Zoning infringes on freedoms

Two writers caught my attention in the Sanders County Ledger (Opinions page, June 13, 2019).

First was a Jean Morrison of Plains advocating the benefits of zoning. I’ve lived in three areas in which each time I moved into them, zoning was a “new idea” that would do all the things Ms. Morrison claimed. However, the only benefits of zoning have been to government growth. The first, in Gloucester, Virginia, in 1973 on, during which, while the population barely has double to the present, the cost to taxpayers has quadrupled, most due to zoning and regulations that infringe on the freedom of landowners and homeowners to regulate their own “private properties.” And we all know the huge discrepancy between the “cost of living” increases in the union dominated governments and those of private persons, the former receiving MORE than the increase in GDP, while the latter are rarely if ever maintaining par from year to year [ie, zero COLA increases].

The second place was in Santa Barbara, California, in the late 1970s through 2008. My generation could barely afford 30-year mortgages, while today’s millennials must settle for low-quality, high-rent one- or two-bedroom condos or apartments. Wages have gone up at 1/10th the cost of living in the past 45 years there, while government continues to grow, and its employees continue to experience COLA increases that keep pace with, and in many cases surpass, the GDP.

Finally, here to Sanders County. Some extol the virtues of zoning, as if everyone who lives in or near town is in favor of having some group of people telling them what height their grass may grow, what style fences they may have, and how many shrubs they may plant. In Missoula, for example, they have rules in the dead of winter, that everyone who has a sidewalk in front of their home must have the snow (regardless of depth or density) removed by 9 a.m. (subject to fines if not done - irrespective of the age of the property owner, or the fact that it is still dark before 9 a.m.). This example for Missoula is indicative of the tyrannical nature of zoning and other “regulatory” things that may or may not pass for it.

So, if Ms. Morrison of Plains wishes to be told what to do, let her submit voluntarily. But, don’t ask me to pay someone to enforce a rule against her to which she may fail, voluntarily, to comply, or in a fit of forgetfulness “fail” to do.

Reminds me of Richard Pryor, I think it was, whose famous punch line was “I forgot armed robbery was a crime.” Government regulators never forget, but “robbery is a crime” in any case - only government turns us, the people, into the criminals for not submitting to theft under color of law.

As for the ex-politician, Jim Elliott, extolling LBJ for “changing” and signing into law the Civil Rights Act which he opposed his entire life, he only did so because Republicans passed it from both houses of Congress over the objections of Democrats. The year, 1968, and timing was prior to LBJ refusing to run for re-election as president.

Otherwise, had he not been challenged by Robert Kennedy, he’d have vetoed the bill. So much for the notion that Democrats change.

To the two above, the only “growth in benefits” have been to government employees and their pushers. That should be called what it is - addiction.

Jim Greaves,

Thompson Falls