Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools 650
Officials in Riverhead, New York are using Google Earth to root out the owners of unlicensed pools. So far they've found 250 illegal pools and collected $75,000 in fines and fees. Of course not everyone thinks that a city should be spending time looking at aerial pictures of backyards. from the article: "Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC, said Google Earth was promoted as an aid to curious travelers but has become a tool for cash-hungry local governments. 'The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms,' she said."
They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
but how much did it cost?
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Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Right, which is why he followed up with:
and then compared it to the time the same enforcement would cost if Google Earth wasn't being used.
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There are definitely restrictions related to Government use of Google Earth or Google Maps. The restrictions appear to be an effect of the agreements the Government has related to use of the Tele Atlas Licensed map information.
Google Earth EULA [google.com]
Legal notices including restrictions related to Government end-users [google.com]
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They're not that expensive though. Comparably, government employees typically have salaries a good bit below that in the private sector. The benefits (health insurance for example) and retirement plans are much better though. We've still got lifetime pension plans after 28 years where I'm at.
If you dedicated 1 person to this, my bet is they'll probably be bringing in more in recouped fees than they cost annually. Not to mention that like all things government, you have to have some level of enforcement,
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A common myth [blogspot.com] that public sector employees believe so that they don't feel bad about agitating for automatic raises.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are really comparing ALL workers in the private industry--including Wal-Mart greeters, janitorial staff, part-time construction workers, farm workers, etc.--against public industry employees who probably skew heavily towards college-educated? Why would you think this is a valid comparison?
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comparably, government employees typically have salaries a good bit below that in the private sector.
Total bullshit. I used to work for the private sector at a museum that was then taken over by the federal government. When the takeover went through, I gained ridiculous pension and medical benefits, along with a $10,000+ increase in my annual salary.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>government employees typically have salaries a good bit below that in the private sector
My engineering job with the FAA was the highest-paying job I've ever had ($55/hour). My second highest commercial/government contractor job was $7 an hour lower.
I also made note that most of the government employees didn't actually do much work (surfing the net instead). It struck me that this FAA building's sole purpose was probably to help the Congressman/Senator get reelected every few years..... i.e. white collar welfare. In the private sector the building would have been closed and/or 75% of the staff laid off to more accurately match the human resources to the workload.
Government is more efficient? Hardly.
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but how much did it cost?
Probably very little -- one guy, spending a few days to go through the entire town in a grid via Google.
Once you have a list of offenders, you send them a nasty letter. If you're not sure that something is a pool, you could fly a plane over or just ask to look, but you could stick to the nasty letters -- anybody who is innocent will certainly let you know.
It's a nice cash grab and costs almost nothing. Nasty, yes, and does nothing to improve safety or anything along those lines, but it did make some money
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I know I'm taking a leap here, but I'm assuming the license requires the homeowner to purchase a permit to install the pool, which should have been inspected
A safety oriented inspection should not require over $30.
This is pure money raising. $75K/250 pools is $300 per pool. Assuming the "usual" double fee if applied for after work completed, that would be a staggering $150 to pay a city employee to verify there is in fact a fence and a GFCI.
I can safely assume you've never actually participated in a permit inspection. I have, many times. Mostly involves an older semi-retired inspector glancing at the work and driving off. The longest, most detailed inspect
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Wow..never heard that one before.
What's next, having to apply for a license to own a fscking charcoal grill on your own patio?
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Yes, just like you have to get a permit to build a shed, or floor over a previously open loft area. It's called "zoning and planing" and it's been around for quite some time.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Informative)
It's called zoning and planning, but what it is, is malignant interference with your liberties.
If it's your land, and what you do there does not physically affect anything beyond your land's boundaries (chemical, fire, high level sound waves, overhangs, undermining, water flow... the obvious things) then I really can't see the government having any role at all. Of course, I'm one of those crackpots that think land ownership should be meaningful, and that if you want to control something, you should have to own it first. Radical, I know.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of this framework also comes from the assumption that one will not hold onto their property indefinitely.. and thus the next owners are assured that things were properly constructed to within certain guidelines. In the case of a pool this can be important since much of that information disappears once the pool is complete and a new owner can not verify without basically tearing up the pool again. Same with many of the regulations regarding home construction... without inspection and permits you really do not know if a house was built correctly without tearing into parts of it.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Funny)
Without mandatory permitting processes homeowners would maintain this documentation or else they'd be forced to sell their home at a discount.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they would just lie. Like they already do about flooding.
