Palo Alto bans vehicle dwelling
paloaltoonline.com
paloaltoonline.com
I know I can get pretty fired up about zoning laws in the bay area but what a pile of utter horse shit. It's not a community when only the rich get to live in it. And the notion that this is a public safety issue is a complete lie. Just like every other zoning issue in the bay area this is an issue about rich jerks not wanting to see poor people. It's about exclusivity and segregation. Don't want people living in cars, maybe you should allow affordable housing to be built?
To all the residents of the bay area. Wake up and realize that the bay area has grown in population and is now a dense urban environment. Build some dense urban housing and stop pretending that everyone can live in a house with a yard.
As an example check out Ordinance No. 4101 from Palo Alto's zoning code: "To minimize the negative streetscape impact the construction of new two-story homes could have on established one-story neighborhoods, the Council, on July 13, 1992, adopted the Single-Story Height Combining District (S) regulations. The purpose of the ordinance was to preserve and maintain single-family living areas of predominately single-story character. The maximum building height in the "S" district is limited to 17 feet and a limit of one habitable floor. "
Basically, to protect the view we need to not have affordable housing. That's the trade-off here. Density is ugly and we would rather pretend that we all still live in the 1970's.
Or read this article: http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/07/29/palo-alto-mobile-ho...
Not everyone in Palo Alto is a millionaire yet. But pretty soon they'll have to be if they want to stay.
I'm not sure which 'city' you're referring to here, as PLC isn't representing any particular city, and Sacramento (where they're based) isn't part of the Bay Area, not that that makes a huge difference legally speaking.
It should not get a free pass because it sounds good. It takes away the ability of local government to determine what best use the land has under their domain. It tells builders what they have to build. It tells owners what they have to rent/sell for. It an attempt at one size fits all for an incredibly varied landscape.
Let alone, the OP who brought up this groups complaint fails to address how the PLC would even begin to help the homeless in their cars. The PLC certainly isn't about fixing that.
If people want to fix the homeless issue they are going to have to look away from city governments, across the country they are going out of their way to hide the homeless, drive them into the subs. The reason is simple, they don't have the money to deal with it and they don't see any benefit in keeping these people in town. The very party that runs most cities across the country, the very party that claims it wants to help the poor, only wants to do so provided they don't have to see them or live with them
The Occupy movement doesn't like anything except the sound of its own voice, which is why their internal meetings require 90% majorities to decide anything. Even semi-anarchist unions like the IWW don't impose such unworkable restrictions on their internal governance.
I'm not sure what this 'PLC' you're referring to is. I'm talking about Plan Bay Area, which was put together by the Association of Bay Area Governments, an umbrella group of the 9 Bay Area county governments. It's not some external agency imposing its mandate on local governments, it is the local governments.
I am not too big a fan of planning, but then I am not too big a fan of sprawl either. The fact is that ABAG is a local organization and the Plan Bay Area initiative is an attempt to coordinate planning activities between the local governments that they have voluntarily entered into.
So, some people don't like it. Not everybody gets everything they want in a polity. People like myself who don't care for sprawl had to accept the fact that we were in the minority on many past planning decisions too.
And if you don't like sprawl, you shouldn't be forcing Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Burlingame, etc. to increase density, you should look for density in downtown San Jose and San Francisco, and try to get people to move from the suburbs back to urban centers.
Downtown SF and SJ are already quite dense, and while I'm in favor of them getting more dense your notion that smaller cities lying along the 280/Caltrain corridor are some sort o rustic havens doesn't make sense. As I said earlier, if you really want to get away from it all it would make a lot more sense to go to Half Moon Bay or even Portola Valley, whereas Palo Alto is situated along 3 major transit arteries (101, 280, and Caltrain). I'm sure you've lived in Palo Alto a while and don't like to see it change, but look at a map; all the coast around the Bay is dense and you're sitting in between 2 cities with populations of around a million that are only about 45 miles apart. I'm not particularly sold on the ABAG plan, but I am quite in favor of working together and having a plan instead of just muddling along pretending the various counties around here don't impact each other.
