I was thinking about this last night and I want to comment on two claims made here. The first claim is I’ve obfuscated reality. The reality is when this law was codified the code writers chose the term “residential structures.” Not residential dwellings, or dwelling units, or residential uses. It’s clear to me this choice was made to separate structures in the same manner as the ICC has done with the IBC and the IRC. Residential structures are single-family, duplexes, and townhouses. This is not semantics; these are specific words with specific meanings. These are our building and development codes.
The second claim is my client is greedy, and unaffected by human suffering. This person has made that assertion without knowing anything about my client, this site, and the context it exists in. They don’t know that dozens, if not hundreds, of nonconforming residential structures already exist in this area. That the site sits on the edge of the downtown of this city. The site is a mere two blocks from the main highway and the floodway extends all the way to this highway and downtown. Would this person deny a city and their citizens any possibility of future development? Communities all over the world exist in floodways, over seismic faults, in the shadow of volcanoes, and in the path of hurricanes. And yet this person has looked into the soul of my client and proclaimed them to be essentially evil. Shame on you sir.