Code Compliance

[NotCranky]

[quote=no_such_reality][quote=spdrun]

I hate over zealous code as much as the next person. I hate illegal garage apartments even more.

Why are they any of your God damned business, as long as they’re not making excessive noise or parking in your driveway? Live and let live.[/quote]

Live and let live is great.

If you’re building an illegal apartment garage to maximize rents after turning the property into a rental, you’re kind of giving a big middle finger to the neighbors quality of life, IMHO. Particularly in neighborhood that are zone R1 and nothing but SFRs.

People bought those neighborhoods to have lower density.

Airbnb is a good example. Cool service and a potential pain in the *ass for the neighbors. Near Disneyland, the SFR tract home neighbors have been basically turned into semi-hotels. Multiple families will pour into a single house. The neighbors have all the standard complaints, noise, trash, parking etc.

Live and let live is great, it starts with respecting why you neighbors are in the neighborhood you’re in. If you rank $$$ above your neighbors quality of life.

And many neighbors are just PITAs. The easement issue that’s been bandied around here with the EPA. The other piss ass fights neighbors want.[/quote]

Funny you should post this today! The stuff hit the fan. I am going to update the thread I made about the neighbor and EPA issues at some point. I am winning the battles and the war today! Maybe the trouble maker can save face. It’s not my problem. It’s a good day to celebrate and maybe drink a little more wine that I would normally do too,

[no_such_reality]

[quote=spdrun]^^^

You sound like an intrusive little snitch. If you have concerns, grow some cojones and talk to your neighbor before considering siccing the fucking filth from the city on them.
[/quote]

Remember the OP started the conversation by lying to them. Told them it was a vacation home, then turned it into a rental.

[quote]They don’t love me any more, because the house is a rental.
They were hoping a “respectable” family would move in. At first, I told them it’s a second home. They were fine with that, and they even asked me to join them in church.[/quote]

[spdrun]

Remember the OP started the conversation by lying to them. Told them it was a vacation home, then turned it into a rental.

As if it’s any of their business.

Technically, he said it was a “second” home. Many people rent out their second homes when not using them.

It’s a lot better/safer to have a tenant in place than to have the home vacant 11 months out of 12, ready for burglars and squatters.

Nah, bugger the snitching neighbors and their church.

[FlyerInHi]

It was my second home while I remodeled it. Remodeling is vacation to me — that’s what I spend most of my free time doing. Just bought a 1980s condo that needs remodeling. I love turning old ugly places into Scandivanvian/urban/Ikea beauties.

Plus things change and life goes on.

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]

I like organic unplanned growth and I’m against zoning. [/quote]

Did you see the movie “Up”? Where the elderly man’s home ended up surrounded by factories? The only people I’ve ever known who were against land use planning were somewhat Donald Trump-like.

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for broad policies that improve our lives; fiscal and monetary policies that increase economic activity. [/quote]

Who isn’t?

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for welcoming immigrants, multiculturalism, and building a society that is connected to the world. [/quote]

Maybe you haven’t noticed but all societies are connected to the world other than a few in the Amazon and a few other isolated pockets.

Brian – you seem to love everyone very much. How many hours have you spent volunteering your time for your fellow man over the past year? Plus – you live alone from what I can tell so why don’t you invite some immigrants to join you? If they promise not to make a mess?

[spdrun]

I can’t speak for FlyerInHI, but as far as inviting immigrants to join me, I guess you’re saying the country is a metaphor for a house —

(1) My concept of personal space doesn’t extend that far
(2) My government doesn’t often speak for me. I’m intelligent enough to realize that the fact that THEY don’t invite someone to my country doesn’t automagically make them a “bad” person. Just a person who (by accident of birth) wasn’t born in the US, and didn’t go through a lot of bullshit bureaucracy to come here. They have no more or less natural right to be anywhere in the world than you or I. I don’t feel nationalism or American exceptionalism strongly.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=spdrun]I can’t speak for FlyerInHI, but as far as inviting immigrants to join me, I guess you’re saying the country is a metaphor for a house —

(1) My concept of personal space doesn’t extend that far
(2) My government doesn’t often speak for me. I’m intelligent enough to realize that the fact that THEY don’t invite someone to my country doesn’t automagically make them a “bad” person. Just a person who (by accident of birth) wasn’t born in the US, and didn’t go through a lot of bullshit bureaucracy to come here. They have no more or less natural right to be anywhere in the world than you or I. I don’t feel nationalism or American exceptionalism strongly.[/quote]

There’s nothing particular naturally about national borders. But they are real. You probably don’t have a natural right to be anywhere on the globe absent plane travel, a heavily regulated industry subject to various national rules.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=njtosd][quote=FlyerInHi]

I like organic unplanned growth and I’m against zoning. [/quote]

Did you see the movie “Up”? Where the elderly man’s home ended up surrounded by factories? The only people I’ve ever known who were against land use planning were somewhat Donald Trump-like.