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Really? So the Square-D QO circuit breakers I buy at Home Depot are crap, but the brand-X circuit breakers the electricians put in are fine. The Romex-brand 12/2 (with ground) wire I buy at Home Depot is crap, but the same stuff put in by an electrician is fine? The Schedule 40 PVC pipe from Home Depot is crap, the stuff the plumber uses is fine? The Arm
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
And not much else...yes, we know. You fail to think critically about things like "improperly installed pools can leak and your neighbor'ss basement" or "are you putting that pool directly under power lines" or " did you bother to make sure there were no gas lines buried under the area you're thinking of putting your pool" or "did you know your property once used a septic tank...which is currently under the area in which you wish to place a pool" or "making sure there's proper fencing with locks to keep the neighbor's kids out of your pool when no one's watching so they don't drown". Yes, I went with the "won't someone please think of the children argument" because there's too many people who feel they should be allowed to be in a society and benefit from it without contributing too much personal responsibility as they do so.
There's a reason other people call people like you crackpots.
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Absolutely. If I want to ensure that I will always be able to see to the horizon without any structures in my way, I need to buy the land to the horizon. What's so difficult to understand about that? Should I have the right to tell some guy ten miles away that he can't build a corn silo or an office building or a gi
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Insightful)
What gives me the right to tell you what you can do over there, presuming you're not poisoning my grass or shining a 10 kw laser though my living room?
Because we all live in a club, called "society", where we make certain sacrifices to personal freedom to help everybody. As a society, we've decided that you can't be a jerkass by building unsightly properties next to others, because it takes too much away from property values and deprives others' of their own enjoyment of their property. As a society, we've decided that you should need a permit to build a pool, because it needs to meet certain standards that aim to keep others safe. You enjoy the services that society gives you, like the right to own your own property, so society expects you to play by the rules.
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You sir are and idiot completely lacking in imagination. An improperly designed pool could easily destroy a house. However, outside of a massively poor design, the standard issue is having a properly designed fence to keep young children from falling in and dying. (Yes, this is actually a common problem.)
PS: As a fireman what the standard procedure is for a fire at a pool supply store. It's far more nasty than you might think.
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Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the libertarian answer for everything. Of course that answer doesn't prevent the problems from occurring or stop preventable deaths.
Why don't we go ahead and trash the food safety regulations too? After a couple dozen deaths from E.coli the affected restaurant will be out business.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, sue them, that bring you dead spouse back to life.
Let me know how you feel when they poison a whole neighborhood, killing the young and elderly because they didn't install a proper backflow device.
If ti was just about someone who flooded my house, you might have a point. It's not.
Here is a clue, how about we ensure the meet some minimum standard to minimize the risk to people outside the persons property? Naw, lets just sue them until the dead are back.
I know, maybe I'll build a coal fired plant and then make you wade through years of people work and legal cases until you can make me shut it off?
twit.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Interesting)
A deed restriction tells you what kind of mailbox you need and what color to paint your front door, or in the past that colored people and china-men aren't allowed to inhabit the premises unless employed in domestic service. That last one's a direct quote from the deed to my grandfather's house.
It's city ordinances that tell you that you can't have a chicken coop in downtown St. Louis, and that you can't run a junkyard from the 1/8 acre behind your McMansion, and it always has been.
Deed restrictions don't say, "make sure you get a building permit before you build your deck, or your garage, or your pool." The reason we have building permits is so that urban Mr. Fix'it doesn't build a deck that collapses at a party injuring dozens, so that he doesn't build a garage that catches fire and spreads to the neighborhood, and so that the pool isn't a hole in the ground attached to a sensitive wetland into which Suzi Homeowner diligently dumps a 20lb bag of chlorine a week.
