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Aberdolf-Linkler t1_jad3fm7 wrote

Reply to comment by JKSHulenburg in They knocked down a house in my neighborhood but left a facade. by Mojo_art

Those setback requirements are super important! Imagine all the quality time a family will spend in that crappy 10 foot front yard next to the street!

I really do wonder why those setback requirements are still in place. They seem completely pointless.

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JKSHulenburg t1_jad4i0e wrote

There's a number of reasons to have setback requirements. Keeping the character of a neighborhood, providing space for easements for utilities, fire considerations (spacing buildings) ect

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Aberdolf-Linkler t1_jad6hla wrote

Yes those are some of the reasons given but they don't really stand up to any scrutiny. For example this building predates the standard so they aren't really keeping any character, just enforcing a new one. Not to mention that's entirely a subjective quality that's being determined by a small group of officials.

Utilities some how manage on significantly smaller easements just fine all over the US and the world. And fire fighting has come a long way in the past 2000 years. There's a ton of detail on this one that's a bit beyond a reddit comment but this is really unnecessary today. At worst you can mandate firebreaks in lue of offset but for some reason municipalities across the US just use this blanket ban instead, despite virtually every single one having at least one district that manages to get by without these mandates.

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