Too many close calls when backing up. I try to pull through at parking spots. Fortunately we're on a cul-de-sac and I can back into the driveway with ease.
Due to a city ordinance, disallowing turns into private property on "busy streets," one upon which I have always had objections, we enter our driveway/homespace from an alley.
We both always back in.
Fact is, "tHe city" enforced that we stop having a convenient entry from our street into our garage. We were "forced" by Eminent Domain Law to close down our "handy" driveway and tear it out.
We actually had to "turn" our really nice two car garage around ninety degrees to support the city ordinance.
We closed in the LONG side of the garage, which had two openings and had to re arrange to garage so that we could enter from the alley way (which, obviously, included building a new drive way with access to the alley way), which, since a simple two car garage is generally NOT a square, we went from having a really nice two car garage to having an overly large single car garage ------- WHICH WHICH WHICH caused us to have to pay even MORE in taxes on the property that we had been paying with a two car garage , but that is another story for another time.
Anyway, we had to do it and the city paid for most of it, BUT ....
My town gets on my nerves but this is just crazy, does it give the people in city hall some kind of power trip to micromanage peoples lives like this. I don't think I could ever live in a place like that, we are looking to move in a couple years and have been looking at local ordinances in towns around here and have already excluded a few over things like 'no outdoor fires' 'no tag sales' and such but nothing like this
One of my "friends" lives in a small town near by, where there is a "Homeowner's Agreement" he signed many years ago in order to move in. Now that he is retired and his kids are all moved out, he started gardening, much like I do, with my help, BTW, growing stuff for your own table, basically.
Due to some busy body asswipe claiming that his efforts were going to lower the property value of all those around him, invoked a clause in the "Homeowner's Agreement" stating that, while a home owner can do all the gardening one wants, a homeowner is NOT allowed to grow "produce" on the property, lest doing so might devalue the neighborhood property values.
Now, I live in a place where everyone seems to vote Republican. (take a look at the history here; this has been a Free Republican state for generations) We all live conservatively, we all respect each others rights, we live free, stay out of each other's way and we mostly all carry guns, but this is the kind of communistic, democratic bullshit that some of us have to deal with in their local lives.
WTF!!!
OH, and twenty five years ago, We had to go before the city council and present a good case in order to get a "Variance of City Ordinance" in order to hang a "shingle" on our property "advertising" that this is where our photo studio's office was. All our sign said was our name and the phone number. It was "very conservative" and the color scheme of the sign perfectly matched the paint scheme of the house (we literally used the same exact paint!). There was nothing untoward or offensive about our sign, yet we had placed it there without a proper permit and were very close to being sanctioned when a Sheriff's Deputy showed up on our doorstep with a summons to court for our infraction.
Check this shit out before you decide where to move.