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Mitt Romney Gets His Car Elevator

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney cleared a final hurdle Friday in building a new house in California, a house that will include a four-car garage with an elevator for the vehicles.

Romney had already gotten zoning permission from the city of San Diego to demolish the 3,100 square foot home he owns in the La Jolla neighborhood and erect an 11,000 square foot mansion in its place. Plans for the home were put on hold until after the 2012 election.

A neighbor had appealed the city’s decision to the California Coastal Commission. He argued in commission filings that the new home would have exceeded zoning limits that say square footage cannot exceed a certain calculation based on acreage of the plot of land the house sits on.

The Coastal Commission rejected that appeal Friday. Barring a lawsuit, construction can now move forward, according to commission spokesperson Sarah Christie.

By now, you’ve all heard the news of Mitt Romney and the car elevators he had installed in his home. Car elevators – you know, that machine that brings his cars from their storage in his home to the street level. The price tag for such a luxury item is about $55,000, but apparently car elevators are a must have for the Republican presidential candidate.

But did you know that when Romney was governor in Massachusetts he vetoed multiple bills that would provide elevators to the disabled? The report;

On June 26, 2006 Romney vetoed an improvement project with the price tag of $40,000 with his line item veto. The project would have allocated the money to Woburn Development Authority for improvements to an elevator to meet the standards set in the ADA.

Also on that day Romney vetoed an additional $25,000 to the Braintree, Massachusetts Council on Aging. The money was again proposed to meet improvements with the ADA.

Romney justified the cuts saying the programs along with others he vetoed “would be nice to have, but which we cannot justify paying for out of rainy day funds. A smaller number of these projects are just pure pork.”