Houston has its own issues due to a lack of zoning code. Good code is good for the community. I’d rather have good flexible & prescriptive code than no code.

Totally understand and take your point. I don’t think you were being a dick. I rather enjoy professional discussions like this. We just avoid these conflicts by getting everything squared away, when we design.

I can see your point. I have never argued an ‘as of right’ usage, as we (as a profession), will always review and get appropriate zoning approval for everything we do. Hell, we even have a division in our office whose sole job is to research parcels and determine their viability for purchase based on zoning / use,…

I’ve worked in over 15 states now and have always gone through a zoning review on any improvement. (Never NY). Point granted that I’ve never filed in this jurisdiction, but have filed in Delaware before, but that was a garage in a sub-urban zone.

you can’t use the number of cars as a valid form of measurement in building classification. But that doesn’t stop bad code writing.

Yay! I was right! nailed the property, zoning, and everything. Good judge. Good opinion.

Okay, I dug into this (licensed architect), and I can’t come up with any zoning infraction. I’m 98% sure I tracked down the lot, which is zoned “AR-1" (Agricultural Residential 1). It is the least restricted and most common zoning in the county and is only used in areas far removed from urban or sub-urban areas.

In my…

Am I the only one that thinks this whole need to have a car programmed to make a moral decision a red herring? I mean even the trolley problem has to go to ridiculous lengths to even present its moral quandry as a binary choice. The car is going to be programmed to avoid hitting objects, with the best information it…

I’m an Architect in the Architecture / Construction BIM field myself, so yeah, we’ve seen the same things.

I hate these types of roads and have never understood why they are allowed. I’m sure there is something about efficiency in rural areas or something like that, but no matter how you cut it a high speed road that you can turn across is just a dumb idea.

Agreed on some level. I would argue it is important to make places aesthetically pleasing and functional. We spent alot of time in the 60's-90's going down the road of designing & building efficiently like engineers and contractors, and there are alot of buildings who make their tenants pay for that today. I’ve also…

Interesting. I’ve never done a MF in the San Fran area so I can believe it. My clients (and boss) aren’t even equipped to understand or deal with such things. If it isn’t a green site in a zoning where they can do whatever the hell they want out of stucco and punched openings, they freak out.

Totally agree with the offsetting of costs. But they won’t be able to go too high above market rents (sky high as it is in that area). Most of my client base need to be returning a profit pretty quickly as they sell them off to equity clients, so they really limit low-income, or low-cost housing.

This is very normal in Multi-Family and mixed use development. In fact it is actually abnormal, I’ve seen rates for low-income at 1%-5% of total units. 15% is very high. (But may not be given the area). The building just doesn’t work from an economic perspective if you have something like 50%.

Construction costs are…

So, we have a system where the person who doesn’t own the car anymore is waiting on someone else to determine if they get a payout or not? Sounds like a german solution.

True, but up to yesterday the idea of a settlement was remote. Hell every comment here said that a buyback was less than 1% chance. We now have something concrete.

So is it smarter for us to just go park our TDI for the next 3+ months until it regains its pre-scandal value? I just can’t imagine DDing it and losing it next week to some idiot and getting pennies.

I was feeling okay with this until I read the transcript. The exchange between the judge and VW’s council was sickening. I don’t really care how hard VW’s lawyer worked last month. They broke the law and have left 600k cars in limbo. It isn’t how hard or long you have worked, it is ‘have you solved the problem?’

You are totally correct. It is not subject. Wasn’t arguing that. What I am arguing is 2 points: 1. It was terrible and negligent design that failed to follow basic concepts of user interaction & safety. And 2 it was sold in a mass-market condition with no required training, supervision, or licensure, therefore it…

As an Architect one of the primary jobs in building design is to create clear egress paths. How does this relate? Well one of the key concepts we are taught is that in an emergency (or really in any common function, finding a light switch, etc.) actions should “require no special knowledge.” It is based on the idea…