Giving Away Valuable Rights

When you own property, you own a "bundle" of rights associated with that property -the right to occupy the property, the right to exclude others from the property, the right make decisions about how to use the property, the right to make improvements to the property, the right to sell and exchange the property.

When the government places restrictions on your rights, you are effectively giving up rights to your property. When you purchase property, you have the right to know what rights you are buying and what rights you are not buying.

We bought our home in University Terrace knowing that there were restrictions on our property - for example, we could not turn our house into a multi-family dwelling. We could not use our property as a restaurant or store. We knew there were restrictions in place regarding the kind of building structure that could be on our property. We found these restrictions to be acceptable, and purchased our home according to those restrictions.

The restrictions in place already are sufficient to ensure that zero lot line mansions are not built next door.

With the proposed overlay, we would be giving away valuable rights to our property, with nothing to gain. The additional restrictions outlined in the overlay further impede the rights I have in my property.

This is serious.

Ask yourself - what exactly are you getting in return for giving away significant rights of ownership? What exactly are you getting in return for the government telling you what you can and can not do with your property?Whether you plan to use those rights or not - that's up to you, for now. If the overlay passes, you no longer have the option of using those rights or not.

I simply can't be in favor of giving away any more rights from the "bundle of rights" associated with my property.