[MD] You can't do that, its not legal

[X Acto]

John,
 Usually, the 10' setback is for occupied building structures
of which applies to new construction after the ordinance has 
been passed, grandfather clauses (ho, ho, cough, gasp, weeze)
usually hold up in cases of existing structures, wood sheds lean-to's
are secondary structures and typically are not applicable to the 10' setback,
encroachment is another story. 
In most cases, if you and your nieghbor are on good terms and no one
really cares, no harm no foul.

You can't DO that! it's not legal!....boy, I hear THAT one alot.
Traffic signs, road paint, I hear my wife gasp in horror when I 
violate these abstractions, but I do not violate them to violate them,
boundaries are useful but not absolute by any means. Boundaries
are a matter of interpretation. Defined by reference.

I own an old house too, it's very difficult to work on because every
project has the domino effect. Replacing a burnt out switch turns into
a re-wiring project which uncover a host of other new projects, rotten
floor boards, plumbing leaks, roof problems, critters...the list goes on..
I pull old nails..save old boards, to re-use..making the project more
involved. My wife and I are admitted "dumpster divers" we recycle the 
old as much as possible and hate to throw stuff out, when we throw
stuff away believe me, it's garbage for the most part.
Unfortunately this leaves us with a house full o' stuff, and it has
gotten out of hand.
We are now in purge mode, and it's difficult. But, it's an exercise
in making value distinctions. Like Pirsigs slip tray's we make our
value decisions radically based on their value, we hold things up
and decide which goes first, it has worked out fairly well. we are now
going through our cloths..I have stuff I have had since high school..
stuff I don't like to wear and stuff I like but just can't fit into anymore.
Based on those values, If I havent worn it in 5yrs, I hate it, or I just can't
fit into it, it goes.
I've begun to look at the house in this fashon and compare it to the value
of spending time with my family and have learned value is more a process
of letting go.
Funny how a storm, a manifestation of DQ, can illustrate the immediacy
of life and how much we take the static as "granted".

thanks for your post
-Ron

 


----- Original Message ----
From: John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Wed, October 14, 2009 2:17:01 AM
Subject: [MD] You can't do that, its not legal

Whenever I hear that phrase, (and I guess I hear it a lot) I always sneer to
myself over the stupidity on display.
Of course I can do it.  I can make any choice available to me that I want,
regardless of society's opinion, my values are not determined by the laws of
the land.

But most people, don't really want to examine the source of their values,
and its silly to try and  argue with them when they don't wanna "go there"
in the first place.    So I don't.  But deep down, it bugs me and I gotta
vent to someone.

Poor you.

I thank Pirsig for turning an iconoclastic spasm into an actual moral
stance, for heeding social patterns in the question of what is good, is the
most immoral of behavior and I'm very proud that by inclination and
training, i don't do it very much.

I had time to contemplate this in the last 24 hours, during the time I was
preparing for the first storm of the season,weather reports making out to be
plenty energetic.  So I was doing the dance of the frantic procrastinator,
my northern california mellow life transformed with pictures of all these
projects and things left out in the rain.  Wood sheds not finished, logs not
split, etc.

So I worked 18 hours.  I was so tired, near the end, that my chest hurt.
Every step an aching, limping trudge.  But in a weird kinda way, fun.  I
mean, I'm not talking Siberian outback or anything, I was right outside my
front door, and able to keep an eye on the incoming storm via
weather.comwhich offers up opportunity to track the rain at predicted
15 min.
intervals.  Lu was amazed.  Made the comment, if we worked half this hard
every day, our place would look like a palace, instead of the tin roof
shack, teetering on the edge of the diggins.

I agreed with her completely, and silently thought, "but I wouldn't like
living in a palace.  I like living in a tin roof shack on the edge of the
diggins.  I like the sound of rain on a tin roof, snuggled under an electric
blanket in a back hanging, unheated  bedroom, dangling in space with my
weird thoughts.

I especially like it when my wood is all under the roof, and my woodsheds
mostly done.

Now what started this thread tho, was discussing the legality and all.
Because these particular structures are right on my property line,  which
is illegal as hell, but as my house is four feet away from the property
line, I can't exactly follow the county's ordnance of 10 foot minimum if I
wanted to.  These are old houses.  I don't know exactly how old, but  built
with square nails and hand-dug wells means it was before there was such
thing as a county building department, and while I'm sure it's illegal to
extend "grandfathered in" quite as far as I have, I really had little
choice.  It's just unacceptable living next door to a whole 'nother
household about 10 feet from my squalling brood.  I put that wall and lean
-to roof up more than 10 years ago, just to make it livable for me and my
neighbor.  Now,  they've come and inspected and ordered me to tear it down,
but they haven't really forced me into anything because technically, they
know I'm right.

Somehow I was successful in appealing to that small sliver of humanity
buried inside every bureaucrat, and they eventually just went away and
stayed away.  It's a combinatin of a non-combative stance, while being a
really good guy, just trying to get along.  If that still small voice is not
completely stifled, they can hear it and by grace, look away when you flout
their rules, regulations and reasons.

Most of the warnings I get from people about flouting the law comes from
those who've experienced very negative consequences or know some cautionary
tale of negative consequences from flouting the law.  And I understand where
they're coming from.  But the truth is, that same small sliver of humanity
residing in every official functionary's heart that can detect good, can
also detect self-interest.  In fact, that whiff of self-serving is what
they're designed for, to regulate, to restrict and control.  You gotta
by-pass the self-serving detector by being non-self-interested, and as we
all know, once you can do that, you can do anything anyway.

In my particular case, it's easy to seem disinterested because anyone would
looking at my place would assume it.  But in my eyes and heart, and thanks
to Pop Larkin, of the Darling Buds of May, I see in a whole different light.
My palace.
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