I'd be using particle board painted my
favorite color - bright red.  And that I'd be using those cheap metal barbed
wire fence poles and simply cable tie the 4X8' sheets up so I could easily
replace them when they came apart.

I then intimated that maybe if they stayed on their side of the road and
minded their own business and kept their noses out of mine, then maybe I'd be
lazy enough not to do anything.  That's the way we left it until I sold the
house several years later and escaped that hell-hole.  I did manage to plant
some Kudzoo sprigs across the dead end between our properties before I left
:-)

I can only pray that your neighbors are as resourceful.

John



From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Zoning; can't use it OR sell it
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:37:05 -0500
Message-ID: <g2r0t2pff2a7qumo9es7p8f6bfvm5s4lr8@4ax.com>

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:33:35 GMT, Ann <nntpmail@epix.net> wrote:

>The Agricultural Production category has a few more permitted uses, but
>the restriction on selling part of the land is equivalent.  The County
>appears to have used the dart board method of assigning categories.  Some
>of the land adjoining mine in the same; some is Rural Heritage (no similar
>subdivision restriction.)
>
>This elevates "There will be less government interference in your life."
>to #1 on my list of Rural Myths, replacing "The cost of living is less."

My sympathies, Ann.  I had the same thing happen last year.  In an
amazing act of forethought not frequently mustered since, in 1975 I
bought a hunk of land next to the brand new interstate.  It has been
owned by the local hunt and fish club and has a 3 acre spring-fed lake
on it.  45 ft dam on one end.  Enough water flow to generate all the
electricity I could need.

My plans had always been to, when I retired, build a home next to the
dam and then slowly build a series of cabins around the lake to rent
out.  I have a friend who did that back in the 60s on another piece of
land.  Alas, now that retirement is in sight, the greedy developer
b*stards who've run the town for two generations decided we needed
county zoning and last year it happened.

I don't know what my land is zoned but the mere thought of having to
ask someone else permission to do what I want with my land is so
abhorrent that I now consider it useless to me.  I'm pissed!

When are we going to stop complaining about government and start
killing some of it?  The 2nd Amendment isn't about hunting, you
know....

John


From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Zoning; can't use it OR sell it
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:55:26 -0500
Message-ID: <5hg2t2525tr7g9r0996f3i8j3suobr9gta@4ax.com>

On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 19:41:22 -0600, Dean Hoffman
<dh0496@i%ne^bras*&ka.com> wrote:


>          Any chance that the money grubbers will try to grab your
>ground through eminent domain?  I've read about some of these cases and
>wondered if there was something the landowner could do ahead of time  on
>the land deed or covenants.

That worry has been in the back of my mind ever since that supreme
court ruling that let a city steal peoples' homes and give it over to
private developers.  I can't imagine any sort of "conventional"
eminent domain case being made but who knows when the greedy b*stards
are busy thinking up ways of stealing from others.

OTOH, if they do make a move, the fair market value is going to make
me very financially comfortable.  The parcel next to mine of about the
same acreage sold for $5mil 2 years ago.  They'll pay through the nose
and the *ss if they want my property!  Like a friend of mine said when
they tried to move on a piece of his farm - before he'd let them have
it he'd import a whole damned town full of mexicans and pay them to
pig farm.... :-)

Ann, we fought zoning tooth and nail but the fix was in by the time
the plan was made public.  The average IQ in this thumpin' little town
is about room temperature so all the politicos had to do to sell
zoning was to point out that *GASP* an x-rated theater could set up
shop in town and only zoning would stop it.

So far they've used this new power that they seized for themselves for
such laudable achievements (NOT) as shutting down a decades-old
shooting range far out in the country because a single person who was
a friend of a friend of a .....  Didn't like the noise.

John


From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: alt.energy.homepower
Subject: Re: Windmill rules for intown
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:47:30 -0400
Message-ID: <vdv764554ut05nq4a56q0qc715215k6jju@4ax.com>

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:15:45 -0400, "daestrom"
<daestrom@NO_SPAM_HEREtwcny.rr.com> wrote:

>Drew Cutter wrote:
>> How do i find out about using wind for the house ?  I live in town .
>> For instance how high can the tower be ?
>
>Start by talking to the same folks that issue building permits.  They may
>not have all the answers, but they could probably tell you who does.

True, but don't dare use your name or address and preferably, call from a pay
phone.  If the questions you ask happens to get a petty bureaucrat's panties
in a wad, you DON'T want it traced back to you and you don't want the SPECIAL
attention that these pricks can direct your way.

There's an art to finding out what you want to know without sending the code
nazis off on a search and destroy mission to ferret out whatever it is you're
wanting to do.  Edge into it slowly and stop if the guy gets huffy.  For a
wind turbine, I'd probably ask something very benign such as whether it's OK
to put a little TV mast mounted turbine on your roof or even a small
old-fashioned windmill in your yard.  After you ask, LISTEN carefully.

It's important to discern the guy's attitude toward the general concept.  If
he is, STOP TALKING and change the subject.  You don't want to put him on
alert for something 'new' to look for.

Operating under the philosophy that it's easier to beg forgiveness than
permission, I tend to "just do it" in such instances, after waiting a suitable
time interval.  The VERY worst that might happen is that you have to take it
down.  More likely, unless someone complains, it won't be noticed.  If it is,
a variance, with your elected politician's help, of course, is the usual path.

Another consideration.  If you're a ham radio operator and erect an antenna
tower, there is little that the town can do other than making you jump through
some BS safety hoops.  The FCC long ago federally pre-empted anti-antenna
state and local laws.  If your antenna tower happens to also have a windmill
hanging off the side (or top), well.....

Be sure to check the current FCC rules in this regard before you charge
forward.

Personally, I'd go the ham radio route.  A ham license is trivially easy to
get these days and that gets you a LOT of protection from the NIMBYs and code
nazis.

John


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