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The real travesty here is the double standard. Can you imagine if these residents wanted to develop their properties for business use. The government would no

The real travesty here is the double standard. Can you imagine if these residents wanted to develop their properties for business use. The government would not exercise their discretion to waive various reviews for lowly peasants. But a data center comes along and suddenly all the doors are opening.

tptacek 6mo ago
I live in a muni where virtually all development is done under variance, so I'm not sure what you mean here; "peasants" get stuff all the time, in fact, my guess is most of what gets decided on is "peasants" getting stuff. (For obvious reasons we're not going to get data centers, because like every dense metro area we're the most expensive conceivable place to put them --- I'm ambivalent about the data center argument, they're going to go somewhere, might as well put them where they're welcome.)
ianm218 6mo ago
In most cases the government should get out of the way for any development of private property. If they need to pay for increased usage of utilities but 90% of restrictions on private development are insane on the US Coasts.
ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
You would be surprised! Here's a fun pastime: pull up your Google Maps and scan through any McMansion district or SFH subdivision. Count how many independent businesses pop up in residential zones and at residential addresses! Count how many people are outright running businesses from their homes, some that even require foot traffic (like a boutique, a nail/hail salon, a notary public, a firearms shop in their garage!) I've found "family farms" that will sell you raw milk and some freshly-butchered mutton. There is a local news story, ongoing here, about a gentleman and his family that just wants to give out free bottles of water to passers-by but his HOA is being a big old meanie-head. It turns out that this family is running a full-on business from their garage, and the water bottles are a marketing strategy to drum up customers. Is it any surprise, that in a nation built by wealthy landowners who derived profit from their home estates, that "home ownership seen as an investment" is not so much a money pit but a lot of free space to open up your office and your workspace and start extracting some value out of it, zoning regulations, commercial insurance, and business licensing be damned?
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  >Count how many people are outright running businesses from their homes, some that even require foot traffic (like a boutique, a nail/hail salon, a notary public, a firearms shop in their garage!) Most of those are just addresses for businesses elsewhere. The landscaper is not going to register his business to the fenced dirt lot he parks everything, he's gonna register it to where he gets mail. I'm well aware of what you can and can't do I own commercial real estate. The government would love nothing more than to get a pound of flesh out of home notaries and the like but the political will isn't really there. >zoning regulations, commercial insurance, and business licensing be damned? You say that like the regulations and it's peddlers aren't the ones in the wrong. If you're not harming your neighbors The burden of proof should be on the government, none of this "well someone could do something that undermines public health despite the fact that doing so runs counter to their interest on any timeline longer than a week" bullshit that underpins nearly all existing municipal regulation.
  - ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
    > Most of those are just addresses for businesses elsewhere. No, they're really not. And that's why I omitted a whole class of mobile service that does use Maps incorrectly (because Maps is happy to work with businesses that have a region or service area and no public entrance or office.) If you see landscapers, or locksmiths, or HVAC service or window tinting, yeah they're obviously mobile and people aren't expecting to park at the neighbor's and show up at their front door. But with a nail salon, yeah they're running from home. They're setting appointments and taking payments on the D.L. That firearms dealer flabbergasted me. His storefront is in his garage. The neighbors/HOA must see that when he opens the door? I don't know! Obviously the farmers need real estate but they could work mail order or delivery. But the vast majority of office-based businesses can easily work out of a residence, or do light production work in a garage and be self-contained. But you claim to know this and you "own commercial real estate" and you know what "you can't do" but people do what you can't do allll the time. They get away with all kinds of stuff. That is why the HOA gives a hard time to that businessesman, not because he's being kind and giving away water, because he's running an illicit business from his garage (you can see it and you can see the tee shirts he promotes it with) and that business is drumming up foot traffic and visitors that should never have been in the neighborhood. "If you're not harming your neighbors" is right. Many of these businesses are legitimate and innocuous. I bet you that most neighbors don't even know about them. If foot traffic and visitors increase, they don't really know why and it's not their business. Most neighbors try and keep to themselves when there's not disruption or trouble. I see this as a failure of the modern city planning and I do see a lot of trouble in zoning. As I said, America was founded on plantation owners and estates and mansions that had copious land, like the entire system of England before us. Where was the boundary between "commercial property" when you owned farms and had livestock? My ancestors lived by homesteading, and sold mineral rights to their own land. That's commercial property, basically! That is exactly why landowners were the voters and the politicians, because they had a stake in the success of the government. So it seems unfair to tell a family that they can go purchase a 3BR/3BA house in a sleepy suburb and then to enforce its money-pit nature. That they can't make any profit or run any business that would leverage that property for their benefit. That they can only camp out in there and sleep and have a beer until it's time to go back to work. That's all patently unfair and definitely not The American Dream. So I don't know, but it definitely involves an element of subterfuge and financial evasion/fraud to set these businesses up, so I also think they should come into the light and pay their fare share.

tptacek 6mo ago

I live in a muni where virtually all development is done under variance, so I'm not sure what you mean here; "peasants" get stuff all the time, in fact, my guess is most of what gets decided on is "peasants" getting stuff. (For obvious reasons we're not going to get data centers, because like every dense metro area we're the most expensive conceivable place to put them --- I'm ambivalent about the data center argument, they're going to go somewhere, might as well put them where they're welcome.)

ianm218 6mo ago

In most cases the government should get out of the way for any development of private property. If they need to pay for increased usage of utilities but 90% of restrictions on private development are insane on the US Coasts.

