Although in this instance I think NIMBYism is less useful than having functioning local government, police, and homeless services.
Said unofficial husband was dealing drugs out of the backyard, and, as time passed, the backyard, followed by the vacant lot behind - for some unknown reason referred to as “the sand lot” became home to numerous homeless junkies. It became a rodent infested, trash filled, needle strewn nightmare, abhorred by the neighborhood.
The landlord, bless his heart, was, once upon a time, a sweet, naive, hippy, and very talented artisan. Until “someone” introduced him to meth, and it all went downhill from there. He remained a kind soul - and unable to say no to anyone, even when he could no longer stand the situation himself, and knew he was close to losing his remaining house.
Well, actually, he’d started trying to by the end, with our help; we were happy to play the role of “the bad guys” so he didn’t have to. But it was too late, someone gave him a hotshot (meth and heroin) and that was the end of all that.
(Who were/are we? My partner and I rented the other half of his house in March 2020. It was rundown, but cheap, and we were still getting back on our feet after my partner spent several months in the hospital with bacterial pneumonia and we ended up quasi-homeless. We knew the landlord and his unofficial husband from many many years earlier, long before all the nonsense began, and were in a hurry to find a new place so we did not do our due diligence. Didn’t take long to figure out the hell we’d landed in, but thanks to that little pandemic that started around the same time, it became impossible to move.)
So, yes, people have done that with their house.
Any more than the problem of loud neighbors, is a problem of having neighbors.
Well, you should probably respond to the person who could not figure any downsides of a mom and pop store in a residential neighborhood because I am well aware of the downsides.
It's not just that it's not a fundamental characteristic of stores, but it's also not a fundamental characteristic of homeless people, it's just a characteristic of these homeless people and this store. Depending on the type of store, I'd grant you that other issues could have arisen, such as rodents, smells, etc.. but also any other neighbor could be hosting parties, smoking near your window, leaving debris around. In some cases, you either need to accept it, adapt, or find somewhere else to live.
I had a neighbor in the burbs growing up that didn't like the way we behaved on our property, or how it looked, and stuck her nose in and intruded frequently, often threatening to call the police for all sorts of absurd reasons.
Seems like the issue is the store owner (i.e. the neighbor), not the fact that it is a store.
When I lived in Houston I used to jog past a house where the front yard was absolutely covered in garbage. Super nice neighborhood and all the houses in the neighborhood looked great, but just this one guy clearly had issues. It smelled horrendous.
Anyway, seems unrelated to it being a store.
People keep writing this, obviously, without thinking even for a minute. A neighbor who allowed homeless camp in front of their house would:
1) have to live behind a homeless camp himself
2) be tanking his own house value
3) be open to sanctions from the code as there are way more restrictions on residential property use than there are on commercial.
>When I lived in Houston
Your experience in Houston, where there is no zoning, is not very irrelevant in discussion of zoning, don't you think? Unless you are actually making an example why zoning is important, of course.
1) the business owner has to operate a business behind the camp
2) the business owner tanks the value of their own property
3) what code? The building code? If we can apply a “code” to a home, then we can apply it to a business. So if there really is such a disparity where you live, the issue is that disparity in application of building codes, not zoning laws.
Re: Houston, what does zoning have to do with anything? My story could have happened i”anywhere. Zoning doesn’t control whether you are allowed to cover your property with trash. My point is that even in an area with nothing but houses, you can have horrendous neighbors.
Not at all. There are tons of businesses next to homeless camps in every American city, and the value of a business is not in the building but in the location and zoning, the code is the city code attached to zoning, the thing you don't have in Huston. The zoning for a residential and commercial is different thus you cannot apply residential zoning to commercial and vice versa.
Fix the irresponsible behavior directly.
Most residential codes define minimum living standards, and as a result people camping/crashing on a property whose structure they don't live in, is prohibited.
Apparently your zone code needs to be corrected. Small businesses in residential areas need to be held to relevant/responsible residential zone code.
(You are proposing a zoning code fix too, but for reasons I don't understand, seem fixated on eliminating non-offending businesses, instead of directly addressing the problem.)
I can see now why you would pretty much make any change if a side-effect was a solution.
Probably should have disclosed when you first stated your opinion, that it was dependent on local dysfunctional, so others could have understood.
Definitely not the norm.
There is no place in the world that is zoned for homeless encampments. Zoning is stuff like residential, commercial, industrial, mixed use, and so on. If you are talking about homeless encampments, it’s not a zoning discussion.
I don’t support homeless encampments. Out here where I live in California they tend to be on public land like parks. But wherever they are, there should be laws, enforcement mechanisms, and social support to deal with them. But none of those things have anything to do with zoning.
Seems like your code officer is obviously crooked. Not sure what that has to do with zoning though.
I am against your views because it increases the price of living for everyone, for your own specific benefit.
If you want to be selfish feel free to be openly selfish, but don't be surprised when people like me respond in kind.
I am down for property taxes 10xing to fund building homes because of people like you.
>My own specific benefit as sleeping at night...
invest in ear plugs
I already said you were a nimby, no need to reiterate my position
I'm not sure however that there's anything to indicate that mom and pop stores are especially susceptible to these kinds of outcomes. It sounds more like you got a case of shitty neighbour which is possible whether or not the neighbour is a commercial lot or a small home.
If your negative experience had been with a neighbour living in a private home instead of a neighbour who owned a small business would that change your view around the matter of zoning for small businesses in residential neighbourhoods?
I don't see why this is to be expected, but a business shouldn't expect to pay a fine
>not to mention he would be living in a homeless camp, which is not something most homeowners are eager to do.
Again, most business owners are not eager to do this either. You've told an anecdote that doesn't support your argument because it's not common (an understatement) for businesses to be a homeless camp, so to use that as an argument for why someone wouldn't want to live next to a business is ridiculous.
Understandable, you don't seem to know what zoning does so it might not be evident to you that commercial zoning is different from residential and available property uses are also different. Residential zoning restricts the occupancy and structures you can have on your property more so than commercial. That's why if you run a store in your house you will be fined unless you keep your customers and vendors under a very low limit and running a store from a commercial lot does not get you fined, for example.
Having lived in a dense walkable place with plentiful stores mingled with residential housing, I can say I’ve never seen that particular problem before.
The problem is the fact that those people were homeless to begin with.
So many people like you seem to just accept the idea that there will always be homeless people—you just don't want to have to see them. Ideally, they should just go die, and decrease the surplus population, right? At least that way they won't be bothering you.
If a few of them are breaking noise ordinances or stealing stuff and the police won't do anything, then complain to the city about that, not about the fact that the shop owner has the compassion to allow them a place to exist.
And if you actually want there to be fewer homeless people overall......then maybe, just maybe, you might have to accept fewer zoning regulations that raise the price of housing.
Are you willing to see the city pay to house them?
Because otherwise, you're basically saying "I don't think the fact that they're homeless is a problem; I think the fact that I have to see them be homeless is a problem."
It's been a while since I had to break out the I Don't Know How To Tell You You Should Care About Other People; most people at least pretend that they're not absolute moral voids.
Only half-joking.