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Comment by doctorpangloss | Hacker News Reader

Ah, the “little people” of multi million dollar inherited homes and land really got some justice here. Real justice.

Actually, we did. I own a house and I have to go through the pain of jumping thorough all the hoops of applying for renovation permits. If you can just ignore the law, it's a slap to the face for all the people that follow it, irrespective of where they live and how wealthy they are.

Your sentiment has merit, but it reminds me of the bit in Huckleberry Finn (I think?) where a traveling scam show comes to town. Every night, a crowd arrives, pays entrance, and is treated only to the scammers persuading them to keep quiet about it, so that the next night's crowd gets taken for suckers too. And of course, misery loves company, so the people do just that.

I want to build an ADU on my Mountain View property but was denied because the permitting department in anti-ADU and will obstruct any way they can, despite the rule changes. Yet others have gone ahead and built an ADU on their property anyway, under similar circumstances, ignoring the permitting department.

Morally speaking, did these people injure me? Did they slap me in the face? Are they wrong? They increased the housing supply during a shortage, but at the cost of ignoring the law.

Oh, I don't know about morality, didn't realize we are discussing it here. All I know is that you have 2 options: either ignore the law but make sure you are ready to face the consequences, or don't ignore the law. I don't think there is a 3rd option where you knowingly ignore the law and then cry about being punished for doing it.

As a practical matter, how would the city know unless neighbors report the construction activity? The question then is, can the city be trusted to maintain the anonymity of the reporter.

Anyone have direct experience on this?

Yes, I do. I've built software to detect such changes as soon as possibly by analysing flyover data. In our case stereo imaging to also get height information. Only big cities do that. In small cities people talk and word gets out. The only problem is to detect moving parts (trucks), temp. parts (parked vehicles, containers) and seperate trees from buildings. Most of the flagging was done manually.

People just need to pain everything with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack

All features become invisible, black as could be.

Superblack spray paint is very expensive (eg on a roof of an illegal building) and the image would make it clear that something is hidden there and immediately flagged for manual inspection.

Clouds also don't help as the city only does flyovers on bright summerdays without any clouds. Google maps adds a lot of articial clouds, but that's probably from their gov. sources to hide something sensitive.

I hope this goes up through the court system. I hope the owner wins. There is often too much conservatism when it comes to preserving the old. Some really significant, old things, ok. But not at the pace of SF. I mean this does not happen in Japan, or Korea or China. People move on. Time goes on. People are buying the land and pay taxes. They should be able to do reasonable things with their property. I don't think Korea, Japan, etc., are unreasonable with regard to property development.

"this does not happen in Japan"

What do you mean by "this"? Japan has restrictions on what can be done to historic buildings. Eg, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/10/05/national/groups... has "Given its historic significance, however, the city refused to have the No. 1 Granary torn down, and in 2006 it was designated a historic structure, which protected it from developers who coveted the property, now a choice location in central Taipei" - for a building from 1944.

I’d say these are exceptions rather than a rule in Taiwan. They’ve saved a few Dutch colonial strctures too, but very few.

What do you mean by "this"? Because special restrictions on buildings with perceived historical significance seems to be something done in most countries.

> Ah, the “little people” of multi million dollar inherited homes and land really got some justice here.

The 'little people' referenced isn't the home owner. It's the community in San Francisco who lost a piece of notable architecture.

No one that lives anywhere near this community is a "little person". The woman that lodged the complaint is likely very, very wealthy as well. Hence the previous mocking (and accurate) comment about, "multi million dollar inherited homes and land..."

I live in San Francisco and I have never heard of this building. The threshold for what gets considered "historic" in this town is exteremely low. That, combined with the chronic housing shortage makes it difficult for me to feel contempt for the owner.

Historic doesn’t mean well known necessarily. Sometimes historians are the only ones who recognize the significance of a structure. It might still be valuable to preserve for the future.

Part of history and archeology is trying to understand the past better. But part of it is also realizing that future generations will have knowledge and tools that we don’t, and some level of preservation should be done as a matter of course, so that hidden knowledge isn’t erased before its salvage becomes feasible.

I can’t argue for this specific house, just that being famous isn’t the only reason to keep something.

Actually, in some ways it’s the famous locations that could be harmlessly torn down: the historic information has mostly been extracted, and many popular locations are merely a curiosity for tourists to stick in their cap.

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