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Based on your opinion of local permitting I have a strong suspicion you've never applied for any sort of local permit for something where issuance of the permit

Based on your opinion of local permitting I have a strong suspicion you've never applied for any sort of local permit for something where issuance of the permit requires any real consideration. Petty homeowner renovation stuff is basically a weird tax in disguise. They don't care, they were never gonna tell you no. They just want your money and want you to make work for whatever trade is being made work for in the process. Go for a variance and then see how you feel about it. Better yet, go try and create any sort of occupied structure or commercial use where one doesn't already exist. Local permitting is riddled with bike shedding, people trying to avoid responsibility, people trying to advance their pet interests at other people's cost and probably more stuff I'm forgetting. At least with state level stuff you can be all "I've paid my engineer big bucks, here's there work output, here's why it's GTG, and if it is in fact GTG they typically rubber stamp it. But little guys can't afford to play in that arena unfortunately.

quotemstr 11mo ago
[flagged]
- only-one1701 11mo ago
  You’re possibly right that HN is young, but in that case you’re missing how the circumstances of their youth and young adulthood have made them wary of deregulation in the macro sense.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    I guess I'm "young" as someone in their 30's. but I was raised around regulations being loosened and seeing corruption flow as a result. So I'm wary anytime someone suggests "we need less regulations!" when they only have to gain from working faster and treating human lives as an accounting detail.
    - only-one1701 11mo ago
      I mean same
- gkoz 11mo ago
  Isn't the purpose of many regulations to stop people who are wrong from harming themselves and others? That is, the experience of being wrong also teaches respect for rules one doesn't understand.
  - bluGill 11mo ago
    That is claimed, but often the real purpose is to stop people who otherwise could do something from taking that work away from whatever group created the regulation.
    - potato3732842 11mo ago
      Electrician/plumber/hvac trade groups salivate over the idea of having the products they install be as locked down as Hyundai brake pads.
      - bluGill 11mo ago
        Which is why I can't legally replace my water heater - a simple job that I've done myself several times in other cities. Or lots of other basic home maintenance. (I grew up in a house built by a plumber, and my current house was owned by a builder before me - so I have plenty of first hand experience with how bad trades can do their own work)
        Fwirt 11mo ago
        That’s horrible that you legally cannot replace your own water heater. What region mandates that? Where I live I can replace my own water heater, but it’s more cost-effective not to because the most reliable brands will only sell to licensed plumbers. So I can get a big box store model that will leak or die in 3 years for $300, and then have to pay for fittings, wiring, etc. myself and pay to dispose of the old one and provide my own labor, or pay a plumber buddy of mine who has access to the good stuff that will last 10-15 years $1000 to install one for me. Building permits and inspections make sense in a lot of cases for things that could cause societal damage. E.g. if I wire my house wrong and it burns down, it could kill the people living in it (even if it’s not me) or set my neighbor’s house on fire. If I put in a septic system wrong it could poison all the wells in the area. But when you start needing permit and inspections for basic maintenance, it becomes difficult to justify the regulations.
- heddycrow 11mo ago
  Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation. I'm not doubting you, it's just sad if it's true. When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious. I guess this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us? I feel old now, thanks.
  - quotemstr 11mo ago
    > this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us That's an excellent way to put it.
    - heddycrow 11mo ago
      Thanks. Not an original idea of mine, but I struggle to recall where I got it from.
  - johnnyanmac 11mo ago
    >Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation Hard to say. I'm not really "old" nor "young" per se. I'm a late millenial so I probably have pieces of both millenial and Gen Z in my experience. I'd love to know how this makeup really is at large, but from my observation: >When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious. The "Gen Z" side me me spent its life seeing my parents (late Gen X) struggle through the results of '08 where we didn't regulate banks enough, and under a ruling that basically deregulated election spending. Then I graduate into a term of a president wanted to deregulate everything and am entering part 2 of such. The "millenial" side of me just barely escaped the explosive costs of rent and college, but still felt the beginning of that impact. And got to experience almost a decade of decent work before seeing the job market completely turn on America. Because we spent decades de-regulating collective bargaining. So I would not be surprised if Gen Z proper does want more regulation to reel in those who exploited deregulation. But that "cool and rebellious" mentality is still there given last year. It seems they already learned the results of that rebellion, though. > Now we need the machine to do our raging for us? Pretty much. When minimum wage can't even cover rent, you get less time to rage yourself, outside of the ballot box.
