7 ms·
Why don't they just build taller buildings?
by omellet 10y ago
Why don't they just build taller buildings?
- drewg123 10y agoThis is the Bay Area. Nobody can build properly tall buildings. It would shatter the illusion that its still 1968.
- winter_blue 10y agoWhat restricts someone from constructing a tall building? If I buy a piece of land, and it's my property, I can do whatever I what with it right? Who can stop me from constructing a tall building on my own property? The United States is a free country right? I assume a free country respects property owner's freedom to whatever[1] they want with their land? [1] Of course excluding actions would cause significant harm to one's neighbors, like environmental pollution.
- mcherm 10y ago> What restricts someone from constructing a tall building? Building codes. > ...I can do whatever I what with it right? Who can stop me [...] The United States is a free country right? You are dangerously close to setting the bozo bit (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SetTheBozoBit http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SetTheBozoBit).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoToday I learned about the Bozo Bit. I'm not sure how I have never run into that reference before.
- croon 10y ago(First off, apology.) And yet your alias is all too apt.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Alupis 10y ago> What restricts someone from constructing a tall building? The insane laws of the bay area might restrict you, for starters.
- Johnny555 10y agoOf course excluding actions would cause harm to their neighbors with their actions. What would you call it when your new 50 story building leaves neighboring properties in permanent shadow, or get in the way of their previous panoramic views of the bay?
- outworlder 10y ago> If I buy a piece of land, and it's my property, I can do whatever I what with it right? No. > The United States is a free country right? Nothing to do with the United States. Most countries have zoning laws.
- winter_blue 10y agoI was actually asking that question in a rhetorical sense. I'm well aware of zoning laws. I think when they're taken too far, they impinge on personal liberty. There are localities that mandate that every house be painted the same color. The Bay Area zoning laws benefit a few (the landlords) at great cost to everyone else who lives there, and stunts the growth of the regional economy. (If taller building were allowed and property prices were more sane, there would be more companies and more people, thus leading to economic growth). I think what we need is a constitutional limit on state power in the United States. The Tenth Amendment[1] and the Enumerated Powers Clause[2] limit federal overreach, but there is no analogous limit on state power in the U.S. Constitution. The states' powers are not enumerated, well-defined or limited in any way, and states are free to legislate on almost anything (unless it infringes on an enumerated right of the people or a right covered under Ninth Amendment[3]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumerated_powers [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_... -- "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
- Analemma_ 10y ago> I'm well aware of zoning laws. I think when they're taken too far, they impinge on personal liberty. Well then it's a good thing we have courts to decide what "too far" is. The Supreme Court has decided that zoning laws are not inherently unconstitutional (Euclid v. Amber), but they've struck down more infringing laws on multiple occasions. Maybe you don't agree with the exact balance they've chosen, but that's your problem, not a fatal flaw of our government. > I think what we need is a constitutional limit on state power in the United States. We already have one: the Supremacy Clause. Federal laws and the national constitution override state laws in all cases. If a certain right is not granted either by a state or by the Supremacy Clause, it's because both the state and the Federal government have decided that particular right isn't a natural one. Again, you seem to be taking your particular conceptions of liberty and what the law should be, and deciding the government is flawed for not obeying them. A lot of us like the current system. If there's a particular right you feel should be Constitutionally protected against state laws, we have a system for that with Constitutional amendments enforced by the Supremacy Clause. Propose one to your representative if you like. But your suggestion of more non-specific Constitutional limits on state power is not going to win you many followers: the vague right-libertarianism of your attitude will alienate the Left, and the Right will balk at your suggestion of more Federal limits on state power. You're walking a lonely road here.
- surfmike 10y agoZoning laws.
- algorias 10y agoThere are things you are not allowed to do even on your own property for very good reasons, e.g. storing radioactive waste. Limits on building height can make sense in some places, even if not in this particular case.