As I said earlier, ABAG is complicated. It isn't just an association of local governments. Cities can't leave it and relinquish themselves of the housing mandates, so they might as well stay in it and fight for something reasonable.
Cities and their citizens should decide for themselves whether or how they want to grow, or shrink.
Want to discourage people from building dense housing, then you're stopping the government from imposing a plan on freedom lovers.
Want to encourage people to build dense housing, then you're removing unnnecessary regulation from the free market and encouraging economic freedom.
The only real constant of American libertarians is the fact that they're almost all successful white people. So any libertarian group needs to address their concerns if it wants to stay relevant. Abstract ideological beliefs such as libertarianism can be mapped in many different ways to actual real world problems. So what usually ends up happening is the more influential subgroups within an ideological organization control the mappings of the groups ideology to real world issues. Then can claim anyone who does not agree with their mapping is not a true member of their ideological organization. It's similar the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, but not exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
It might seem convenient for libertarians to have a single ideology that they can map to every political problem they encounter. But I doubt many of them realize that in their complex machinations to contort libertarianism to fit political reality they're simultaneously redefining what libertarianism means to them inside their own head. This process is made easier by elected libertarians rarely having to actually do anything in politics. Since there are no libertarians at the national level every person who identifies as a libertarian can maintain their own personal definition of libertarianism that agrees with their ideal implementation of the ideology and still bond with other self identified libertarians exclusively through abstract ideology.
In short, libertarianism can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean as long as it doesn't piss of successful white people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto,_California#Top_emplo...
Palo Alto is different from Mountain View which is different from Atherton. Mountain View has WalMart and Costco and Google. Palo Alto limits retail to 20k sqft, so there are no big box store or even supermarkets. Atherton just has a bunch of big houses. The differences are great - it lets people pick what the like and live there.
I never cease to be amazed at how illogical and inhumane some people's though processes can be, especially in aggregate. People living out of their cars makes you feel unsafe? Better ban that activity! How about investing in a couple ways to get them off the street and into a home, so that they can move on/up? Rather than seeing them all as a destitute scourge waiting to pray on the unsuspecting, which is more likely to happen when you deliberately make their lives worse.
The only thing this accomplishes is putting more of the burden on the poorest people in the community. Now, those people who formerly had a reasonably safe place to park overnight to sleep will have to find a new place to sleep every night. They won't be able to build any sort of community bonds with their neighbors, develop a routine (that might be necessary for recovery from addiction, or getting a job, or getting a kid to school every day, or any number of things that requires one to know where you're going to be sleeping each night).
I've been among the wealthy mobile homeless for five years now (I live in a motor home, and traveled almost non-stop for four years; lately I travel only ~3 months out of the year, but will return to traveling more as I recover from some personal grief that's led me to need some stable friendships and a predictable life for a while). I've met a whole lot of folks who live in their vehicle, whether it's an old motorhome, a van, or even a car, including in Palo Alto (where I parked for three weeks while visiting friends). This kind of law criminalizes people who shouldn't be criminalized, and it makes crime part of the daily lives of people who are just trying to get by.
The problem here is that this is using a violent solution to a community problem. When you ask for a law to be made against an activity someone does, you're using violence and imprisonment to get your way. That's what the state is: Legalized violence. Is it right to find someone so far down on their luck that they are living in a car, and respond by sending men with guns to fine them or arrest them?
Because that's what this means. The poorest people in Palo Alto will now be subject to being ticketed or arrested for sleeping. Not because they want to hurt anyone, but because they have no where else to sleep.
That's what the state is: Legalized violence.
No, that's one model of the state suggested by one influential sociologist. I am sick to the back teeth of this trope being trotted out as if it were a fact. All it tells me is that you have an axe to grind.
sending men with guns to fine them or arrest them
Perhaps you should try a country without mass gun ownership then. I quite like that British and Irish cops don't carry guns as a matter of course, but then that's got something to do with the much lower rate of gun ownership. If you like the 2nd amendment, and I guess that you do, it's unreasonable to demand that the police don't wear guns, and to suggest that the mere carrying of guns mean they're violent by definition.
