| Submit your comments on this article |
| Government |
| Man builds stairs in park for $550, embarrassing city that had $65,000+ estimate. City blocks off stairs as |
| 2017-07-21 |
| [CTV News] A Toronto man who spent $550 building a set of stairs in his community park says he has no regrets, despite the city’s insistence that he should have waited for a $65,000 city project to handle the problem. The city is now threatening to tear down the stairs because they were not built to regulation standards. |
| Posted by:DarthVader |
| #11 Much earlier in my Gubbamint Engineer career, I also worked on City Buildings (Resident Engineer on the 911 Center construction, libraries, etc.). So I saw how Building Codes mandated certain features. ADA started up and mandated more. There have always been idiots, vandals, malicious and litigious dicks.. Public structures and buildings cost what they do because of design to meet all of the above. It has to meet codes, AND be virtually indestructible by your fellow citizens, who will try their best to prove you wrong. Assholes and lawyers. What he constructed is fine in someone's back yard. It is also a lawyer's dream in public land. It doesn't meet code (from the pics), the landing at the bottom is stupid, and the handrail will be gone in a couple weeks. Good luck |
| Posted by: Frank G 2017-07-21 21:13 |
| #10 Unless you live in some kind of strangely empowered municipality, due notice is given regarding the adoption or changing of building (including mechanical, plumbing and electrical) and Property Maintenance codes. Tents are not buildings and, therefore, probably found in your property maintenance / code compliance division. If you check into it, you will probably find your municipal board found or got wind of some bozo living in, on a permanent basis, an effing tent. Where was this person cooking? Crapping? If you want to live, actually live, in a tent, move to the sticks. Anyway, the board had a meeting, undoubtedly announced to the public, and voted a "No livin' in tents, Festus" ordinance. From that time forth, until it is repealed, it lives on and gives your municipal officials a way to get rid of encampments, both actual and potential. A code official enforcing the code preventing your kids and/or you spending the night "roughing it" would, after getting a "Joe, come into my office. Someone complained about some sort of tent thing?" from his boss, would be contacting you with a "Sorry, I screwed up." call. Btw, small kids playing in a tent without a barrier (fence) could wind up long gone before someone got around to checking on them. The single/double-stall garage thing is, of course, about property values, but should be able to be applied with some flexibility for small lots. Guess the city fathers didn't take that into consideration. As an aside, my municipality had to write an ordinance allowing one of the more affluent areas of town up to 4-stalls. And, I often get calls from residents inquiring as to why the hell their townhome development was allowed to be constructed with single-stall garages (40 years ago) as the newer owners have multiple vehicles. Like the townhome had 2-stall garages when it was shown to the buyer and, somehow, one of the stalls was stolen after closing. And, of course, we have an ordinance backing up the development rule against parking on the grass. If you don't like an ordinance, replace the people who made it with people who will change it. It's pretty simple, if you think about it. Think "Representative Government." |
| Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy 2017-07-21 20:49 |
| #9 My city's regulation standards also dictate I can't pitch my own tent in my own yard, nor can I sleep in it. This of course is widely violated during summer months when kids out of school are entertained at home. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-07-21 15:41 |
| #8 I learned by accident my city's building codes mandate single family housing have a 2-car garage, even though most of the single family lots in town are rather small. Up until this was enacted the vast majority of homes in town have 1 car garages or none at all. This results in (1) giant structures on small lots looking weird and (2) jacking up the minimum expense of all new housing from this point onward. Habitat for Humanity tangled with the city on this issue. Their standards of construction mandate a 1-car (NOT a 2-car) garage, since HFH regards 2-car garage as luxuries (I agree on this). City and HFH negotiated a forbearance on enforcement of the building code to allow HFH to carry out their plans. There is more than a little bit of rent-seeking in the establishment of building codes. It is not just about "quality", but more importantly about "cronies". |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-07-21 15:40 |
| #7 ...but not adherence to the bureaucracy and its mother may I dictates. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-07-21 11:11 |
| #6 Building codes set minimum safety standards and, if a municipality adopts a building code, the code is required to be followed. I would be surprised if Toronto did not adopt the "edicts" of the International Code Council and, looking at the pix, I can assure you that the stairs and handrails do not meet ICC minimum safety requirements. $65k is crazy stupid for this small project but, that aside, the stairs must not present injury suit potential for the municipality. I can assure you that Mr. Trump's skating rink met code. |
| Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspriacy 2017-07-21 09:02 |
| #5 See - Trump, skating rink, NYC. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2017-07-21 08:35 |
| #4 To quote Insty, where's the graft in that? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2017-07-21 07:59 |
| #3 And he didn't use union labor either, I bet. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-07-21 06:00 |
| #2 The mayor is pissed because that's $64450 that didn't make it to his and his cronies pockets. |
| Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance 2017-07-21 02:08 |
| #1 That's a so-called "conservative" mayor making those a$$hole comments. |
| Posted by: Canuckistan sniper 2017-07-21 02:00 |