Land use and zoning issues are treacherously insidious, and in California have become an outrageous impediment to liberty. This is a particularly good example, because it’s both clear and simple enough that everyone can understand the situation, and see both sides of this issue.
The problem is that one neighbor is using his house for an activity that the other neighbors think is overly intensive. One can see their point: if you’ve worked hard and acquired the means to live in a nice quiet residential area, well, you’d probably like it nice and quiet. The problem is that allowing yourself to go down that regulatory road really is a slippery slope: it’s a series of tiny steps from that to “conditional” use permits, CEQUA studies, EIRS — the whole gamut of “discretionary” findings that make it impossible to predict government action, or even it’s reach. Hayek developed this reasoning better that I could ever hope to relate in a posting here, but IMHO, it’s a big deal.
Even worse, this is where you get otherwise solid conservatives to buy into the liberal regime of making everyone ask for permission for...well, practically everything. You get liberal idiots like Anthony Portantino being elected from a Republican stronghold like La Canada here in LA county.
If parking is the issue, then fine, restrict parking. If noise is the issue, then fine, deal with the noise. But restrictive land use policies? No thanks.
I'd like to know if this single neighbor complains about lawn mowers on Sunday morning.
Good analysis (in my opinon).