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for broad policies that improve our lives; fiscal and monetary policies that increase economic activity. [/quote]

Who isn’t?

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for welcoming immigrants, multiculturalism, and building a society that is connected to the world. [/quote]

Maybe you haven’t noticed but all societies are connected to the world other than a few in the Amazon and a few other isolated pockets.

Brian – you seem to love everyone very much. How many hours have you spent volunteering your time for your fellow man over the past year? Plus – you live alone from what I can tell so why don’t you invite some immigrants to join you? If they promise not to make a mess?[/quote]

There’s a recent http://www.humansofnewyork.com shot of a Liberian woman who was taken in by a Jewish couple in NYC that made me cry. She’s on full purple third from the top

[spdrun]

There’s nothing particular naturally about national borders. But they are real. You probably don’t have a natural right to be anywhere on the globe absent plane travel, a heavily regulated industry subject to various national rules.

Everyone has the natural right. They’re just prevented from exercising that natural right by filth from various governments, including ours.

I will not lift a pinky to help enforce national borders. I won’t vote for scum like Donnie that threaten to enforce them more zealously. I won’t snitch on someone whom I know is in the US illegally. I won’t answer anything other than the legally required questions at internal checkpoints or show an iota of gratitude. Etc.

[njtosd]

[quote=scaredyclassic]

There’s a recent http://www.humansofnewyork.com shot of a Liberian woman who was taken in by a Jewish couple in NYC that made me cry. She’s on full purple third from the top[/quote]

I’ve never seen that website before – it’s a simple idea but very interesting. (I like the “today in micro fashion” entries.) Her story was very sweet and the fact that she started a scholarship fund is inspiring.

I don’t know what the answer is on immigration. Not walls, obviously (especially after the video of those two guys going up and over in a matter of seconds). It is something more complicated than letting everyone in or keeping everyone out. There was a great book that came out about 10 yrs ago called “They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky” about Sudanese “Lost Boys” refugees who ultimately ended up in San Diego. One wrote an article in Newsweek about his experience. http://www.newsweek.com/i-have-had-learn-live-peace-120687. The woman who sponsored them did a very good thing.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=njtosd][quote=FlyerInHi]

I like organic unplanned growth and I’m against zoning. [/quote]

Did you see the movie “Up”? Where the elderly man’s home ended up surrounded by factories? The only people I’ve ever known who were against land use planning were somewhat Donald Trump-like.

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for broad policies that improve our lives; fiscal and monetary policies that increase economic activity. [/quote]

Who isn’t?

[quote=FlyerInHi] I’m for welcoming immigrants, multiculturalism, and building a society that is connected to the world. [/quote]

Maybe you haven’t noticed but all societies are connected to the world other than a few in the Amazon and a few other isolated pockets.

Brian – you seem to love everyone very much. How many hours have you spent volunteering your time for your fellow man over the past year? Plus – you live alone from what I can tell so why don’t you invite some immigrants to join you? If they promise not to make a mess?[/quote]

Houses surrounded by factories is just fear mongering. We don’t live in the 19th century anymore. Houston doesn’t have zoning and the nice old central neighborhoods are still nice. There are some condo building interspersed, but so what? Wouldn’t be so bad if some people converted their houses to restaurant or coffee shops or apartment buildings.

Some places are more connected than others. I’d like more connectedness.

I don’t have time to volunteer; plus I don’t have the patience to deal with the bureaucracy of charities — follow what the minister/senior leader says, bullshit group think, etc… It’s not just volunteering and charity but their attempt to make you “like minded”.

I act in the marketplace. In fact, I recently made friends with a nice Mexican lady in a condo complex where I own 2 units. Her landlord was a slumlord so I helped her get out her lease. She now lives in my beautifully renovated unit that has an unpermitted washer/dryer (yes unpermitted but safely installed to safety code). Her rent is a little under what I could get, but she’s clean. She’s happy as a lark because she’s never lived in a nice place where everything is new. I hired her as my back up cleaning lady. I’m very personable and I don’t hide behind property managers.