- ryandrake 11mo ago
  Excellent comment. I'll also add that many HN commenters, even those with a great deal of experience, have never worked on projects that are mission critical, safety critical, or where loss of life is a possible consequence of failure. They've never been in industries where regulations are written in past victims' blood.
- lenkite 11mo ago
  HN is also biased towards software developers. Now, if you start putting in regulations into everything software developers do in the software development pipeline, only then will begin to truly feel the bite of mind-numbing regulations. Until then all regulation is good - since regulations are someone else's problem. Now, enforce multi-month/multi-year government approval for your productive projects deployments with a 100 page form in triplicate. Every re-build to production needs a root cause analysis with mitigation plan. You need to pass expensive certification and re-up every couple of years. You can only develop using regulatory approved languages and decade old compiler versions that have been certified. Breaking regulations involves removal of your license and negligence lawsuits. Tack on another few dozen regulations, so that you are forced to hire an expert consultant+lawyer to feel safe. You will see the opinion of HN commenters change like magic. Basically software developers will always support BIG SLOW NANNY for other engineers. Until BIG SLOW NANNY stomps them hard, they won't change their position.
- rdiddly 11mo ago
  Couldn't brashness or naive certainty (whether correlated with youth or not) also lead to... this article? Where a founder is _so sure_ his startup is so amazing and virtuous that it uniquely deserves to bypass the regulations that were put in place by older people for good reasons the founder doesn't yet understand? The costs he's complaining about, the costs of compliance, are costs he wishes he could externalize onto all of us, like they used to before those regulations existed.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
- gbacon 11mo ago
  A giant helping of hubris may be a factor in this tendency. ‘Programming a computer is thrilling enough; imagine programming an entire country of people!’ Those who think this way need to read Bastiat: “Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves!” http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
  - potato3732842 11mo ago
    Not even, they just need to read a history book. Save perhaps unqualified kings who inherited the throne at too young an age and under unstable circumstances no demographic has run more societies off cliffs than "comfortable professionals". Seriously, go read about the run up to europe's religious wars of the 1500s or the french revolution.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  My vibes on the community are the exact opposite, actually. Even if it leads towards the same conclusion. Older folk who lived in an industry completely unregulated and saw it rise into a trillion dollar empire. No government involved (or at least, that's what it looks like on the surface). Unfortunately, most industries cannot cheaply and quickly break things to iterate upon it like code. moving fast and breaking buildings costs lives. I suspect there's a similar mentality here with regards to unionization. Many older folk will only have seen the riches of tech and not the abuse of labor in nearly every other sector.
soiltype 11mo ago
This literally doesn't disagree with its parent comment at all from my point of view. You're describing badly implemented or corruptly designed regulations which cause inficiencies. I think everyone here is agreeing those are a problem.
jmward01 11mo ago
I am actively trying to work on non-legislated ways of improving the permitting process for my local city. I have met with builders and city officials and I have done a review of programs in other cities (comparable and larger) to find programs that help get to yes and how the city can support them. Key are things like pre-approved plans and builder workshops. What I have found so far is this is 99% communication, or lack there of, and almost no actual bad actors actively trying to create harm. I think approaches like this can go a long way to helping. Basically, if we keep the conversation only at 'regulations need to be changed' then we are missing a huge opportunity to actually address the problems people are really having.
BobaFloutist 11mo ago
>Petty homeowner renovation stuff is basically a weird tax in disguise. Where I live, in California, that's a direct response to a state constitutional amendment that strangled property taxes (and pretty much any other taxes). Because permits are fee-for-service, they're not considered a tax in the same way, and can be increased freely. Permitting costs ballooned predictably. So, yes, it's literally a tax in disguise, because, ironically, we've over regulated municipalities abilities to raise tax revenue in the most straightforward, fair, intuitive way possible, so every service has to pay for itself or find a weird oblique source of revenue, and services pursued by people with money (such as modifying a property you owned) get to pay for other things too.