- bitserf 10y agoSome of your neighbours' rights may include not having a 100 floor tower go up next to them blocking all their sun, as an example.
- rconti 10y agoYou must be new here.
- telotortium 10y agoThe land they just gave to Google was going to be used for more buildings. I doubt they were going to build skyscrapers, nor could they with the amount of additional parking space that would be needed. The North Bayshore area isn't really accessible except by highways, and even those are pretty much at capacity - in fact, the city council has approved only a limited amount of office space due to the strain on transportation infrastructure.
- trhway 10y ago>nor could they with the amount of additional parking space that would be needed. you can build parking deep under ground. Heck, giving the tendency for the quality of offices, you can build underground office floors too :)
- Tyr42 10y agoGeology has to be better. It'd flood.
- trhway 10y agouse higher (river dam / tunnel) grade concrete right from the bedrock.
- telotortium 10y agoThe capacity of the roads and highways that feed the campus is more of an issue.
- trhway 10y agoGiving the stakes, Google probably would build an additional on/off ramp and may be an additional lane on 101 themselves if permitted :)
- minwcnt5 10y agoIndeed, their plan that the city rejected did include an additional off ramp. But highways are nonetheless terribly inefficient. One extra lane or off ramp isn't enough to handle all of Google's traffic. They've already widened 101 around Google, rebuilt the whole Shoreline/85/101 interchange area to add more lanes, etc. The bottleneck is the off ramps themselves and the local streets -- they cause traffic to back up onto the freeway and make all lanes congested. The real solution is to allow more housing to be built close to the campus, and elsewhere in Mountain View, so that more people can walk/bike/take transit. The land use just across 101 is really inefficient right now.
- debeggar 10y agoZoning issues, and also people not willing to shed the suburban feel. An article I read sometime ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-housing-is-so-expensive-in-san-francisco-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-housing-is-so-expensive-i...
- serge2k 10y agoIn other words, NIMBY asshats unwilling to accept progress.
- bluedino 10y agoThe citizens of Mountain View want nothing to do with tall buildings. They only have a handful that are over 5 stories. A 12-story building was planned back in 2012 and they almost had a protest over it. The name of the town is 'Mountain View' and not 'city skyline view', after all.
- mc32 10y agoTrue, but it's also not "Bay View". Any buildings on the other side of 101, which is not residential, would block view to mudflats and salt ponds...
- krschultz 10y agoThis shocked me the first time I went out to SV. I thought the bay would be a deep body of water with a shoreline, and it's basically a mud flat / salt factory. Really disappointing. Many cities built along rivers have better water views & access.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoThe Bay in the area in question is bounded by landfills and water reclamation ponds (meaning sewage treatment).
- compiler-guy 10y agoBefore that it was more-or-less swamps and wetlands. Not beaches or real shorelines.
- cfallin 10y agoThe muddy marsh/salt ponds surprised me too! But there are a few spots where the actual Bay (open water) is visible... e.g. Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto. Also nearby hills have views -- I used to take walks to the top of the hill behind Google's Crittenden buildings, from where you can see a good bit of the southern Bay and up the peninsula northward. (Those hills also used to be MTV's garbage dump, so it could be worse!)
- tn13 10y agoBiggest question I had when I first arrived in bay area. Gov. Regulation are the reason why it is a bit harder to have taller buildings, tech companies have lot of money to go for more land grab is the main reason. If you are building a building with X floor area the city government requires you to have f(x) area as open land. If you want to build a very tall building it will have to look like the Saruman's Tower. This regulation is part of the reason why Sunnyvale or Mountain View do not look like SF. It is also the reason why property prices are so expensive. The good part however is that it means less crime, better neighbourhoods and overall good quality of life.
- matt4077 10y agoI like how you seem to say that a google building taller than X would be a crime magnet :)
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoAre the better neighborhoods, crime rates, and qualities of life a result of lower-rise buildings, or because the cost of living is so high that only the wealthy or upper-income can afford to live there?