ButlerianJihad 6mo ago

You would be surprised! Here's a fun pastime: pull up your Google Maps and scan through any McMansion district or SFH subdivision. Count how many independent businesses pop up in residential zones and at residential addresses! Count how many people are outright running businesses from their homes, some that even require foot traffic (like a boutique, a nail/hail salon, a notary public, a firearms shop in their garage!) I've found "family farms" that will sell you raw milk and some freshly-butchered mutton. There is a local news story, ongoing here, about a gentleman and his family that just wants to give out free bottles of water to passers-by but his HOA is being a big old meanie-head. It turns out that this family is running a full-on business from their garage, and the water bottles are a marketing strategy to drum up customers. Is it any surprise, that in a nation built by wealthy landowners who derived profit from their home estates, that "home ownership seen as an investment" is not so much a money pit but a lot of free space to open up your office and your workspace and start extracting some value out of it, zoning regulations, commercial insurance, and business licensing be damned?

cucumber3732842 6mo ago
>Count how many people are outright running businesses from their homes, some that even require foot traffic (like a boutique, a nail/hail salon, a notary public, a firearms shop in their garage!) Most of those are just addresses for businesses elsewhere. The landscaper is not going to register his business to the fenced dirt lot he parks everything, he's gonna register it to where he gets mail. I'm well aware of what you can and can't do I own commercial real estate. The government would love nothing more than to get a pound of flesh out of home notaries and the like but the political will isn't really there. >zoning regulations, commercial insurance, and business licensing be damned? You say that like the regulations and it's peddlers aren't the ones in the wrong. If you're not harming your neighbors The burden of proof should be on the government, none of this "well someone could do something that undermines public health despite the fact that doing so runs counter to their interest on any timeline longer than a week" bullshit that underpins nearly all existing municipal regulation.
- ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
  > Most of those are just addresses for businesses elsewhere. No, they're really not. And that's why I omitted a whole class of mobile service that does use Maps incorrectly (because Maps is happy to work with businesses that have a region or service area and no public entrance or office.) If you see landscapers, or locksmiths, or HVAC service or window tinting, yeah they're obviously mobile and people aren't expecting to park at the neighbor's and show up at their front door. But with a nail salon, yeah they're running from home. They're setting appointments and taking payments on the D.L. That firearms dealer flabbergasted me. His storefront is in his garage. The neighbors/HOA must see that when he opens the door? I don't know! Obviously the farmers need real estate but they could work mail order or delivery. But the vast majority of office-based businesses can easily work out of a residence, or do light production work in a garage and be self-contained. But you claim to know this and you "own commercial real estate" and you know what "you can't do" but people do what you can't do allll the time. They get away with all kinds of stuff. That is why the HOA gives a hard time to that businessesman, not because he's being kind and giving away water, because he's running an illicit business from his garage (you can see it and you can see the tee shirts he promotes it with) and that business is drumming up foot traffic and visitors that should never have been in the neighborhood. "If you're not harming your neighbors" is right. Many of these businesses are legitimate and innocuous. I bet you that most neighbors don't even know about them. If foot traffic and visitors increase, they don't really know why and it's not their business. Most neighbors try and keep to themselves when there's not disruption or trouble. I see this as a failure of the modern city planning and I do see a lot of trouble in zoning. As I said, America was founded on plantation owners and estates and mansions that had copious land, like the entire system of England before us. Where was the boundary between "commercial property" when you owned farms and had livestock? My ancestors lived by homesteading, and sold mineral rights to their own land. That's commercial property, basically! That is exactly why landowners were the voters and the politicians, because they had a stake in the success of the government. So it seems unfair to tell a family that they can go purchase a 3BR/3BA house in a sleepy suburb and then to enforce its money-pit nature. That they can't make any profit or run any business that would leverage that property for their benefit. That they can only camp out in there and sleep and have a beer until it's time to go back to work. That's all patently unfair and definitely not The American Dream. So I don't know, but it definitely involves an element of subterfuge and financial evasion/fraud to set these businesses up, so I also think they should come into the light and pay their fare share.