What Happened When Mark Zuckerberg Moved in Next Door

>But they are also angry with the city of Palo Alto. In 2016, a key city board rejected Mr. Zuckerberg’s application to build a compound, and he withdrew it. But the city then allowed him to create it anyway, just more slowly and piecemeal. The city has been told by neighbors for years that Mr. Zuckerberg is operating a private school in a house, but has done little to address it.

>Just the other day, the Police Department provided signs to affix to trees, creating a long tow-away zone on the public road, blocking neighbors from parking their own cars there for five hours on a Wednesday evening. The reason, Mr. Kieschnick said he learned, was that Mr. Zuckerberg was hosting a backyard barbecue and the police had assigned its officer in charge of dignitaries to assist him.

>To the neighbors, it feels as if city officials and police officers give extreme deference to Mr. Zuckerberg at the expense of everybody else.

Why not just buy a place with lots of land?

>And his staff has sent gifts to neighbors when the racket has gotten particularly loud, including bottles of sparkling wine, chocolates and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. >One memorable gift delivery? Noise-canceling headphones.

Ouch...

The funniest thing about the reaction from all of his neighbors is that none of them are willing to do the one thing that really would annoy Zuckerberg and probably make him move: build multi story, multi tenant housing (i.e., small apartment buildings!) on plots he doesn’t already own.

Go to the city and ask for permission to replace two lots with five story apartment buildings with a view into his backyard. He’ll sue immediately and if he can’t stop it he’ll move.

No doubt it’s impossible to even get permission to do so (which is a separate problem!), but if those whiners really want revenge on the guy who they think “ruined their neighborhood” there’s one option they aren’t pursuing.

Discussed four days ago (32 points, 15 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44864008