You would think that if i cut the trees, mill the logs into lumber and build a house on my own farm, I could make it however I wanted to. Think again. It is illegal to build a house lass than 900 square feet. Period. Doesn't matter if I'm a hermit or the father of twenty. The government agents have decreed, in their egocentric wisdom, that no human can live in anything less than 900 square feet. (about 100 square meters)
Our son got married last year and wanted to build a small cottage on the farm, which he now oversees for the most part. Our new saying is, "He runs the farm and I just run around." The plan was to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa and I-trade houses when the children come. That way our empty nest downsizes, and the young people can up-size in the main family farmhouse. Sounds reasonable and environmentally sensitive to me. But no, his little honeymoon cottage-our retirement shack-had to be a 900 square foot Taj Mahal. a state-of-the-art, accredited composting toilet to avoid the need for a septic system and sewerage leach field was denied.
When the hillside leach field would not meet agronomic standards and we had to install in the floodplain, I asked the health department bureaucrat why. He said that, essentially, the only approveable leach fields now are alongside creeks and streams, because they are the only sites that offer dark-enough colored soils. Sounds like real environmental stewardship doesn't it?
Look, if I want to build a yurt out of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government's business? Bureaucrats bend over backwards to accredit, tax credit and offer good money to people wanting to build pig city factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees and let himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate and virtually terminate. I think it is time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.
This has been the second to last installment from a longer article by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal... first published in Acres Magazine in September of 2003. The implications that this writing confronts are part of what has caused the seeds of the #occupy movement to gain strength. We have not only the right, but the responsibility to do our best and we cannot stand for government forces that keep us from reaching our potential. Moreover, the corporados and greedy thugs who have exerted their influence over the markets have strangled more wealth creation than they have provided. More on that, I am sure in just another week or so. I will be returning to this blog to post my own writings again after this coming Sunday.
Our son got married last year and wanted to build a small cottage on the farm, which he now oversees for the most part. Our new saying is, "He runs the farm and I just run around." The plan was to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa and I-trade houses when the children come. That way our empty nest downsizes, and the young people can up-size in the main family farmhouse. Sounds reasonable and environmentally sensitive to me. But no, his little honeymoon cottage-our retirement shack-had to be a 900 square foot Taj Mahal. a state-of-the-art, accredited composting toilet to avoid the need for a septic system and sewerage leach field was denied.
When the hillside leach field would not meet agronomic standards and we had to install in the floodplain, I asked the health department bureaucrat why. He said that, essentially, the only approveable leach fields now are alongside creeks and streams, because they are the only sites that offer dark-enough colored soils. Sounds like real environmental stewardship doesn't it?
Look, if I want to build a yurt out of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government's business? Bureaucrats bend over backwards to accredit, tax credit and offer good money to people wanting to build pig city factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees and let himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate and virtually terminate. I think it is time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.
This has been the second to last installment from a longer article by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal... first published in Acres Magazine in September of 2003. The implications that this writing confronts are part of what has caused the seeds of the #occupy movement to gain strength. We have not only the right, but the responsibility to do our best and we cannot stand for government forces that keep us from reaching our potential. Moreover, the corporados and greedy thugs who have exerted their influence over the markets have strangled more wealth creation than they have provided. More on that, I am sure in just another week or so. I will be returning to this blog to post my own writings again after this coming Sunday.
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