61–70 of 108 posts
Typical big government telling people how to live their lives. > No sprinklers. > No handicap access. On second thought...
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Ironically, at Noisebridge they are wheelchair accessible and have sprinklers in the ceiling. The wheelchair/scooter users visit regularly. I'm 99% sure the sprinklers were already installed when they moved in. A lot of build-out work was done when moving to the current location.
Does noisebridge have concrete wall enclosed dumpsters? Did they also perform a traffic study when they moved in?
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The other day I went past the República Cromañon on the bus. The street in front of it has finally been reopened. It's been closed ever since 196 music fans were burned to death because its operators thought the fire regulations were "safety theater", and chained shut the emergency exits. You can compare the death tolls from similar earthquakes in places that have effective earthquake building codes (like Chile) and…
Well, as I said, it always starts with things like fire codes and then goes from there to spending tens of thousands on traffic studies. $15,000 for fire alarms might be ok. $150,000 for wheelchair accessible bathrooms is, in my view, overkill. They charge $100/month; that would mean at least 125 memberships just to pay for the bathrooms. But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to arg…
How are we even debating this? Do we really think people in wheelchairs shouldn't be able to use the bathroom? Pretty much every fire/accessibility regulation seems like something I'd want from every building I step foot in.
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"1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary." "Arguably"? No, they're absolutely necessary. It's a multi-tenant building. Why should my property and livelihood be threatened by your inability (or lack of desire) to follow the fire code? "2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]." A reasonable MVP should include the ability for a social, interactive space to be inclusive.…
To my mind, regulators could effectively issue recommendations but that should be where their power stops. If you do not want to have sprinklers and fire exits, it should be your responsibility, and your responsibility as a person entering that building to understand the risks of being there - and refuse to enter/stay inside if you think the lack of sprinklers/fire exits is posing you a serious concern. And you menti…
Now, I think for Hacker Dojo, there potentially is a bit of unfairness going on but this is about a larger point.
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"1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary." "Arguably"? No, they're absolutely necessary. It's a multi-tenant building. Why should my property and livelihood be threatened by your inability (or lack of desire) to follow the fire code? "2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]." A reasonable MVP should include the ability for a social, interactive space to be inclusive.…
Most startup offices don't have wheelchair ramps. Just take a tour of the offices on castro street, home of startups like Mozilla, Meebo, and Outright. Most of those buildings have restaurants on the ground floor and offices on the 2nd floor. Most of these offices don't have ADA complaint bathrooms either.
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All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braill…
The great thing about the issues that you raise here is that they can be impacted by voting for city council members who are more supportive of startups. I'm not familiar with city politics in Mountain View, but maybe if the community got behind candidates who were in favor of relaxing these restrictions there could be some change there.
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Well, as I said, it always starts with things like fire codes and then goes from there to spending tens of thousands on traffic studies. $15,000 for fire alarms might be ok. $150,000 for wheelchair accessible bathrooms is, in my view, overkill. They charge $100/month; that would mean at least 125 memberships just to pay for the bathrooms. But, just taking your specific example for a second, that actually seems to arg…
The point of the codes isn't to fit it into the Hacker Dojo's budget. The point of the codes is to make buildings safe, accessible, etc. I'm sure every business would like to not pay for wheelchair accessible bathrooms if they could get away with it - calling it a 'MVP' or just not being able to afford it. That is no excuse to not making your place accessible and safe. How are we even debating this? Do we really thin…
They were quoted a charge of $150,000 to add three wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. Do you think that is really the best use of money at inception? Can't they say "we'll add that when we get to 1000 members, we can't afford it right now, please go to the Starbucks next door, here's a map"?
It's pretty damn hard to raise $150k. That is easily more than a year's income, after tax, for a highly paid engineer in the Bay Area. Even with national publicity from the New York Times they've raised about $50k. And it's sort of difficult to raise $150k for the bathrooms.
This is a gold-plated feature for a garage group without money, it's not a reasonable early feature. And that's before the traffic studies, concrete enclosed dumpsters, and other things the city wants. The ironic thing is that several people in this thread support the regulations while also saying things like:
For the record? I'm absolutely for the Hacker Dojo and
wish more existed around here (and / or that I had the
time / ability to found one).
We must thank god YC itself hasn't attracted their attention. I guess pg could pay them off now, but might have been touchy in the early days.
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What I'm not seeing in these articles about this place is any sense of responsibility by Hacker Dojo's owners for not doing the due diligence to know what they were getting into in the first place. I don't consider well-intentioned cluelessness a barrier to innovation but your mileage may vary. Ellis Berns doesn't sound like a villain to me but rather just a guy in a tough situation. If the town of Mountain View does…
All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braill…
I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them, and it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readable with a screen-reader. What do you mean by "readable in braille"? I suspect you have little notion as to what making things accessible really entails.
As for the larger point: this is the law. Whether you agree with it or not, every single office has to comply with this. Why should these guys get an exception just because you like what they're doing? How could the city possibly justify giving them an exemption and not every Tom Dick and Harry that asks for one after that point?
This is rent-seeking, plain and simple. As municipalities slide ever closer toward insolvency, expect to see these spurious regulations enforced and enacted, ostensibly fronted by bleeding-heart do-gooders, but with the express intent to extort as much money as possible from productive individuals.
It is not "rent-seeking, plain and simple". I speak from experience, as I've carried out many risk assessments against buildings for live events. Fire and building codes exist for a very specific reason: to save lives and prevent injury.
If you think being forced to install sprinklers is somehow 'rent-seeking' perhaps you should remember that the Rhode Island Station nightclub fire (in which 100 people died) could have had significantly less impact had sprinklers been installed (as the building code specified). There are too many examples to count of fires where lives have been lost as a result of inadequate prevention and control systems.
You may not like the fact that these systems cost money to install and maintain. You may not also like the fact that in most states that vast majority of commercial buildings require them. But they are very much not 'spurious' regulations.
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All regulation from the TSA to the local building officials is optimized to sound like a good idea. Who could be against health or safety? And that then becomes the thin end of the wedge, as the requirements and fees spiral from there. 1. Sprinklers and fire exits? Arguably necessary. 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braill…
> 2. ADA compliant bathrooms and wheelchair ramps? Not part of a reasonable MVP[1]. What if every website "had to" be readable in Braille and multiple tongues on day one, before one had the revenue to pay for that sort of thing? I could NOT disagree with this more strongly. It is simply NOT acceptable to discriminate against people or exclude them, and it would NOT be acceptable to create a website that isn't readabl…
Let's imagine a website with... infographics like http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ If it was a commercial website, should the government intervene? Maybe make them buy or make a special font to create their chartslike https://www.fontfont.com/how-to-use-ff-chartwell instead of using images? No? How is it different from a special lift to the pool?