A slippery slope

Some well-intentioned actions by the Fremont Town Board last week concern me.
Billy Harvey, a Fremont Town Alderman, protested the potential condemnation of a home he owned that did not meet minimum housing standards. He said he never intended for anyone to live in the house; he just wanted to use it for storage.
The town board unanimously approved, if he would take some steps to bring up the outward appearances of the house, to allow Billy to do that.
Billy is a nice man. Everyone likes Billy. I like Billy. From one perspective, it seems unreasonable to ask him to spend money fixing up the inside of a house just to bring it up to certain standards.
The problem, as some people including myself see it, is what about everyone else? We can do this for Billy, but what about the guy next door to him? If he asks for the same consideration, do we treat him the same way?
Does Fremont want to say that whatever condition anyone wants to leave a house in is all right with them? Clearly that isn’t working. Some people will allow houses to deteriorate, and if the town isn’t willing to take actions against them, soon no one will want to live in a town where so many houses are falling down.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but it is a reflection of what has happened in recent years. Some areas of downtown Goldsboro and downtown Wilson are proof. Some areas of Fremont are not too different. Unless the Town Board is willing to enforce standards, the town itself will fall apart.
Some people will say they can’t afford to do the work to bring homes up to standards. If they are forced to do the work, they say, they will have to sell their homes. That’s tough. So do you say, if someone can’t afford to maintain their homes to meet a bare minimum standard, we’ll let the town go down, or will we make the tough decision?
Some people will make threats to try to get town boards to make decisions that they want. Some people will try to make town boards feel like bad guys to get their way. When it comes down to it, some who will plead and moan can and will bring their homes up to standards if forced. Clearly some cannot.
Are the best interests of the town served by being compassionate towards some people, or are the best interests of the town served by being consistent in the standards you impose? Do we endorse people's living in homes they can’t afford to maintain?
If I buy an unfit-for-living house and say I don’t want to live there, just use it for storage, as long as I keep the outside looking decent, does that fit? Should I be expected and understand on the front end that owning a house in Fremont means I will maintain it to a decent level? I believe that reflects what Fremont expects and deserves.
Again, these are not bad people on the town board who made this decision last week. If I had been sitting in one of their chairs, I’m not saying for sure that I would have made another decision. But I think I would have, as they should have.
If they took Billy’s face and name off the request, and if they instead put someone who they didn’t particularly like in place of Billy, and could still say this is the right thing to do, then fine. I don’t think they can justify it as the right thing for Fremont.
That’s what sitting on the town board is about, and particularly what zoning and planning board issues are about: treating everyone the same, like them or not.