esrosedotblog

HEARINGS

We are still slogging through hearings on this macmansion that they want to build just over our southern wall.

Two stories high.

Right where we jump into the pool bare-assed. I don't mind people looking but there is a limit.

There are a lot of other things wrong with it. Too fucking big for a minimum lot. All that.

The neighbors are in an uproar.

We have managed to get the Planning Commission to refer it back to the Architectural Advisory group and now they have put in on hold for further study.

This is a good thing for us.

The developer is understandably pissed.

John is at the forefront of all this effort. I am the background man. proofreader, commenter.

Actually there is a better, more energetic partner—the other abutter—who has been great help for John.

We are going to keep on going.

Part of it is the principle of the thing.

The city absolutely supports developers at the expense of the people who live here.

There are a lot of reasons for this, some good actually. But there should be a middle of the road between the two interests.

The tax base is in jeopardy. The City has staggering entitlements. Police and Fire and other benefits and pensions that will eventually break the City unless they keep growing the tax base.

California is a Prop 2 1/2 state. They invented it here.

So we pay taxes on what we paid for our house and land plus 2 1/2 percent over ten years (compounded of course).

But, as we all know, property has inflated way beyond that rate of increase.

If someone bought our house today or developed a new house the same size, they would immediately pay about three times as much tax as we do.

It is an interesting exercise.

In the meantime, I have conferred with our gardener Paul and we have selected a row of sumac trees to be planted outside the wall.

The macmansion will not see us and we will not see it.

But, we will know it is there. And, our neighborhood of mixed quality homes will be the poorer for it.

Labels: garden, macmansion