I lived right behind an elementary school (playgound was kitty-corner to my fence) two houses ago. During recess and lunch time, the kids were so loud I had to shout to hear people next to me inside my house.
...but forget all that: What you're advocating for is lawlessness. If you don't like the law, lobby to change it! Don't just violate it and screw over your neighbors in the mean time.
If your next door neighbor opened a 30+ person school or other large business next to your property without any permits and against what your neighborhood was zoned for you might not be happy.
Industrial / High Rise is the only thing that should need permitting.
Fourplex / Duplex / Single Family / Small Offices / Schools should not.
You do not want to have that outside of zoning control because that is how you end up with a road designed to handle the need of a dozen homes (i.e. 24-30 cars a day) suddenly dealing with ten times that load - not just because of noise, smell and traffic jams but especially because road surfacing quality is usually "the cheapest you can get away with for the expected load", the road will go bad way faster than expected.
Zoning is not your enemy, zoning is your friend. Particularly if you value peace and roads you can drive on.
Sounds like a normal day in the city
But it does illustrate a point: most people are enthusiastic supporters of rich NIMBYs. They'll complain about this and that but in the end they're enthusiastic supporters of rich NIMBYs.
[1]https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0807850-boulder-c...
Like, a lot of the town is just kids at CU. Also, a lot of the younger families are in what little apartments or condos there are in the city and aren't homeowners. Also, like, you probably should only look at adults anyways as under 18s are very unlikely to have their own houses.
Granted a lot of 80+ year olds are in care facilities.
And like, maybe we can relax this to 60+ years olds, in which case based on the raw data there, that's about 18% of the population.
I mean, just looking around Boulder, the homeowners are old people, that's pretty clear.
At the individual level, I agree. Generally unfair to have some unzoned private school next to your house shuffling in people constantly. Though I doubt this would get much press if it weren't Zuck or the NIMBYs who can probably pull strings to get a story in the press about their harrowing plight and tormented lives (not saying that's what happened of course, and perhaps the neighbors aren't NIMBYs--who knows)
As a group though, I think Zuck and any NIMBYs deserve each other
Can someone explain why is it such a crime to run a school? (illegal maybe, but I guess the purpose is still to teach to young people). Shouldn't we promote the creation of schools?
> Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic
> For almost a decade, the Zuckerbergs’ neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security, and the hordes of staffers and business associates causing traffic and taking up street parking
randycupertino•2h ago
pinewurst•2h ago
lateforwork•2h ago
He said a security guard approached him and asked what he was doing.
“I said, ‘I’m standing on the sidewalk looking at this project for review.’ He said, ‘Well, we’d appreciate it if you could move on,’” Mr. Baltay recalled. “I was pretty shocked by that. It’s a public sidewalk!”
Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Instead he bought property in the middle of regular people and disrupted their lives.
burnt-resistor•2h ago
goatlover•1h ago
trhway•2h ago
it is easier and safer to have illegal school and other unpermitted things and all the noise and street blocking and all the other disruptions where regular people live than to piss off a billionaire neighbor.
akd•1h ago
andsoitis•1h ago
why do you say that?
zachthewf•1h ago
varenc•44m ago
tomwheeler•32m ago
insane_dreamer•6m ago
bonestamp2•1h ago
Reminds me of a guy near me who bought three already massive adjacent properties. Tore down two of them. One become a pond. The other one was rebuilt into a massive $30M mansion. The third was already a $15M mansion so he kept that as his guest house. The funny thing is that his guest house... has a guest house.
kcplate•1h ago
DANmode•1h ago
kcplate•1h ago
jb1991•1h ago
googlryas•1h ago
I would not call these "regular people"
afavour•1h ago
16bytes•1h ago
googlryas•1h ago
xmprt•1h ago
foxyv•1h ago
UltraSane•1h ago
benzible•1h ago
As far as whether they're "regular people", depends on perspective. Relative to the US / world, a net worth that includes equity in a $3M+ house is an outlier but most of these people live what would have been considered a typical "upper middle class" lifestyle a couple of decades ago [source: me, ex Palo Alto resident, still have friends there]. Putting a couple of kids through college has become insanely expensive. They don't have compounds in Hawaii or fly around on private jets.
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou...
takinola•7m ago
renewiltord•1h ago
avidiax•1h ago
There's an assumption that these homeowners are getting bought out above market, but what's the market rate for a multi-million dollar home next to the perpetual construction and noise of a billionaire's fife, on a street where an increasing number of homes are being bought out and lay vacant? And why would the property team not negotiate any sale somewhat aggressively?
renewiltord•1h ago
Today, we all live under the watchful Eye of Mark as He targets ads to us from His compound in the Bay Area. Some say they feel a light itching at the nape of their neck even thousands of miles away as Mark turns His gaze to them, but it’s an illusion: He uses software so His gaze is everywhere.
lukan•25m ago
I assume still pretty good, as the expectation is the billionair will rather pay a bit more, than be annoyed by the delay of his plans of grandeur.