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Comment by knolan | Hacker News Reader

It’s easy to laugh at the silly US HOA stories but here in Ireland (and the UK) people have had similar issues with building bike storage units in front of their homes.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2023/06/...

https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-threatened-ps11-million...

https://dublininquirer.com/2023/05/24/while-cracking-down-on...

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I think people laugh at US stories more because they are the ones harping on about Freedom all the time. There might be 150+ free countries in the world but nobody talks about it more than USA.

America runs on the principle of localism, which basically means that laws should be passed at a local level to deal with their own specific issues. Hence the United "States". This is compatible with some areas having stricter HOAs or laws.

I think both of us know that is not how capital F Freedom is used in any public discourse by Americans or otherwise. That is what makes this funnier. The contrast in how freedom is talked about and how it's implemented.

Do you know many Americans who think "capital F Freedom" means laws don't exist? I've lived here a while and never met anyone who think that way. Most of the time when Americans I know talk about their freedom, they're referring to the 1st and 2nd amendments. I've never really understand freedom to mean "freedom to do whatever you want without impunity."

Is that how other countries perceive American's idea of freedom?

You are missing the point. Nobody thinks Americans mean laws don't exist. But they do mean they are free to do mostly whatever they want. And when reports come out that they aren't even allowed to have grass the size they want in their own front yard the irony of that is super funny. There, now I've dissected the frog for you and ruined the joke for myself.

The real constant is that people get very possessive about their neighbourhood and are keen to defend it from any change or deviation from the perfect image. To the detriment of everyone else's property rights. I do wonder whether this is mostly an Anglosphere thing, though. Edit: oh and Germany, see rest of thread.

I think it's the opposite. They buy a house in a certain environment, and they'd like the house and environment to remain the same (and not be devalued). It's not exactly a hard to understand perspective, even if you disagree with the level of enforcement.

And as a result you get painfully boring neighbourhoods.

That's one big factor why I don't have an e-cargo bike. Live in town, in a detached, Shops are <1km away. I want an bakfiet style e-cargo, but I've got no place to store one.

Can't get a decent sized bike down the alley, it's difficult to pull one through the house to the shed, and the entry hall already has a tandem in it, which is wide enough to step around.

OTOH, I could get a trailer and park it in the front, and that would be totally legal.

Solution: buy an old, rusty, barely functionnal van, paint it the most provocative way for the conservative people while still abiding to the law. Boobs, penises, vulvas, LGBTQ+ slogans, drawings of Bin Laden with huge neon colors, whatever. Park it in your driveway if you have one, or on the street in front of your house if you can. With an amovible ramp, here is your bike shed.

Now after a few months you can apply for a permit to have a bike shed, maybe the concil will be more tolerant.

People have been tolerating thousands of ugly eyesore vehicles that do not match at all with the architecture but crack down on small, well integrated bike shed. This is just hypocrisy and jealousy by people who refuse to evolve to a new, better world.

I like the way you think.

A few years ago, a local residents association protested and actually got blocked the opening of a daycare in an actual commercial space due to "traffic" concerns and, I literally quote "The heritage status of area properties would be “eroded” by the daycare use, he said, and the idea of plastic toys, jungle gyms and signage in pastel colours “truly distressing.”.

I fantasized about being a billionaire, paying whatever it would have cost to purchase the property, then opening a private "biker bar club" that would operate at insanely late hours and just paying any noise bylaw fines that came our way. I would have sponsored harley noise competitions at 3am and would have said that it's a pop up club that would end when the application for it to become daycare was granted. I'd have named the daycare "little trikes daycare" as a constant reminder.

But the HoA/council/government can often make your life hell by selectively over-enforcing other laws and taking up a lot of your time and/or money. If I were rich and retired, it'd be "fun" to pass the time (though I wouldn't want to live in such a community anyways).

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/cabbagetown-daycare-proposa...

Get a trailer and park the bike in the trailer.

I _have_ a trailer, but it's got too much bike holding stuff inside to hold a large bike.

(It's a tall box, sorta horse trailer shaped, with benches on each side. Luggage goes underneath, 4 bikes go on the left on the bench, 2 on the right (including the tandem), with front wheels in the nose. We travelled around Europe with all our stuff in it.)

Why? Their goal is not to somehow get away with making the envirinment more ugly and consume a part of the street or driveway permanently.

They don't want that trailer any more than anyone else does.

We've had similar struggles and something like a babboe or urban arrow won't fit. I was 95% close to ordering a Libelle https://leichtlast.de/ The non-motorized unsplittable version weighs around 20kg, the splittable slightly more, but it is splittable.

We then settled for a Muli https://muli-cycles.de/en/

I still sometimes think the Libelle would have been cooler but the motor is stronger on the muli and I'm very happy with it too.

I really like the cargo basket on the Muli. I've kind of had my eye on the Omnium (https://omniumcargo.com/de/shop/produkt/cargo-v3-wifi/#frame...), there's a hinge attachment for the rack which can make it a lot narrower. (https://damgood.bike/products/ouch-1-omnium-utter-cargo-hing...)

You might see improvement here - https://irishcycle.com/2023/07/28/department-exploring-plann... but honestly Ireland is so carbrained I wouldn't hope for much.

Ireland being carbrained is an understatement. I have neighbours who will drive to the local Lidl which is _in_ the housing estate. I cycle or bus to work and you see so many motorists glued to their phones. Just awful attitudes because of their addiction to their cars and their phones.

We moved to the Netherlands for our kids. People were apoplectic when I said that rural Ireland is actually a terrible place to raise a family.

I grew up in rural Ireland, you’re not wrong.

Fortunately our Urban Arrow fits down the side of my house.

Ireland has appallingly draconian rules, which the councils enforce extremely unevenly.

I did a self build there and it was like every meddling old church biddy in the county got to have a say on what kind of siding I could have, which kind of trees I could have, and whether my fenestrations were appropriate. I'm still annoyed they couldn't comprehend the value of eaves.

Although, you also learn that some rules are OK to break. You can park your car on any pavement in the country without fear of a fine.

You can straight up murder someone with a car in Ireland and get away with it.

Footpath parking makes me unreasonably angry.

This is the government, not an HOA, though in many places those things are difficult to distinguish.

To be honest these bike storage (at least those in the three links you gave) are fuglier than fugly. It's kinda a disgrace to the human race that such monstrosities are even conceived and built...

But then people do wear Crocs, so what do I know about taste.

I really don't mind the green ones, in particular when the bikes are used as an alternative to a second car, which to my is significantly more "fugly".

That is because HAOs are far more pernickety.

The government in the UK (I know less about Ireland, but I think it is similar) might stop you building something but they do not do things like tell you what to grow in your garden and to what height the lawn should be mown, how you park etc.

Ireland will absolutely specify what species trees you are allowed to plant (sometimes forcing you to use non-native ones, even).

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