"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
27 March 2006Thinking outside the gateJust when I thought I'd figured out the concept of semi-boneless ham, Rep. Randy Terrill (R-Moore) comes up with the semi-gated community. Under Terrill's House Bill 2807, which so far has passed the House and has yet to emerge from committee in the Senate, "semi-public" gated communities, which are accessible to the general public from 6 am to 6 pm, would be authorized and would be eligible for public road maintenance, presumably to be performed during daylight hours. It's no different, he says, from closing public parks at night. Developers are apparently keen to see this pass, and homebuilder Marvin Haworth says he'll start on just such a community if it does. The bill has no retroactive provisions: a gated community apparently will not be allowed to convert to semi-public status. I'm of two minds about this. You can count me as one that doesn't love a wall; then again, if people want to live behind these things, I don't feel as though it's my job to talk them out of it. And I can certainly understand why the demand exists, though I'm not convinced that any gate will ward off 100 percent of the riff and/or raff. (I have a fence of my own, as tall as I am, but it has a certain porosity.) And Terrill is ready to fight off the presumably-inevitable charge of elitism:
The purpose of it is to allow folks other than just wealthy folks to be able to live in gated communities.
If this bill does pass, I'd be interested in seeing if any houses at a price point below, say, $120k end up behind Terrill's semi-walls. Update, 1 May: The Senate turned it down, albeit by a mere two votes. I'm OK with people living in gated communities if they want to, although I think it's a silly choice 'cause it tells the crooks where the money is. But no way do they get to use my money to pay for their road upkeep. And it's nothing like municipal parks, because when those are closed, they're closed to everyone. Mr. Terrill's "semi-gated" communities are closed to everyone except a select few who live there. Mr. Terrill is not very inventive with his flim-flam. Posted by: Brett at 10:22 AM on 27 March 2006I have a gate on one of my driveways. No semis allowed. (I let one in once and it tore up the ground too much.) Posted by: MikeH at 12:49 PM on 27 March 2006I agree with Brett. If the streets are public then they can't be closed off to the public. If they're not public, then taxpayers ought not to be responsible for maintaining them. Or to put another spin on it, if streets that are only open to the public 12 hours a day can get taxpayer maintenance, what about my driveway -- which has no gate at all and therefore is open to the public 24/7? Posted by: McGehee at 4:51 PM on 27 March 2006 |