h***@hotmail.com
2012-04-22 01:52:01 UTC
On Friday, September 2, 1994 2:07:52 PM UTC-4, Edward F. Hinton wrote about exclusionary zoning within the context of rent control vs home rule. Well Ed, here it is 18 yrs later (April 21, 2012) and I don't know if you're still out there but we still have exclusionary zoning. I lived in a mobile home park in Farmington Hills, MI (near Detroit) from Aug 1991 to May 2009. I spent over $55K to rent a 26 ft by 60 ft lot ($310/mo when I left). That extrapolates to $8,656/acre/mo. I estimate I could've saved about $45K over those 18 yrs if I just could've placed my singlewide on a lot and paid property taxes like everyone else. I paid off my singlewide in less than 2 yrs so at least I didn't flush a lot of money down the 30-yr mortgage toilet. After I lost my job at 59 in Oct 2008 I just retired (didn't even apply for unemployment). If I wanted to stay in MI I would've had to move 167 miles further north to find a place where I could place my singlewide on my own land. Instead I went 300 miles south where I now pay $662/yr in property taxes vs the $3,720/yr I was paying in lot rent. I moved my singlewide onto a quarter acre lot about 55 miles east of Cincinnati. After I moved I see there was a court case in MI that struck down prohibiting mobile homes as an invalid exercise of police power (for the health and safety of the community). So I encourage anyone and everyone to challenge exclusionary zoning in court. I'd really like to see our president, who takes an oath to protect and defend the constitution, to invalidate exclusionary zoning since it is direct contradiction to our constitution which says we all have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No one should be free to take away someone else's freedom. But we all know that freedom isn't free. There will always be someone who thinks he has a right to exclude you. So we need to protect everyone's freedom or else we all could end up losing freedom for everyone. America is not too big to fail.