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Building codes have made it extremely expensive and time consuming to build anything other than cookie cutter boxes. Of course the code also reduces fire danger

Building codes have made it extremely expensive and time consuming to build anything other than cookie cutter boxes. Of course the code also reduces fire danger and roof collapses are extremely rare now. The cost is uniqueness. Yet another case where you can't get something for nothing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Building_Code

doorstar 6y ago
ADA rules also add a lot of expense that is important, I believe, but certainly limits the amount of 'uniqueness' that is possible when building new structures.
samatman 6y ago
And yet another case, I suspect, of the Pareto principle: 20% of regulations are load-bearing. They keep lead out of our pipes, asbestos out of our ceilings, and make electrical fires thankfully rare. The remaining 80% all look good on paper (or they wouldn't be there) but do things like require bathrooms to be wheelchair accessible, even if there's an accessible bathroom two doors down, at a business which would be happy to extend its use to any wheelchair-using customers. Or dictate ceiling heights so that the occasional 2 meter tall customer won't hit his head on exposed pipe. But these regulations aren't optional "best practices", they have the same weight as ones which prevent building collapse, fire, and cancer. And the sum total is a landscape which is prohibitively hostile, in many cases, to starting a small business.
- secabeen 6y ago
  > do things like require bathrooms to be wheelchair accessible, even if there's an accessible bathroom two doors down, at a business which would be happy to extend its use to any wheelchair-using customers This is not a scalable solution. Now does the business have to have the same hours as your business? If not, what does the handicapped person do when they have to use the restroom and it's not available? If we want disabled people to be full members of our society, we just need to pay the costs of reasonable accommodations to their needs.
  - samatman 6y ago
    1) the insistence that every regulation scale perfectly and apply in all cases is the root of the problem 2) I did point out that each regulation, taken in isolation, looks like a good idea: you're illustrating that with your objection 3) There will always be a gap between reasonable accommodation and perfect accommodation, and what's reasonable is always subject to some debate: the effect of this is to push the reasonable further out into the realm of the unreasonable, in pursuit of the perfect After all, no one wants to strand a wheelchair user with nowhere to pee. Certainly I don't. But no one, wheelchair or no, can enjoy a coffeeshop which never existed because the starting costs were too high.

doorstar 6y ago

ADA rules also add a lot of expense that is important, I believe, but certainly limits the amount of 'uniqueness' that is possible when building new structures.

samatman 6y ago

And yet another case, I suspect, of the Pareto principle: 20% of regulations are load-bearing. They keep lead out of our pipes, asbestos out of our ceilings, and make electrical fires thankfully rare. The remaining 80% all look good on paper (or they wouldn't be there) but do things like require bathrooms to be wheelchair accessible, even if there's an accessible bathroom two doors down, at a business which would be happy to extend its use to any wheelchair-using customers. Or dictate ceiling heights so that the occasional 2 meter tall customer won't hit his head on exposed pipe. But these regulations aren't optional "best practices", they have the same weight as ones which prevent building collapse, fire, and cancer. And the sum total is a landscape which is prohibitively hostile, in many cases, to starting a small business.

secabeen 6y ago
> do things like require bathrooms to be wheelchair accessible, even if there's an accessible bathroom two doors down, at a business which would be happy to extend its use to any wheelchair-using customers This is not a scalable solution. Now does the business have to have the same hours as your business? If not, what does the handicapped person do when they have to use the restroom and it's not available? If we want disabled people to be full members of our society, we just need to pay the costs of reasonable accommodations to their needs.
- samatman 6y ago
  1) the insistence that every regulation scale perfectly and apply in all cases is the root of the problem 2) I did point out that each regulation, taken in isolation, looks like a good idea: you're illustrating that with your objection 3) There will always be a gap between reasonable accommodation and perfect accommodation, and what's reasonable is always subject to some debate: the effect of this is to push the reasonable further out into the realm of the unreasonable, in pursuit of the perfect After all, no one wants to strand a wheelchair user with nowhere to pee. Certainly I don't. But no one, wheelchair or no, can enjoy a coffeeshop which never existed because the starting costs were too high.