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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/384590180/an-events-space-and-a-design-studio-for-hacker-doj?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/384590180/an-event

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/384590180/an-events-space-and-a-design-studio-for-hacker-doj?ref=live http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/384590180/an-events-spac... ^ Chip in here if you are inclined to support fellow hackers. They need to raise $250,000: “If they can’t comply, they can’t use the building as they want to,” said Anthony Ghiossi, the chief building official for the city. Hacker Dojo opened without a permit, Mr. Ghiossi pointed out. It is currently prohibited from hosting events that draw more than 49 people in any one room, he said. That means no large classes or overly enthusiastic happy hours, which are a regular feature on Friday nights. Ellis Berns, the city’s assistant community development director, was eager to point out that Mountain View, which is home to tech giants like Google, did not wish to evict Hacker Dojo. “We try to be as supportive as we can,” he said. “Businesses spin out of there. We are not at all interested in them closing down.” But retrofitting the space will cost upward of $250,000, according to the Dojo’s estimate. It has so far raised $173,000, including donations from its neighbor, Google. This is as clean an example as you can get of regulations blocking innovation; a $250k fee just to get started, from the building that gave rise to Pinterest and Pebble. Compare and contrast to pg on "The Power of the Marginal": That's one of California's hidden advantages: the mild climate means there's lots of marginal space. In cold places that margin gets trimmed off. There's a sharper line between outside and inside, and only projects that are officially sanctioned—by organizations, or parents, or wives, or at least by oneself—get proper indoor space. That raises the activation energy for new ideas. You can't just tinker. You have to justify. In my opinion, in addition to donating, you should exercise your rights as a citizen and give these officials a piece of the public's mind. Their emails are below. It is very unusual for local officials like Ellis Berns and Anthony Ghiossi to actually have their bad decisions checked by bad publicity, but it's absolutely necessary in this case. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/marginal.html [2] anthony.ghiossi@mountainview.gov [3] ellis.berns@mountainview.gov

varelse 14y ago
What I'm not seeing in these articles about this place is any sense of responsibility by Hacker Dojo's owners for not doing the due diligence to know what they were getting into in the first place. I don't consider well-intentioned cluelessness a barrier to innovation but your mileage may vary. Ellis Berns doesn't sound like a villain to me but rather just a guy in a tough situation. If the town of Mountain View doesn't enforce their codes here, and if something like the fire in the video posted here were to occur, they'd get their keesters sued out of their pants and rightly so. That said, it's not even a drop in the bucket of Silicon Valley's vast wealth to fix this so if it's worth saving, I suspect it will be saved.
- ramanujan 14y ago
  All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing? 3. As for "building permits", they are just a tax by the local government[2], like red light cameras: In his opposition, Inks said the permit would "incentivize" code enforcement officers to go out and find major violations to bring in revenue. He added that city officials already get paid a salary. "To be clear ... this is about raising money," he said, adding that similar permits and fees in other cities have led to "further noncompliance" and the "collapse" of code enforcement efforts, which led to the necessity of giving property owners an "amnesty" period. Inks pointed out that small businesses were already being hit with fines for "petty" violations, such as a $500 fine on the Milk Pail Market for selling pumpkins in the parking lot. In other words: give these guys an inch and they'll take a mile, asserting their author-it-ay the whole way. It always starts with something reasonable sounding (fire codes) and then moves to incentivizing the government for uncovering more violations and more fines. And it's very hard to figure out all the violations ahead of time [3]: As we wrote earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its program of in-depth investigations of hotels to determine whether they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The investigations are called "sweeps" because they target all hotels in a given geographic area. There is also some basis to believe that the sweeps may now also focus on certain industries such as hotels, restaurants and other places of public accommodation. ... In my experience, even the best design professionals typically have an inadequate knowledge of all of the accessibility standards. And local building official approvals provide no protection against accessibility violations. Like all regulation, the ADA stuff is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against providing access for the disabled? Then you realize the Department of Justice is spending scarce resources conducting sweeps on business owners, and that the total cost for a large ADA upgrade can easily be millions of dollars per facility. Just one example [4]: Owners and managers of swimming pools at hotels, city recreation centers and public parks are scrambling to install mechanical chair lifts to comply with new federal requirements that all public pools be accessible to disabled swimmers. Some hotels fear the cost of the equipment or fines for noncompliance could put them out of busines The law doesn’t affect private clubs or pools owned by neighborhood associations that aren’t open to the public. It’s a massive and expensive undertaking. The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals says its research shows that between 235,000 and 310,000 pools require the upgrade. Manufacturers estimate the lifts run $3,500 to $6,500, and installation can double those costs. Altogether, owners could face combined costs exceeding $1 billion. A billion here, a billion there...soon you're talking real money. Anyway, this sort of thing is a big part of the reason that Bay Area housing prices are so high. And it all starts with taking regulators at their word that they are out to protect your health and safety. POSTSCRIPT: There's at least one obvious alternative to rule by unelected regulators. We already have reviews of everything else under the sun on Google, Amazon, Yelp, Zagat, Consumer Reports, and the like. Some of these reviewers we trust with life and death decisions, like Consumer Reports' car safety ratings. So just do the same for those codes that are truly crucial (e.g. fire codes), by allowing different certification authorities to compete. Maybe you start by expanding the domain of the Palo Alto and Mountain View fire departments such that they overlap, and a certification from either is sufficient to do business such that you get some competition into the mix. With just a little bit of choice, you'll suddenly see much more reasonable and cost-conscious behavior from regulators. [1] I know it's "the law". But there are unjust laws. [2] http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=2260 [3] http://hotellaw.jmbm.com/2010/06/ada_defense_lawyer_implications.html [4] http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x596769962/New-ADA-access-rules-may-scuttle-swimming-at-some-hotels
tzs 14y ago
Can you actually make a case for your claim that the officials made bad decisions? Nothing in what you wrote explains why Hacker Dojo should be able to operate in violation of fire and safety codes that others are subject to.
sabat 14y ago
It is indeed bullshit, particularly because there is no defensible, practical reason for that kind of regulation. This is little more than "you wanna do business? grease my fuckin' palm" on the part of city government.

