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

[John Carl]

Yeah Ron, the tricky part is when you connect your outbuilding to your
structure, and then start knocking out the walls separating them so that
you've actually increased your structure to the size of your property.
I thought once of coming in under the county minimum - which is 200 square
feet.  You can build any 200 foot sq foot structure on your property without
a permit.  So build about 20 of 'em and then start framing breezeways
between and there you go.  A 4000 sq foot dwelling with no permits, fees or
restrictions.

They love me down at the county.

The key is, as you point out, being on good enough terms with your neighbors
that they don't lodge a complaint.  The county actually works on the demand
theory of enforcement - they don't scout for zoning or building infractions,
only when there's a complaint do they respond and enforce.  It keeps the
system liveable.




On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 4:58 AM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:

> 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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