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It must really suck for the developer who is trying to build something there. Oops, we need to stop construction for some indefinite amount of find while arche

It must really suck for the developer who is trying to build something there. Oops, we need to stop construction for some indefinite amount of find while archeologists clean and move a giant section of the ground.

rvense 5y ago
The inconveniencing of a property developer is fairly low priority compared to preserving our past, I'd say. You can't exactly make another one of these if it gets bulldozed.
- mhb 5y ago
  If preserving the past is so important, it shouldn't be hard to compensate the developer for the inconvenience of doing it.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    They make a absolute fortune from that real estate and as others have said, if you have a plot of land in that location big enough to build on that has only ever had relatively shallow construction on it, you should 1) expect to find evidence of Roman occupation or evidence of plague burials and 2) expect to pay for the inconvenience. I have absolutely no problem with them being required to cope with this themselves. There's a lot of history there and with the density of development in that area, there is really only one chance, each time, to do something about it. For most developers this is priced in -- including when it's a state-sponsored project. All around the UK there are plots of land that developers have acquired at an attractive price through sketchy regional development corporations, then gone bust (only to reemerge without debt) and the sites left as great big holes in the ground. In the town where I live there is a site that has been like this for two decades; it's gone through several developers, more than a couple of which had rather beneficial terms. Major developers do not care when they walk out on a site if it is mildly inconvenient or not quite profitable enough; the least standard they should be held to is to pay for the costs of preserving our past when the site they have secured will ultimately make them a fortune as they lease off square footage to shady foreign investors!
    - mhb 5y ago
      It's a business - you don't know what their profit margin is. Presumably there are many who will advocate burdening developers with the cost of their own preservation aspirations while, at the same time, lamenting the lack of affordable housing due to the high cost of development.
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        > It's a business - you don't know what their profit margin is. Except from their accounts, or their AGM, since many of them are PLCs. I'm struggling to think of a London-based property developer that has gone bust solely on the basis of their London portfolio. It would be quite unusual. The closest I can think of is Targetfollow, which went into (and emerged from) administration, but that happened because they were nationally overstretched; the impact was felt more the further you got from London. We might see this happen as a result of pandemic influences on property uses, but I doubt it. > Presumably there are many who will advocate burdening developers with the cost of their own preservation aspirations while, at the same time, lamenting the lack of affordable housing due to the high cost of development. You set this up like it's an either-or, but it's not. The high cost of development in London has basically nothing to do with the risk of finding a mosaic.
    - mhb 5y ago
      Major developers do not care when they walk out on a site if it is mildly inconvenient or not quite profitable enough Hmm. They make an absolute fortune but abandon sites that aren't profitable?
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        Yes, they actually do. Especially with regional development corporation projects, because those setups privatise the profit but nationalise the risk. This happens again and again and again.
    - abecedarius 5y ago
      Pragmatically, if you don't want finds to get "overlooked", you shouldn't make them potentially very expensive to the finder. (I don't know the specifics of UK antiquities, but a general argument of "they should just suck it up and do the right thing" has this general flaw.)
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    It's a building legislation like any other. We don't compensate developers for having to follow building codes. It's a cost of doing business.
    - djbebs 5y ago
      You mean it's theft. You're depriving people of use of their property without compensation.
      - josefx 5y ago
        This is just one of thousands of things a land "owner" has to deal with. If you expect to buy a piece of land and own it like some South African dictator then you only have yourself to blame. In some countries you get to deal with fun things like the town threatening to tear down your grandparents house because it was no longer attached to a farm, long after everything else around it was converted to a residential area. No need for researchers to fuck you over.
- cameronh90 5y ago
  It's definitely worth preserving it, no question. But I think you can still appreciate how annoying it would be for the developer...
tobylane 5y ago
The site is a few hundred metres away from a bridge built five times, first by the Romans. Those who want to avoid the risk of a minor national treasure on their plot should build further away from an area the Romans were clearly active in. I think it was known about before, buried under the previous building. It was always going to be looked at in redevelopment.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Okay, but aside from building bridges and annoying modern developers, what else have the Romans ever done for us?
  - KineticLensman 5y ago
    Scattering coins and other artefacts for detectorists to find?
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaO4ZmExLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaO4ZmExLA Julius Caesar came, saw, conquered, went away / 'Cause it rained here all the time / Too many sniffs and colds / Got up his Roman nose / So he left it all behind for Eric the gardener to find -- The Divine Comedy
rsynnott 5y ago
This is really common (and I assume to some extent costed in) when building in old cities. A building site beside my old office found a whole Viking village! (and they should definitely have known what they were getting into; there had been many other finds in the immediate area, and it was practically inevitable that there was _something_ there...)

