The New Castle Doctrine

British court rules that a man's castle is no longer his home.

Comments

[Colonel_Angus]

I really really fucking hate zoning laws and building codes of all kinds. Planners are bigger scum than lawyers.

[Cabeza de Vaca]

A good example of this would be Joe.

[peachy]

That was my first thought...

[Suki]

Is that the same creep SugarFree linked to yesterday?

[JW]

Yes. A "former" urban planner and proud of it.

[Colonel_Angus]

Joe P. Boyle, also loved eminent domain for parks and bullshit.

You can put a park or school anywhere land is available on the market, they don't need to be in a rigid location like roads.

[Suki]

Yuck! Why on earth do SF and others keep wanting someone like that back here? Sounds like a disruptive troll of the worst kind.

[The Gobbler]

For the bitch-slapping.

[Suki]

+1

[robc]

In the days of incif, I rarely even considering adding joe (note case) to it, and I never came close to actually doing it on those rare instances.

[FrBunny]

joe was a net positive around here.

[Fluffy]

Joe dramatically increased the post count of many threads by inspiring rage among the more sensible commenters.

Of course, in the modern "threaded" era, if Joe showed up again the tangle of enraged threads would become completely intolerable, instead of being 75% intolerable as it currently is.

[everyone]

Agreed. Suki/John Trafagliero, on the other hand? An enormous negative.

[Anonymous Homeowner]

> I really really fucking hate zoning laws
> and building codes of all kinds.
> Planners are bigger scum than lawyers.

According to the Independence Institute, there are "Free Market Alternatives to Zoning."

One approach involves what Professor Robert H. Nelson calls "Privatizing the Neighborhood:" buying a home affiliated with a homeowners' association (HOA) that has an architectural rules committee. [See here, here, and here] Unlike a government, HOAs cannot extend their jurisdiction to homeowners who have not opted in. Since HOAs are very local and small, participants are often neighbors and hence have incentive to settle disagreements in a civil manner. You would also have more influence on your HOA than on Boulder City Council.

[Old Mexican]

"Mr. Fidler made it quite clear that the construction of his house was undertaken in a clandestine fashion," the court ruled.

in his own prooperty - what's clanestine about that?

Aren't you glad you separated from the British just in time? I am that you guys did.

[Colonel_Angus]

We're only about six to twelve months behind their stupidity.

The process is England ->California -> U.S.

[A Different Bill]

I think you got that backwards - your arrows resemble "greater than symbols." The progression is actually more like a regression - it is a retrograde motion, like sliding into a sucking pit of bureaucracy. Thus:

U.S. -> Hahafornia -> England.

It is what awaits us at the bottom of the slope into the pit.

[anonymous]

I believe he was indicating the order of stupidity transmission, in which case he was entirely correct.

[Christ on a Cracker]

Actually, its

England->California->New York->Ohio->US

[Voros McCracken]

Yeah it's hardly surprising he did it in a "clandestine fashion" considering the behavior the government engaged in once they found out about it.

[Hazel Meade]

Gaaah....

Fuck anyone that wants to live in a castle. You MUST live in a cookie cutter home made by a developer. Only fools attempt to build a house that doesn't look exactly like 100 million other houses. Obedience! Conformity!

[juris imprudent]

Obedience! Conformity!

Unity! Equality!

[Aresen]

I am no more in favor of zoning laws and building permits than other libertarians, but someone who thinks he can hide the construction of a large house has got to be a few bricks short in the chimney.

[Old Mexican]

Who cares? It is HIS property.

[dmoynihan]

He did hide construction and lived in a completed building. For four years.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Which suggests that planning people in Reigate and Banstead Borough Council don't know how to use Google Earth.

[Warren]

Ren said

Some people hate the English.
I don't! They're just wankers!
We, on the other hand,
are colonized by wankers!
Can't even find a decent culture
to be colonized by!
We're ruled by effete arseholes!
It's a shite state of affairs
to be in, Tommy!
And all the fresh air in the world
won't make any fucking difference!

[Nick]

Does the cannon work?

[JW]

+10

[Robert Fidler]

It does.

Now, if I can only find some bloody ammunition for it.

Britain, you know.

[Suki]

What about the loop holes for the crossbowmen and footbowmen?

[A Different Bill]

Vats of flaiming oil?

Moat?

Siege engines!!

[Suki]

Siege engines are what the cops have in this case.

[BakedPenguin]

This is such an obvious demand for obedience, it's disgusting. They're not even bothering to claim that the house is unsafe, or that they need the land to build a road, or something. It's just that the man did not obey their rules, and now his house must be destroyed. Authoritarian shits.

[The Gobbler]

If an Authoritarian shits and no one is around to smell it, does it still stink?

[BakedPenguin]

Well, according to the Obama fans I've talked to, it smells like roses and looks like a rainbow log.

So yes.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

It is worse than that: Robert Fidler did obey the letter of the law (i.e. he got away with it for long enough that it should have been fait accompli), so suddenly the bureaucracy---which we can be sure are usually very interested in the letter of the law---is suddenly all about the spirit of the law.

Law for thee and not for me.

It is pure revenge under color of authority for making them look like the incompetent boobs they are.

