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Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#71

Post by tomwheeler »

varenc wrote: post #69
trhway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Instead he bought property in the middle of regular people and disrupted their lives. it is easier and safer to have illegal school and other unpermitted things and all the noise and street blocking and all the other disruptions where regular people live than to piss off a billionaire neighbor.

This is Palo Alto and his neighbors for the most part aren't "regular people". They all own $5M+ homes.

A $5M home in Palo Alto is hardly a mansion.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#72

Post by mschuster91 »

bnchrch wrote: post #53
randycupertino wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that he disregarded residential zoning and opened a school for 30 kids, with a full docket of “residential support staff” including “childcare, culinary, personal assistants, property management, and security" without any permits. If your next door neighbor opened a 30+ person school or other large business next to your property without any permits and against what your neighborhood was zoned for yo…

Zoning on average is a blight. Industrial / High Rise is the only thing that should need permitting. Fourplex / Duplex / Single Family / Small Offices / Schools should not.

Schools, kindergartens and daycares cause a shitload of noise from the children playing and the traffic. Small offices also induce lots of traffic, and small merchants even more.

You do not want to have that outside of zoning control because that is how you end up with a road designed to handle the need of a dozen homes (i.e. 24-30 cars a day) suddenly dealing with ten times that load - not just because of noise, smell and traffic jams but especially because road surfacing quality is usually "the cheapest you can get away with for the expected load", the road will go bad way faster than expected.

Zoning is not your enemy, zoning is your friend. Particularly if you value peace and roads you can drive on.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#73

Post by em-bee »

CalRobert wrote: post #29
bartvk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't hurt me personally but the article opens with the sentence "Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic. An unlicensed school named after the Zuckerbergs’ pet chicken tipped them over the edge."

Sounds like a lot of the problem was caused by cars, which shouldn't be necessary for a school, ideally.

that's a culture/car/public-transport problem, not a school problem. in a place where cars are the only way to get around you can't have any popular place without cars.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#74

Post by lukan »

avidiax wrote: post #37
renewiltord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Presumably, when these people bought their homes, they felt they'd be able to live with a relatively continuous sense of community, not feel forced to sell as a billionaire's compound encroached on them. There's an assumption that these homeowners are getting bought out above market, but what's the market rate for a multi-million dollar home next to the perpetual construction and noise of a billionaire's fife, on a s…

"but what's the market rate for a multi-million dollar home next to the perpetual construction and noise of a billionaire's fife"

I assume still pretty good, as the expectation is the billionair will rather pay a bit more, than be annoyed by the delay of his plans of grandeur.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#75

Post by a2128 »

somethingsome wrote: post #70

As a non US resident, I don't really get it. Can someone explain why is it such a crime to run a school? (illegal maybe, but I guess the purpose is still to teach to young people). Shouldn't we promote the creation of schools?

Not a US resident either but there are zoning laws to ensure comfort for everyone. The article mentions the sorts of discomfort suddenly opening a school in a quiet neighborhood can cause. It causes upset especially when it's an elite private school that the neighborhood can't even benefit from at all.

> Neighbors complained about noise, security guards, and hordes of traffic

> For almost a decade, the Zuckerbergs’ neighbors have been complaining to the city about noisy construction work, the intrusive presence of private security, and the hordes of staffers and business associates causing traffic and taking up street parking

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#76

Post by samdoesnothing »

exe34 wrote: post #25
carodgers wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Nobody made a school illegal. Schools have to meet certain standards, whether educational or planning.

Isn't that contradictory? If a school doesn't meet certain standards presumably it would be illegal?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#78

Post by takinola »

lateforwork wrote: post #5
randycupertino wrote: post #2

My favorite Mark Zuckerberg neighbor anecdote is the guy who is surrounded on 3 sides by all properties Zuckerberg snatched up however has refused multiple offers by Zuckerberg's "people:" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-a...

My favorite part of that story: He said a security guard approached him and asked what he was doing. “I said, ‘I’m standing on the sidewalk looking at this project for review.’ He said, ‘Well, we’d appreciate it if you could move on,’” Mr. Baltay recalled. “I was pretty shocked by that. It’s a public sidewalk!” Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Ins…

Lots of billionaires live in Palo Alto. You pretty much can't walk down University Avenue or grab a coffee at Town and Country without bumping into one. Plus most of Zuckerberg's neighbors are not "regular people", at least not from a wealth standpoint. This brings to mind the famous quote from a Palo Alto city meeting where one of the residents complained about "billionaires running roughshod over us regular millionaires!"

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#79

Post by insane_dreamer »

varenc wrote: post #69
trhway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Zuckerberg could have built a fancy house in Woodside or Atherton which is where billionaire CEOs live. Instead he bought property in the middle of regular people and disrupted their lives. it is easier and safer to have illegal school and other unpermitted things and all the noise and street blocking and all the other disruptions where regular people live than to piss off a billionaire neighbor.

This is Palo Alto and his neighbors for the most part aren't "regular people". They all own $5M+ homes.

I have close relatives in that same neighborhood. They are regular people. Yes their house is now worth millions but it wasn’t when they bought it and they are not wealthy (unless they sell and move).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Had Illegal School at His Palo Alto Compound. Neighbors Revolted

#80

Post by Balgair »

jjulius wrote: post #35
panzagl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an accurate picture of Boulder though...

"They're all 80 year old ancients" is an "accurate picture" of a place where the median age is 28 and only 3% are actually that old?[1] [1] https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US0807850-boulder-c...

Boulder homeowners are not representative of the population of the city.

Like, a lot of the town is just kids at CU. Also, a lot of the younger families are in what little apartments or condos there are in the city and aren't homeowners. Also, like, you probably should only look at adults anyways as under 18s are very unlikely to have their own houses.

Granted a lot of 80+ year olds are in care facilities.

And like, maybe we can relax this to 60+ years olds, in which case based on the raw data there, that's about 18% of the population.

I mean, just looking around Boulder, the homeowners are old people, that's pretty clear.

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