quotemstr 11mo ago

[flagged]

only-one1701 11mo ago
You’re possibly right that HN is young, but in that case you’re missing how the circumstances of their youth and young adulthood have made them wary of deregulation in the macro sense.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  I guess I'm "young" as someone in their 30's. but I was raised around regulations being loosened and seeing corruption flow as a result. So I'm wary anytime someone suggests "we need less regulations!" when they only have to gain from working faster and treating human lives as an accounting detail.
  - only-one1701 11mo ago
    I mean same
gkoz 11mo ago
Isn't the purpose of many regulations to stop people who are wrong from harming themselves and others? That is, the experience of being wrong also teaches respect for rules one doesn't understand.
- bluGill 11mo ago
  That is claimed, but often the real purpose is to stop people who otherwise could do something from taking that work away from whatever group created the regulation.
  - potato3732842 11mo ago
    Electrician/plumber/hvac trade groups salivate over the idea of having the products they install be as locked down as Hyundai brake pads.
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      Which is why I can't legally replace my water heater - a simple job that I've done myself several times in other cities. Or lots of other basic home maintenance. (I grew up in a house built by a plumber, and my current house was owned by a builder before me - so I have plenty of first hand experience with how bad trades can do their own work)
      - Fwirt 11mo ago
        That’s horrible that you legally cannot replace your own water heater. What region mandates that? Where I live I can replace my own water heater, but it’s more cost-effective not to because the most reliable brands will only sell to licensed plumbers. So I can get a big box store model that will leak or die in 3 years for $300, and then have to pay for fittings, wiring, etc. myself and pay to dispose of the old one and provide my own labor, or pay a plumber buddy of mine who has access to the good stuff that will last 10-15 years $1000 to install one for me. Building permits and inspections make sense in a lot of cases for things that could cause societal damage. E.g. if I wire my house wrong and it burns down, it could kill the people living in it (even if it’s not me) or set my neighbor’s house on fire. If I put in a septic system wrong it could poison all the wells in the area. But when you start needing permit and inspections for basic maintenance, it becomes difficult to justify the regulations.
heddycrow 11mo ago
Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation. I'm not doubting you, it's just sad if it's true. When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious. I guess this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us? I feel old now, thanks.
- quotemstr 11mo ago
  > this is what happens when the rage against the machine becomes part of the machine. Now we need the machine to do our raging for us That's an excellent way to put it.
  - heddycrow 11mo ago
    Thanks. Not an original idea of mine, but I struggle to recall where I got it from.
- johnnyanmac 11mo ago
  >Someone please tell me we are not living in a time where the kids are pro-regulation Hard to say. I'm not really "old" nor "young" per se. I'm a late millenial so I probably have pieces of both millenial and Gen Z in my experience. I'd love to know how this makeup really is at large, but from my observation: >When I was younger, the youth were anti-establishment - that was cool and rebellious. The "Gen Z" side me me spent its life seeing my parents (late Gen X) struggle through the results of '08 where we didn't regulate banks enough, and under a ruling that basically deregulated election spending. Then I graduate into a term of a president wanted to deregulate everything and am entering part 2 of such. The "millenial" side of me just barely escaped the explosive costs of rent and college, but still felt the beginning of that impact. And got to experience almost a decade of decent work before seeing the job market completely turn on America. Because we spent decades de-regulating collective bargaining. So I would not be surprised if Gen Z proper does want more regulation to reel in those who exploited deregulation. But that "cool and rebellious" mentality is still there given last year. It seems they already learned the results of that rebellion, though. > Now we need the machine to do our raging for us? Pretty much. When minimum wage can't even cover rent, you get less time to rage yourself, outside of the ballot box.
ryandrake 11mo ago
Excellent comment. I'll also add that many HN commenters, even those with a great deal of experience, have never worked on projects that are mission critical, safety critical, or where loss of life is a possible consequence of failure. They've never been in industries where regulations are written in past victims' blood.
lenkite 11mo ago
HN is also biased towards software developers. Now, if you start putting in regulations into everything software developers do in the software development pipeline, only then will begin to truly feel the bite of mind-numbing regulations. Until then all regulation is good - since regulations are someone else's problem. Now, enforce multi-month/multi-year government approval for your productive projects deployments with a 100 page form in triplicate. Every re-build to production needs a root cause analysis with mitigation plan. You need to pass expensive certification and re-up every couple of years. You can only develop using regulatory approved languages and decade old compiler versions that have been certified. Breaking regulations involves removal of your license and negligence lawsuits. Tack on another few dozen regulations, so that you are forced to hire an expert consultant+lawyer to feel safe. You will see the opinion of HN commenters change like magic. Basically software developers will always support BIG SLOW NANNY for other engineers. Until BIG SLOW NANNY stomps them hard, they won't change their position.
rdiddly 11mo ago
Couldn't brashness or naive certainty (whether correlated with youth or not) also lead to... this article? Where a founder is _so sure_ his startup is so amazing and virtuous that it uniquely deserves to bypass the regulations that were put in place by older people for good reasons the founder doesn't yet understand? The costs he's complaining about, the costs of compliance, are costs he wishes he could externalize onto all of us, like they used to before those regulations existed.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
gbacon 11mo ago
A giant helping of hubris may be a factor in this tendency. ‘Programming a computer is thrilling enough; imagine programming an entire country of people!’ Those who think this way need to read Bastiat: “Oh, sublime writers! Please remember sometimes that this clay, this sand, and this manure which you so arbitrarily dispose of, are men! They are your equals! They are intelligent and free human beings like yourselves! As you have, they too have received from God the faculty to observe, to plan ahead, to think, and to judge for themselves!” http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
- potato3732842 11mo ago
  Not even, they just need to read a history book. Save perhaps unqualified kings who inherited the throne at too young an age and under unstable circumstances no demographic has run more societies off cliffs than "comfortable professionals". Seriously, go read about the run up to europe's religious wars of the 1500s or the french revolution.
johnnyanmac 11mo ago
My vibes on the community are the exact opposite, actually. Even if it leads towards the same conclusion. Older folk who lived in an industry completely unregulated and saw it rise into a trillion dollar empire. No government involved (or at least, that's what it looks like on the surface). Unfortunately, most industries cannot cheaply and quickly break things to iterate upon it like code. moving fast and breaking buildings costs lives. I suspect there's a similar mentality here with regards to unionization. Many older folk will only have seen the riches of tech and not the abuse of labor in nearly every other sector.