So, let us be clear: Mike Miller, a chief planner with the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council is an gormless, frustrated little prick worth of scorn and derision.

[Anonymous Homeowner]

If the boot stomping on a human face forever is privatized, even if the privatization of said boot is mandated by the government, would it make authoritarian demands for obedience stink less?

[DOuglas2]

"no enforcement action may be taken against any breach of planning control consisting of the carrying out without planning permission of building, engineering, mining or other operations after a 4-year period beginning with the date on which operations were substantially completed. What is substantially complete must always be a matter of fact and degree and of the prevailing circumstances in any case. Therefore, it is not possible to define precisely what is meant by the term 'substantially completed'. In the case of a single operation, such as the building of a house, the 4-year period generally would not begin until the entire operation was substantially complete. Arguably, in the case of a house, it is not substantially complete until all the external walls, roof-tiling, woodwork, guttering and glazing are completed; but it might be regarded as substantially complete if only some decorating or internal plastering work remains to be done, particularly if the building has already been put to use for its intended purpose. Each case should be judged on its particular facts, with all the relevant circumstances being taken into account."
In this case the judge has found that a building is not substantially completed, even if in active use as a dwelling house, if it still has bales of hay outside it. Therefore the "4 years" required to fall within the loophole starts with the completion of the removal of hay.
Yes, it makes little sense, but the Judge wanted to find the way he did because otherwise without change in the law it would invite others to use this loophole, and the law as written left him little wiggle-room other than to say that the building wasn't substantially complete until recently.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

It doesn't make "little sense", it is utter tripe. The house was finished and being lived in, though the landscaping still needed some work.

The court ignored the law because they found it inconvenient.

The correct and reasonable bureaucracy response would have been to:

a) Shrug it off and figure that if no one complained about the hay, it wasn't causing the neighbors any trouble.

or

b) Admit that you'd gotten beat this time and amend the law to prevent a relapse.

That's it. If the law is to mean anything it must apply to public servants as much as to anyone else.

[Colonel_Angus]

And he is a farmer. How do the bales of hay have anything to do with the completion of the house?

[Suki]

You have to feed the laborers something.

[Planner Yoda]

If the law is to mean anything it must apply to public servants as much as to anyone else.

And that is why you fail.

[Zach]

So you're saying rather than having to rewrite a poorly written law, they'll just interpret it as they see fit. Makes sense to me!

[P Brooks]

"This was a blatant attempt at deception to circumvent the planning process,"

Oh, horror!!!

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

I'm sorry but I'm a bit lost. It doesn't look like an actual castle to me, just a castle-shaped house. What law would that violate?

[Suki]

The law of look and feel. Check with Steve Jobs on that one.

[MP]

The law of not building something before you grovel before the P&Z overlords. The only issue here is a lack of a proper permit.

Fucking doucebags. I hate planners sooooo much. Local P&Z members are mini-totalitarians.

[skeptic]

In England all development is severely restricted in "green belt" lands (i.e. land never developed except for agriculture). He built a house on a site which would never in a million years have been allowed under their "zoning".
UK planning consent is roughly equivalent to zoning approval, UK building control roughly equivalent to our building permits and inspections -- ostensably to guarantee that a sound and safe structure is built (both in terms of "will it fall on someone's head?" and "will it cause public health risk because they cross-connected the sanitary and storm sewers?".

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

I understand that. I just don't care: he beat them fair and square by their own rules.

It is a time for the application of that ever so famous stiff upper lip.

[Suki]

Then he didn't beat them at all, he followed the rules.

I must change into my black catsuit, cowl and spike heel boots to fight this injustice.

[Suki]

[looks at waist] If I do this in reality better add a corset. If I do it in fantasy I can be taller too.

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Um...yeah.

In my fantasy I can be broader of shoulder, squarer of jaw and more steely glinty in the eye.

And, oh yeah. I can have one less chin, too. Very important that.

When do we get to the transhumanist future, anyway?

[EscapedWestOfTheBigMuddy]

Oh, he beat them. They wanted him to bend a knee, and he didn't.

That is a victory.

Only the court seems to be offended by it.

[robc]

I considered posting this earlier, but wasnt a decent thread for it. Now there is.

Fuck you, England!

[message from God]

Robc, Irish?

[robc]

Last name is, better Anglo-germanic-cherokee mostly.

[robc]

s/better/but/

[R C Dean]

No, I think it works just fine with better.

[Suki]

Cherokee! My early-adopting of North America cousin!

[robc]

As is the norm, the early adopters get screwed.

[Suki]

That thing about SAT scores being genetic is true?

[JB]

Fuck the government, fuck the state, and fuck anyone who works for them.

[Tulpa]

Now that's the libertarian bridge burning tradition we all know and love. Half a percent forever!

[Fluffy]

Tulpa loves the taste of boot. He can't get enough of it.

[Tulpa]

Right -- because issuing pointless blanket fuck-yous to millions of your fellow citizens, is the only alternative to prostrating oneself before the State.

[The State]

I believe you have that backwards. We fuck you, you say thank you.

[anonymous]

Conservative Liberal puritans planners want government to control what you do inside to your bedroom.

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