The War on Cars… Parked and Otherwise

If you are a car person – or just want to be able to park your car in your own damned driveway – be sure you read the fine print before you buy a house in a neighborhood that has an HOA.too many cars pic

Or – worse – peculiar zoning ordinances.

But even if you do read them, it may not matter. Because the rules can change at any time – and when that happens, your choices boil down to obey – and pay.

Or, move.   

For instance, this:

A local news affiliate in Cobb County, Georgia (see here) covered the saga of the Oviedo family, well-scrubbed and extremely middle-class. The family was targeted by local code enforcement bureaucrats (remember BTK?) for having “too many” cars parked in their own driveway.

How many is “too many”?

Four, as it turns out.

The county passed an “open space community” zoning ordinance after the Oviedo family bought their house. Faster than you can say ex post facto, it became an offense – punishable – for any homeowner to have more than two cars parked outside.

The idea being to “encourage” people to not own cars at all – by making it a hassle to own them.

It wasn’t that the cars were parked on the lawn.

Nor that they were parked on the street, in front of the house, on the road – which might be a reasonable restriction or at least, not an affront to the concept of private property – because the street is public property.

The “open spaces” code applies to the Oviedos’ own driveway.enforcement pic

The one they paid for.

Probably having done so on the wild and crazy theory that they’d be able to actually use the driveway they paid for.

The cars were not unsightly “clunkers,” either. One might see reason in that. If we were talking, say, about a primered ’86 Monte Carlo perpetually perched on jackstands, rivulets of oil streaming down the driveway and into the street, open headers fired up at 11 at night.

 Something like that, perhaps.

But the two over the limit cars – which belong to the Oviedo’s college-age children, home for the summer – are late-model, not primered and as well-scrubbed as the family itself. One car is a late-model VW Golf, the other a late model Toyota Corolla.

It wasn’t a case of an eyesore or nuisance or expired tags, even.

Just “too many” cars.

“Sustainability,” you see. That’s the subtext.

An anonymous tip from a local Clover sicced the code enforcement bureaucrats on the Oviedos. They immediately faced enormous fines for “noncompliance.” Which amounted to telling the Oviedos that their children could no longer spend summer break at their parents’ house.Ovideo cars

Or at least, making it difficult (and very expensive) for them to do so.

The county relented a little after media coverage ginned up a kerrfuffle and told the Oviedos that they could file an affidavit with them attesting that their kids’  cars were only going to be parked their temporarily (during summer break) in which case the county would “give them a break” on enforcing the code.

All they had to do was pay the county $150 to file the affidavit – plus pay for a “current boundary survey,” which the county says would cost about $1,500-$2,000.

Mind, this is merely to avoid being fined for now – and potentially, dragged away in cuffs and (ultimately) have their house sold off by the county (in the event the Oviedos committed the hideous crime of ignoring the ordinance and not paying the fines) … all because they let their kids park their own cars on – ahem, er – “private” property.

Property which the Oviedos paid for – including the perpetual taxes thereon.red giant image

All the burdens of ownership – without the perks!

Which is what it’s coming down to in red giant stage America. A red giant is a sun on the verge of going supernova – or collapsing in on itself and becoming either a black hole or a crisped out cinder of its former self. Its main fuel (hydrogen) spent, it burns other, less (and less) fissionable elements until – at last – there is no longer anything left to burn.

America is a red giant.

The liberty that was its fuel for so many generations is virtually spent. There is no longer any aspect of our lives not subject to interferences, orders, micromanagement… and ultimately, punishment. Not because of a harm caused. But only because someone else doesn’t like whatever it is you’re doing and wants you to stop doing it  – or wants you to do something else.

Can you think of one?

What does it say about “our freedoms” – which we’re told constantly are being “fought for” even as they are systematically being taken away – when a family is not allowed to let their own kids (or hell, whomever they damed well please) park in their own damned driveway?freedom farce

A great deal, actually.

Our freedoms are nullities. We exist on sufferance. There is nothing that’s off limits. No tiny corner of peace where we may rest secure in the knowledge that no one may interfere with us – under color of law, at least. It brings to mind the rape scene in Deliverance, when rabid hillbilly number one tells John Voight’s character: “If we want your money, we’ll take your money. Now get up against that tree.”

Think about that – and the Oviedos – the next time you see some flag-waver warbling about “our freedoms.”

 

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kokoda
kokoda

Typical of some people that get a little bit of power to screw over other people’s lives.

D. B. Cooper
D. B. Cooper

I live in Cobb and the locale Government seems to do as they like. They just pushed through making Cobb County the new home of the Atlanta Braves last year with 0 public input and told us all it would not cost the tax payers a dime. Turns out it’s the most costly dime that Cobb has ever spent with new roads and a overpass. Can’t wait until they raise our property tax to pay for a ton of new cops to deal with all the problems that come with a major league team a few miles from your house.

Anonymous
Anonymous

D.B. Cooper

Glad to see that you lived through jump.