- justinlardinois 10y agoAsking the real questions. I'm not sure what the correlation between tall buildings and crime is. "Better neighborhoods" is usually code for the sorts of things people don't say in public and it seems to be that quality of life is more dictated by your level of income rather than where you live.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoIt's happening. I think the one thing people need to realize is the big "space crunch" in the Bay Area is a relatively recent issue. There is NIMBYism to be sure, but development is slowly catching up. Look at the Sunnyvale side of Moffett Field, it has rapidly grown a collection of tall buildings. The potential issue that was brought up in Mountain View is an unwillingness to become a "company town" for Google. Residents can remember being a "company town" (to a lesser extent) for SGI and then SGI went poof, leaving the Shoreline area vacant for a time. I actually think it is good for residents to be suspicious of tying their fates to one very large employer; nothing lasts forever. The same issue may one day impact Cupertino...how many companies could or would want to acquire a single property as big as the "spaceship" campus? Apple isn't going away anytime soon, but this is still a valid concern.
- altoz 10y agoAm I mistaken or is it because of the possibility of earthquakes?
- mikeash 10y agoLooking at the Tokyo skyline (or, indeed, downtown San Francisco) I believe you're mistaken.
- eropple 10y agoThat hasn't been a serious concern for a pretty long time. Consider the Taipei 101, which exists in an earthquake zone and has to deal with typhoons.
- protomyth 10y agoThe Tokyo's Sky City episode of Extreme Engineering has a lot of information on Taipei 101 (more interesting than the Sky City part frankly).
- BurningFrog 10y agoThe failure of giant Google to influence zoning in it's tiny home town shows that money does not control politics as much as some think.
- MicroBerto 10y agoNIMBY is a powerful force. You go against them as a council person, your political career is as good as over.
- samfisher83 10y agoYou also have a lot of rich people in Mountain View. They have NIMBY attitude and money to do something about it.
- sjg007 10y agoTrue but there are now more renters than owners in the city so things will change.
- BurningFrog 10y agoYou're not implying the MV home owners have more money than Google? They DO have more votes than Google.
- tristanj 10y agoMost of the other comments are off base for Mountain View/Sunnyvale shoreline area. Google and Linkedin can't build tall buildings here because their campuses are next to Moffett federal airfield and the surrounding area is subject to building height restrictions. There's a map for this, I'll edit my comment when I find it. Edit: I found the map (http://i.imgur.com/B48yRGK.jpg http://i.imgur.com/B48yRGK.jpg), the maximum building height for this area is 182 feet above sea level. The Google campus sits around 15 feet above sea level and LinkedIn around 50. That works out to a max height of around 10 stories for the Google area, 7 stories for LinkedIn. So actually, it's higher than I thought. There are quite a few tallish (7-10 story) buildings along 237 and Central expressway that seem to skirt this restriction.
- 1024core 10y agoThis has got to be wrong. Have you seen the "Moffett Towers" buildings that are actually bordering Moffett Field? Google's buildings are 2 floor max; Moffett Towers has 6-8 floor buildings.
- TulliusCicero 10y agoThey're not exactly wrong, it's just that they're subject to those rules and ALSO subject to city-level zoning regulations.
- tristanj 10y agoYou're right, the other comments aren't incorrect (I wrote that word earlier), it's just in this spot there's federal restrictions on building height that prevent certain developments. I edited my comment to remove that part.
- minwcnt5 10y agoThat's not true. There are at least seven four storey buildings (Alza, Crittenden) on the main campus, and there's also a new 5 storey building on Pear Ave. But almost none of their buildings were built new, most were already built and acquired. Their proposals for new buildings have mostly been around 6-8 storeys, but they've had problems getting the city to approve their plans. I believe the LinkedIn land they acquired also already has approval for taller buildings.
- abledon 10y agoWhat is the feasibility of having people work in floating dirigibles? (Think GoodYear blimps)