[ab_goat]

Having been a selectboard member in a small town in MA, I can put forth that rigorous enforcement of contracts, bylaws and laws is the best way to avoid issues spiraling out of control to becoming bigger costlier time-sucks affecting more and more people and wasting more of everybody's time.

With many people who push the boundaries, one thing often leads to another, which leads to more costly measures of getting violators back into compliance.

Yes, often the first violation doesn't seem too big, but those violations are often indications of more to come.

[wutwutwat]

Punish them for their future crimes, oh wise precog!

HOA mentality is cult like or a mini police state and the comment here is a perfect example of that. Nothing happening in that HOA is that important, and ultimately does not matter. In other parts of the world people are dying of hunger and being slaughtered, in America there are tent cities, and people in HOA are so isolated and safe that they take to freaking out about Betty 2 streets down not getting approval before putting a sign in her front yard. Spend your lives worried about more important shit, both HOA and zoning (who will roll up on properties snapping pictures too), because the things you are losing your minds over are things that do not matter. At all.

[willcipriano]

It's human nature. Same reason republics decline into democracies, or why Europe spent centuries on crusades. It's not enough to live your life the way you want to live it, humans need the validation that their neighbors (or people across the country, or even people in other countries) are forced to live that way too.

[ab_goat]

No, it's actually not at all about forcing people to live the way I (or the townsfolk) want to live, it's actually about making it so that the way you live your life is in harmony with the rules the municipality set. In Massaschusetts towns, zoning laws require a 2/3 vote at town meeting to be enacted - but I'm not sure how it works in MI.

It seems like you folks have never read zoning bylaws which a municipalities use to say what can and can't be done in certain areas. Believe it or not, city planning is incredibly important to ensure that a town can efficiently tax its inhabitants to fund the services that have become an expectation of normal life.

If you don't like your zoning laws, you should get involved in local politics and try to change the things you don't like.

In fact Long Lake Township has a 238 page document that lays this out.

https://longlaketownship.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Zoni...

[wutwutwat]

Ok, so, you put stuff in your backyard where it's out of the way. Your stuff, on your property, not even visible to other people. The city zoning workers use a drone to gain access to your backyard because walking back there would be a criminal activity, trespassing, and possible breaking and entering if a fence gate is involved, so they find a way to circumvent privacy and private property laws to illegally surveil you. You have broken no laws and they are not law enforcement, they themselves are likely breaking the law, and now, you have to comply with their orders and make your back yard be in line with something written in a TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT page book of zoning rules about how you are not allowed to live your life on your property that you own.

And your recommending that the solution is to become an expert in a 238 book, which is larger than some of the worlds most infamous novels, then, spend the rest of your life doing the recommended "If you don't like your zoning laws, you should get involved in local politics and try to change the things you don't like." fighting for years to get any attention on your issue, mostly being ignored because they already talk shit about you in the entire zoning department (I used to date a woman who worked zoning and they have nicknames for people, call them trashy, etc), then maybe one day, years down the road, you might get some compromised version of what you wanted, that still doesn't allow you to do as you wish on your property so long as it's legal and out of sight, and you've wasted a bunch of your life's free time, spent most of it frustrated, and ultimately don't get what you want and just say fuck it and go back to doing what you want and saying screw the zoning rules anyway.

The "if you don't like it, get involved and change it from the inside" solution doesn't work well in individual issues (or large issues honestly), and shouldn't be needed in cases like this anyway.

[ab_goat]

No, not at all punishing for future crimes - just acknowledging issues and making sure they get attention to prevent them from getting worse. Local government has very little power to actually undo things that go wrong - it can often takes years, if it can happen at all. The time spent dealing with stupid shit that goes wrong is incredibly wasteful and means time and money is spent on that instead of actually moving the municipality forward. Therefore, the best medicine is equal and rigorous enforcement.

HOA is a whole different ballgame, not the same as zoning.