Free Republic

Jon Tennett loves to tinker in his garage. It's not an uncommon pastime for an 81-year-old man, but what is unusual is the city's response. Because Tennett fixes his neighbours' lawn mowers and other small machines, the City of Pickering has charged him with operating an illegal business - even though he's never charged a penny for his work. "They could get a lot of revenue elsewhere than looking at an old 81-year-old man trying to keep his mind busy," he points out. On the same street, a retired nurse is facing a similar problem. Janice Saroop has a lush...

A fisherman turned drug smuggler turned retired old salt, Floyd Brown claims he can find his way back here – one of the last Florida frontiers – without a compass from anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a skill, he says, he put to use more than once when he ferried bales of marijuana from Latin America to the Shark River in the 1970s. A direct descendant of the 19th century pirates who first settled here in these 10,000 islands, Brown is like many residents in Everglades City. Together they've managed to engineer a modern day coup in Florida:...

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

A fortuneteller is suing Montgomery County after he learned he would not be allowed to open a shop in Bethesda because the county bans the business of forecasting the future. Attorneys for Nick Nefedro, previously of Key West, Fla., say county officials violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and discriminated against his “Roma,” or Gypsy, culture when they refused to give him a business license. Montgomery code dating back to the early 1950s prohibits collecting cash for predicting the future. “The underlying purpose is to prevent people from being taken advantage of, because it’s a scam,” Clifford Royalty,...

County Board members on July 19 voted 4-1 to support a scaled-back proposal that will legalize accessory-dwelling apartment units in single-family neighborhoods, but caps the number of units that can be approved each year. The vote wrapped up an often cantankerous, six-month community debate, and came at the tail end of a seven-hour hearing in which critics of the accessory-dwelling proposal significantly outnumbered proponents. That lopsided ratio of opponents to supporters may have been the key factor why board members agreed to limit the number of accessory units approved each year to just 28. The number was chosen because it...

Welcome to Hyattsville, population 15,000, where the downtown looks more like New York City and the neighborhoods more like Iowa. The City Council this spring passed a law reaffirming residents' rights to grow vegetables on front lawns. Three months later, some residents have 8-foot-high corn patches in front of their homes, and neighbors say they don't mind. "I think some people might consider different types of landscapes unsightly, just like different painting schemes or building additions - which may increase or decrease property values - but it is still permitted by our code," Mayor William F. Gardiner said. Residents always...

WALKERSVILLE, Md. (AP) - Officials of a rural Maryland town illegally discriminated against a Muslim group by barring them from building a mosque and holding annual conventions on land zoned for farming, the property's owner claims in a federal lawsuit. Developer David Moxley and his father had planned to sell 224 acres in Walkersville to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA for about $6 million. The Silver Spring-based religious group canceled the deal earlier this year after the town's three-member Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to reject their request for a special exception to land-use restrictions. (snip) David and Robert...

Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted. The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86. "I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything," she told the Seattle P-I in October. She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window....

Addison, IL (AHN) - It will be a hot summer in this Chicago neighbor this year, not only because of the rising temperature but a ban on window-mounted air conditioner units.The prohibition is the result of an ordinance approved by the village board in March. It specifically banned the installation of window-mounted air coolers on walls that face the street or in side windows 12 feet or less from the street.The law seeks to improve Addison's aesthetics, according to Addison Mayor Larry Hartwig. Violators of the ban will be given warnings this year, but next year they would be fined...

Kevin King and his wife, Donna, dream of installing a backyard pool this summer. But the young couple got a rude awakening when their pool contractor drove to Lancaster Town Hall to get the construction permit this spring. That’s when the Kings learned for the first time since buying their home in 2003 that they legally have only a 3-footdeep yard in which to build their pool. Or to enjoy a swing set with their kids, ages 3 and 5. Or to do much of anything else, it seems. Turns out the Kings technically aren’t even supposed to mow the...

A Brooklyn neighborhood finally recovers from decades of misguided urban policies ___ These days, when Morris Todash walks the streets of Bushwick, a two-square-mile neighborhood of 100,000 people in central Brooklyn, he likes what he sees. On the long-abandoned seven-acre site of the former Rheingold Brewery, new two-family homes and condominiums have sprung up. On the side streets along Broadway—not so long ago, pockmarked with desolate lots where stray dogs wandered amid burned-out cars—more new homes arise and old ones get impressive face-lifts. New businesses—an organic grocery store, a fashionable restaurant—seem to be opening on every corner. Todash, whose insurance...