How about if I remove the mention of guns? "sending men to fine them or arrest them". This still seems violent to me. Fines lead to warrants...I know several homeless folks who are always at risk of arrest because they have bench warrants from unpaid tickets for sleeping (in Austin, sleeping pretty much anywhere other than an apartment/hotel/house is illegal). Taking away someone's freedom is a violent act (obviously no one is going to jail voluntarily...it's only the threat of violence that makes them choose jail).
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm just always surprised when people don't see the obvious. Kidnapping is a crime...only the state can get away with it, through overwhelming force.
I don't really care to get into a gun rights debate, so I apologize for bringing it into the conversation. It was a cheap tactic on my part, to make the violence of police more visceral to someone who might not have seen police violence in person before. Thank you for making me aware that I did it.
I think you meant "false dichotomy" [1]
Both are standard terms for the same thing.
That's sure, as in "We need to protect them people from themselves". Unfortunately, it may not be enough. "think of the homeless" - you must help them even more than that!
So what about an even more audacious proposal: confiscate the vehicle in exchange of a free sleeping bag and 2 month of food stamp - because you want to make sure them people are sleeping and eating properly, even if it requires some coercion to discourage them of their bad behaviour.
Of course, as you are good spirited and really care about their comfort, no one will ever consider that this is just a way to frighten them to move to another area and hide the problem under the rug.
Totally outrageous.
There may be higher levels of violence, but two incidents does not show that in my opinion.
I'm no bleeding heart liberal. I'm all in favor of being tough on crime. But I'm having difficulty seeing this as anything other than straightforward unprovoked aggression against people who are not criminals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation
Quote: "Suicide has historically been treated as a criminal matter in many parts of the world."
At this point a civilized person would post an apology for being utterly wrong, but, having spent my life dealing with people like you, I won't hold my breath for that outcome.
I didn't include a tense, past or present -- you wrongly assumed one, and there are still places where suicide is a crime, enough to justify my original claim.
> I'm also sorry your narcissism doesn't permit you to admit an error.
I used a literature reference to prove that the error is yours. Here's another:
http://news.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2013/08/02/in-virgin...
It seems that suicide is still a crime. For my one-word claim to be true, suicide need only be a crime somewhere, and it is.
Man up -- apologize for wasting our time dealing with your ignorance.
"There are" is present tense. As is my statement, "is not".
> there are still places where suicide is a crime
The relevant jurisdiction is Palo Alto, California, USA.
> Man up
Apologize for your disgusting sexism.
> apologize for wasting our time
No one forced you to comment in the first place, much less respond to my comment. Apologize to yourself for wasting your own time.
Your Virginia link is absurd. There can be no crime in the United States without a codification of the crime. "Common law crime" is flatly unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Your eagerness to argue this point would be amusing if it didn't reach clinical significance. I pointed out a minor error in a comment I otherwise agreed with, and you've just completely blown up. Seek help.
For the record, by the way, I corrected you because the notion that suicide is a crime adds to the social stigma and discourages people from seeking help. You were doing a small disservice to society, and I wanted to undo that damage and make the world a little better. I'm sorry you can't stand that.
I proved that suicide is a crime, now, as we speak, at present. You lost -- learn to live with it.
>> there are still places where suicide is a crime
> The relevant jurisdiction is Palo Alto, California, USA.
This is the Internet, rocket scientist. By definition it's international. Only a narcissist would try to claim that an Internet post can only apply to where he is personally sitting.
>> Man up
> Apologize for your disgusting sexism.
Precisely how does "Man up" disparage women? Think before answering, and again -- I won't hold my breath for that outcome.
> Your Virginia link is absurd.
That's an interesting way to acknowledge that you have been defeated by readily available evidence. It's a defense typical of narcissists.
> "Common law crime" is flatly unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Suicide is illegal in Virginia. Which word didn't you understand? Or do you believe that (as just one example) common-law marriage isn't an enforceable contract?
