Bad news??

westend wrote:
Yeah, I dunno', can't really blame the OP for not doing due diligence. He probably went to look at a prospective house and saw that the neighbors all had RV's boats and such along their driveways. Being a good neighbor, he improved his driveway to accommodate the RV parking. He seemed to be going with the flow.

As he stated, their is new upscale housing close by and that always seems to rattle the chairs at City Hall. Areas get rezoned or covenants are added. It may be that the area was always zoned or regulated against RV parking in the driveway, just not enforced. These kind of actions are usually complaint driven and the complaint may have been generated miles away. The LE is tasked to clean up any violation and spends an afternoon fighting crime and handing out citations.

What the OP could do is move his AC compressor, adjust a fence, or remove a tree so that his RV parking is back from that imaginary line. Those tasks may be something that don't fit the property well or are an unbearable expense. They don't, however serve as escape due to hardship, at least not in my area.

I've attended quite a few City Council meetings and knew some officials on a first name basis. They hated acting on variances because they were time consuming (60% of Council time)and forced the Council to adhere to one of two positions, either give no quarter from the letter of the law or make the ordinances variable to each situation. It's a bad departure point for judgement on your neighbors.

I'm sure my storage and building situation is not inline with the letter of the law but the local guys have had enough dealings with me that I warrant a Golden Pass of Immunity rather than citation or methods to make me comply. At one time, I requested the City Treasurer to tabulate the amount of legal fees and City time that had been spent on meetings and legal motions regarding my property. I was sure that they had spent much more fighting me then any award due. I was completely correct and had warned the City Attorney and City Administrator of this probability in a closed meeting. Shortly after a new Council regime was voted in, both of these men were relieved of their duties.

You're lucky they didn't decide to bury you...or "reassess" your property taxes! That's the usual procedure around here--if you do not do what you are ordered, your (already-exorbitant) property taxes will skyrocket.