All that said, while having actual engineers sign off on actual building projects is a good idea (and don't kid yourself, that pool is a building project), this is a money grab, pure and simple.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Informative)
People are required to get permits.
The didn't get permits.
They got caught.
Not so much of a money grab. More like equal enforcement.
Plus city infrastructure needs to be able to support it. Backflow device water quality, and so on. They want to be sure it was engineered correctly so you don't kill your neighbors.
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Sure. It's ridiculous. Anything else you want to know? Now, have you heard of the concept of raising children with supervision until they are capable enough to go unsupervised, and then letting them go unsupervised?
Perhaps more to the point, have you heard of the word "responsibility"?
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Your understanding of the history of the English Empire, its fall, and its current geopolitical importance, is extremely flawed.
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Just like every other permanent construction in a municipality, you gotta have your permits and licenses and everything else in order.
It just goes with the modern view of freedom and property rights in America: my right to the value of my house trumps everyone else's right to do what they please with their property. If everyone in my neighborhood had a better swimming pool than me, my home's value would suffer. That's why we have homeowner associations, zoning laws and so on.
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seems like the kind of thing only an idiot would do.
You seem to be under the assumption that no idiots are involved in planning and building these things.
To be fair, outside of planned developments, real world considerations often lead to piss-poor
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your property is yours ONLY because there is a society that defends it
It could also be argued that society is there ONLY because of its ability to defend my rights. Society (and land ownership, or HOAs for that matter) are artificial constructs brought about to support the free exercise of natural rights.
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There are NO natural rights. There are only rights that we have granted ourselves by organizing into societies that defend them. And yes, that is one of the main reasons for having societies.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, you generally have to get a permit from the city in order to put in a pool. This isn't anything new nor is it some obscure thing. It's a pretty typical part of city zoning ordinances.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Insightful)
A swimming pool is a massive adjustment to the landscape, involving excavation multiple feet down. You don't know what pipes or wires might be down there. And what if you're on a hill and it breaks because it wasn't properly made, causing a landslide?
Note, by the way, in the BODY of the article, the word 'license' never shows up. Instead they use variations on 'permit' which sounds much more logical. If you want a pool, you get an inspector, they ensure there's no rogue wiring or geographic problems, they tell the city, then you get your zone permitted to install a pool.
Re:They collected $75,000... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want a pool, you get an inspector, they ensure there's no rogue wiring or geographic problems,
On a slight tangent, sometimes a proper permit/inspection can prevent a tragedy [heraldonline.com].
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you must be a renter. you need a permit for any modification of your property. my father in law built a deck years ago. neighbor ratted him out and a city inspector showed up. made him hire an architect to verify the safety of the deck and they added it to the home listing in the public records for property taxes.
in the NYC burbs the way it works is the county makes up a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. then they look at the population and the property owned by everyone including all improvements. and t
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The summary uses the wrong word. You need a _permit_ to build a pool. Just like every other significant structure built on your property, or significant change to such a structure.
The idea behind it is there's a long history of contractors "cutting corners" to the point where the structures they create are not sound. You have to pay for a permit, and in return you receive inspections by the town/county buildin
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It's a bad thing when it's not under control. Every place I have lived in FL, IL, and WI has had citywide bans on grills on balconies. I have used grills on all balconies. This is because I know how to be safe with fire and a grill.
The laws are because stupid people do stupid things that ruin it for the rest of us.
New phrase for me (Score:2)
I find the phrase "unlicensed pool" a little... disturbing.
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It's probably more "unpermitted" than "unlicensed". In most places, a pool, just like sheds, carports, or any other structure on the property, will add value. Added value means added taxes. Permits are typically the means by which a city/county/etc identify and add new structures to the tax roll.
If they didn't get the permits, then it's a minor violation. Not sure how the jurisdiction in question handles it, but we will charge the double permit fees on the structure plus any taxes that would have been p
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I would assume it's less about being "licensed" and more about meeting code and having your plans approved by the city council and having your house reappraised to accommodate the increase in value (and thus increase in taxes).
