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Michael Ballard, whose family owns Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards
in a town south of San Francisco, alleges he was fined a total
of more than $120,000 after the county said he violated local
zoning laws that ban anyone from living in an RV on public or
private property, according to the The Mercury News.
Marcelino Martinez, manager of the vineyard, which is around 2.6
million square feet (243,000 square meters), said his family
lost their lease on a trailer they were living in years ago and
had limited options for affordable housing in the area. The
Ballard family agreed to allow them to live in an RV at the
vineyards. Martinez, his wife and children have lived there for
free since, 2013, according to The Mercury News.
“I couldn’t make a family homeless for arbitrary reasons,”
Ballard told the newspaper. “The human impact exceeded any
damage or nuisance that their continued living in the trailer
was going to create.”
But in July 2019, the county began fining the Ballards $1,000
daily for the RV, then lowered the penalty to $250 a day, the
vineyard owner said.
The county disputed that it fined Ballard $120,000 and said he
refused to agree to deadlines to reduce the violations,
according to the newspaper. Officials have made multiple offers
to drastically cut fines if he removes the RV, they said.
The county was imposing “excessive fines” and violating the U.S.
Constitution with its actions against Ballard, his attorney Paul
Avelar told The Mercury News.
Ballard doesn't agree with the county spending so much time
penalizing him when it is facing greater issues.
“Just drive anywhere in the county, there are mobile homes
parked all over the place. There are encampments everywhere you
go,” he told the newspaper. “The problem is obvious and overt,
yet they’re choosing to prosecute us in probably the least
intrusive example of this, where we are letting someone live on
private property in a private location and we’re not bothering
anyone.”
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