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Title: Berkeley gardener told to uproot his plants
Source:
Contra Costa Times
URL Source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/localnews/ci_11381675?nclick_check=1
Published: Jan 5, 2009
Author: Doug Oakley
Post Date: 2009-01-07 05:40:58 by farmfriend
Ping List: *Agriculture-Environment* Subscribe to *Agriculture-Environment*
Keywords: None
Views: 276
Comments: 16
By Doug Oakley Gary Rosenberg says he is just trying to practice what city leaders preach: He is trying to practice sustainable living by using as few resources as possible. But instead of giving the Berkeley man an award for growing his own fruits and vegetables, recycling and composting, the city slapped him with a $3,000 fine. He also faces more fines of $3,000 a day if he doesn't tear down his rooftop greenhouse or submit a $4,000 nonrefundable zoning fee to legalize it. And he needs to get rid of the outdoor rooftop gardening operation — which is all in plastic pots — and trim his trees over six feet tall. None of his gardening structures were built with city permits. Even if he pays the fee to legalize his urban gardening operation, he has to go through public hearings and it's not a guarantee he will be approved. "We're going to shut him down," said Berkeley Code Enforcement Supervisor Gregory Daniel. "You can't build a 12-foot addition on top of your house and say it's a greenhouse and not comply with building codes." Daniel said while the fines may sound harsh, the city wouldn't have known about his operation if he didn't let his compost get out of hand. It was attracting flies and rats and the neighbors complained, Daniel said. What's more, he is putting his tenants at risk by setting a structure on a flat roof without thinking it through, Daniel said. "I explained to him that even if you want to start this whole political consciousness movement about rooftop gardening, go about it legally because that's the way you are going to get the support of citizens and the city," Daniel said. Rosenberg has since removed the compost and trimmed his trees. But he said he's not going to remove the rooftop garden or greenhouse without a fight. He said he is perplexed that the city's official policy, Measure G, states that the majority of food consumed in Berkeley should be produced locally to help reduce greenhouse gases, yet the city harasses him. All the materials he uses for gardening and which he used to build the greenhouse came from city trash. He makes soil from coffee grounds he gets from Peet's Coffee and food waste from the Juice Bar Collective and the T-Rex Barbeque. Rosenberg claims that by next summer he will be growing enough food to feed 15 people on less than the $100 he invested. "I got rid of the compost pile," Rosenberg said. "I cleaned up as well as I could. But they said I can't use my roof. "I put a brand new roof on and got a permit for it. I can't see (how) what I'm doing is affecting anyone's life negatively. It's not like I'm converting a garage in the hills to an illegal rental unit. I'm doing this in plain sight." Rosenberg called the city's action on his trees in the front yard "selective enforcement" because "80 percent of the houses in Berkeley have trees over six feet tall." Rosenberg said he has 60 letters of support from his neighbors. Interviews with a couple of his neighbors elicited positive responses. "It don't bother me, man," said a neighbor who lives across the street who declined to give his name. "Everybody in the neighborhood praised him for building that greenhouse. He's doing something for the environment. What's wrong is they let him build it, and then they make him tear it down." The man pointed out that the city's corporation yard, which draws city employees and inspectors on the way to and from work every day, is down the street from his home. If they had a problem with it when he was building it, they should have stopped him then, the resident said. Alex Mendelsohn, who lives in the neighborhood, said she likes Rosenberg's greenhouse. "To see that go up helps us all realize you can grow food in pots on rooftops in all sorts of places," Mendelsohn said. "I understand that the city needs the revenue, but the planning process can be very difficult and expensive. This guy is growing food up there. Other people can look at it and say "hey, I can do that too!'"
Berkeley gardener told to uproot his plants
Staff writer
Posted: 01/05/2009 07:23:28 PM PST
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#1. To: farmfriend (#0)
The city could have sent their experts by his house to guide him in his project instead of throwing the weight of government at him.
