Oftentimes, there are regulations proposed or already in place that advance important environmental or public health concerns. Other times there are stories like this:
Camargo, a grandmother of six, has run afoul of La Quinta’s code enforcement in a big way, big enough to put her behind bars.
The city near Palm Springs insists that one of her three bedrooms is really an illegally converted garage. She insists it’s just a bedroom.
“What right do they have to call this a garage?” she asked, walking around the room with its cabinets, sink, bathroom and refrigerator. “I never called it a garage. How do they know it’s not a bedroom? If this is a garage, then they owe me a bedroom.” [...] Her resistance crumbled last week when a local judge ordered her to comply or face possible jail time.
This seems to be at the intersection of unwise regulatory policy aimed at increasing the supply of parking and unwise regulatory policy aimed at decreasing the number of people permitted to live on any given parcel of land. The upshot is, at the margin, bad for the environment and bad for public health while also restricting the availability of affordable housing. Not good. That’s via Radley Balko.
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