soiltype 11mo ago

This literally doesn't disagree with its parent comment at all from my point of view. You're describing badly implemented or corruptly designed regulations which cause inficiencies. I think everyone here is agreeing those are a problem.

jmward01 11mo ago

I am actively trying to work on non-legislated ways of improving the permitting process for my local city. I have met with builders and city officials and I have done a review of programs in other cities (comparable and larger) to find programs that help get to yes and how the city can support them. Key are things like pre-approved plans and builder workshops. What I have found so far is this is 99% communication, or lack there of, and almost no actual bad actors actively trying to create harm. I think approaches like this can go a long way to helping. Basically, if we keep the conversation only at 'regulations need to be changed' then we are missing a huge opportunity to actually address the problems people are really having.

BobaFloutist 11mo ago

>Petty homeowner renovation stuff is basically a weird tax in disguise. Where I live, in California, that's a direct response to a state constitutional amendment that strangled property taxes (and pretty much any other taxes). Because permits are fee-for-service, they're not considered a tax in the same way, and can be increased freely. Permitting costs ballooned predictably. So, yes, it's literally a tax in disguise, because, ironically, we've over regulated municipalities abilities to raise tax revenue in the most straightforward, fair, intuitive way possible, so every service has to pay for itself or find a weird oblique source of revenue, and services pursued by people with money (such as modifying a property you owned) get to pay for other things too.