My wife called our city hall to see if we could let a small patch of grass grow tall in our backyard for insect support. They said a "pollinator garden" was highly encouraged, so we did. Last June we saw more lightening bugs then ever before.
Now in hot August, just before sunset, we have butterflies and bees and lots of others bugs. We didn't plant any special flowers, we just let the grass and whatever else grow. Next year I'll plant some flowers.
Of course it's legal! You just need to fill form DN-335, wait 4-9 weeks and you can play!
Obviously planescape campaigns are banned, being innapropriate for minors, and so are characters from underdark species as they ruin neighbourhood character.
No permission was required, although we did explain we only were going to use a small area for the pollinator garden.(It's about 4 feet by 30 feet). We just wanted to make sure there wasn't a rule against it.
Land use laws and culture around land use differ greatly. The further you get out from urban and suburban areas the less you typically encounter. Rural areas tend to have less land use laws than urban/ suburban areas.
America is really bad for this sort of thing though? One example that stands out in my mind:
The shower is outside on the back patio. The shower is fitted with hot water from the conventional water heater plumbed from the house. The shower is surrounded by a stainless steel privacy screen and a lot of really tall tropical plants. It’s the one feature that friends and family seem to like the most about the cottage. But the county authorities said it was completely illegal.
First, the county inspector cited the raw sewerage that was being released into the environment. By “raw sewerage” he was referring to warm soapy water. The “environment” in this case was my rural back garden. The remedy was to plumb the outdoor shower with a drain that carried the “sewerage” into the septic system for safe disposal. I had this work done at some considerable expense that I struggled to afford at the time. Then the inspector was invited back to final the plumbing permit. Unfortunately he cited the project for another violation instead. It seems that rain water was able to drain into the outdoor shower and enter the septic system which was a code violation. He couldn’t have told me this earlier? Evidently inspectors shy away from proscribing holistic solutions. Instead they just look at what’s in front of them and check off boxes on their clip boards. It’s up to the property owner to understand and comply with the impenetrable codes on their own. So I covered the outdoor shower with a simple roof that prevented the rain from entering the drain (completely ruining the whole concept of a tropical outdoor shower). When the inspector returned this too was a code violation since a covered structure with plumbing constitutes a second dwelling unit on a lot that is only zoned for one unit. I removed the roof from the shower in disgust. Finally a sympathetic neighbor said he had a similar problem with his outdoor shower and solved the problem by re-labeling it as a hose bib on the permit documents. I plugged up the shower drain with concrete, removed the shower head, and invited the inspector back to approve the hot and cold hose bibs inside the little privacy screen on the back patio. In fifteen seconds he was able to check off the little boxes on his clip board and there were no more problems with the outdoor shower. A sense of relief and calm washed over me. But it only lasted for ten seconds. The inspector then said he couldn’t sign off on the building inspection because this house didn’t have a shower or bath tub…
It reminds me of when a friend called into their property management at their apartment complex to make sure she could have three guests come over to her apartment to watch a movie. I don’t know what to call it.
Try having neighbors. I've one who thinks she's quite the environmentalist because she "feeds the deer", which means leaving fresh fruit and veg out. Sure the deer love it, but so do the rats (the neighbor blames the HOA landscaping for the rats). She also leaves out peanuts, so I constantly have squirrels and jays digging up my attempts at gardening things so they can bury their loot. The HOA copes by leaving poison traps out. Of course the coyotes and raptors don't know this and keep coming by anyhow. But hey, she's an environmentalist.
Alternatively try living in an area with a high risk of fire. Leaving your back yard to grow wild could easily create a huge tinderbox. There are fire resistant plants suited to e.g. dry summers, but invasive stuff that's ill-suited to dry summers is just as happy to take root.
It sounds like you want to live in a place devoid of animals - deer, squirrels, rats, jays, coyotes, hawks - isn’t that a but cruel, considering they were here first?
No, it sounds like I don't want my neighbor feeding the wildlife. It sounds like I don't want the HOA to feel emboldened to set out poison traps to deal with the consequences of feeding wildlife.
FWIW I said raptors, not hawks. So yeah. Owls, vultures, hawks, osprey, falcons, we get them all out here. When they eat a poisoned rodent they'll likely die. Scavengers that eat the dead birds will also get sick. It's bad all around. Deer are already overpopulated. None of what this person is setting out is particularly good for any of the animals. These are wild animals that are perfectly capable of finding their own, healthier, safer food.
It's like with the monarchs. Folks should be careful about where they plant milkweed in part because of the disastrous effects it can have on their migration. The same thing can happen with vertebrates like migratory birds.
There's a reason why feeding wildlife is pretty much universally condemned: it's bad for the animals.
In several towns I've lived in.. I _know_ everyone in city hall. It wouldn't be a deferential call, but a friendly one, where I'd mostly ask "Hey Bill, would there ever be a problem if I...."
Bill's got my back. If there was a problem, he'd be the first one to tell me _how_ to work around it, and since I'm the kind of guy to want to make things easy for everyone I live around, he'd probably be the first one to help do it if I needed it.
I’m talking about the subject matter. Something as petty as growing some lawn or flowers on my own land. I can’t imagine asking for permission to do that.
I'm talking about the realities of actually living in a community. Something as simple as not mowing your lawn may actually be against local codes. Your neighbors may be the type to use code enforcement against you if they don't like you. Your code enforcement officer may just be eager. There could be any of a number of simple misunderstandings along the way.
