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Mo Zhu

@moinmybackyard.bsky.social
196 followers 54 following 1.2K posts

Building codes reform: moinmybackyard.substack.com

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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 5h
I'm so sorry, Mike Tomlin, former head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. I love that you're a secret urbanist, but before you spend more time on this, let me tell you about the IBC and how your buildings are illegal... youtu.be/_h_pQ1-5iQg?...
youtu.be
EP 1: ROOFTOPS, PENTHOUSES, AND URBAN LIVING
YouTube video by Mike Tomlin
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Requiring sprinklers is corvée labor.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Does this bar deserve historical preservation status?
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My promise not to run against my mother’s endorsed candidate has people asking questions already answered by my promise not to run against my mother’s endorsed candidate. missionlocal.org/2026/09/chri...
missionlocal.org
Christine Pelosi vows not to ‘ever’ run against Connie Chan, quashing rumors
Christine Pelosi says she is running for state senate, not against Connie Chan, and disputes rumors about Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Haven’t googled yet, but has anyone done time and motion studies on this? If putting on the mask/helmet is ~20s, extrapolate out the amount of time it’d take to leave the station. Then compare to avg dispatch-to-arrival time of ~4 min in SF. How much is gear-up time vs actual road time?
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Kevin Erdmann @kevinerdmann.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
People will say that housing is a human right and then lock the doors to their house.
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Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So many problems, in so many states, are downstream of our unwillingness to tax real estate at its market value, and more generally of our unwillingness to acknowledge that housing wealth is, in fact, wealth.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Epic negativity bias here. www.wsj.com/real-estate/...
wsj.com
Portland Real Estate Is Such a Mess That All Housing Is Affordable Housing
Rarely has the Oregon city seen such a narrow price gap between market-rate and affordable units.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The bane of my existence are documents without dates on them.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Sat through an impassioned defense of the definition of townhouse today.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
You can drone on about Polanco all you want but Vegas’s walkable urbanism is the winning message.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Mo problems
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Joe Cohen @cohenhouse.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Another dumb American code requirement! basin.la/articles/nin...
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The most unrealistic part of Star Trek is that Starfleet Academy is in Marin. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
politico.com
States jockey to land Trump’s new Space Academy
Leaders from at least a half-dozen states are making their pitch, even though the federal academy is far from a reality.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
By this I’m sure he means he thinks there needs to be more federal expertise brought to bear on the code development process.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Vegas is your capital city in a very tall game of Civ.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not sure if this bodes well or poorly for the idea of more political involvement in the building codes. Kind of a Rorschach test. Of course, the specific structure of decision-making matters. www.wsj.com/business/aut...
wsj.com
House Defies Automakers and Mandates AM Radio in New Cars
The bill proposing the requirement now heads to expected Senate passage after House overwhelmingly approves it.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Re: commercial influence in the building codes, the controlling case appears to be Allied Tube v Indian Head, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a standards org (in this case NFPA) setting a product typology counted as restraint of trade (aka antitrust). supreme.justia.com/cases/federa...
supreme.justia.com
Allied Tube v. Indian Head, Inc., 486 U.S. 492 (1988)
Allied Tube v. Indian Head, Inc.
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David Bonowitz @dbonowitz.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
#DataCenter and building design folks: ICC has a new group working on a Guideline for Data Center design (on a VERY fast schedule). I'm on it as an Interested Party. If you care how these things are or should be designed, you can participate by applying here: www.iccsafe.org/committees/g...
iccsafe.org
G12 – Data Centers - ICC
ICC Guideline 12 Data Centers (G12) Data Centers The G12 Guideline on Data Centers provides a clear, comprehensive, and easy‑to‑navigate framework that aligns the most relevant code provisions for modern...
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
OK but what if the US had its own standards and development process? www.ft.com/content/4e50...
ft.com
OpenAI joins call for US-led global AI standards
Chief executive Sam Altman will brief the UN Security Council this week following outcry over safety concerns
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There are only glimpses of the behind the scenes story of how they got various stakeholders to embrace innovation. So many threads to chase down, so little time!
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It begins!
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I'll be watching the ICC Board of Directors candidate forum, which starts in about half an hour. The candidates can be found here: www.iccsafe.org/about/board-...
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My building’s elevator is broken. And so it begins…
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This will be interesting. www.iccsafe.org/building-saf...
iccsafe.org
Meet the Candidates: 2026 ICC Virtual Board of Directors Candidates Forum - ICC
The panel will feature this year’s Board candidates along with members of the International Code Council’s Nominating Committee.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"Code officials from smaller towns and counties are especially underrepresented on the roster of ICC voters." How do they know...? Perhaps this is just rhetorical, to get more of their people to sign up. www.nahb.org/blog/2024/03...
nahb.org
Local Code Officials Have Until March 8 to Apply For or Renew ICC Voting Privileges
