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Grandpa’s Basement House

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Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#261

Post by concordDance »

Gigachad wrote: post #218
concordDance wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are free to paint the inside of your apartment however you want but painting the balcony or the hallway side of your front door is not allowed as it compromises the visual image of the building. Sounds monotonous with a lack of free expression and personality.

Can you imagine a high rise where its all following a consistent design except one balcony which is painted red? It would look like crap. And for little gain since its only really something you can see properly from the street. I know HN loves the muh freedoms angle but surely its easy to understand how forgoing the freedom to paint a very small portion of the property is largely beneficial.

I imagine a highrise with every apartment a slightly different customized style and it's lovely.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#262

Post by betwixthewires »

mmh0000 wrote: post #245
betwixthewires wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you, why were you concerned about your neighbors parking in their yard or not weeding their lawn?

Let me answer you with snark: Yeah, it's totally ridiculous that I would want to live in a neighborhood of like-minded people who would want to maintain and improve their most valuable possession. I should be totally happy putting time, money and effort into the upkeep and improvement of my plot of land while my nextdoor neighbor adds to their collection of front-yard beer cans and beater cars.

Alright, so let's remove the extreme scenario. Let's go somewhere in the middle and forget about beer cans and rustbuckets. What sort of different uses of property are you OK with your neighbors doing? What if a neighbor wants to turn his front yard into a mini orchard? Or a big garden? Or build a shed in the back without a permit? Or paint his house an unusual color? Say, he takes care of his property and isn't trashy, but just uses it differently than you do. How do you feel about that? Where's your line?

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#263

Post by gorgoiler »

guerrilla wrote: post #255
gorgoiler wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a standards body for HOAs? Are they regulated? If they have equivalent legal status to a government or a police department, are there constitutional rights which they cannot violate? Can two competing HOAs exist in the same geographic area, and home owners are free to setup additional ones if the incumbents don’t meet their needs?

Gish-gallop much? Looks like you were answered anyway though.

That phrase is new to me. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#264

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tptacek wrote: post #235
spacemanmatt wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that there is a large gap between prejudice and disproportionate effect? I'm just curious how this break down for you.

I don't know, I'm just saying these policies were motivated directly, maybe exclusively by racial animus.

> I'm just saying these policies were motivated directly, maybe exclusively by racial animus

We have similar motivations to thank for our cabaret laws in New York, which literally fined restaurants without the proper licences if their patrons danced.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#265

Post by maicro »

ac29 wrote: post #198
geoffeg wrote: post #2

> Growing vegetables on what should be a lawn is verboten in many locations, if not by the government than by private association bylaws. I'm aware that some HOAs limit (sometimes to what seems like an extreme) what can be done with the yard and lawn, but I wasn't aware of any governments that ban growing vegetables. Is that more common in water-restricted municipalities? (I live in midwestern US, where backyard gard…

> Is that more common in water-restricted municipalities? Where I live, watering outdoor plants is only allowed 3 days a week, and only before 9AM or after 6PM on those three days. That doesnt mean growing vegetables is specifically illegal, but it does mean starting seedlings requires breaking the law during the warmer months.

I wonder how that law is worded - could you for instance fill up several X gallon jugs (1, 5, 55 [~4L, ~19L and ~208L] - whatever you have/need) during those permitted used windows, and water the plants from that supply as needed?

I could see the time window applying to the actual act of watering the plants ("don't water during the hottest/brightest part of the day, to avoid wasting most of it to evaporation"), but the specific days seem to me like they're just for load balancing...

I believe some areas object to the use of rain barrels, so I wonder if this option would fall under the same or similar restrictions.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#266

Post by cafard »

webmaven wrote: post #251
duxup wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting/ strange to me. I grew up in the Midwest and a modest garden in the backyard was often the case. I’ve never heard of them being banned. I don’t doubt they are some places. I’m sure some suburban guy decided to plow his front yard and be a corn farmer, but generally I find nobody minds a garden.

> This is interesting/ strange to me. I grew up in the Midwest and a modest garden in the backyard was often the case. I’ve never heard of them being banned. I don’t doubt they are some places. Backyard gardens are generally unobjectionable, it is the front yard that gets neighbors riled up when they see dirt and messy looking plants. Even then, if you make an effort to have it present as ornamental (eg. herbs, cherr…

Some neighbors have dedicated their front yard to vegetable growing. They have raised beds--I should say not particularly attractive ones. I don't know what kind of yield they get, for the house overshadows it a fair bit of the day. But we are not in an HOA.

At least a couple of households nearby have composting drums in sight from the street.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#267

Post by walrus01 »

OJFord wrote: post #233
walrus01 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you for the most part, the problem comes when you have an HOA led by some Karen who decides to fine you and make your life miserable for doing something like having the audacity to fly a pride flag. You got lucky that the handful of things you want to do aren't a big deal, or your local HOA doesn't consist of any overly zealous busybodies with nothing better to do than become the neighborhood stasi…

> like having the audacity to fly a [doesn't matter] flag. I don't live in the US, and at best the concept is very rare here, and I don't like the idea of it, but that sort of thing is exactly what I would like. Flying a flag (why?!) has much more impact (probably negative) on your neighbours than it does (presumably positive) you.

If you think having a pride flag is something that has a negative impact on my neighbors, you're exactly a fine example of the sort of proto-HOA stasi I hope never gets onto the board of one.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#268

Post by hamburglar »

OJFord wrote: post #254
hamburglar wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s exactly as I described. He said he wouldn’t go after anyone for rules violations, and he didn’t. The previous busybody HOA President was quite bothered, but it seemed most people just wanted to be left alone.

Yeah, that's how I understood it. I just meant that you could also deliberately have rules (as opposed to come into office after them) and you do intend that people follow them, create new ones, update them, etc., but they're just not enforced, and everyone knows that. As in just codifying some social expectations that would probably exist in roughly the same form anyway.

Oh I completely agree that that’s the effect. There were still rules, and I’m pretty sure there were even reminders sent to people breaking rules in ways that were legitimately bothersome (albeit without the teeth of enforcement fines), they just eliminated the problem of the petty rules cop fining people $50 for having their lawn a half inch out of spec.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#269

Post by spacemanmatt »

rayiner wrote: post #230
spacemanmatt wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition you quoted included discrimination which is another umbrella term like disproportionate effect. Why is it so hard to understand that racism is what racism does?

Discrimination is also another term that in ordinary usage requires intent to discriminate. I don’t find the concept “hard to understand” I’m just talking about what commonly used words mean. “Racism” is a word that describes individual animosity. It’s confusing to try and overload it with other meanings.

> ordinary usage requires intent to discriminate

Disagreed. Our laws about discrimination against protected groups do not care about intent, nor do I care about intent when I am talking about a piece of code that serves to discriminate between one chunk of data and another in some fashion. In fact, even when I talk about people who discriminate, I rarely care about their intention.

Re: Grandpa’s Basement House

#270

Post by spacemanmatt »

rayiner wrote: post #230
spacemanmatt wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition you quoted included discrimination which is another umbrella term like disproportionate effect. Why is it so hard to understand that racism is what racism does?

Discrimination is also another term that in ordinary usage requires intent to discriminate. I don’t find the concept “hard to understand” I’m just talking about what commonly used words mean. “Racism” is a word that describes individual animosity. It’s confusing to try and overload it with other meanings.

> overload it with other meanings

I find the dictionary definitions suitable. I believe you have been arguing in favor of the overloaded social (connotative) meaning on this thread. Color me impressed.

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