esrosedotblog

BIG MAC

There was yet another hearing on the proposed MacMansion adjacent to our property.

This has been going on since 2006.

A guy wants to build a two story monstrosity next to us. Peers right into our pool area. Other neighbors worse.

It requires a variance.

Architectural Commission passes it. They are all developers with developer mentality. Rights of ownership and all that. Forget the rights of neighbors.

In short, assholes with conflicted interests.

The Planning Commission turns it down.

They tell him to redo it. He doesn't but brings it back to them. They turn it down again.

The developer appeals.

City Council sends it back through the process telling the guy to meet with the neighbors, go back and make the privacy thing better, and to start over in the process. They don't turn it down outright.

We meet with him. Not a pleasant meeeting.

The guy goes back with a reduction of the second floor and gets another OK from the conflicted assholes on the Architectural Commission then takes it to the Planning Commission and they turn it down again even more dramatically.

Last night he is back to the City Council to appeal the loss.

De ja vu all over again.

We have now attended more than 10 hearings on this thing.

Neighbors at each one.

The Council has one member (a rumored supporter for our side, the Mayor) on the sick list.

The vote is tied. No decision.

It has to go back on the agenda for next week when they have a quorum.

Holy shit.

Eight neighbors go out pissed off.

We will be back.

The votes against us were one know nothing. The ex police commissioner who should have recused himself since he was not around when this happened the first time.

The other is an architect with many such projects of his own where the technicalities often favor him and he does not want others or himself to be judged by any other consideration like size, design, appropriateness and so on.

Another politician with a pesonal axe to grind.

OK. I can take it.

We are told that we will win.

I have heard this all the way through the process.

What if we lose?

Nothing bad. The developer has taken the windows and balconies that looked at us out and so the privacy issue is gone.

As to the rest of it, I can live with whatever the outcome is. But in the meantime, we are working hard to stop it.

Would be be OK with a smaller, more appropriated design?

Sure.

We will see.

Labels: macmansion