If our government lets in thousand of refugees into my towns, I’d be willing to sponsor a couple families. But not into my own home. I live alone because I like it that way. As a big country, we should take at least 1 million refugees.

[FlyerInHi]

Humans of NY is famous. I love it. He has 20 million viewers.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/humans-of-new-york-gives-refugees-a-voice/

[bearishgurl]

FIH, not EVERYONE who owns/rents a single family home wants to live “interspersed” with multi-family dwellings. The sole reason for buying or renting on a SFR-only area is to have more privacy. Newer multi-family dwellings built on infill on the same block as SFRs (ex: North Park SD) drag down the value of those long-existing SFRs by adding parking congestion and even dumpsters in plain view on what were once SFR-only streets. In addition, there are more stereos and radios blaring and more people crammed onto that street with frequent domestic violence calls and the like as well as the constant moving trucks of a transient population.

I would not buy an SFR on such a street … even for investment purposes. I would only buy a SFR on a street which was zoned single-family only and would prefer the entire subdivision be zoned single-family only.

SFR zoning and multifamily zoning should be separate as it is in most urban and suburban areas of CA (SF, among other locales, excepted). The two types of areas attract completely different kinds of would-be residents. Without its heavy zoning restrictions, CA RE would not be worth anywhere near what it is worth today.

You brought up Houston, TX. Compare it (with little or no zoning) to SD and you will find its homes are worth 1/4 to 1/10 of a comparable home in coastal CA counties. There are very good reasons for this.

The way builders are able to offer privacy to new SFR homebuyers in Harris Co, TX and other TX metros is through building a walled and often gated community which has CC&R’s (and HOA dues). Such communities are often built around a manmade lake which belongs to the HOA and could literally be considered “islands unto themselves.” It is only in these (CC&R) SFR communities where you DON’T see RVs, boats, tractors and trailers (and tractor-trailers) parked out in front of SFRs. Quite often, the CC&R community-dweller in TX metros drives outside the wall of his/her subdivision and is immediately thrust onto a wide thoroughfare with a hodgepodge of auto-body shops, tool and die shops, dive bars, no-tell motels and/or tractors and rusty camper shells parked in front of SFRs situated on acreages. The non-HOA communities in or surrounding Houston are full of everything, including sorry-looking outbuildings “parked” on residential property, space-permitting, of course.

Strict zoning laws serve their purpose and I am very appreciative that CA coastal counties (and even CA as a whole) has had them in place for many decades (in comparison with many other parts of the country).

[spdrun]

I’m going to disagree about multifamily vs single-family. There are plenty of good and bad areas of both multifamily and single-family form.

A few years ago, I got lost in an area of Phoenix. All small single-families. I went to ask for directions and had someone kick the window of my rental car for my trouble. Apparently, the area was known for meth and other interesting drugs, but didn’t look “ghetto” at all.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=spdrun]I’m going to disagree about multifamily vs single-family. There are plenty of good and bad areas of both multifamily and single-family form.

A few years ago, I got lost in an area of Phoenix. All small single-families. I went to ask for directions and had someone kick the window of my rental car for my trouble. Apparently, the area was known for meth and other interesting drugs, but didn’t look “ghetto” at all.[/quote]I believe you spdrun. There are some SFR areas in SD which are “affordable” which I would not buy into cuz I wouldn’t want to live there or have a tenant there to “manage.” (I don’t mind going into those micro-areas to see friends or attend backyard BBQs or celebrations, etc, though.)

I just think some previously wonderful SD neighborhoods full of SFR gems (even “Historical), such as North Park, have been ruined beginning in about ’89 when the City Council “upzoned” certain streets allowing old homes to be razed and 4-8 units built in their place. Some of those particular streets were too narrow for all this extra “activity.”

It appears that the bulk of the “state street” area up to about one block north of the city pool and velodrome has been preserved, for the most part. North Park was one of SD’s jewels and it didn’t need to be ruined with nondescript multi-family dwellings … some of it undoubtedly accepting Section 8 vouchers.

SD doesn’t owe “low-income tenants” adequate housing in desirable “uptown” locations, such as North Park. That’s why we have El Cajon valley :=0. Low-income tenants can eventually work themselves off section 8 and eventually rent/buy a place in a more desirable county location if they so desire.

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