rvense 5y ago

The inconveniencing of a property developer is fairly low priority compared to preserving our past, I'd say. You can't exactly make another one of these if it gets bulldozed.

mhb 5y ago
If preserving the past is so important, it shouldn't be hard to compensate the developer for the inconvenience of doing it.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  They make a absolute fortune from that real estate and as others have said, if you have a plot of land in that location big enough to build on that has only ever had relatively shallow construction on it, you should 1) expect to find evidence of Roman occupation or evidence of plague burials and 2) expect to pay for the inconvenience. I have absolutely no problem with them being required to cope with this themselves. There's a lot of history there and with the density of development in that area, there is really only one chance, each time, to do something about it. For most developers this is priced in -- including when it's a state-sponsored project. All around the UK there are plots of land that developers have acquired at an attractive price through sketchy regional development corporations, then gone bust (only to reemerge without debt) and the sites left as great big holes in the ground. In the town where I live there is a site that has been like this for two decades; it's gone through several developers, more than a couple of which had rather beneficial terms. Major developers do not care when they walk out on a site if it is mildly inconvenient or not quite profitable enough; the least standard they should be held to is to pay for the costs of preserving our past when the site they have secured will ultimately make them a fortune as they lease off square footage to shady foreign investors!
  - mhb 5y ago
    It's a business - you don't know what their profit margin is. Presumably there are many who will advocate burdening developers with the cost of their own preservation aspirations while, at the same time, lamenting the lack of affordable housing due to the high cost of development.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      > It's a business - you don't know what their profit margin is. Except from their accounts, or their AGM, since many of them are PLCs. I'm struggling to think of a London-based property developer that has gone bust solely on the basis of their London portfolio. It would be quite unusual. The closest I can think of is Targetfollow, which went into (and emerged from) administration, but that happened because they were nationally overstretched; the impact was felt more the further you got from London. We might see this happen as a result of pandemic influences on property uses, but I doubt it. > Presumably there are many who will advocate burdening developers with the cost of their own preservation aspirations while, at the same time, lamenting the lack of affordable housing due to the high cost of development. You set this up like it's an either-or, but it's not. The high cost of development in London has basically nothing to do with the risk of finding a mosaic.
  - mhb 5y ago
    Major developers do not care when they walk out on a site if it is mildly inconvenient or not quite profitable enough Hmm. They make an absolute fortune but abandon sites that aren't profitable?
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      Yes, they actually do. Especially with regional development corporation projects, because those setups privatise the profit but nationalise the risk. This happens again and again and again.
  - abecedarius 5y ago
    Pragmatically, if you don't want finds to get "overlooked", you shouldn't make them potentially very expensive to the finder. (I don't know the specifics of UK antiquities, but a general argument of "they should just suck it up and do the right thing" has this general flaw.)
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  It's a building legislation like any other. We don't compensate developers for having to follow building codes. It's a cost of doing business.
  - djbebs 5y ago
    You mean it's theft. You're depriving people of use of their property without compensation.
    - josefx 5y ago
      This is just one of thousands of things a land "owner" has to deal with. If you expect to buy a piece of land and own it like some South African dictator then you only have yourself to blame. In some countries you get to deal with fun things like the town threatening to tear down your grandparents house because it was no longer attached to a farm, long after everything else around it was converted to a residential area. No need for researchers to fuck you over.
cameronh90 5y ago
It's definitely worth preserving it, no question. But I think you can still appreciate how annoying it would be for the developer...

tobylane 5y ago

The site is a few hundred metres away from a bridge built five times, first by the Romans. Those who want to avoid the risk of a minor national treasure on their plot should build further away from an area the Romans were clearly active in. I think it was known about before, buried under the previous building. It was always going to be looked at in redevelopment.

zozbot234 5y ago
Okay, but aside from building bridges and annoying modern developers, what else have the Romans ever done for us?
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  Scattering coins and other artefacts for detectorists to find?
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaO4ZmExLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaO4ZmExLA Julius Caesar came, saw, conquered, went away / 'Cause it rained here all the time / Too many sniffs and colds / Got up his Roman nose / So he left it all behind for Eric the gardener to find -- The Divine Comedy

rsynnott 5y ago

This is really common (and I assume to some extent costed in) when building in old cities. A building site beside my old office found a whole Viking village! (and they should definitely have known what they were getting into; there had been many other finds in the immediate area, and it was practically inevitable that there was _something_ there...)