Home to Complement FGRV

[slowpat]

Rural free for all places can be noisier than town. If you want quiet, find out how much target practice the neighbors do. My area isn't too bad. Rifles are sighted in when hunting season approaches. Guns go off at night when a critter is unwelcome.

Dogs bark a lot. I live out in the sticks but I often use a white noise contraption for sleeping. Even the coyotes can be annoying.

If you have watched Red Green, the noises on that show, guns, chainsaws, etc. are real here. I have no idea about Louisiana.

[Henry Smith]

Jon in AZ is right; it is a balance. I live in a town where there are no zoning laws and no building codes. We like it that way, as it prevents the inevitable "rule-enforcers" from getting local power. Other people prefer subdivisions with books full of detailed rules and regulations down to and including what color you can paint your house, whether you can have a truck in your driveway, or a fiberglass trailer in your back yard. For me, the balance tips to the side of individual freedom. For those who want well-controlled areas with lots of laws, there are places like Detroit, MI; Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; Baltimore, MD; and many others. Those places were bellwethers for zoning and detailed regulations starting in the early-to-mid 20th century. The arguments used to implement those controls were always "to protect property values". Me? I'd rather hang out with bands of wandering gypsies in tiny fiberglass trailers.

[Jon in AZ]

Originally Posted by Henry Smith

...I live in a town where there are no zoning laws and no building codes...

Are you quite sure about that?

Even in unincorporated "rural free-for-all" areas of Arizona (which I described in somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion) county zoning ordinances and building codes apply. Zoning tends to be far less restrictive and codes not always well-enforced, but they do exist. A friend's daughter and son-in-law are buying a house on rural acreage and they're having to rebuild the stairs because they weren't built to code (insurance and/or mortgage may have more to do with that than the county). I guess if you don't build anything, but just park a trailer, and that's a permitted use under the county zoning, the county doesn't get involved. Unless you want to put in a septic so you don't have to find a place to dump your tanks… then there's a perc test, a permit, and an inspection.

Is Florida different?

[Henry Smith]

Originally Posted by Jon in AZ

Are you quite sure about that?

Is Florida different?

Yes, quite sure, but I should have specified: I was talking about my home in New Hampshire. There are places there where zoning has been kept out (and even voted out of existence after it got a foothold). All of Florida is now closely controlled by some governmental authority. I remember when neither people nor land were so rigidly regulated. Today it...displeases me that virtually everywhere, people can be told how they are allowed to build stairs (for instance) in the privacy of their own homes on their own land.