varelse 14y ago

What I'm not seeing in these articles about this place is any sense of responsibility by Hacker Dojo's owners for not doing the due diligence to know what they were getting into in the first place. I don't consider well-intentioned cluelessness a barrier to innovation but your mileage may vary. Ellis Berns doesn't sound like a villain to me but rather just a guy in a tough situation. If the town of Mountain View doesn't enforce their codes here, and if something like the fire in the video posted here were to occur, they'd get their keesters sued out of their pants and rightly so. That said, it's not even a drop in the bucket of Silicon Valley's vast wealth to fix this so if it's worth saving, I suspect it will be saved.

ramanujan 14y ago
All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing? 3. As for "building permits", they are just a tax by the local government[2], like red light cameras: In his opposition, Inks said the permit would "incentivize" code enforcement officers to go out and find major violations to bring in revenue. He added that city officials already get paid a salary. "To be clear ... this is about raising money," he said, adding that similar permits and fees in other cities have led to "further noncompliance" and the "collapse" of code enforcement efforts, which led to the necessity of giving property owners an "amnesty" period. Inks pointed out that small businesses were already being hit with fines for "petty" violations, such as a $500 fine on the Milk Pail Market for selling pumpkins in the parking lot. In other words: give these guys an inch and they'll take a mile, asserting their author-it-ay the whole way. It always starts with something reasonable sounding (fire codes) and then moves to incentivizing the government for uncovering more violations and more fines. And it's very hard to figure out all the violations ahead of time [3]: As we wrote earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its program of in-depth investigations of hotels to determine whether they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The investigations are called "sweeps" because they target all hotels in a given geographic area. There is also some basis to believe that the sweeps may now also focus on certain industries such as hotels, restaurants and other places of public accommodation. ... In my experience, even the best design professionals typically have an inadequate knowledge of all of the accessibility standards. And local building official approvals provide no protection against accessibility violations. Like all regulation, the ADA stuff is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against providing access for the disabled? Then you realize the Department of Justice is spending scarce resources conducting sweeps on business owners, and that the total cost for a large ADA upgrade can easily be millions of dollars per facility. Just one example [4]: Owners and managers of swimming pools at hotels, city recreation centers and public parks are scrambling to install mechanical chair lifts to comply with new federal requirements that all public pools be accessible to disabled swimmers. Some hotels fear the cost of the equipment or fines for noncompliance could put them out of busines The law doesn’t affect private clubs or pools owned by neighborhood associations that aren’t open to the public. It’s a massive and expensive undertaking. The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals says its research shows that between 235,000 and 310,000 pools require the upgrade. Manufacturers estimate the lifts run $3,500 to $6,500, and installation can double those costs. Altogether, owners could face combined costs exceeding $1 billion. A billion here, a billion there...soon you're talking real money. Anyway, this sort of thing is a big part of the reason that Bay Area housing prices are so high. And it all starts with taking regulators at their word that they are out to protect your health and safety. POSTSCRIPT: There's at least one obvious alternative to rule by unelected regulators. We already have reviews of everything else under the sun on Google, Amazon, Yelp, Zagat, Consumer Reports, and the like. Some of these reviewers we trust with life and death decisions, like Consumer Reports' car safety ratings. So just do the same for those codes that are truly crucial (e.g. fire codes), by allowing different certification authorities to compete. Maybe you start by expanding the domain of the Palo Alto and Mountain View fire departments such that they overlap, and a certification from either is sufficient to do business such that you get some competition into the mix. With just a little bit of choice, you'll suddenly see much more reasonable and cost-conscious behavior from regulators. [1] I know it's "the law". But there are unjust laws. [2] http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=2260 [3] http://hotellaw.jmbm.com/2010/06/ada_defense_lawyer_implications.html [4] http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x596769962/New-ADA-access-rules-may-scuttle-swimming-at-some-hotels

tzs 14y ago

Can you actually make a case for your claim that the officials made bad decisions? Nothing in what you wrote explains why Hacker Dojo should be able to operate in violation of fire and safety codes that others are subject to.

sabat 14y ago

It is indeed bullshit, particularly because there is no defensible, practical reason for that kind of regulation. This is little more than "you wanna do business? grease my fuckin' palm" on the part of city government.