I lived for many years in Cobb County, heck I may even know you if you are a native. Because I feel that you are a homeboy, I urge you to get the hell out of the Atlanta area. Who gives a shit about the Braves, let the fools and kneegrows that stay pay for all of that.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Dallas code enforcement used (no HOA) to come by and chalk mark the vehicles tire and pavement if the vehicle did not move in three days, you got a fine.

Chicago999444
Chicago999444

First, HOAs are for condominiums, where you must arrange for the maintenance of common elements and mediate disputes between owners. No one should put up with a SF house that is in a HOA, though I am aware that most new housing developments built since the early 70s have them.

Second, upper-middle and upper bracket suburbs have always been very snotty and invasive, burdening home owners with restrictions on the number of people who can live in the house, or dictating that only immediate family members can live there, or what you can plant on your lawn. Typically, building permits for improvements and replacements have to go through a tortuous process, and you can be denied an occupancy permit for the house you bought because of very tiny flaws, like having 180 amps of electricity in your panel instead of 200 amps, or because a stair rail is slightly wobbly, or the place needs painting.

The denizens not only put up with these fascist restrictions, but usually welcome them and often lobby for them, because they feel like it makes their suburb more exclusive and “upper class”. If you protest them, your neighbors will look down their noses at you and suggest that if you don’t like it, you should move to Festus or someplace, and you will be shunned thereafter.

And, in my mother’s St Louis suburb, until very recently, you did not DARE park a van or truck on the driveway, even behind the house. It was considered to be one of the most declasse things you could do. In Ladue, St. Louis’ wealthiest and most “old-money” suburb (Phylis Schlafly lives there now), you are not permitted to have a live in boyfriend or girlfriend, or anyone else living in your house, who is not immediate family. This restriction was made law in the 90s, when unmarried couples of means started buying expensive houses together.

Russia Is Strong
Russia Is Strong

Legalized torture, legalized kidnappings, legalized financial fraud, legalized war crimes, legalized massive surveillance of absolutely everyone & everything, a legalized system of privately run Prisons-For-Profit, legalized market data manipulation, legalized highway robbery (aka Civil Asset Forfeitures), legalized secret FISA courts that use legalized secret interpretations of law to issue legalized secret warrants that no one will ever know about thanks to legalized secret gag orders, legalized police brutality, legalized drone bombings of children playing soccer on some beach 7422 miles away from here, legalized military invasions of foreign nations based on false pretenses & fabricated evidence, legalized benefits for illegal immigrants, legalized purposeful dumbing-down of the entire national educational system, legalized usury, legalized bail-outs of failed private corporations at public expense, a completely corrupt judiciary operating a two-tier ‘justice’ system, legalized assassinations of 16 year old U.S. citizens with no judicial review whatsoever (Abdulrahman al-Awlaki), a completely corrupt legislative arm, a completely corrupt & ineffectual president who seems to believe he possesses dictatorial powers, a completely corrupt and subservient news media that only reports what it is told/allowed to report, legalized blacklists, legalized censorship, complete elimination of Constitutional Rule of Law and legalized forcing of the population into buying worthless overpriced “healthcare” plans practically at gunpoint…. and NOW ..

…NO MORE PARKING ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY!

Rise Up
Rise Up

The community I have lived in for 21 years has an HOA and the dues are ridiculously cheap–$140/year. They have a bunch of bylaws that they occasionally enforce, most recently making sure everyone’s recycle and trash containers are “hidden” from the street. I dubiously went out and got a small barrier from the hardware store to block where I put mine next to the garage. None of my neighbors did. I asked one why and he informed me the bylaws have no enforcement provisions!
Just like a regulation by a government that has not been promulgated. No way to enforce. Too funny.

AC
AC

Don’t buy a house with a HOA unless you are a masochist.

BUCKHED
BUCKHED

An anonymous ass whipping would get an official into line in no time .

Econman
Econman

U don’t own your house even if it’s paid off, U still have to pay property taxes.

No 1 in the USA/new USSR owns their home, the government does.

TE
TE

@Econman, except churches my dear.

We have churches around here that both own their own land, but have rights to more, and even lots and lots of commercially developed land that the tax rate is ridiculously low thanks to the tax laws (and complicity of organized religion to suck governmental c*ck).

My home/business county was ordered by a judge to “make up” a payment missed to pension/retiree fund. This is on top of all the hits we took for the Detroit debacle.

Yep, I’m sitting here anticipating the loss of more of my property values because we are going to be levied with a “one-off” (for today) fee to “make up” for promises that are mathematically impossible to ever be kept when half the jobs and businesses are gone.

Every ounce of my body wants to get the hell out of the unionist Utopian state and move to a rural, mind your own business, place. Those are increasingly hard to find and FATCA has made living outside our borders next to impossible.

The damned prison walls are popping up and being reinforced EVERYWHERE and NOBODY wants to see it, care, or stop the insanity and opt out while the opting is good.

*sigh*

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