History City says GET RID OF THE CARS! FINES! What?

Thanks HEMI32, I gotcha I understand what you are saying.
The thing that has me so down about all this is the 4 guys that had been working on their cars at home, no garage, one had a carport, really great guys working on their cars in their driveways like I did, my Dad did, and his Dad did.
I would stop over most evenings to see how they were coming along, it was cool. (damn male bonding my wife calls it! lol)
One guy just brought his over, I could tell it was bothering him.
He kept telling me he would find a place as soon as he could etc.
I'm going in the morning with my trusty ramptruck to get two others.

You know I really dont have the room to spare but I feel like I have to do something to help these guys out.

 

Man bro... Thanks! I didnt even see that!

 

In the city here and now in the county you can have one project and one non running car, they have to be covered even in the back yard. And they have to be parked on a paved surface.

 

About 15 years ago I lived in the town of Poughkeepsie NY they cited me twice both times both times I went to court and won.The second time the judge gave the code officer a good scolding for not knowing her job.

 

HELLBILLY... you are a saint! thats the way it should be. Us "hot rod hooligan" types need to stick together! If I lived closer i would love to buy you a beer. way to step up and be a hero. I truly admire your willingness to shelter your neighbors rides until this BS blows over. In this hill-billy hell I call home (Hurley, NM pop. 1464) there is a ton of laws about junk cars, luckily the code guy is a rodder, old Buick if i remember right. He stops by to look at my "pile" but only to see if ive made any progress.

 

Dude!! I hate to be the barer of bad news, but, if he is a code enforcement officer, then he is a cop. That means, powers of arrest. So, be careful.

 

Im w/ you on this.
I think they are driving us to the point of no return.
When the only way to drive (and park) our cars will be by force i will keep a shotgun under my seat. FUCK'EM!

 

Start voting ALL the oxygen thieves out of office along with their lackies!

 

I had a similar problem with my 5 trucks in the yard in plain view and a complaint by a neighbor just wanting to start trouble. I called the county and was told out of sight was the solution. So I put up enough privacy fence to hide the trucks from view, called the county to come have a look and that was the end of it. Other neighbors have similar yards but only ours was complained about thus being complaint driven. Good luck.

 

I've seen and heard some dumb ideas, I've had my share of city horseshit. The fact is you may be a victim of a minor civil rights violation. Be warned, using that term is risky and can brand you for life with city hall. If you're doing something legal, not disturbing the peace, not disturbing the environment, you have no need to interact with the city or township. If you can store shit inside and have chosen not to then civil rights do not apply. Many years ago a nosey little Downriver community couldn't help but stick their nose in our buisness. 1st we wanted a larger garage and they said no. They actually said we couldn't own a 36 Buick!! So a nice professional letter was drafted basically saying that there was a genuine disdain for boats, RVs, trailers and even golf clubs and bowling balls. That we'd be happy to comply once the things mentioned were also "banned from the community" like our Buick. We noted that we were well within our rights to object to such things and requested the city do something about it. They did. They left us alone, passed the permit for the over-sized garage, years later they'd even tap us for parade cars. As it turns out it was 1 jealous neighbor causing the grief. The one with the boat. Fair is fair and that's the course of living in a democracy. Your rights are no less valuable than anyone else's but you have to play along. A friend and member here was also tapped by the community. They even issued a bench warrant for his arrest...for weeds in his parking lot!! If he reads this he can tell his story.

 

Y'all just crack me up! There have to be a 100 of these threads on the HAMB, if there's one. HELLBILLY has a real problem. Bunch of guys will tell interesting, but totally unhelpful, stories about what actually happened to them or what supposedly happened to a sister's cousin's third boyfriend once removed. Then, the Clint Eastwood crowd shows up threatening to get their shotguns and .44 Magnums and blast away the threat. Come on! Are you really going to kill another human being and spend the rest of your life in jail over a car? Didn't think so.

The only good advice in 70 threads is:
Get an actual copy of the code.
Find out who is actually complaining-if anyone-might just be an overzealous code
officer.
Contact an attorney if needed.
Fix anything that actually is a code violation.
Don't make it political unless you must-there are just as many "I don't want any
eyesores in my neighborhood" rightwingers as there are "clean up the
environment" leftwingers out there on the other side. And the Mods don't like
politics.
Stand across the street and take an objective view of your yard. Hell,yes, it's
your yard but, do you really want to live across the street from you?

Good luck,stay rational and you can fight city hall if you are right.

