So you like hanging out with friends in your garage? Not so fast....

[The Straight Story]

Dearborn — As early summer days on Orchard Street draw to a close, sliding doors open, inviting fresh air and neighbors into side-by-side garages.

More patio than parking place or storage for power tools, Mariam Khalaf said her garage is primarily for “chilling purposes” — including smoking, eating and watching TV with family and friends, including next-door neighbors, Muheeb Nabulsy and his wife, Fatima Mkkawi.

Khalaf and Nabulsy say gathering in their east-side garages never invited scrutiny until they installed the sliding doors last year in front of the more traditional electric ones. Now, city officials are looking at changing an ordinance on garage use, arguing that as people get a little too comfortable hanging out in the garage, more cars are clogging side streets.

Many who’ve made such potentially unsanctioned transitions are among Dearborn’s Arab-American residents, one of the largest such communities outside of the Middle East and a third of the city’s population of about 100,000. The garages are a continuation of marathon socializing sessions that started many years ago in their home countries under shady trees, often accompanied by coffee and a water pipe, known as a hookah or argileh.

“They migrated over time to the garage as an extension of the living place, and here comes the complaint from people who don’t have that as part of their tradition,” said Nabeel Abraham, a Dearborn resident and an instructor and administrator at a Dearborn community college. “I think it’s a class, ethnic reaction.”

...

What’s tricky is how to define “living space.”

“I think your home is your home,” said commission Chairman Gary Errigo. “There was someone who spoke who said they’re sitting in their garage in a lounge chair and a police car drives by and they pack up their chair and run inside. It shouldn’t be like that, and it’s not like that.”

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130630/METRO01/306300030#ixzz2XopAtAnC

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I'm originally

From the greater Rochester NY area - Garage living in the summer is standard operating procedure. My aunt and uncle had a house up in the city that was converted to a 'covered porch' basically during the summer -


Screen door in back of regular garage door.
Television
Stereo
Fridge
chi chi poo poo lawn furniture
carpeting

etc. etc.

I don't see what the big deal is - 'clogged' side streets or not. But again - I'm from a place that probably 80% of my parents neighbors did the same thing my aunt and uncle did - ONLY in the 'burbs.

[pnwmom]

2. Would it be unreasonable for the city to require 1 or 2 spots of off-street parking?

Or maybe they could build a carport, and socialize in that.

[The Straight Story]

3. Well if they would let people park on their lawn that might help

But many places don't allow that either.

[tech3149]

4. My townhouse in NJ I never had the car in the garage

That was my workshop. I'd do the same damned thing on summer evenings. A bottle of scotch and a few projects to work on but I'd keep the music at a reasonable level.
I don't think I would have taken too kindly to being hassled for it.

[Politicalboi]

5. I wonder how this would go if

Most of the families were white, and legal gun owners talking and sharing their guns. I bet no one would move their stuff when the police arrive, if the police would even dare to drive by.

[Lurker Deluxe]

6. Horseshit!

Who in the hell thinks they can say what kind of door I can have on my garage, or what I can or can not do in my garage. If I was attempting to install a fireplace or something they would have to make sure it was fluted right or whatever ...

Not so much in the summer, but damn sure come football season alot of drinking and eating is done in the garage. Depending on who's house it is there may or may not be a pool table in the garage, but there damn sure isn't a car in there.

Tired of the BS people attempt to push off on others, my lifestyle is different than yours ... so what, get a life and leave me alone.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

19. It's for your own good, citizen!

Obedience is freedom!

[JaneyVee]

7. These 5 NYC boroughs LOVE open garage socializing.

[MineralMan]

8. Wow. Here in the Twin Cities of MN,

garages are man-caves, and you can see little clusters of men hanging out in them throughout the Spring and Summer. There's a fridge for the beer, a heater for days when it's chilly, and comfy furniture for people to hang out on.

I wonder if this has something to do with race, religion or nationality there in Dearborn, eh?

