When is your neighbor's business your business?
Friday, September 15, 2006
Let
me first say that Steve Orr and his neighborhood inspection troopers
crossed a line of public decency and manners when they trespassed on
private property and took pictures of people's junky backyards and
porches filled with debris.
It's
one thing to point out blighted properties and take photos from the
street, but it's a completely different animal to play private
detective and then post those pictures online.
Orr
himself admitted he wasn't sure if it was legal to go on to people's
property, take pictures and then post them online but he did it anyway.
That is wrong and irresponsible.
One
person wrote on Orr's e-mail list that his 12-year-old daughter was
"freaked out" when she saw Orr taking pictures and that the reasons for
his house's disrepair was a very serious illness.
If
some property owners ever wanted to file a criminal trespass complaint
against Orr they wouldn't have to look hard for evidence - it's posted
online.
Some
in Framingham admire Orr for what he's doing to bring attention to
properties that need fixing up. Blighted properties no doubt have an
effect on the neighborhood but at what point does a home with overgrown
weeds, peeling paint and piles of wood become a point of municipal
intervention vs. simply a matter of someone who isn't the greatest
landscaper and has bad taste?
For
example, one of the homes highlighted by Orr as a beacon of light on an
otherwise rundown street would drive me nutty. Its front lawn had what
I like to call "yard sale regurgitation syndrome" - it looked like
someone set up every manner of lawn ornament and artsy junk imaginable.
But then again, I'm no fan of lawn ornaments in general.
What
if your neighbor paints his or her house bright pink? Or what if they
hang a flag espousing unpopular political views - say a national emblem
for the old Communist Soviet Union or better yet, a flag for the KKK?
Surely
those factors could influence beloved property values but do they rise
to the level of municipal intervention? As long as you don't live in
some hoity-toity homeowner's association neighborhood, you can and
should be able to do pretty much whatever you want.
The
two obvious exceptions would be health and building codes. If dense
weeds and overgrown brush are shown to harbor rodents invading other
people's homes, OK, order them cut down. If a building's structural
integrity is compromised to the point where it is unsafe to inhabit, by
all means condemn the house.
The
idea to publicly shame homeowners into fixing their properties is a
shallow attempt to address the real problem - municipal shortcomings.
It was refreshing to hear selectmen and town officials discuss the idea
of actually increasing manpower in the building department to better
and more quickly address areas of blight, nuisance and neglect.
Tuesday
night, Inspectional Services Director Joe Mikielian told the board his
office collected $16,700 in fines during fiscal year 2006 from
residents who violated the nuisance bylaw. He added that there were 600
documented nuisance bylaw violations during the same time period.
The
photos posted by Orr prove that more money from neglectful homeowners
can be had, but we already knew that. Some of the photos also show what
is likely not a nuisance bylaw violation nor evidence of overcrowding.
It becomes an expose of what Orr and some of his buddies deem "ugly."
Orr
should be commended for his efforts to bring more attention to this
townwide problem and if the exposure pressures town officials, and more
importantly Town Meeting, to take the proper budgetary steps to address
the problem and fix it, great.
But
Orr should acknowledge he was a little overzealous in his quest to
shine a light on everything in both the front yards and back yards, and
sometimes through windows, of neighborhoods.
As
I said last week, all this posturing and picture-taking and
speechifying is fine and dandy. But real results will only come when
Town Meeting and town officials have enough stomach and backbone to
direct more money and personnel to the building and health departments.
This is a problem that does not need a committee, a panel or a board.
It needs a task force.
(Rob
Haneisen is the central regional editor of the MetroWest Daily News. He
can be reached at rhaneis@cnc.com or 508-626-3882.)
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