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Is this the first time you've ever heard of zoning laws?
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Yeah, specially since 'license' is not used in the body of the article. Instead they use variations on 'permit.'
Misleading, inflammitory headline; a pool license is bogus. A permit to build a pool is standard fare.
Oh, wait, I just saw the favicon...that explains it.
This is an appropriate use. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the government office saving money instead of hiring a plane to fly over the neighborhood and take pictures. Or are you going to say that you have a right to privacy from the air? Get real. A $300 fine ($75,000 / 250) doesn't sound excessive for a permit violation either. Now all those pools also need to be inspected for possible code violations. That is where it might get expensive.
-molo
Re:This is an appropriate use. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. They are essentially DOING THEIR JOB but with the added efficiency of Google Earth. I don't see a problem here.
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agreed.
Evil but legal.
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How can it be snooping when it's public information?
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Yes, in fact, it is their job.
Years ago as a co-op student I worked as an Engineering Assistant for the city where I live. We had to go into people's yards all the time. We checked drains, sewers, sidewalks, easements, measured grades, took drinks from the taps (water samples if anyone asked) and made sure people were obeying bylaws. (The last one was only if we happened to see something like an absurdly green lawn during water restrictions or endangered trees being chopped down.)
You don't own any part o
Reminds me of Adam Smith (Score:4, Interesting)
This story reminds me of Adam Smith's reasoning of why properties in his time should have been taxed based on the number of windows, rather than hearths: both for privacy reasons (you can count windows from the outside, whereas hearths require entering the home) and to make evasion harder. When tax assessment time came around, people would brick up their hearths. Sure, you could brick up windows, but since they could be observed any time without you knowing, it makes it much harder to do.
But yeah, maybe we have a problem with the fact that the pool requires a permit, but that's a different issue. Hopefully sitting in an office using Google Earth means they're not driving around wasting gas, or hiring a plane as you mentioned.
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Or are you going to say that you have a right to privacy from the air? Get real.
I most certainly do think I have a right to privacy "from the air." The concept is called curtilage and it means the space around your residence where you have a legal expectation of privacy. Just having a fence which is high enough to stop people from looking into your yard is enough to make your yard curtilage. The government is barred from unwarranted searches and seizures within this area. Just because they are flying in a
TOS? (Score:2)
Can somebody look up the Google Earth TOS and see if there’s anything in it that would be relevant to this sort of use?
I’d do it myself but I’m a bit busy at the moment.
Re:TOS? (Score:5, Funny)
busy filling out the paperwork to get your (already built) pool approved by the city council?
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http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html [google.com]
3(a) defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others;
3(e) upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any other content, message, or communication prohibited by applicable law, the Terms or any applicable Product policies or guidelines;
4(b) By using the Products, you do not receive any, and Google and/or its licensors and users retain all ownership rights in the
Educational (Score:2)
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This sort of thing may stimulate a wider interest in practical application of camouflage techniques.
"Ah... It's not a swimming pool. It's a reflecting pool. I checked the rules. There's no rule against putting in a reflecting pool. It's very tranquil. You'd like it."
Google Maps used to justify speeding tickets (Score:3, Informative)
A few years ago I was in a speeding ticket dispute (that I eventually won) where the traffic court was using Google Maps' Satellite View in order to count the number of mailboxes along the road to determine the number of houses on the road, and therefore to determine if the area was "densely populated" and therefore qualified for a lower unposted speed limit.
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Oh no... (Score:4, Insightful)
...the government caught me in the act of doing something illegal using public information that's been available for years now! Bad Big Brother!
Permits are hard to get around here to do anything though. Which sucks. But if you choose to break the law, you should be aware of the potential consequences and the chance of getting caught. Given the public images of homes it should not be too surprising that something like this would happen eventually.
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
While not Google Earth, as a county government we look at our own aerial photos (added to a GIS layer) to find unpermitted structures as well (mostly just to get them on the tax books - if someone builds without a permit we often have no idea that the structure exists, so it goes untaxed).