[RockaFowler]

17. In Florida, too

Heck half of my city uses the garage as the "guy get-together" place. They have 50 inch TVs in there and kegs and mini-kitchens. Keeps the guys out of the house!!! I guess

[MineralMan]

18. Yup. They're out of the house and out of sight.

In the garage, they can fart and scratch and use bad words without offending anyone. There's a guy near me whose garage has yardlines painted on the floor and a home-made goalpost surrounding the big screen TV. There are recliners and sofas in the garage for guests, and a huge ceiling furnace for cold weather. Cars? What the heck...they're waterproof, aren't they?

[Liberal_in_LA]

21. bugs in garages. cant tolerate seeing them dart around

I will leave the garage for men folk

[MineralMan]

22. They might thank you for that.

I don't know. Depends on the guy.

My single car, detached garage is for my car, my junk, which is carefully arranged to leave room for my car, and my tools, which I'll use to fix the car if it breaks. I live in my house.

[ileus]

9. I've never understood why people don't place their vehicles in the garage.

The people I sold my old house to never have used the garage for parking their cars, just stuffed it full of junk, and park outside. The people I bought my current house off of never used the garage except for a ping pong table and weight room.

I have two freezers, two motorcycles, snowblower, generator, 4 bikes (another 4 outside) and every inch of wall floor space filled with tools and benches but there's plenty of room for our SUV and Car. Only my Jeep has to remain outside.

I do need a shelter for the jeep to live under, right now it's summer and the top is off, thus I have a cover on it all the time.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

14. When I moved into my house,

my Firebird wouldn't fit in the garage. Well, it would if I bumped the nose into the wall, but then you couldn't get to the washer and dryer. My fiance's car would fit, but she was too nervous to drive it in the garage (she's a terrible driver). I ended up turning mine into a recording studio/practice space for my band, with a little workshop space for projects and instrument repairs.

[ileus]

16. We bought a Nissan Xterra because it was short and would fit with the freezers in front

and still have clearance around the front and rear. LOL



Firebirds are long assed cars...

My wife backed into the garage door a few years back because she didn't give it time to raise, then hooked the bottom section on the rear wiper and pulled it out of it's track.

[Atman]

10. This had to be made out to be a Middle Eastern thing...

I have a friend who lives in a perfectly nice middle-class neighborhood on the water in Cocoa Beach, FL. He's converted his garage to a "man cave," complete with big-screen tv, sports memorabilia, beer fridge, a microwave and a few big comfy chairs. It's his damned house...whatever ever happened to one's home being one's castle?

[rufus dog]

11. I somewhat started a trend in my "hood."

Garage tiles in two thirds of the garage, carpet and tv in the other third. This is in the OC 'burbs. Now there are about a dozen more. The HOA did send out parking enforcement letters with only one car allowed in the driveway, (which I meet). Some others went batshit crazy on the enforcement and I believe knocked it down. Funny part was google street view. The kids two houses down were loaded up on a couch playing x box, which is a normal day in the neighborhood. Anything that helps with sanity. Tow doors down the mother and father can be inside while the boys play video games or shoot hoops, and I can be outside while my kids are watching some reality show inside. A everyone is happy.

[1-Old-Man]

12. Hmmm, so the community is better off with parking than with socialization?

[petronius]

13. I pretty much grew up in garages - often with a semi-disassembled car as the focus

of the activity, but not always. I think it's reasonable for the city to enforce regulations on actual safety issues - wiring, gas lines, ventilation - but leave the spare couch and the sliding doors alone...

[MadrasT]

15. That's just silly.

Garages have been used for "chilling purposes" since they were invented.

[Honeycombe8]

20. I agree that a zoning/ordinance change would need to be done.

Garages are not living spaces, and are not taxed as such. If a person starts using it as a living space, on a permanent basis, then it has become a living space, and the square footage of living space of the home has increased, and the taxes should increase, and the home be marked as one without a garage.

[Jamastiene]

23. The only times I have ever seen a car actually in a garage

were in video games and on TV. In real life, garages are places to have fun, work on projects, have band practice, and store the crap that is cluttering up the house. They are like the grownups' club house. I don't get why those city officials are making a fuss about something that is so usual/normal.