A year ago, while I was looking for a place to live with 2 of my friends, I was denied the opportunity to move into several homes because they were zoned as single-family units. Renters told me they wanted to rent the house to us, but didn't want to suffer any legal consequences due to violations of city ordinances. It turns out that there's a large number of cities which have single-family zoning ordinances that set a maximum number of unrelated people from living in a house - generally ranging from 2 to 4 unrelated people. Most of these ordinances are accompanied by local news articles citing the reasons for establishing the limitations: loud parties, unkempt yards, cars parked on the streets, and generally irresponsible singles moving into the neighborhood. In other words, unmarried people who live together are menaces to society.
It was always my understanding that zoning ordinances were supposed to prevent businesses from moving into residential areas, not singles. I always thought that loud parties could be stopped by noise ordinances, not housing ordinances. I always thought the law was meant to punish behavior, not people.
I understand that there is a large percent of greedy people who are overly concerned about neighbors bringing down the value of their homes. I understand that almost everyone wants their neighborhood to be nice. But based on my understanding of basic human rights, parking your car on your lawn is not a crime. And if you really don't want your neighbor's garbage can to show from the street, I think you're better off moving to a neighborhood with an HOA that has the appropriate bylaws (and I also think you're WAY too obsessed with trying to control your neighborhood).
I'm moving out of a place that has been discriminating against singles and multiple-family homes in a similar way. The community isn't zoned as single-family, but I've had to park a block away from home just to prevent my car from being towed, regardless of the number of empty visitor stalls in the community, OR the fact that I have a visitor parking tag.
I stand firm in my opinion that single-family zoning ordinances discriminate against my marital status. The ordinances are vaguely familiar to the literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses that were once put in place to prevent black people from voting. Not wanting to sound negative, I did a lot of research to find a positive source online that addresses the issue. Ironically, it comes from my least favorite city, in an effort to change the city ordinances to remove the cap on the number of unrelated people that can live in a house currently zoned as a single-family unit. Enjoy the read here and share your opinions with me.
4 comments:
I once lived in a house with 5 other guys. A couple months into our time there, an anonymous neighbor tattled on us to the county. Despite the fact that we never had tons of cars over, never had a noise complaint, etc. We parked all of our 6 cars in the driveways all the time.
Anyway, our landlord, just had us resign the lease with only 3 of us on it. :) About 9 months later the county showed up again after more anonymous complaints (whatever happened to facing your accuser in court?), and told us when our year lease was up in a month or so that we'd need to move out.
Our landlord's response? "I'll show them. I'll rent it out to a big family of Mexicans." And I actually think that's what he did. :)
Agree, Agree, Agree.
A very hot place must be freezing over. I've been agreeing with you ENTIRELY too much lately.
It is silly cause we don't have reckless teenagers, or kids drawing on the sidewalks (not that I wouldn't do this myself), and it isn't about pets pooping on their lawns... it is the single factor. silly.
silly to the point of ridiculous because we want to be your neighbors and live in great locations as well.
Sigh.
Great blog Jon.
Incredible! I had no idea! but yah, Im sure, we would have been voted out of our neighborhood a long time ago if the people who wrote those ordinances had been living near us. I am terribly grateful for forgiving neighbors and have also been grateful for the single neighbors we have had over the years. We all need each other, single, married, old, and young. If we exclude any of these people from our lives, we miss sharing in some of the greatest treasures life would have to offer!!!
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