The International Code Council’s 2024-2026 code development cycle is officially underway.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If only these two did a Christian thing in their backyard. We could have taken this all the way to Clarence and Neil and Amy and Sam. apple.news/AqyVsMBbISkS...
apple.news
They built a Buddhist sanctuary in their backyard. Then San Francisco said it breaks the rules — San Francisco Chronicle
In the backyard of his rainbow-painted house on San Francisco’s Clipper Street, Sam Geffner built a sanctuary. Gently curving stone steps lead up to a meditation room tucked into the hillside that slo...
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Michael Wiebe @michaelwiebe.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
New literature review on housing ladder spillovers: When rich tech workers move in, low-end rents go up. So does it follow that adding high-end homes would reduce them? Yes. Changes at the top of the ladder can propagate down and affect prices at the bottom. 1/
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
A more mature reaction to this story.
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Jonathan Berk 🏠 @berkie1.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Permissive zoning is not the same as permission to build.” My new report, Delayed by Design: How Discretionary Permitting Stalls Housing in Massachusetts, looks at how permitting uncertainty drives delays, increases costs & makes housing allowed on paper harder to build.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
In my dark moments, I look at these GDPR banners and I doubt whether the euros can really have a better building codes process than we do. What a paradox!
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YIMBY Action @yimbyaction.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
If two stairs are safer, why do so many countries allow just one? 👀 The evidence shows that modern single-stair buildings are just as safe as buildings with two. Watch our latest Infill episode with Nashville Councilman Rollin Horton and Stephen Smith. 👇 youtube.pulse.ly/mz5yutupph
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Commercial interests in the OCC process have voter guides. The ICC does not disclose the identities of the voters. So what are those voter guides for?
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
TIL: There are a few municipality-run conformity assessment services: LA (RR), NYC (MEA), Miami-Dade (NOA).
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Idea: Elevators must report their repair history to the gov as part of their certification.
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Cory @evilmam.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
People keep thinking buildings are what makes a neighborhood and not the people who live there. Like places where the townhouses *look* the same on the outside, but 4 adjacent buildings have been combined into one behind the facades and instead of 8 families living there, it's one billionaire now.
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Kevin Erdmann @kevinerdmann.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
After 20 years of zero lower bounds, interest on reserves, quantitative easing, inverted front end/up-sloped back end, etc. it will almost be quaint if we end up just having a good old fashioned Fed induced yield curve inversion.
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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
So much of what makes your life worse than it should be is the fault of the top 10%, not the top 1%.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“Passionate about supporting mission driven organizations.” Works at Mastercard.
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The Boston LOL 💜 🚲 ⚡ @thebostonlol.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
This is good coverage on Wu's backpedaling and broken promises on safer streets. The reporter asks her point blank about her "dangerously underwhelming" plans and she starts up with word salad I know I don't feel safe enough to bike in Boston youtu.be/Ny-5wWVPupg?...
youtu.be
Boston bike safety under scrutiny after cyclist death, advocates demand action
YouTube video by WCVB Channel 5 Boston
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
There is so much left unstudied in building codes and its dollars and cents impact on the world. How can we get a bunch of ambitious Econ phds to look at this? How do I reach these keeeeeds?
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Next door in Silicon Valley @nextdoorsv.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
As Palo Altans will tell you - billionaires are ruining the lives of ordinary average millionaires
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Yes, every billionaire is a policy failure. You know who else is a policy failure? Your Berkeley hippie grandpa who pays $100 in annual property taxes on a $2.5 million house and uses the leftover cash to sue people who try to build apartments in his neighborhood.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
ok, ok, I concede: this disaster could have been averted had we gone through the proper permitting for this.
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Daniel Herriges @dpherriges.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Boomtown without the boom: During the 2010s, when San Francisco's economy was a juggernaut growing 10% per year, the SF metropolitan area was only the 26th-fastest growing US metro (and San Jose was 29th). From 2010 to 2016, San Francisco permitted one unit of housing for every 13 new jobs.
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Jane Natoli 🥑🚲🍍 @wafoli.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I am neither YIMBY nor NIMBY but a secret third thing (still a NIMBY) www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
Brooke is also a board member of YesAND, the new nonprofit cannot be identified as the pro-development movement YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) or its counterpart,
NIMBY (Not In My Backyard).
"We believe there is a middle ground,"
Brooke said.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Looking forward to reviewing their first 990. www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
sfchronicle.com
New S.F. group launches legal fight over Marina Safeway project, city’s housing approval process
The lawsuit echoes concerns expressed in recent weeks by Marina residents and community activists as well as the district’s supervisor, Stephen Sherrill.
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Mo Zhu @moinmybackyard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And they explicitly cited the EU’s more evidence-based code development process.
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William Skudlarek @willskud.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
And the lack of state capacity in building codes is not a new problem. Some manifestation of this issue has bubbled up every 20 yrs or so. From 2005: (www.huduser.gov/periodicals/...)
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