Enforcing zoning ordinances? Tyranny!

Planning laws are a necessary part of a civilised society, Tolstoy. That Fahey guy built a large, ramshackle, building (albeit quite an amusing one) without applying for permission to do so. Just because you own a piece of land doesn't mean you can build whatever you like on that land - and nor should it.

If I moved in next door to you, and immediately started to build a 150-foot high tower in my garden without consulting you or seeking permission from anyone, would you be concerned about that, or would you say "oh, it's his land, he can do as he pleases" ?

1) It's not in a heavily populated neighbourbood, not is it an 150 foot high tower or anything ridiculous like that. If you're going to make analogies, as least make them somewhere close to relevant.

2) I am not clear how jailing him helps anyone, in any way.

1) Ok, the building included only a 70-foot tower, not a 150-foot one, I accept that.

2) He was jailed because he didn't pay the fine levied to cover the costs of de-constructing his illegal building.

I knew I could count on you, Invictus. As one of the victims points out, you can find code violations on any property. When 90-100% of the population is in violation of a particular set of government rules and regulations, enforcement is unavoidably going to be arbitrary. Probably one property in five in LA County has a(n illegal - and in many cases dangerous) garage converted into housing for a immigrant families, but the "Nuisance Abatement" SWAT team isn't going house-to-house through East LA or South Central extracting full compliance with the law there and demanding tens of thousands of dollars of improvements be made by people on food stamps or the house will be demolished. When everyone is in violation of laws that are enforced vigorously in one place and not at all pretty much everywhere else, then yes, that is tyrannical.

Zoning laws exist to PROTECT property rights. They are what keeps someone from buying the lot next to your single-family house and opening a Cash-4-Gold shop or building an apartment building there. They also force people to maintain their homes and land to a decent degree, so there aren't sofas and old cars rotting in people's front yards which drives down the value of their neighbors' property.

I admit the enforcement in these situations seems skewed and local government is overwhelmingly staffed with petty authoritarians who abuse their discretion. However, we're only getting one side of the story in these videos. While there are certainly cases (many, many these days) when the government overreaches and runs roughshod over Americans' liberties, there's just not enough evidence here to say for sure that's what's going on.

Jumping to the conclusion that the gubmint is doing something tyrannical in every case is almost as bad as ignoring the abuses that do occur.

"When everyone is in violation of laws that are enforced vigorously in one place and not at all pretty much everywhere else, then yes, that is tyrannical."

Or it's just a result of the county having limited resources for this sort of thing, and going after the low-hanging fruit.

"If I moved in next door to you, and immediately started to build a 150-foot high tower in my garden without consulting you or seeking permission from anyone, would you be concerned about that, or would you say "oh, it's his land, he can do as he pleases" ?"

I would've said "it's his land and he can do what he pleases". This isn't suburbia here - it's a desert that stretches for tens of miles with no sign of properly planned and regulated civilization in sight. All of these people have large properties, and most have no neighbors at all to get offended by their code violations.

"most have no neighbors at all to get offended by their code violations."

Even if there are no neighbors to get offended, if they're violating the zoning ordinance then their violating the zoning ordinance. The solution here is to pass exceptions for more rural areas of the county, not to ignore the law.

"They are what keeps someone from buying the lot next to your single-family house and opening a Cash-4-Gold shop or building an apartment building there."

Haha... when I was a kid our family owned a single family house with a fantastic and unobstructed view of the mountains. We had been living there a year when the city approved the construction of a four-story office building literally right next door - when it was finished, our view of the mountains was replaced by a 50-foot concrete wall, seriously damaging the property value of our single family home. This was done in full compliance of the zoning ordinances, of course... some "protection" there.

"we're only getting one side of the story in these videos."

That's because the government refuses to acknowledge this is even going on and declining all requests for comment on it.

"I would've said "it's his land and he can do what he pleases"."

You'd say that as long as it wasn't an inconvenience to you, which is what most reasonable people do.

But what if he did something crazy like dig a moat around his house, put a up a 100 foot flagpole with the North Vietnamese flag on it, leave a port-o-potty on his front lawn, and paint his house with orange and red stripes? And this happened while you were selling your house or if your house's value was really the only money you had for retirement? Still such an absolutist?

Even if each lot is dozens of acres in size what each resident does with their land can affect the value of other residents', and we have (usually, but not always) entirely reasonable zoning ordinances to keep things from getting out of hand. That's not tyranny, that's civilization.

"This was done in full compliance of the zoning ordinances, of course... some "protection" there."

I'm talking about the reason such ordinances exist. I never claimed they were infallible. And anyway, caveat emptor on your family for not researching the zoning situation when they bought.


"That's because the government refuses to acknowledge this is even going on and declining all requests for comment on it."

Is that true? This was obviously in the courts, so that part is public record. Some reasearch I'm not inclined to do would probably turn up a whole lot more here than these few Youtube videos made by sympathetic people show.

I already said this seems skewed. But nowhere in the video do they talk about even trying to get an injunction. There's a lot missing here and I'm not gonna get in high dudgeon with such little information.