Our house was moved to this lot from another place in the city, well over 40 years ago. I believe the people who moved the house also owned many of the lots to the east of us--and that is why our house is 'illegally' positioned on our lot. We are just a couple of feet from the eastern-most lot line--a situation that is only allowed because we were 'grandfathered' in when laws/ordinances were put into place. So, this was why our neighbor's driveway was directly under my bedroom window. As a matter of fact, if they parked at the very edge of their driveway, I could have (almost) reached out and touched their vehicle from my window. While it wasn't ideal--and it could be a bit noisy, at times--over the course of 30+ years, I learned to live with the way things were. Our street steadily declines from west to east, so the neighbors were able to put up a retaining wall on the other side of the narrow driveway and put another driveway directly in front of their house--on a level with their basement. With multiple vehicles and parking ordinances, all vehicles have to be off of the streets at night during the winter, so the added driveway was a necessity for them. And this summer, things changed and that is why I am using the past tense. So, on to the rest of the story...
After all of these years, the neighbors finally decided to put up a garage. They own the lots to their east, so the garage was built on the side away from our house. They got the proper permits, etc, so the city was well aware of what they were doing. Because our neighbor did the work himself, it took most of the summer to complete the building. About a month ago, the city was called to come and do the final inspection. That was when the 'wisdom' of our government shone so very brightly--as happens so very often.
With the building of the garage, a new driveway was put into place. This meant that the property--THREE lots wide--now had three driveways. And the city had a meltdown over this. How DARE our neighbors try to have THREE driveways on their property--which just happens to border up against the dead end street we live on. They were told that one of the driveways MUST be DESTROYED and grass MUST be planted and growing before the snow falls. NO discussion, NO exception. Our neighbors' protestations and explanations meant nothing. They asked if, at the very least, they could keep the curbing from having to be placed in front of the space where the driveway was closest to us. As they explained, the door on this side of the house is 36"--the width needed to bring an appliance or over-sized piece of furniture into their house--and the door on the other side was only 32". This argument fell on deaf ears--as the city told them, "Those moving trucks have NO problem driving over the curb, so it must be installed." Unbelievable.
As far as I know, there was no good explanation as to why they were not allowed to have three driveways. If they own that many lots, why CAN'T they? If they wanted to pave over their entire property, why not let them? It is getting too sad when EVERYTHING is so regulated--and yet, the entire country seems to be going into the dumper. I don't have answers to how things could be changed for the better, but I certainly don't think regulating such piddly things is going to make things better any time soon.
More Government At Work
