Maryland Blogger alliance
The Maryland Blogger Alliance
Government does not "protect" you
Quoting from this site:
Developer Builds Around Woman's Home
SEATTLE (AP) - When 86-year-old Edith Macefield refused a $1 million offer to move from her Seattle home, a developer started building a five-story project around it.Macefield said that she doesn't need the money and that she doesn't want to move from her home, where she has lived since 1966. A concrete wall looms within feet of her kitchen window as the project rises.
Macefield's 108-year-old house is the last home on the block near the Ballard bridge.
Macefield said that she doesn't mind the noise of the construction site.
Construction workers watch out for Macefield, particularly superintendent Barry Martin who says it's like having your grandmother around.
So much for the urban planning and building permit process in Seattle.
Three decades ago, we lived in a rented house on a side street in Towson, the county seat of Baltimore County. "Our" house was fit to be condemned because of its poor condition, but an inexpensive rental that enabled us to save the down payment on our own place.
Next door to us lived Mrs. Herzog, a sprightly lady in her late seventies, who shared the house with her widowed sister. The place we rented, along with the two on the other side of it, were owned by a developer who was assembling a chunk of land for a big apartment project. But because Mrs. Herzog had been there since the house was built, she had no intention of moving. Because she stayed, so did four other homeowners on her end of the block. The result was that the developer had to change completely his plans for this tract of land. Mrs. H. and her house are long gone now, but their presence in the neighborhood can still be felt.
Individuals do not have much power to fight City Hall, but it takes only a handful of determined people to prevail against an overbearing and corrupt government.