Homeowners who don't mow their grass in the northeast Ohio city of Canton now face stiffer penalties-including possible jail time. The city council unanimously passed a law Monday that makes a second high-grass violation a fourth-degree misdemeanor carrying a fine of up to $250 and as many as 30 days in jail. The previous law only made the first violation a minor misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $150 but no jail time. The new law is to take effect in 30 days. "This is the type of action we need to take in order to clean up our...

When her neighbor's roosters and chickens persisted in running through her yard, G. Stone took matters into her own hands. She marched next door and issued a warning: Do something about the uninvited guests or the birds "were going in my pot." The incursions stopped. But Stone, a retired Los Angeles County librarian who lives northwest of Watts, shook her head in exasperation as she recalled the incident. "I've lived here for 50 years," she said. "All of a sudden, there's an influx of chickens. You're not supposed to have chickens in the city." For many, the image of South...

IS IT getting too expensive to build affordable housing in Massachusetts? more stories like this Emergency Hub ranks high on inner city business list What happens when doctors want to get a life? American pilots blame management for delays, poor service American pilots to protest at Logan On average, it costs more than $200,000 a unit to build such housing and many projects cost significantly more. A new proposal in the state Senate would make those projects even more expensive. The Senate housing bill would require nonprofit entities and for-profit firms that build most of the region's affordable housing to...

New homes built in Montgomery County would have to meet federal energy efficiency standards under innovative legislation approved yesterday by the County Council over the objections of builders who said that the mandate would drive up costs for consumers. The measure, meant to reduce energy consumption by 15 to 30 percent, is part of a far-reaching environmental initiative. It includes property tax credits for residents who switch to renewable energy, a requirement that residents disclose utility costs when they sell a home and a plan to get county officials to trade in their government-issued sport-utility vehicles. "We are attacking literally...

Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are. The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable — urban sprawl. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has been hit hard. Prices tumbled an average of 11 percent in the past year. That's the big picture. But a look at Ashburn, Va., about 40 miles from the center...

BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled. "I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away." work. A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his...

Fed up with the encroaching sprawl, Linda Jimenez fled Silicon Valley for Tracy in 1990 in search of more affordable housing and the small-town way of life of her Santa Clara County youth. Eventually, the sprawl caught up. In 1990, Tracy, a friendly agricultural community separated from the Bay Area by the Altamont Pass, had fewer than 34,000 residents. Today, the mushrooming town, located at the western gateway to the Central Valley, has a population nearing 81,000. The town sits as a symbol of the quest by working- and middle-class Bay Area residents to find housing they can afford -...

Taking the advice of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee, a Valley Village woman has sued the city over a new rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, criticizing the recently adopted density bonus ordinance and laying out a legal strategy to challenge it. On Thursday, homeowner Sandy Hubbard filed the first lawsuit using Usher's suggestions. A group of home and business owners is also considering a lawsuit. Usher and community groups have complained that the density bonus...

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A large cross in Orange County is causing quite a controversy. It stands 199 feet tall and sits in front of the First Baptist Central Florida church on Good Homes Road near Colonial Drive. The church says it wanted people to realize a church was there. While some like the cross, others are concerned it could ruin the landscape and set a bad precedent for allowing large signs in the area. "It's a cross. It serves no other purpose other than to let people know we're here," said Wil Santiago. Others disagree with it. "It's a...

A Michigan church filed a federal lawsuit after police officers, led by a local prosecutor, entered the sanctuary at least twice without a warrant, alleging the church's music was too loud. In one instance, they threatened to arrest church musicians for disorderly conduct. Faith Baptist Church, with a congregation of about 10,000 members, is suing local officials in the Township of Waterford, Mich., in a First Amendment case a church attorney said could have national ramifications in establishing what local governments can do in regulating churches. The suit -- alleging the township violated the church's freedom of religious expression, freedom...

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- A banner honoring America's military has become the center of a controversy in Clay County, where officials have said an Orange Park woman's patriotic display is breaking the law. Ella George told WJXT that members of her family have fought for the country, and now she is fighting for her right to honor them by putting up a supportive banner at Annabelle's Interiors. The six-foot by two-foot banner in front of the Clay County business says, "Salute Every Generation's Heroes." However, the county said the banner violates its sign ordinance and has ordered it be removed....