Who knows? What I do know is you will solve nothing by pretending it's petty and for sheer prideful lack of imagination can't bring yourself to pick up a phone and spend 3 minutes asking questions.
Yes. I just did imagine it for you. Are you a lawyer? Do you spend time making yourself aware of the laws, bylaws and codes in effect in your area? If it makes you feel less burdened to check first, then at the very least, don't be one of the people who inevitably complains when they find out what they've done draws unwanted attention to yourself.
It's government. You pay for it. Why you wouldn't expect it to be useful to you is beyond me.
Not to be confrontational, but this example is super tiny in the grand scheme of things. Government at this point practically owns us. They take almost 50% of our labor via taxes (under the "noble" euphemism of paying for our fair share of government governing us.)
They don't protect us from crime via police, they beat and imprison us if we stray from their stated path, and we have no choice to not participate. Yes we can technically choose to move to another king's domain and be serfs there. To be fair even this highly regulated legally and not an easy option for many.
Honestly, we're way passed due for a revolution. The government has become a self serving and self perpetuating machine that uses people rather than serving them.
I strongly suspect that most of this is a consequence of declining democratic participation, especially at the local level. When most people don't vote, it makes the government beholden only to those few who do — and they tend not to be a demographically representative bunch. This is the same issue that makes it so easy for HOAs to become heavy-handed or corrupt.
One of the pleasant surprises I had, immigrating from the US to Australia, was discovering how much more responsive the government is to the populace, even at the municipal level. The big difference is that, here, virtually everyone votes in all elections at every level of government because it is considered a legal responsibility of citizenship, just like jury duty and taxes. This means that time-poor, lower-class single parents have exactly the same voting power as retired busybodies, and that makes a HUGE difference to how smoothly and fairly everything operates.
We have federal and state holidays that specify that those government employees have those holidays, but private employers aren't required to do anything on those days (there might be some states that impose requirements, but certainly not a majority).
And yes it's "progressive", but I'm rounding up for arguments-sake due to all the "other" taxes that aren't individual income tax. Fuel levy, sugar tax, VAT, import tax (err "duties"), cigarette tax, employment insurance tax, property transfer fees/taxes, estate taxes, capital gains tax, etc.
Either way... 50% is big, but so is 40%, or 30%. Doubly so in South Africa because we have no choice but to pay for a lot of supposed government services using post-tax income (due to this being a failed 3rd world state that doesn't provide actual services). E.g. healthcare, security, fire, insurance, etc.
Cherry on top: Only 5-10% of the population even pays income tax here. So no it's not paying one's fair share, this is a giant socialist wealth-redistribution system where a good chunk gets carved out and given to the high-ranking government priesthood and otherwise connected individuals. The scraps make their way to underfunded government services for the real poor serfs to maybe get some benefit out of, unfortunately. The reason I mention this, is that it's the same in other governments, they're just less blatant about it. It's only in these extreme examples that people see the nature of what's going on, and how they are actually slave-labour for the government. Well... at least only 50% of their labour /s.
In the suburban city we live in, the city looks the other way if no one complains when it comes to certain rules. Like for instance, you can't keep a dead car in your drive way(unless you are repairing it) or backyard, you can't have a dead tree in your front yard for an extended time. You must keep your yard grasses below twelve inches in the summer, except, we know now because we asked, for a pollinator garden. I'm sure there are other rules I don't know about. I'm also sure that in most towns and cities there are rules similar to these.
However, I've never seen these rules enforced unless someone calls in. The city does not have an enforcement squad who inspects the neighborhoods. On my street, my next door neighbor is the street busybody. She called in on me once because of a tree that died in early spring and by mid-June I still hadn't removed it. The city worker told me I had two weeks to remove the tree or they would, for a fee. I explained my tree guy was busy and he said no prob, now he knows it will get done.
So, we asked about the pollinator garden just to be sure.
It's usually neighbors complaining vs. the government. My buddy had parents who lived in New Hampshire, a notoriously small-government state. They kept their front yard unmowed for insects and wildlife. Got so many complaints from neighbors they had to register their front yard as an "urban nature preserve" of sorts to get them off their backs.
In some urban and suburban areas, where there aren’t a lot of predators, thick vegetation will harbor pests like mice and rats. I’m not sure if there’s a code against in my town, but I have let certain areas of my back yard get thick, sure enough tons of mice showed up in my sheds and moved indoors, too. Do not recommend.
Canadian here, I let my entire back yard grow wild for 7 years. My neighbor was mad about it "because of ticks" and if the town found out about it, they would have come and mowed it and charged me for the "service" plus a fine.
Wouldn't these hypothetical ticks only be a problem for him if he wants to walk through your barkyard? Never mind that ticks can and do live in short grass just fine...
Americans love rules and regulations. America is big on social structures that allow the common man to enforce rules upon others, giving them a sense of power. See HOAs or middle managers as an example.
In my town we have Neighborhood Services drive around on patrol looking for code violations. I put a chair for free at the end of my driveway for not even 24 hours and received a letter from the city. My town really is just one large HOA.
Now in hot August, just before sunset, we have butterflies and bees and lots of others bugs. We didn't plant any special flowers, we just let the grass and whatever else grow. Next year I'll plant some flowers.