This is a little more complicated than the extensive 75 word article brought to you by Wimberly Patton at CDL Life.
Something tells me it has been illegal to park a large commercial vehicle in an R-1 zoned area for quite some time.
It just hasn’t been enforced until now.
If this is a new ordinance, you cannot just declare the change and make it retroactive forever.
Several of the individuals who are or have been parking on their property and have not been in violation need to get together and hire an attorney to investigate the grandfather clauses etc.
From this point on the question is: What is the “Macon-Bibb county area?”
Bibb county is 255 square miles with all sorts of zoning divisions, from agricultural to business to residentials to no zoning at all.
Are you going to stop a farmer from parking his truck next to his farm house? How is this ordinance written?
City of Macon is another municipal division within that county with all sorts of zoning designations.
And within those two are many “non-conforming” properties that were in use before current ordinances went into effect that would have made them illegal.
They didn’t suddenly just shut down a feed store that happened to be located in a newly created R-1 (residential) zone. They had to let it be used.
Anyone who intends to park his truck, either company or owner operator has the obligation to investigate the legality of that action before he buys or rents the property. If he doesn’t, he does so at his peril. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