ASHEVILLE — The people of Zacchaeus House will have to find another place to worship after Easter. The small “house-church” was cited by the city for having a church in a residence, and its two ministers, the Rev. Amy Cantrell and the Rev. Chrystal Cook, were told they would have to bring the house up to code as a public gathering place or close. “What was ironic to me was that we got the citation on Martin Luther King Day,” Cantrell said. Cantrell and Cook live in the house and offer their two spare bedrooms to people who need shelter....

A massive housing project may mean the end for Neenach, in the Antelope Valley. ___ Eight hundred people, give or take, live in Neenach. Recreation consists largely of trying to grow a bigger squash than your neighbor or trying to buy his truck. One man races pigeons. The school closed a few years back when they ran out of kids, and its rose-painted walls are still the brightest thing on the prairie. When the abutting development is built -- if it is built -- it will be called Centennial. It would be the end, for all intents and purposes, of...

(AP) When 70-year-old Betty Perry was accused of neglecting her lawn, she became defiant. Perry was arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed in July for declining a ticket for failing to water her lawn. She agreed on Friday to resolve her case by pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge and paying a $100 fine. She also faces six months of probation. Perry was scheduled to go to trial Monday on a more serious charge of resisting arrest for refusing to give her name, accept a citation or allow herself to be handcuffed on her front steps. "She ends up with...

LAKE ELSINORE -- The Planning Commission will decide tonight if "McMansions" are a good fit for a Lake Elsinore neighborhood. The architect for seven proposed homes has called his design "McMansion" in style. The city's planning department believes "McMansion" has a negative connotation -- a term used to describe "cookie-cutter" homes that don't mesh with surrounding homes. The commission is being asked to weigh in because the architect, Larry Vesely of Riverside, and the city's planning staff have been unable to come to an agreement on what would be an appropriate architectural style for the homes planned for a vacant...

Weekend work on new homes and remodels in Boulder's neighborhoods could become a thing of the past if a proposal to limit residential construction to weekdays advances. snip p> snip Kathryn Keller, who wrote an e-mail to (city councilwoman)Osborne asking for help, said the intense impacts from living next to a major construction project wouldn't be unbearable if neighbors had quiet and peaceful weekends to recuperate. "Working those extra two days to fast-track this project to get it done for these rich people is what has pushed so many people in the neighborhood over the brink," she said. "You're woken...

A statewide cap on driving? Here’s the thing nobody is quite willing to say out loud about implementing California’s climate change law in the land use arena: The state may have to place an overall cap on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), even as it must accommodate more growth. Last Friday at UCLA Extension’s annual Land Use Law and Planning Conference, keynote speaker Anthony Eggert, senior policy advisor at the California Air Resources Board, issued what amounted to a plea for help from the 400 land use practitioners gathered in the room. CARB is charged with implementing AB 32. Land use...

Neighbors call it "the French Embassy." The new, 8,200-square-foot mansion is by far the biggest house on the 1800 block of North Wood Street, leaving Fred Ehle's four-bedroom home next door in its shadow. "I don't mind gentrification and development -- I live in Bucktown -- but it has gone out of control," Ehle said. "It's crazy. It's so obviously different than what the neighborhood was and still is." Zoning rules had prohibited such a behemoth from going up on the block. But that was before the developer got a break from then-Ald. Ted Matlak (32nd). Two weeks after the...

San Francisco median home prices continue hovering between $750,000 and $800,000 and as yet are relatively undamaged by the national housing market slowdown. So it comes as little surprise that private developers remain willing to brave The City’s daunting permit bureaucracy in hopes of constructing new high-end units. And in order to build, would-be developers are generally required by City Hall to include an assigned percentage of lower-income units priced at approximately $200,000 to $250,000. But this trade-off leaves out of the equation something absolutely essential to San Francisco’s future economic and social well-being — badly needed additional middle-income residences...

Norman Pishny is a soft-spoken former farm boy who loves nothing better than puttering around his 40-acre spread in south Johnson County. But the 53-year-old financial planner — and hundreds of others like him who cherish their bucolic lifestyle — feel threatened by Overland Park. The city wants to annex 15 square miles and extend its borders nearly to Miami County, the largest expansion in the city’s 47-year history. Hundreds of angry landowners, including professional golfer Tom Watson, have packed hearing rooms in the past several months to tell the city the “land grab” is arrogant and robs them of...

GULFPORT --The Warr administration will propose making SmartCode optional to developers, which some advocates call disastrous. City Councilman Brian Carriere said Mayor Brent Warr was the first Coast leader to tout the benefits of SmartCode after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but now the mayor seems to be changing his mind. "He's waffling big-time," Carriere said about Warr. "Making SmartCode optional basically means every individual developer could choose to do whatever they wanted." Warr has been out of town and unavailable for comment. And Andres Duany, a Miami-based New Urbanism pioneer hired as the city's lead design consultant last month, also...