> I pointed out a minor error ...
You did no such thing. You were wrong, I was right, I proved it, now you're displaying classic narcissistic hand-waving behavior.
> You were doing a small disservice to society ...
By pointing out that suicide is a crime, and then proving it? Nice distortion of logic.
> I wanted to undo that damage and make the world a little better.
And, according to you, all evidence to the contrary, you're not a narcissist. It's a good thing that, unlike suicide, being a narcissist is not a crime.
I pay myself these days, but wonder about businesses that run off of greed. What is happening in Bangladesh could very well come to our country unless we begin to value our fellow man ... even the man that did not have that original great idea, or founded the company.
I understand that America was created by people who wanted to build something useful for themselves and others. Perhaps we should find a way to reinvest in this country. Make jobs for our fellow man somehow. It is an unselfish idea ... we made it, they didn't. So, why care?
It would be cool if some young talent here could make a web service that helped these people. We have plenty of photo sharing sites now ...
> It is unlawful for any person to use, occupy, or permit the use or occupancy of, any vehicle for human habitation on or in any street, park, alley, public parking lot or other public way.
So it looks like there is no impediment to living in a vehicle on private property.
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/topics/municode.asp which will take you a site where you can read the city charter. A charter is like a mini-constitution for the city that specifies what its powers are, how they are exercised, when elections have to be held and so on.
The same politicians banning people from using the only shelter they have left are the same politicians who prevent the same people from running their own businesses by raising the barrier to entry artificially. Want to sell grilled cheese sandwiches? Not in this politicians backyard (without business license and permit that is).
Unemployment is a creation of Capitalism. Even in Feudal and slave societies, people had homes and jobs.
I remember seeing a lot of people sleeping in the parks in Berkeley. One friend and resident of a nearby house said the people had a right to stay there. I also saw many at a local clinic. So at least Berkeley is still hip to letting people be.
That being said, I don't agree with the council's decision. But the cultural momentum that has carried them there is so far beyond them, and many of these comments miss that point.
Cue libertarian comments at government overreach, and socialist comments at libertarian excess corrupting the political system.
I really don't care what your political bent is, but if you live in a developed nation it's your responsibility to try and help, not punish the poor. Why? Because someday you might be poor yourself. The economy is like that.
I've met people who lived in their cars, and they don't make any trouble, keep to themselves and just want to be left alone till they get back on their feet. Why do you need to bother them? It costs you nothing to leave them alone.
Would be curious to see how a middle class white guy gets treated vs. poor people.
It doesn't apply to private property, so you can conceivably still use a camper as long as you own or are given the right to use a plot of land.
But this does. PAMC 18.42.070:
(f) Limitations for Sleeping in Recreation Vehicles
Subject to securing a permit therefore from the building official and otherwise complying with applicable law, the use of a recreational vehicle, as defined in this title, may be permitted for sleeping purposes only for a period not to exceed thirty consecutive days in any calendar year for not more than two nonpaying guests of the occupant of a single-family dwelling in accord with all applicable regulations governing parking and storage of vehicles.
(g) Vehicle Visibility from Public Streets
Except in the OS (open space) and AC (agricultural conservation) districts, no person shall store, place, or park any of the conveyances designated in this section, whether disabled or fully operative, in any areas visible from a public street unless it is parked or stored upon either permeable or impermeable paving surface.
(h) Parked Vehicles shall not Obstruct Traffic Views at Intersections
No person shall store, place, or park any of the conveyances designated in this section within the thirty-five foot triangle of property at the intersection of streets improved for vehicular traffic.
(i) Parked Vehicles Maximum Coverage of Front Yard
No person shall store, place, or park any of the conveyances designated in this section in a manner that they cover more than 40 percent of any required front yard.
(j) Each Day of Violation a Separate Offense
Violation of this section is a misdemeanor, punishable as provided in this code. Each day of violation constitutes a separate offense and may be separately punished.
(Ord. 4934 § 4 (part), 2007)