"[RIVERHEAD, N.Y.] A town on New York's Long Island is using Google Earth to find backyard pools that don't have the proper permits. The town of Riverhead has used the satellite image service to find about 250 pools whose owners never filled out the required paperwork.
"Riverhead's chief building inspector Leroy Barnes Jr. said the unpermitted pools were a safety concern. (So far about $75,000 in fees has been collected.)"
It's for the children.
Funny how the only people complaining are the ones that have something to hide.
I for one think this is a great thing. I jumped through the hoops to get my pool permit. I rendered unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's. If that sumbitch next door put in his pool illegally, it serves him right to get caught and fined.
The only thing I question is whether it's an effective revenue generator for the city. $75,000 in fines, but how much did it cost the city to find the offenders, do all the paperwork, and collect those fines? Probably a lot more than $75,000.
I gotta wonder, how many of these fees and fines are profit generators for the city? Probably not many. Most probably don't even pay for themselves.
re: "The only thing I question is whether it's an effective revenue generator for the city."
Sometimes you gotta spend a little to make a lot.
Maybe (and I'm just speculating) if it cost say, $150K to make generate that first $75K, which includes fines, then they may gotten the word out that they will come looking for you, regardless of the cost.
Perhaps fewer people will go the non-permit route, and eventually they'll recoup the extra cost and start making money on the permits. Lots of money in Riverhead, NY.
None of this even considers the long term impact of "illegal pools" that lower property values when they collapse or ruin the aquifer (or whatever, no comments on the choice of words please) or in some other way cause problems when they get installed in conflict with local codes.
Preventing those problems might be enough of a reason to lose money going after the non-permitted pools - assuming of course that they also force the owners to fix code-conflicting problems.
On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 10:15:57 -0500, "HeyBub" wrote Re Google is not your friend:
Welcome to Amerika, land of the free.
Looking at google pictures does not cost much and these inspectors either had to find something to do after the building boom stopped or lose their job. Departments still had to keep some of these people to protect the licenses so they found something to do. In most places these fines will not go into the general fund, they come right back to the building department.
Our tax collector has been using aerial pictures for many years. They don't seem to share the info with the building department tho. You just get assessed the taxes, not busted for the lack of permits.
Looks pretty friendly for Riverhead.
A piece of paper does not guarantee any of that won't still happen, unfortunately.
The city I live in has been doing this for over 10 years. They started with aerial photography and transitioned into satellite 5 or 6 years ago. They then layer hundreds of overlays such as property lines, title descriptions, street addresses, utilities, elevation, water flow... very accurately. Its all made available to the public. Any changes made to the property or building exterior foot prints are noticeable year over year.
Pools stick out like a sore thumb, as does the illegal shed (or so I am assuming) that was built onto the side of my house before I bought it. Good thing it was build before they started the areal photographing.
Big brother is watching!
True, but how many things in this life *are* guaranteed?
If there's a way to reduce the odds of it happening, then I think that way should be followed.
Just watch Holmes On Homes to see what gets built when contractors purposely neglect the permit process.
(No, this is not an endorsment of H on H but it *is* a good show to watch if you want to see some shoddy workmanship. My favorite was the guy who dug out the basement floor to below the existing foundation and built a 2 story addition with the new basement sill plates sitting on the dirt.)
Steve
visit my blog at
re: "They then layer hundreds of overlays such as property lines, etc...very accurately"
Assuming their data is correct.
Soon after I bought my house, 40-something years after it was built, I began to prepare the permit application to build a deck. As I was taking my measurements and transfering them to a copy of the survey map, something didn't make sense. The deck appeared to be much closer to the rear lot line than my physical measurements indicated.
I discovered that the survey map for my property showed the house 20 feet farther back on the lot than my physical measurements placed it. If the map was right, then the existing fences for multiple properties were all screwed up since the lots on my side of the block were offset from the lots on the next street over. The map *had* to be wrong or there were going to be property line issues cascading throughout the neighborhood.
I contacted the Title Insurance company that signed off on the map for the closing and they sent a crew who scampered all over the neighborhood with sextons and tapes and books of maps. They eventually issued a new survey map for my property, moving the house forward 20 or so feet, which then caused my mortgage company to question how close the house was to one of the side property lines. (Based on how the lots were cut into the curved street, the house looks like it's straight on the lot, but it's actually at an angle.) Moving it up on the map put one corner too close to the property line and I had to submit letters saying that no one had complained in the last 18 months
- even though I hadn't lived there for 18 months. I had to track down the previous owner have him sign off on the period during which he owned the house.
For 40 years the map had been wrong, yet accepted by multiple banks, and the town, when they approved an addition many years before I moved in. It wasn't until I actually took some measurements that the problem was discovered.
Not so bad, the country of Greece is using google to look for pools for increasing property taxes in the thousands per homeowner, now thats where it can hurt, a re evaluation of value, but those images are often years old.
HeyBub wrote the following:
I suppose that Google is not your friend if you have some unreported property or building code violations.
No comments on your choice of words, but *clean* water "ruining" groundwater? Get real!
Nonsense. Such rules do make it easier for the city to collect taxes, though. When all governments are scraping the barrel looking for a dime, why do you suppose they're doing it this year?
The guy with the dishwasher without the high loop had better watch out! "Quick, Maude, shut the drapes!"
Dump some robotic fish in there and call it a water feature?
The Ranger
re: "No comments on your choice of words, but *clean* water "ruining" groundwater? Get real!
Oh, like that wasn't a comment. Nice try.
They're rarely more than a year old, at least what I've noticed when searching for something. But if there was a pool there, there's still a pool there in 99% of the cases. Greece checked into it because such things are self-reported, and something close to 100% of the pool owners forgot to report their pools.
I half-remember something about the income tax in Greece has a minimum threshold and when they started looking into it, because of the economy's meltdown, they were shocked to see how many doctors and lawyers were below that threshold. Doctors in tony sections of the city, where their office rent was more than the minimum threshold, were reporting that they were earning less than the rent.
R
That doesn't necessarily change things. If you or a previous owner didn't pull a permit, they could require you to legalize it and make things difficult when you go to pull a permit.
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