Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 21:30:08 -0400
From: “connectnc.net”
Subject: property rights and yard nazis
This post comes from a place of great fear and personal experience . Its my opinion based on that experience .
Democrats once passed and executed through a planning board a beautification ordinance in this county since they couldn’t make zoning it pass at that time . I was one of many victims to this beautification ordinance . You were told how many vehicles you could have in your yard and were often ordered to put up privacy fencing to hide anything the yard Nazis didn’t like . If you were a business you were constantly on the radar of the yard Nazis . What they called junk was materials for building , construction , old farm equipment , parts cars , vehicles under repair , projects of all sorts including artist supplies . Many business and land owners resented them and yes we did call them yard Nazis . They didn’t care because it was a power trip and a real thrill to burden people with their unreasonable wielding of power . Many times the neighbors didn’t care what was in your yard and never complained but if the yard Nazis could see it from the road they were given the power of god by county commissioners to irritate and fine the crap out of anyone who didn’t comply with their ordinance and clean up any thing they deemed unsightly at what ever cost to you . There were a number of business’s who packed up and left Chatham County over this . There were many self employed small business owners literally driven into bankruptcy or out of business when this was in place .
I remember one owner who spent so much money trying to accommodate the county just to be jumped and fined again he lost everything and I seriously felt the man was going to go postal with dynamite and erase half of the government offices in Pittsboro . It was very very bad . If you were one of the privileged who pays some little Mexican to mow your grass and there wasn’t a piece of trash in your yard in your gated community you never knew the pain and frustration of dealing with the county at that time . The situation was so bad for me It was either find $15000 for fencing or go out of business . I managed to put everything out of sight behind the tree line until I could close up shop . Even after I closed up shop I was harassed by the county for my vehicles I had beside my shop . I had steel beams for my tractor shed they considered scrap . I had my project truck in pieces under restoration , it was also consider scrap . I couldn’t please them so I literally had to build a shed to put my own vehicles in . I live on a dead end road . My neighbors were my great aunt and my grandma , no one else . It was extremely rare if anyone came down the dead end road by my shop but the yard Nazis did . My point is , If we allow zoning we will be giving them the power to control any and everything that we do on our own land that is outside city limits in the country where WE chose to live because WE didn’t want to live inside a city limit where it was zoned and you were constantly told what you could and couldn’t do on your own property .
I spent a small fortune the last time trying to deal with the county . It made me physically sick . I had ulcers , stress , hypertension and was miserable for over two years . I have cleaned up planted grass and I’m getting to a place where mother nature is decorating my property with a beautiful coat of green . If they zone us and start telling me what I can and cant have I wont fight them . I will move out of this county and that’s what these rich developers want . They want to push out anyone on low income , farmers and small business to use the property as a fresh canvas to paint a new picture of paradise to sell to the highest investor . That’s my 2 cents worth . Goodnite Mark 🙂
I remember living in Cary in the McArthur Park development – it was a “nicely zoned area” where you could paint your house any color you wanted – as long as it was beige . . .
One day we decided to clean up a boat to sell it. We had it parked in the driveway for ONE DAY while we cleaned the interior. Lo and behold, the next morning there was a “nasty-gram” on our mailbox saying we couldn’t have it in the driveway and it had go behind our fenced back yard where there was no opening wide enough to get through the fence.
Little did they know we could fit the boat in the garage to continue to work on it. ONLY – we had to do one small thing. MOVE EVERY PIECE OF WORD-WORKING MACHINERY IN THE GARAGE OUT ONTO THE DRIVEWAY SO WE COULD FIT THE BOAT IN THE GARAGE. HA! They couldn’t say ANYTHING about that, because it was not specifically outlined in the zoning. It looked even worse than having the boat in the driveway. The only set back was that the whole neighborhood was disappointed when we told them we weren’t having a yard sale . . . . OH WELL!!!!! 😉