Yeah but you know how liberals are, it's not about what you do, it's about control!
They still would have wanted X,000 dollars in permit fees from him, along with an engineers sign-off, probably a visual impact study, etc... He should re-evaluate where he lives and what he believes in and move out of that loony bin... Hell, I live on the other side of the hills from there in Contra Costa County and they want you to shuck ~$300 for a permit to replace a ~$500 hot water heater (which apparently everyone just blows off).
Bring on the Depression. Bring it the F*** ON! If digging ditches and eating beans for a few years is what it takes for me to see some worthless sacks of crap bankers and politicians living in sack cloth and being spat upon by my fellow Americans well... where's my shovel?!?!
I'd blow it off too but I know why they do it, well the reasoning they use. It has to be strapped correctly for Earth quakes, certain height off the ground, pop off value to the exterior etc. They have to recoup their costs for the inspector to come out.
I knew a guy who basically gutted and rebuilt an entire house (structural, plumbing, electrical) without inspections. I had the guy come out to look at my insulated chimney. For $40 he spent time and gave good advice, well worth the money. Even so, with my next chimney I didn't bother. I think they are really there for the people who want to run the neutral back through the aluminum conduit.
Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle
I had a truck that had a flat tire on it once. I hardly used the truck it was my extra. It didn't have plates either. Anyway the city came down and gave me a citation. It was an old truck and beat up. So I got a black can of spray paint. Here is some of the large slogans I sprayed on my truck. FUCK YOU CITY OF DAYTON. RICK TAMME KEEP OF MY PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. And probably a couple of others. I then went to the federal building in downtown dayton and filed a federal case against the city for violating my private property rights. I had the sheriffs serve the city with papers free of charge. I eventually dropped it though as I didn't have the time to keep the paperwork going. I remember when I went to court they had a pic of my truck with all spray painted up. They did have a federal observer in the municipal court when my case was going on. I sold the truck to a neighbor and he fixed it up and painted it.
Said county also requires a $400+ dollar permit to assure that a registered professional geologist and a licensed driller are competent to backfill holes as shallow as 5.5 feet with liquid cement... There is a myriad of this crap that could be done with a $20 (or free) fax-in permit app and mere spot checks, with the occasional caught violator getting the crap fined out of them as a warning to others who would take shortcuts. What's worse are the agencies who charge HUGE fees for items like building permits and then depend upon private inspectors (i.e. me sometimes) to come out for all the verifications and have us just send the data in. AFAIC, if the agency is going to charge $150,000 for a building permit their guy better have an on-site trailer and be there during normal construction hours...
Bring on the Depression. Bring it the F*** ON! If digging ditches and eating beans for a few years is what it takes for me to see some worthless sacks of crap bankers and politicians living in sack cloth and being spat upon by my fellow Americans well... where's my shovel?!?!
Oh I agree. It's worse in Santa Cruz. I remember the story about a guy who wanted to cut down a non native tree that was endangering his house. They wouldn't let him do it so he cut it anyway. They changed him $300,000 for cutting this tree. It was a Eucalyptus, the kind that made the Oakland fire so bad. It’s all a revenue and control thing.
Public hearings are not only stressful but an enormous waste of time that could much better be applied to constructive works. Just increases costs and discourages innovation. Note that the enforcement officer's attitude is to shut down any non-complying operation rather than work out something that acceptable and maybe even better than originally proposed. Roof-top gardening is the only way to go, especially in urban centers because of exposure to extra sunlight and is "out-of-bounds" to plant-uprooting pets and ground=based, migrating pests. Such gardens are best on two-story or high buildings to avoid shading by trees. In addition to gardens, roof-tops should have sundecks; people would be able to get the necessary vitamin D and be a lot healthier. It's often the case where regulation transgression is of no consequence to most people, but all it takes is one dispeptic complainant to get government bureaucrats, with time on their hands, to disrupt an innovative, experimental improvement/undertaking. That's why we have everything-grinds-to-a-halt depressions which force governments to purge the system of initiative-inhibiting bureaucrats. Most of the bureaucrats are not only a nuisance but totally redundant because anyone genuinely aggrieved can take the matter to court.
