06-18-2014, 05:56 AM
What the county's motive is I do not know.
County seems very concerned that (1) someone will demand the services for which their taxes are supposedly used, or (2) someone will somehow evade payment of those taxes.
The compromise seems to be: you can live as unpermitted as you like, as long as nobody can see you, nobody complains, and (most important) you never request any publicly-funded services.
I suspect that many of the people living in "unpermitted" situations would simply be priced out of the market entirely, such that County would have to deal with more homelessness -- it's cheaper to simply ignore the unpermitted shacks.
I have also seen people build unsafe shacks
Another aspect of the problem: there is ZERO oversight unless fully permitted (with all the license-fee-inspection that implies), so absolutely no safety or sanitation requirements are imposed on the unpermitted.
This county is riddled with counterexamples in both directions: I've seen "unpermitted" structures that were built above and beyond all code requirements and fully compliant with zoning (height, setbacks, etc), and I've seen "permitted" buildings that should never have passed inspection, with issues that were both clearly visible and obvious to a non-professional.
HSCA's lobby for a State-level bill was in response to County's refusal to grant them the same consideration -- funny how County insists on "home rule" only when it suits them. The anti-"sustainability" folks did manage to flood the press with outlandishly inaccurate claims about what would be "allowed" by the State bill -- while also completely failing to mention that the State bill did not, in fact, allow anything: it merely directs County to create a permit process, while also allowing County to assert any and all additional requirements. We will never know how that might have turned out.
Rumor has it the SPACE market will be shut down by the end of this month. I really hope the nearby residents file suit against County's "no permission" posture.
County seems very concerned that (1) someone will demand the services for which their taxes are supposedly used, or (2) someone will somehow evade payment of those taxes.
The compromise seems to be: you can live as unpermitted as you like, as long as nobody can see you, nobody complains, and (most important) you never request any publicly-funded services.
I suspect that many of the people living in "unpermitted" situations would simply be priced out of the market entirely, such that County would have to deal with more homelessness -- it's cheaper to simply ignore the unpermitted shacks.
I have also seen people build unsafe shacks
Another aspect of the problem: there is ZERO oversight unless fully permitted (with all the license-fee-inspection that implies), so absolutely no safety or sanitation requirements are imposed on the unpermitted.
This county is riddled with counterexamples in both directions: I've seen "unpermitted" structures that were built above and beyond all code requirements and fully compliant with zoning (height, setbacks, etc), and I've seen "permitted" buildings that should never have passed inspection, with issues that were both clearly visible and obvious to a non-professional.
HSCA's lobby for a State-level bill was in response to County's refusal to grant them the same consideration -- funny how County insists on "home rule" only when it suits them. The anti-"sustainability" folks did manage to flood the press with outlandishly inaccurate claims about what would be "allowed" by the State bill -- while also completely failing to mention that the State bill did not, in fact, allow anything: it merely directs County to create a permit process, while also allowing County to assert any and all additional requirements. We will never know how that might have turned out.
Rumor has it the SPACE market will be shut down by the end of this month. I really hope the nearby residents file suit against County's "no permission" posture.