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Save Phonehenge!

I don't have any sympathy, zero, for that guy. He's the perfect example of jackleg home builders. And he wants to make that thing a tourist attraction! Can you imagine the outcry that would occur if someone was killed or seriously injured when part of it collapsed?

There are very good reasons for building codes, including standing up in earthquakes and having some fire resistance when the wildfires burn.

Mike
 
Mike you may be completely correct, but I don't pretend to know the details.

I hope that whatever happens is fair, and not the result of some small man in a small job on a big power trip. In the last few years I've seen so many really stupid cases of some "Official" sticking to the letter of the law/code well past the point of farce.

I guess that is what you get for living in California :rolleyes::wave:
 
From what I understand, when he bought the land, it was out in the middle of nowhere. (Acton, CA. It's still pretty far out in the sticks.) I think that explains some of his "I'll build what I want and how I want" mentality. Doesn't necessarily make it right, but explains it. Personally, I don't have a problem with him building it however he wants, but as soon as he starts talking about opening it up to the public, my opinion changes, and I agree with Mike. Building codes are there for a reason. ;)
 
There was another case in this area recently. A guy pulled a permit for a deck but when he built it, he went further out (over a hillside) and higher (it was a covered deck) than the permit allowed. When the inspector did the inspection, he red tagged it.

The guy went to the city council and begged for a variance. They put him through hoops, and it costs him extra money, but they granted most of what he had done.

I haven't seen things being totally unreasonable around here. In fact, I sometime think they allow to much "after the fact" - it encourages people to ask for forgiveness rather than for permission when they can't get what they want the first time.

The city council is elected and will usually try to work with someone because they want to be seen as reasonable. (in his case I think it's county officials)

I've followed this "phonehenge" thing and that guy will just not work with the officials. I think that once he started getting publicity he just dug in his heels thinking the publicity would force the officials to give him a variance.

Mike
 
Mike Henderson said:
...I've followed this "phonehenge" thing and that guy will just not work with the officials. I think that once he started getting publicity he just dug in his heels thinking the publicity would force the officials to give him a variance...
Click to expand...

I agree with you, Mike. The county officials have apparently tried real hard to work with the guy, and it seems he ignored them hoping they'd just go away. Then when they made it clear they were not going to give up, he started yelling "Watts Towers!" and trying to make his place a landmark of some sort. :rolleyes:
 
Definitely a Wacko. Opening it to the public should not be allowed, and like the tree forts I built as a kid, entering is definitely at your own risk.
 
Not so much as pre defined box's as a safety issue. I can design anything I want to build and with my many years of experience in the construction business I would have the utmost confidence that I would build it to last several lifetimes but we have building codes and procedures for building things certain ways for many reasons. Mostly the safety of the general public. When things are built outside the box, inspectors require engineers to give their stamp of approval on them. This guy is just trying to work around the system. I admire his ingenuity and his vision but down the road someone else will have to deal with this.
 
Nothing is as it seems with people. They have agendas and motives, whether they are inspectors or individuals. Even when a person knows both sides of the story it isn't always clear.
I am not even vaguely familiar with this situation but I have seen a few situations here where we live. Some person wants to wire up all their outlets and lights to the same breaker, put in a home made wood stove, build without a septic system an not do any fire mitigation. Before you know it you are living next to a fire trap that is polluting your well. When a complaint is filed and the county finds out the person becomes a "victim" regardless of the fire danger, that could burn down everything I have worked for all my life. How self centered of me. What was I thinking? How could I be so cold?
I think people should be able to build what they want if they are removed from influencing the property values of other people but with a caveat. They don't get service from the fire department, can't sell the property till it is restored to the previous state, they don't get home owner's insurance, they can't pollute the local water supply, they have to remove all vegetation within 1000 foot of the structure and they can't be viewed by the neighbors. In other words if they want to take total responsibility for their own actions then go for it but don't ask me to pay for services because someone is too stupid to live. I think it is called natural selection.
 
If we didn't have building codes and inspectors, think how difficult it would be to buy a house. You'd have to have an expert go through the house and inspect basic things, such as spacing between studs, size of headers, support of headers, attachment of the roof to the sides of the house, engineering analysis for loads and earthquake resistance, etc. etc. Every buyer of every house would have to do those things.

When you have building codes, you can check when the house was built, or was involved in a major remodel, and you'll know the status of the house - if they followed code.

Code also protects the occupants. I read somewhere that cities are trying to find additional missions for firefighters because improvements in the building codes, and appliance safety, have greatly reduced the occurrences of fires. So the firefighters have less to do in urban areas.

Building codes and the inspectors are your friends. It's sometime a pain to deal with the inspections (scheduling, disagreements with the inspector, etc.) but building codes save lives and guarantee the next owner that things were done correctly.

Mike
 
All this is quite true. But some of these places are pretty interesting. Usually it's just one guy, often not very rich, who gets it in his head to build something. Most of the materials are found, or local, so he just needs to spend a few decades working. They're all over the world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Cheval (france)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nek_Chand (India)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Castle (colorado)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunleua_Sulilat (Thailand)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle (Florida)

There are lots more. They are, by definition, nuts. But they *do* build stuff!

Thanks,

Bill
 
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