While I'm sure it's a LONG ways off, at a recent conference I was at one of the larger city-level governments in the state was actually discussing the possibility of using a form of sonar to track this. I'm not sure if they're just in the brainstorming phase or what, but from what he said the idea was to use it to map out the structures in the city at periodic intervals. Then between intervals you compare to the previous sweep to see anything large that's been added or removed. You filter that against what parcels have not had a permit issued, and you get a good source of info to start following up on construction without permits.
The same city had recently installed various microphones in spots around the city to auto-alert the police department when it detected gunfire (this is already in place, not conceptual). Apparently it is fine tuned enough to be able to tell the difference between an actual gun and things like fireworks and the like.
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Taxes on the materials typically go to the state - or at least most of them (we get 1 cents sales tax to use for road improvements for example, but that's very limited funds, and it's earmarked for a specific purpose). Taxes on the property after construction are typically billed at the local level.
Don't get me wrong it would be easier if income was just flat taxed for everything the government needs to function, but as it is, each level takes it money out at different steps along the way.
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most locales the property taxes are a share of the budget. the more improvements on your property the larger your share. a lot of the valuations i've seen will divide it among land value and improvement value. the land value is the dirt and is low. anything you build goes into the improvement value and increases your share of taxes
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
The tax you paid on the materials for your garage goes to the state, to ensure that you have a working highway and court system so you and the carpenter who built the garage can do business in peace and harmony.
The tax you pay on the garage every year afterwards goes to the city or county, to ensure that when the garage catches fire, there's a fire department to save the rest of your house and the neighborhood.
Stop looking at taxes as just "the Man wants my money", and look at what that money gives you.
When a pool fails... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a friend who had a neighbor with an unlicensed above-ground pool. I'm not sure what went wrong, but one day it collapsed, sending all of the water into my friend's back yard, destroying everything there. Building permits are required for good reasons, and they're usually dirt cheap (less than 1% of the project cost). If you're hiring a contractor who doesn't get a building permit, then they're probably not doing it to save you money, but to allow them to skimp on important building code details that might end up costing you a huge amount.
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So if the pool had been licensed then the water wouldn't have done as much damage to your friends back yard when it collapsed?
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Don't have any experience with pools, but I can tell you that building inspectors are, in general, pretty mediocre. They will approve the most bizarre plans, and then suddenly become as tough as nails over the most ludicrous things. Someone once told me that building inspectors are usually failed contractors, and I believe it.
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This may be true where you live, but I've had quite good experience with building inspectors being thorough. Point being, it's true that merely getting a permit approved and the inspections completed is no guarantee that the building is safe, but it's an additional opportunity for someone to notice a mistake. And a builder who's expecting an inspection and who isn't naturally careful will be more careful in anticipation of the inspection.
E.g., I know of a building project in Oracle, Arizona, where the i
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Re:When a pool fails... (Score:5, Interesting)
Without knowing what went wrong, I'd wager the scenario could run like my what happened here a few years back...
A guy decided to put in a new driveway, and to keep it level carved away part of the foot of a hill. The hill started to slide a little bit, so he built his own six foot tall, thirty foot long retaining wall out of concrete blocks and without benefit of a permit or inspection. Problem was, not only did he not tie the courses together, he also didn't anchor the wall back into the hill, and he didn't provide drains behind the wall. All of which are required by code, should have been specified on the plans submitted for the permit he didn't have, approved by the county engineer as part of the approval process he didn't go through, certified as performed by the licensed contractor he didn't hire, and inspected by the county after completion...
Within a few weeks the county found out about this (I don't recall how) and yellow tagged the house. (Which means the house could not be occupied until the work noted on the tag, in this case replacing the wall, had been properly completed.) A few weeks later, in defiance of the yellow tag, the man moved back into the house because he "didn't want his family to spend Christmas in a hotel". Four days later, during a normal (for these parts) winter rainstorm, the weight of the hill and accumulated water collapsed the wall - and the ensuing mudslide wiped out the house and killed the man, his wife, and three of their children. The only survivor was a teen aged daughter who was at a friends Christmas party.