While landowners, attorneys and planners untangle the development rules redefined by voter approval of Measure 49 in November, the property rights "poster girl" who was at the center of Oregon's land-use battle three years ago is no further along than when she started. Dorothy English, 95, hasn't developed her land despite winning initially at the ballot box and then in court. Now voters' latest move on land use and property rights has clouded the picture. "Nothing, not a thing," she said recently. "I haven't got anything, period. And I'm furious." She referred questions to her grandson, Doug Sellers, the family...

There are encouraging signs that New Urbanism is beginning to take root in American design. The U.S. Green Building Council has begun using a pilot system called LEED Neighborhood Design, which will include location and transportation use in its green ratings. Duany and his peers in the movement are helping city and town planners to dismantle the postwar zoning regulations that helped make the car king, and you can find New Urbanist projects sprouting across the country. Americans may say they hate their long commute, but there's little evidence that they're eager to abandon a lifestyle built around the car....

For several miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, the wall separating San Diego and Tijuana is made from old metal landing pads used by the U.S. Army during the first Gulf War. The metal sheets driven upright into the dirt are six inches north of the actual border, a half-foot into U.S. territory, creating a very narrow no-man’s strip for about 20 miles. Its width is roughly equal to the length of a new pencil. It is these forgotten spaces that fascinate Teddy Cruz. A San Diego-based architect who was raised in Guatemala and educated in Mexico City, Cruz believes in...

The housing market is flat-lining, but that isn't deterring Anaheim officials from changing zoning in the city's sports district to permit nearly 20,000 new homes -- twice the number of condos, lofts and apartments already planned in the so-called Platinum Triangle. The city wants to create a dense downtown near Angel Stadium and the Honda Center, an area now dominated by industrial facilities and office parks. Despite the sour real estate market, city leaders say the demand for housing in Anaheim is there. "These homes are not going to be built overnight," said Councilman Bob Hernandez. "Like everything else, the...

For years, a swath of land on the shores of Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri has been a point of contention between businessman Robert Plaster and Stone County officials. Each time Plaster has tried to develop it, he has been rebuffed by the county. Now because of a new state statute nicknamed the "village" law, Plaster may be able to incorporate his land, circumventing the county and its zoning laws in the process. "The negative impact this law could have on every county is limitless," said George Cutbirth, presiding commissioner of Stone County, where Plaster's property is located. The...

OFFICIALS from seven counties in southern New York State want to give a total of $87.5 million to local towns and villages as an incentive to build more housing affordable to young professionals — who by many calculations are leaving Long Island and other counties at high rates. Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, who formed the coalition with county supervisors from Suffolk, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester, announced the group’s proposal for state legislation here late last month. The law, if enacted, would give cash to local governments based on the number of affordable homes or units built...

A band of new suburban neighborhoods that held promise for thousands of Charlotte families is now struggling with crime, blight and falling home values. These neighborhoods were hit hard by the wave of foreclosures rattling the nation. Damage is most visible in starter-home subdivisions across northern Charlotte, and in pockets in the east and southwest. The best of them show subtle signs: Vacant houses. Overgrown weeds. Trash piled at the curb. The worst of them already resemble decaying urban neighborhoods that keep police and housing inspectors busy -- and cost Charlotte millions to repair. While the crime rate citywide held...

The Lawndale City Council has approved restrictions on new concrete installed in residential front yards after months of intense deliberations. The council voted 4-1 Monday to require residents to obtain permits before they add front-yard parking pads, patios or driveways to their property. Residents who want new concrete "flatwork" will have to meet a slew of regulations when the ordinance takes effect Jan. 3. The ordinance will replace a temporary measure approved in 2005 to curb what city officials called the growing "sea of gray" in Lawndale. "The City Council's concerns on flatwork stemmed from a proliferation of hardscape materials,"...

Lewis Anderson looked out the window of his Roseville home this spring and spotted a couple of teenage boys shooting arrows into a bale of hay next door. Anderson's blood pressure soared: His wife and young son had just been playing nearby. The boys weren't using "some toy archery kit," he said, but fast, compound bows. Anderson walked over and asked them to stop, explaining that shooting bows and arrows was illegal in back yards. But after checking city ordinances, he was shocked to learn it still was allowed. Not anymore. Roseville recently became one of a growing number of...

Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the D.C. chapter of FreeRepublic.com, is hoping that the city eventually addresses the de-facto hotel/lobbying operation run by the group Code Pink from a residentially zoned five-bedroom row house at 712 Fifth St. NE.Mr. Taylor's puzzlement is understandable, for the Code Pink provocateurs advertise the apparent zoning violations on their Web site, www.codepink4peace.org."The bedrooms vary in size and can house two to four activists in each," the far-left group writes in the D.C. section of the site.The Code Pinkies say the brownstone can handle as many as 20 activists at a time, which is an apparent...

Southern California is in flames again – it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even remember which fire the soot on my car is coming from – and makes me wonder once again why we’ve given up on land use planning as a way to reduce fire risk in such a fire-prone region. As I write this, the current conflagration has cost more than 1,000 homes and forced the evacuation of more than a half-million people. Will Californians come out of this catastrophic event thinking that we need to use land use planning to avoid fire-prone areas? I doubt...

How do you sell public transit to car-addicted suburbanites? How about offering free samples? A growing number of commuter-based communities in the Toronto region are experimenting with free or discounted transit in the hope that residents just might like the bus if they try it. Milton is offering a "Ride for free from 9 to 3" bus service; Mississauga is resurrecting its city centre shuttle; and Markham and Richmond Hill are continuing their joint Lunch Express, which ferries office workers to restaurants in the Highway 407 and Leslie St. area. "These are days most of us are aware of climate...

his sprawling metropolis has welcomed developers since 1836 when land speculators Augustus and John Allen founded the city by carving a 6,000-acre swath of coastal prairie into home sites sold for $1 per acre. Now, that wide-open approach has come back to haunt Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city and the only major U.S. city without zoning laws to control development. Plans to build a 23-story condominium tower among the million-dollar homes of two stately neighborhoods here has appalled affluent residents and put local politicians in the hot seat. Angry residents have hired a lawyer to fight their cause. Houston Mayor...

Fairfax County authorities said yesterday that they have arrested and jailed the landlord of an illegal boardinghouse, the most dramatic development since county leaders launched a crackdown on overcrowding and other zoning violations in June. Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Board of Supervisors, announced the arrest at a board meeting. Connolly, who is seeking reelection next month, has come under fire for not taking a tougher stand against illegal immigrants. His response has been to tout the county's efforts to police illegal behavior, such as the operation of overcrowded boardinghouses, rather than immigration status. "The strike team for...

The McMansion phenomenon is likely to survive both the residential property slump and the popularity of green design, but communities are increasingly opting to regulate house size. Even Los Angeles, often blamed for spawning the culture of sprawl, is evaluating a measure that would limit the size of single-family infill housing—some 300,000 properties. Although there is no single set of nationwide data on such ordinances, the National Trust for Historic Preservation tracks the issue through its anti-teardown initiative. In a May 2006 study it found that more than 300 communities in 33 states have taken steps to combat teardowns and...

FARMERS BRANCH, Texas — Some residents of this Dallas suburb that tried to ban apartment rentals to illegal immigrants now want the city to regulate which colorful hues people can paint their homes. Although the City Council hasn't decided whether to consider any house paint restrictions, Hispanic leaders say it's yet another effort to target Latinos in the city. "I believe controlling the color you paint your house is basically profiling the Hispanic community," said Elizabeth Villafranca, whose family owns a Mexican restaurant in Farmers Branch. "We all know who paints their homes tropical colors." Two residents requested the council...

Philadelphia's new Zoning Code Commission is hard at work on an overhaul of the city's 1962 zoning code. As a political spectacle, it rivals the excitement of C-Span on a Sunday. But make no mistake: While most Philadelphians will never read the new code, they will feel its impact for generations. Despite its alphabet soup of terms such as C5 and R9A, zoning reform will reach into every part of the city, shifting development dollars and the political landscape. That's why the presumptive future mayor, Michael Nutter, recently called zoning reform "the start of the renaissance of Philadelphia." Remember when...

CLARKSVILLE, Tennessee — A barber with strong ties to the military community pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head at a City Council meeting after his request for a rezoning measure was rejected.Ronald "Bo" Ward sought the rezoning to increase the property value of his home, allowing him to secure a loan to offset debt he incurred when he expanded his barber shop. After the 5-7 vote Thursday night, Ward stood and walked toward the council. "Ya'll have put me under. ... I'm out of here," he said before killing himself with a small handgun. Fire and...