I noticed that the other day as well... I figured they were adding on or building a pool or something.

Quote from BluffParkwriter on 06/17/08 at 10:44pm:

 
You're thinking of Rockview, not Rockland.  Rockland is directly across the street from the church, about 1/2 mile from Rockview.  We have too many streets that have similar sounding names.
 
The dump trucks are coming from the house near Rushmore.  The house is on a HUGE lot and they have lots of room to build, which is probably what they're doing.

Permit says - Bring in fill dirt for back yard.   Building Inspector is to go and see if anything looks fishy.

Quote from Forolemiss on 06/20/08 at 12:39pm:

 
The Alford home is college students.  The Rockland home is a $650K house (1 family, children attends local schools) that lives within code (no parked construction vehicles in the open) and I don't know about the Park Ave. house.
 
As an immigrant myself, I question the post (been here 30+ years, learned to speak English, blended into the community).  Clarify a couple of things.  Are you upset that that someone is running a company out of their home?  That they are running a construction company out of their home?  That they are immigrants?  That they have more than one family living in the home?  
 
Hoover's residency law of 2 adults per bedroom was shot down either last year or this year, if I'm not mistaken, due to some civil rights violation, so it can't be enforced anymore.  
 
I'm with you on a lot of the points that you are making, but we need to make sure that we treat everyone equally in order to have a shot at changing anything.  
 
When the governor sent his commission around the state earlier this year to study the (illegal) immigration issue, one of the stops was in Hoover at the library.  I was there, along with 250+ other people.  Many spoke for and against the immigration issue.  I learned a lot of things that evening,  things that were very surprising to me.
 
As someone who came from another country to this one (legally) one of the first things I wanted to do was to blend in, assimilate, become part of my adopted country.  Before we moved to the US, we lived for five years in Mexico, two years in Spain and before that in Germany.  My brother and I only spoke German (our native tongue) and Spanish.  I was fluent in English in 6 months.  My brother, five years younger, took only 1 month.  It wasn't easy, but it was either sink or swim.  We chose swim.
 
Today's immigrant (from a Latin American country) doesn't face the challenge we faced.  If he/she doesn't learn English, so what?  All they have to do is press 2 when calling somewhere and they get a Spanish speaking person.  Instructions too complicated in English?  Flip the box around and there it is in Spanish.  Can't read the menu at McDonald' in English?  Look to the right, there it is in Spanish.  Can't understand the lady at the driver's license office?  Wait a minute, we'll get someone to translate for you.  
 
The point is simple.  American businesses have made it so that the immigrants DON'T HAVE TO LEARN THE LANGUAGE.  Don't blame the immigrants.  If you were in their shoes, you might take the path of least resistance also.  After all, why bother learning English when you don't have to?  You're not going to be here that long anyway.
 
The problem we face is that we have become too reliant on the immigrant workers.  There were some farmers at the governor's conference who complained that they couldn't get any Americans to apply for the farming jobs, only immigrants.  And they stated that they didn't hire any that didn't have the proper paperwork.
 
Who do I blame for all this?  Number 1:  Businesses.  Businesses have taken the approach that they want to make a buck over the approach that we should all speak a common language.  If I can avoid it, I will not patronize a business that offers their services in two languages (which is ironic because I can speak both fluently).  Number 2:  American workers who don't want to take the non-skilled jobs that the immigrants will take gladly.  Some would rather draw unemployment than go work in the fields.  Number 3:  Government.  Take a stand and make English the official language of the country.  It was for over 200 years and now it is becoming a bi-lingual country.  That's just very wrong.
 
I'm willing to bet that we wouldn't have half the problems on a personal basis with some of the immigrants if they blended in with society.  Your post regarding the construction companies pointed out that they were of an immigrant nature.  I bet there's more American construction companies here than immigrant ones.  
 
Finally, I'm not attacking your post, I'm just pointing out that we need to accept some of the blame ourselves since we've allowed it to get this way and until we change it, we will have to accept it.  How do we change it?  Perhaps elect some leaders who are willing to change it.  But as long as there are strong lobbies that support those that won't, this will not happen.
 
Maybe the next council will vote to make English the official language of Hoover?

Quote from Forolemiss on 06/24/08 at 11:20am:

 
if you think the house on Rockland is in violation of the code than you need to go down the Valleydale and file a written complaint. Unfortunately that is how you have to do it under the law right now. Make sure you have the house number.
 
Yes I think it does hurt property values a little when there are a lot of people living in one house, but if they are not breaking the law, there is nothing the law can do about it. The housing code would have to be changed to effect it that way... now the fire code... they may be breaking that.

Bluffparkwriter,
 
Actually the house went on the market about a year ago for $425K and it didn’t sell because the interior was pretty ragged and the back yard looked like an industrial wasteland complete with the Schneider trailer.  Ask anybody on Rockland.  
 
Let me ask the Forum if they have ever heard of a thing called the Broken Window Theory, which basically states that a community's problems often start out singular in nature but left unchecked will multiple and cause the neighborhood to slowly spiral downward.  Just because it is not on your street doesn't mean it is not your problem.
 
The over crowded houses really don’t seem like a problem now but they are slowly multiplying around BP.  First you have some on Alford, then on Rockland, then on Park Ave and the next thing you know people won’t want to live in Bluff Park.  Then it basically it becomes Lorna Road.  Sound s a little Dooms Dayish but there is a reason that people moved out of Bessemer and Huffman.  
 
The Broken Window Theory is much like an old country saying that my Uncle used to use about apathy, The Frog in a Boiling Pot Theory.  If you throw a frog in a boiling pot of water he will jump out, but if you put him in a pot of luke warm water and turn up the heat he will stay in the pot and die.  
 
I know I may sound like a squeaky wheel and an angry guy, but what you see as not so bad and “not a problem”, I see as a trend.  
 
Something off the Internet on the Broken Window Theory.
 
Little Things Lead to Big Things
 
The germ of the idea is simple and compelling. A broken window--or a littered sidewalk, graffiti,--does not do great harm to a neighborhood if promptly addressed. But left untended, it sends a signal: that no one cares about this neighborhood, that it is a safe place to break things, to litter, to vandalize. Those who engage in such behaviors will feel safe here. And once they have become well established, perhaps it will seem a safe enough neighborhood in which to be openly drunk, in which to beg for money, and possibly extort it. In short the smallest symptoms of antisocial behavior will, left to fester, breed greater and greater crimes.  
 
This is the theory famously expounded by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in an article entitled Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety, which appeared in Atlantic Monthly in March 1982. They make the consequences of small-scale neglect very clear and very direct:  
A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates. People start drinking in front of the grocery; in time, an inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers. The broken window sends a signal to certain elements that crime is safe because nobody cares, and soon it builds up to all sorts of crime.  

I would like to add that as long as Bluff Park Elementary is in business we will be all right.  This is a wonderful school with great teachers that has a great pull to bring people in.  I think most people in Bluff Park are good people.  Everyone has a bad apple here and there.