I knew a guy who basically gutted and rebuilt an entire house (structural, plumbing, electrical) without inspections. I had the guy come out to look at my insulated chimney. For $40 he spent time and gave good advice, well worth the money. Even so, with my next chimney I didn't bother. I think they are really there for the people who want to run the neutral back through the aluminum conduit. Next time install a Kachelhofen - much more efficient and attractive too.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
This seems to be the norm with the left. Fascism is their mainstay. Edit: and I agree with you, urban gardens need to be promoted.
Those are the ones you take care of with some creative mining and/or a mayo jar with poison and a wick in it...
Bring on the Depression. Bring it the F*** ON! If digging ditches and eating beans for a few years is what it takes for me to see some worthless sacks of crap bankers and politicians living in sack cloth and being spat upon by my fellow Americans well... where's my shovel?!?!
Does that work on Supervisors and Counselmen?
I sat on one of those in Switzerland about 35 years ago. The stove was probably over a century old (the farmhouse was several centuries old) and is probably still going strong today. I'll have to do something a little different for thermal mass, got a few ideas.
Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle
I love the idea of them. If I were building a new house, or renovating one, that is definitely the way I would go.
""I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology...It's importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda...Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." Bertrand Russel, Eugenicist and Logician
Of the three massive European fireplaces, German kachelhofen, Russian Fireplace and the Finish one, the latter with its "masonry heater" may have the edge. But just the wood heater in the Finish fireplace costs $4500. Outfit in Ontario, Canada makes a masonry heater kit to build the heater "inside" the fireplace. You can have an oven and fireplaces on two floors, one on top the other and view flames from two sides. Just a couple of "firings" and the masonry heater, centrally-located, puts enough heat into the surrounding brick fireplace to keep a thousand square feet warm for the rest of the day in, of course, a well-insulated house. Seems to me that the heater could be replaced with a barrel stove, made out of two-foot diameter, quarter inch steel pipeline cutoff, three of four feet long. The barrel stove throws off a lot of heat, depending on the wood and its dryness. Being enclosed in the massive brick fireplace surround the barrel stove probably would get by code for insurance purposes.
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#2. To: X-15 (#1)
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — The Who
#3. To: X-15 (#1)
#4. To: Axenolith, X-15 (#3)
Hell, I live on the other side of the hills from there in Contra Costa County and they want you to shuck ~$300 for a permit to replace a ~$500 hot water heater (which apparently everyone just blows off).
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — The Who
#5. To: Axenolith (#3)
(which apparently everyone just blows off)
#6. To: farmfriend (#0)
#7. To: farmfriend (#4)
#8. To: Axenolith (#7)
There is a myriad of this crap that could be done with a $20 (or free) fax-in permit app and mere spot checks, with the occasional caught violator getting the crap fined out of them as a warning to others who would take shortcuts.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — The Who
#9. To: farmfriend (#0)
...he has to go through public hearings...
#10. To: purpleman (#5)
(which apparently everyone just blows off)
#11. To: Tatarewicz (#9)
(Edited)
Note that the enforcement officer's attitude is to shut down any non-complying operation rather than work out something that acceptable and maybe even better than originally proposed.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — The Who
#12. To: farmfriend (#8)
I remember the story about a guy who wanted to cut down a non native tree that was endangering his house. They wouldn't let him do it so he cut it anyway. They changed him $300,000 for cutting this tree.
#13. To: Axenolith (#12)
Those are the ones you take care of with some creative mining and/or a mayo jar with poison and a wick in it...
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — The Who
#14. To: Original_Intent (#10)
Kachelhofen
#15. To: purpleman (#14)
#16. To: Original_Intent (#10)
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