 

let's be serious sometimes they don't know if it's out on the lawn for a day or two ,or if the guy selling is different car every other month or so. try and be reasonable in the beginning and then if it doesn't work start writing a letter campaign to the mayor ,city commision, newspaper's, t.v. etc, seems the guy who cries the loudest is the guy who win's and most of the times the heavy enforcement is due to a neighbor's complaint's. the code enforcement success ratio is dependent on the voluntary compliance not on the number of trips he has to make to your house

i will try to keep this brief but here is a quick code enforcement nightmare story.

neighbor goes ballistic cause a borrowed his chainsaw and it broke. i offered to get it fixed, the tool repair guy said it's junk just buy a new one. he hated me since then so he begins calling about my dog , then about my fence, then about my deck, meanwhile we try to comply and finally get fed up. my wife works for the city we live in so she asks me to go thru the proper channels to address this , ok. so we go all the way to the director of code enforcement seeking a solution . just a quick point - this has gotten so ridicoulis that in the middle of the day the code officer brings the animal control officer and a police officer up to city hall to tell my wife if she doesn't handle the dog barking within the hour they will take the dog away. so she calls me in tears to run home and get the dog i explain to her i am being driven down the road in my stolen company truck and if i make it out alive i will go home to get the dog. well i get home and i am f--king pissed off. so i call the director and tear into him about the nonsense and unprofessional conduct of his dept. I also tell him to suggest to my neighbor to get a job so he wouldn't be home at 1:00 pm every day. this got so bad that atonepoint the city manager, mayor ,police chief, city attorney and they city commissioner all had a meeting regarding this ,due to the fact that police were called out every other day. to make a long story short i will sum up 4 years into numerous tickets aggravation police at all hours etc turns out my neighbor who did all the complaining forgot to pay his mortgage so he has been forclosed on, the roof which he put on with duct tape and code enforcement swore he didnt need a permit, and in a letter he wrote to the mayor and govenor of our state he admits that in the timeframe of him complaining about my dog barking during the day his daughter was dealing drugs out of her bedroom window which was right were my dog stayed .
BUT CODE ENFORCEMENT NO LONGER COMES AROUND

 

So,,,did you replace the borrowed chain saw.?

 

offered to get him a new one or give him the money he bought it at the pawn shop for. funny thing he told he knew it was gonna break when he saw what i was trying to cut

 

That's why we live in the country!

 

Guess I should count my blessings.
Live in '70s subdivision outside of city.
No problems with Gov'mint.
Occasional rumblings from neighbors.
But never to me!
Only hear rumblings second-hand.
Chickshits...

Probably helps my landscaping is one of best in 'hood.
Have 2 project cars, 1 parts car, oldcar daily driver, & pickup in driveway.

 

You have a right to appeal any decision handed down in Mayors court to County Court but 99% of the time County Court sides with Mayors court,but you might get lucky and the county court Judge and the Mayor may be in a pissin contest

 

IS there a house for sale near you??The reason i ask is we had no problem in my hood TILL a real estate co. bought a house to flip,then all of a sudden 3 of my friends and myself was put on notice.They fixed up the house,,sold it ,,and not another word.Things are back to the norm until another flip comes along.
ive read the Popular Hot Rodding and as others stated,dark clouds are comming.The house thing might set it off,and if the dick loves his job,oboy i feel for ya and friends.You need more dog poop in your yard.....................YG

 

hey john i fill your pain im in the same boat i got to move my old race car proublem is i dont have anywere to put it and its all because of the guy next to me he had a bunch of junk cars trash and other things that sorta migraded onto the property my dad owns my cousin who is disabled lives in the house and ive stored cars there for 15 years i didnt know it was as bad as it was untile dad got notice to clean up the property well we went up there and i couldnt belave the junk that the guy had pilled on the property dad told the officer that the stuff wasnt his it belonged to the guy next door they said well hes gotta clean his property too well they did the officer came back said it looked good so we thought we was ok well about two weeks ago they came back said we had to move the car or make it legal and tag it well its a dang circle track car still has the numbers and such on it dad said well thats kinda hard its a race car so the guy said it wasnt fair to the guy next door to let us keep the car and he had to get rid of his funny thing is every house on that street has some sort of junk or junk car in the yard but they said nothing to them theres a 73 mustang that a bush has grown up around thats been there at least 20 years so now im trying to shuffle cars around stil dont know were im gonna put everything i only have two cars that wont run most of my cars are tagged and insured the officer said as long as there taged insured and run there fine its a buch of bs but what can you do

 

just thinking about past problems with codes and the "city'has my blood pressure up ... ......serenity now serenity now serenity now




i feel better but not at my best.....
...
politley ask the code office in person for a dated copy of the codes in writing with the "potential"offences hilited by them and action you need to comply with a reasonable(you work and have family obligations don't you?)time line to accomplish the task ... you having to have computer is not needed....its the law on your side to have it this way

you having to give up your property should be a last resort

heck a in progress art sculpture project is not junk...

do not ask them visit you to see....anything
there codes and enforcement are done on as they saw it from there notes and pictures type of enforcement..... they will have access to your private world !!!!!!!!

if already cited ask if there was a complaint .. this gets you no where really but may narrow down if its the city or a surrounding person eyeing you up..do not ask who! just for your peace of mind

do your best to comply in a timely manor ask for extentions in writing or in person at city hall and document there responses video record them if you must .. he said and you said battles are then not a problem and then seek methods to help you comply

have a witness do the notes and video

sometime moving your "problem" indoors will work other times having to store to much away from your own reach will make it worse

pointing a finger at another problem like yours down the block or around town just makes their job easier .. stay focused on your own way to make your problem go away from you...


contact like minded car guys in your town and see about updating the codes in away that is to your favor ...a small number of people get stuff done , updating parks ,historical building restorations ,funding for special group needs , turning our hobby into a spec. interest group can get results
local car shows.. post fliers for community action


good luck

 

Before you all get up in arms, offer bogus opinions and go off on rants, read the code!!!!

