[Doofy]

Sunderland council have just built a new £70,000 (~$106,000) playground for the local kids.





Nope, that's not the building site, that's the completed thing. It's a "non traditional park for the modern child".

Family fury as Sunderland council spends £70,000 on 'deathtrap playground' | Mail Online

[Doc HM]

Daily mail headline is far funnier than the actual playground

[osiris]

This must be some sort of minimalist joke.

[OldManMac]

That is one of the more idiotic ideas I've seen in a long time!

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by osiris 

This must be some sort of minimalist joke.

Doesn't that look like something we would have terrorized kids with in the 50s, claiming its all the commie Russian kids got?

[osiris]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Doesn't that look like something we would have terrorized kids with in the 50s, claiming its all the commie Russian kids got?

Yep, there's a very cold war era feel to it. I'm surprised there's no rusting shafts of rebar jutting out, or at least broken shards of glass in the concrete - you know, like those spoiled North Koreans have.

[Lateralus]

Being the man of sophistication that I am, it is quite clear to me that the intent of the playground's designer was to convey the tragic cycle of youth and vigor becoming decrepity and decay. Surely none of you think coincidental the resemblance of the monoliths to tomb stones?

Quite a moving work, actually.

[Lint Police]

[The Final Dakar]

Dieter approves.

[Eug]

Got to love the bureaucrats.

Red tape is killing Toronto: Editorial | Editorial | Comment | Toronto Sun

P.S. Let me tell you a little story about my kitchen fiasco. I applied for a building permit for my basement. I applied for the permit because there are some structural changes. The permit says I can't put a 2nd kitchen in the basement. I ask why, since it's my own house. Because it's a rule dating back from eons ago that has never been changed. I said it would be built to all fire code standards. Nope, still illegal.

So, I mention that there was a bylaw passed that any 2nd suite designation for a basement requires a 2nd kitchen. They say yes, but then the house gets classified as a multi-family dwelling. I said I don't want a multi-family dwelling, because I'm just a single family. Nope, that's illegal then, because two kitchens are illegal in a single family dwelling, but would be legal if I simply changed the designation to a multi-family dwelling, although multi-family dwellings have different fire codes and different inspection practices. I ask what do the Jewish families do? What do the Italian and Portuguese families do? The city says they're breaking the law when they put in the 2nd Kosher/tomato canning, etc. kitchens.

So, what did I do? I applied to the city for an official zoning amendment. Yes I paid hundreds of dollars to apply to get the law changed just for my house. The city sent the entire neighbourhood letters saying I wanted to put a kitchen in my own basement and waited for objections from the neighbours. Well, we got objections. I went to the city to plead the case in front of a 7 member zoning committee. After I dealt with the boneheaded neighbour who didn't even actually understand the application, they finally passed it, so I got the pleasure of spending even more money to get the actual amended permit to add a kitchen. I get the permit back. There are absolutely no changes to the building or fire codes whatsoever. It just now says a stove is allowed.

This process took 4 months.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Got to love the bureaucrats.

...

This process took 4 months.

Or, just do what you want to do and then tell the idiots to get off your land when they turf up. If they insist, ask for wet signatures for whatever you can dream up (accident disclaimer while on property, etc.). Requesting wet signatures makes bureaucrats go away.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Got to love the bureaucrats.

Red tape is killing Toronto: Editorial | Editorial | Comment | Toronto Sun

This process took 4 months.

Which is why some people of my acquaintance put the bin (skip for you Brits) at the back of the house - so no passing by-law officer would stick his nose in - hired a contractor they implicitly trusted to build over and above code and just went ahead and did whatever they bloody well felt like. Toronto is such a warren of additions, changes, illegal rooming houses etc that it's hard to prove anything after the fact.

The best thing is that they still got a sign-off from the fire marshals and the ESA (Electrical Safety Authority) without any problems. They just kept the city out of the equation, to everybody's huge relief. Oh, and one of the, silent, partners in the building firm is a law enforcement professional who also shook his head at the city and agreed that permits were more trouble than they were worth.

Another friend of mine, who converted an old building into apartments and wanted to do it by the book, had his project delayed by four months at a cost of about $60k. Asshats at the city went on strike, never mind the inconvenience to the tax payer.

[ort888]

Only in America.™

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

Which is why some people of my acquaintance put the bin (skip for you Brits) at the back of the house - so no passing by-law officer would stick his nose in - hired a contractor they implicitly trusted to build over and above code and just went ahead and did whatever they bloody well felt like. Toronto is such a warren of additions, changes, illegal rooming houses etc that it's hard to prove anything after the fact.

The best thing is that they still got a sign-off from the fire marshals and the ESA (Electrical Safety Authority) without any problems. They just kept the city out of the equation, to everybody's huge relief. Oh, and one of the, silent, partners in the building firm is a law enforcement professional who also shook his head at the city and agreed that permits were more trouble than they were worth.

Another friend of mine, who converted an old building into apartments and wanted to do it by the book, had his project delayed by four months at a cost of about $60k. Asshats at the city went on strike, never mind the inconvenience to the tax payer.

If you're doing basic stuff, that's fine, but if you're making structural modifications without a permit, you can run into serious insurance issues.

One way to to compensate as you said is to get a fire and electrical inspection separately, but that doesn't cover everything else of course.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Yep, there's a very cold war era feel to it. I'm surprised there's no rusting shafts of rebar jutting out, or at least broken shards of glass in the concrete - you know, like those spoiled North Koreans have.

Actually, the article says it had photos in the ground with glass over them, all of which promptly got broken...

[Eug]

That non traditional park for the modern child would make for great Fail blog fodder.

[turtle777]

Reminds me of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin :-/

-t