|
CODE COMPLIANCE
Saturday,
October 31, 2009
I just read with interest about the citizen who was cited for having a gravel driveway 10 years after its installation. I know NOTHING about the facts of this situation, but:
All property owners should be encouraged to have gravel or other porous driveways and walkways and paths. The less impermeable concrete we can have the better - less storm water run-off; better natural irrigation; better filtration of rain water where it falls; better looking; and on and on...
If there are complications involved in this particular driveway, it would have been nice to have them included in the article.
Otherwise, I would like to nominate this property owner for a citation -- for helping to protect our community from unnecessary run-off and the costs we all must bear to channel this run-off into sewers to be processed, or to catchments which cost money to build and maintain and ultimately the rest of us have to pay for this run-off through higher taxes. Let's use this case as an example, and all of us should consider less concrete, less asphalt; more permeable land surfaces.
I moved to Margate part time about 4 years ago. I had lived on Key Biscayne for most of the 80's and got very involved in our efforts to incorporate as a Village. We started with nothing and created a wonderful self-governed community with greatly reduced taxes,, massively improved services and a major effort to protect and improve the environment.
From that involvement and my interest in the communities where I live, I have learned enormously and feel that Margate could begin opening its eyes to some new, unconventional thinking.
-- William Brooke
__________________________________________
| 