Title 9, Chapter 6, Junk Yards and Automobile Graveyards.

Read 9-601 to 9-615

'Nuff said,
SPark

 

Interesting story,but punctuation and capitalization can be your friends, if you let them.

 

here in Riverside ca county, they say the car must run and move so I bought 6 junky car trailers and put all my "parts" and cars that dont run on them. got them taged and roped all the parts on the trailer, done they cant say shit.

 

In Michigan a car on a tagged trailer is still an unliscenced vehicle.."blight".

All cars/trailers must be up to date tagged, no flat tires, complete, must run, must be moved every ninety days.

I have been to court eight times over "blight". I live in an area about as country as SE Michigan (Oakland county) can get, zoned AG.. One neighbor, a woman. Bought some acerage to sub devide then bought herself a position on city board and constantly complains about her "area". All the other neighbors are set to kill her.

We had an old judge that had some common sense. Now we got a Yuppie..

"Blight" can mean anything someone doesn't like the looks of. Not just front yards. They use Google earth to look at property.

I've been cited different times for un plated car (on trailer). Leaving my farm tractor outside (back acreage). Having a backhoe (mine) on my property. (On trailer, outside). Commercial tagged vehicles (mine) on my property (setting outside). A tow truck and a flatbed, daily used.

Having building materials on the property with no building permit( 2x4's 2x6's plywood siding to reside a barn). "Debris"( firewood stacked behind garage).

And this shit is all violations.. The Michigan universal zoning code. Interpreted by the zoning officials reads. Only thing allowed on your property is "Approved" outbuildings, house, grass and trees, oh! also i CAN HAVE 2 1/2 HORSES. OR 5 COWS...I am told I have too many outbuildings.. Two barns a garage and two sheds..

They get a little power and the zoning Nazis will get you... Been there, cost lots of lawyer money...

They even tried to pass an ordinance to make it illegal to store car parts in your garage!!

 

this story sounds a little fabricated, if you were so worried about your car, why dont you just build it and drive it, maybe your a hoarder and the city is tired of junk in your front yard?

 

ok here is the best thing to do. go and get yourself redgistered as an artist then anything you have can be claimed as "art" the best part is anything you buy for your "art" you can claim as an expense and you can get a tax rebate for it.

 

IT'S unbelievable how many storage buildings have gone up around here in the last 5 years. 40 bucks a month. Where did all the people used to keep all their stuff ?

 

We have a neighbor who's driveway filled with the cars which would no longer start untill they finally were parking the only two that ran with the rear bumpers in the road. Garage had one collapsed door and one bay with no door, both coverwed with long ago rotted blue poly tarps, and the carcass' of two other non running cars, junk piled on them, visible from the road. Garbage piled on the steps, grass never gets cut, and whatever falls from the trees and dead brush never removed. An eyesore by any standard.

I'm sorry to admit that I finally called the township, and asked them to be cited, and it turns out several other in the (rural) neighborhood had done the same. They finally did have some of the junk hauled away, but put a "For Sale" sign on one of the pieces of crap and it sat by thier mailbox for another year.

Unfortunately, people like these jokers are the reason that clunker ordinances and zoning laws have to exist. To non car people, a pile of crap is a pile of crap, and don't see what we do in a parts car or stash of stuff that's too good to toss, but maybe not quite good enough to use right away. If you have to explain the difference, it may be that the stuff really isn't worth keeping. I like to keep my place tidy, but I've been asked to move a couple of "parts cars" from view or dispose of them, and have done so. In the end, it really was time for the junk to go.

A little consideration for the neighbors goes a long way. Putting crap on a trailer and leaving that outdoors seems to me to be no more agreeable than putting a "For Sale" sign on a mid 80's Bonneville and leaving it right where it sat when the entire neighborhood complains. Sometimes a pile of junk is just a pile of junk, and we need to suck it up and admit it.

 

I haven't read the whole thread.(yet) I am all for having a clean neighborhood. I think things get out of hand when folks are forced to look at "our" passion for year after year. A little stewardship of our property would most likely go along ways. Take a moment to stand in your neighbors shoes and consider how they view your project.(s) Thankfully, I have lived here for 30 years and am surrounded by car guys. None the less I am doing some re-arranging. It is important that we don't give the cops a black eye for doing their job. But, that we change how the laws are written by writing our congress folks and supporting SEMA and other organizations like them. Just don't sit around an bitch and wring your hands. Do something!