So the issue isn't that the water wouldn't have done as much damage when it collapsed, but that the odds are if the pool had been properly built it would have been less likely (much less likely) to collapse in the first place.
Not to mention, that most home insurance policies won't cover damages caused by un permitted construction. Nor are you left with any recourse - you'll be liable if you're party to a suit that arises subsequent to any damages caused by failures in such construction.
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That's a pretty disgusting attitude.
The proper reason for a lawsuit is to recover actual damages, not treat every accident like a lottery ticket.
Talk about google privacy at defcon (Score:5, Insightful)
So for all the good google does, this is one small way that it hurts some. That's not to say though, that the people who have these pools are innocent. Yes, we're a capitalistic society as many think, but no, you don't pay to have the roads you drive on to be paved, you contribute like everyone else does in small amounts. And without those small amounts almost nothing would be possible as we get much more and further by working together than alone.
http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-18/dc-18-speakers.html#Marlinspike [defcon.org]
Reasonable expectation of privacy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have it in a fenced in back yard?
What about the "traditional" points of view but at other wavelengths? If your house is transparent to spectrum X - should you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in say your bedroom?
Some photography laws allow for pictures of private locations from the street, but not using telephoto optics - does that apply to satellites and airplanes use? Perhaps you could make the jurisdiction argument, but if your "camera" is located outside of the jurisdiction, but the person pulling the shutter is within the jurisdiction (e.g. programmed flight, camera, and receives images) does that muddy the waters?
I don't think this excellent reference [krages.com] even addresses the issue at hand.
I gots an idea (Score:3, Funny)
Pool covers... that look like grass!
Someone make them now, they'll sell like hot cakes. Also pool canopies that look like lawn from above too.
Permit help enforce safety... (Score:3, Insightful)
... which is vital. If a person builds a pool and skips out of the permit, they could find themselves in dire straits should someone ever drown in said pool. If proper safety specs are not met, the pool could be dangerous in how it was designed and built. And in some cases, if a person is too cheap to get the permit, they're likely getting the pool for as cheap as possible.
Permits are necessary for displacement of land. If you remove trees to put in your pool, you're losing one of natures ways of keeping erosiion under control and other environmental issues that might take place. When a neighborhood gets some massive flooding, and the county has worked to ensure proper drainage for that home and neighborhood and now someone comes along and builds a pool without considering that drainage, that pool may upset the designed flow and cause flooding in certain circumstances.
Besides, permits that they are dodging, their may be additional taxes and proper insurance that is required. People who do this are very selfish.
I think (not sure) that city govt. personnel don't have permission to just walk onto someone's property even if they suspect unlawful building. Google Earth allows the city/county employees to perform the jobs that we, the tax payers pay them to do without violating any laws.
I'm perfectly happy that they have found a safe and legal way of enforcing city/county ordinances.
Drowning, disemboweling hazards (Score:4, Informative)
Child falls into pool, drowns. Worse yet -- child playing in pool, pool drain unsafe, disembowels child by sucking out colon through anus -- not funny, happened in my home town recently, the girl died a couple of days later.
Are towns on a money grab? Probably.
Is it true that there is "too little discussion about community norms" ...? Of course not -- go surf blogs, tweet some tweets -- this world is not lacking for discussion.
This is why we outsource to India (Score:3, Insightful)
So the US pay officials to spend hours poring over Google maps to find violations, whereas India sets up a Facebook page to report violations and instantly rakes in the dough. Knowing suburban neighbours, I'll give good odds as to which method will yield better results for pool violations...
Phillip.
In other news (Score:3, Funny)
In other news the sales of swimming pool sized military style camouflage meshes [alibaba.com] is up in the New York area...
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Would it have been legal or acceptable for the planning commission to drive around with a stepladder and peek over fences to find unlicensed pools?
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In other words, I bet that very few of those folks built those pools and intentionally tried to get away without paying.
Re:Should have got planning permission (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That went away sometime back in the 19th century.
Re: (Score:2)
How does that change anything? An aerial photo of a city is still public information, right? They already do fly-overs with helicopters looking for building footprints that don't match the zoning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)