Otherwise Wonderful People Doing Stupid Things [View all]

[IrishAyes]

I know I'm always calling this place I retired a bump in the road, etc. But the place does have enough population for at least a few zoning restrictions.

There's a wonderful youngish couple down on the corner; good family etc. About 3 years ago when the dad was laid off from a factory job, he started driving a semi for a farm supply concern, and it was far simpler for him to park the truck on his own double lot instead of the alternative. That way the wife could have their only car during the day too. Although nobody raised a fuss because we knew they'd lose everything w/o his income, we gritted our teeth through the 5 a.m. departures and just thanked our lucky stars he didn't park the bleepin' thing on the street. THAT would've brought big trouble fast.

Anyway, he was gone from home so much that he took a job as a mechanic at a local shop in the BUSINESS district, and everything seemed fine until the owners were killed in a motorcycle accident and he was out of work again. Not his fault.

But what happened next has us all in an uproar, because this does happen to be a strictly residential area. He built a gigantic 2-story garage on his second plot to conduct his own auto repair work, and he didn't even bother to ask for a permit, which he'd have been denied anyway. Now there are usually 8-10 vehicles parked on his lot and even up and down the street. He runs loud mechanical equipment at all hours too.

So there will be plenty of citizen participation at the town council meeting next Thursday evening. What kind of idiot pops for what it cost to build that giant garage - the footprint would contain about 6 Dodge Rams - when he knows what the neighbors are going to do? Besides interfering with the quiet enjoyment of our own property, the presence of his business has cut everyone's real estate investments by at least half. Did he think because the neighbors tolerated that diesel rig firing up at 5 a.m., that we'd let something like this go? He needs to follow the same rules as others are expected to observe.

It's going to break my heart to go against him on this, but he left me no other option. If he'd bothered even to so much as ask beforehand how his neighbors felt, we'd every one have urged him not to do it. Now he's going to have to dismantle and move a garage that cost a fortune! And that family will be mad at US over it. What could this otherwise lovely couple have been thinking??????