We once lived in a home where there were no restrictions. The neighbor decided to open a motorcycle repair sideline in his garage. Such freedom to be a bad neighbor with no consideration of others isn’t what “freedom” means unless you care only about self-serving interests.
A few questions.....
1) No restrictions? No zoning, no nuisance ordinances? Was there no legal recourse?
2) How big were the lots?
3) How is having a motorcycle repair business in one's garage being a bad neighbor? Noise? Motorcycles and parts all over the yard? Something else?
In my neighborhood, if someone fixed motorcycles in their garage, the big issue would be noise....and the Township would be all over it, fast.
1. No relevant restriction. If there were, they would be no different than any similar HOA ordinance/rule.
2. 1 -2 acre lots.
3. Having an adjacent obvious business and particularly a noisy and busy business can easily detract from residential property value as well as limit the market of potential buyers.
Thanks for the information.
The point is it happens, likely more than what some here might admit.
I think the bigger point is "rules and regs vary enormously from place to place."
For example, every home I've owned has been in a Village or Township with zoning. Operating a business in place zoned Residential requires a variance - and the neighbors have a voice in whether the variance is issued. A business that involved noise and a lot of added traffic would not get the variance.
There are also nuisance ordinances. Someone who insisted on mowing the lawn with a loud power mower at 6 AM or 10 PM would run afoul of the noise ordinance, particularly if they made a habit of it. (The noise ordinance here states 7 AM - 7 PM IIRC). Or if someone does a lot of something that makes noise, even if it's not officially a business, they could be cited.
Also building codes and safety ordinances.
No HOA, no need for them. People are good neighbors without them, in my experience.
BUT!
I'm sure there are residential places without zoning, and/or without nuisance ordinances. Or, the town/village/township doesn't enforce the zoning and/or ordinances.
There's also "grandfathering". Every home I've owned has had properties in the area that clearly violated the zoning and/or building codes - setbacks, businesses in residential zones, etc. BUT - those properties predated the zoning, so they got a "grandfather variance". However, if the variance use were discontinued for a certain amount of time, the grandfathering vanished. (Example: An existing gas station in an area not zoned for fuel sales would not be shut down, but if the gas station became, say, an auto repair shop, there would come a point where they could not go back to being a gas station again. A year IIRC).
At no time in my experience where we sold a home where I had antennas did the purchaser utter the words “ gee, those are pretty, can you leave them?” Or “ I wished I lived near those antennas”
Hams seem to think the concept that antennas are not aesthetically pleasing as antithetical and therefore somehow consider it an affront. I see the defense mechanism here all the time. Some take it so personally that they lash out with childish personal attacks.
The real issue is: "What is a REASONABLE use of one's home and property?"
I find it...surprising...that some folks will object to radio antennas on someone's home, yet not see the utility poles laden with power and communication wires that run through the neighborhood. Why is a dipole or vertical in the back yard an "eyesore", but utility poles running up and down the street aren't?
There's also the question of scale. A one-acre square lot is a bit more than 200 x 200 feet. If the house is towards the front of the lot, so that there's a big back yard, a 50-foot tower with 3 element tribander isn't out of scale with the property. But that same tower on, say, a 30 x 100 foot lot would be.
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It seems to me that trends in housing in many places have become "amateur radio unfriendly" to an extreme degree.
I think about the homes I have lived in - all were built between 1900 and 1950. They tended to have large trees which could be useful for hanging wire antennas, but also provided visual screening - someone could put up a 70 foot tower, and you couldn't see it a few houses away for all the trees. Houses tended to be close to the street, with a decent back yard. There were basements and detached garages and fences. Each house was different.
My current house is one of dozens of "little boxes made of ticky-tacky" built here right after WW2. They were all nearly identical when built, even to all being the same color. (The only difference is that half are mirror-images of the basic plan, and some have fireplaces and some didn't). But, over the decades, each has become different - garages turned into living space, additions, porches, color changes, windows moved, landscaping, siding, etc.
I look at new construction, and the tendency is to have McMansions on tiny lots with no visual screening at all. Everything is wide open - no privacy. And everything so perfectly identical that ANY variation sticks out.
I hope I never have to face being in an HOA neighborhood.