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silicon2401 | 3 years ago

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y

That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

discuss

order

lghh|3 years ago

Seems to me like lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box.

Why not let those without homes choose if they are willing to take the risks associated with ignoring those rules over l king on the streets?

raydev|3 years ago

> lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box.

Yes, and people voluntarily placed themselves under indentured servitude before it was made illegal.

If there's a housing shortage, the solution isn't to remove bare minimum housing standards for everyone.

entropicdrifter|3 years ago

Because that's how you get the haves taking even greater advantage of the have-nots, to the point of injury, illness, and death in the name of slightly greater profits.

stavros|3 years ago

Presumably an office space would still cost more than a homeless person could afford, so it's not economical to convert an office to ultra-cheap housing.

jcadam|3 years ago

An open floor plan office has plenty of space for rows of bunks. Better than sleeping outside.

silicon2401|3 years ago

> Why not let those without homes choose if they are willing to take the risks associated with ignoring those rules over l king on the streets?

I'd rather have a government that enforces a high quality of life.

whartung|3 years ago

I can't say for certain, but I think most regulations about windows are about having an escape in case of disaster.

Specifically, there was house we were looking at, and one of the previous owners covered up the back porch.

However, one of the bedrooms used to overlook that back porch, and had a window on that wall.

They were not allowed to remove that window because "bedrooms have windows", even though the window was an interior window.

Similarly, we considered replacing our bedroom window with a bay window, but the code would not allow it because the windows were too small to allow egress.

silicon2401|3 years ago

I completely forgot about the fire thing, and that only strengthens my argument/stance. The Triangle fire was a terrible tragedy in American history during which a lot of women died not even because of lack of windows, but because doors and windows were barred. Now imagine how many people would be at risk if they didn't even have windows in the first place.

seanmcdirmid|3 years ago

> Legal requirements for windows

These are mostly for fire safety, not quality of life. Turns out not having a window during a fire has killed lots of people.

HereIGoAgain|3 years ago

This is SF (and a major US city) we are talking about.. A whole shitload of those "requirements" are meant to keep prop values up and exert total control over who and what gets built and when.

throwaway0a5e|3 years ago

>Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone.

SF is the poster child for what happens when a bunch of people incapable or unmotivated to engage in planning more than 5min into the future write a law about everyone's pet issue.

Clearly there's a balance to be struck and it's to be struck somewhere on the less regulatory side than it is now.

koheripbal|3 years ago

In general, that may sometimes be true, but in the SF Bay Area, those restrictions on residential development have always been excessive and about protecting property values for existing home owners.