[Mpls] Governmental Support for Garage Bands. . . .

[Joseph Barisonzi]

Title: Garages are for more than just cars...

List,   Let’s all take it for granted that garages are nice and useful. For parking cars, fixing bikes, storing shovels, hanging rakes –         or as my garage is being used at this moment to paint a 960 sq. ft graffiti mural for the Dungeons of Darkness and Doom @ the Mall of America (Haunted House fundraiser for What’s Up!, YO!, and the Mall of America Youth Foundation which opens this Wednesday). No one is “dissing” garages.   The question is only one of whether they should be mandatory on new construction.   I strongly believe in building and zoning codes. The ones I like the most are the ones that ensure the safety of buildings for their current and future inhabitants. Nothing is more frustrating then opening up the wall of an old house and finding a maze of interlocking home sprung wiring.    Codes I support are those that help to impact our quality of life through design.  This is a tricky area – constant attention must be paid to balancing the values and goals of the community with the rights of the individual property owner.  Since garages neither directly impact the safety of the building, nor does the lack of a garage negatively impact the quality of life of the community – I believe making garages mandatory would be a significant overstepping of the line into governmental micro-management.   I would much prefer the City Council spent their time exploring strategies for supporting the building and maintaining affordable housing, figuring out how to make the Target Center competitive, and resolving our pension problem before they invest time and energy in the mandatory nature of garages.     Joseph Barisonzi Lyndale, Ward 10     PS: If support for garages was actually a covert way to provide governmental subsidies to support garage bands and ignite the dormant Minneapolis music scene thus returning us to the forefront of the cutting edge scene – then I take back everything I said -- and I support making garages mandatory.