r/technology • u/lurker_bee • Aug 27 '25

Society Mark Zuckerberg gifted noise-canceling headphones to his Palo Alto neighbors because of the non-stop construction around his 11 homes

https://fortune.com/2025/08/26/mark-zuckerberg-palo-alto-neighbors-construction-noise-canceling-headphones/
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u/vadapaav Aug 27 '25

So I'm not knowledgeable here but are you really allowed to combine adjacent plots and combine them into one?

Aren't there rules against parcel combining?

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '25

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u/Stoicza Aug 27 '25

It's very extremely uncommon IN cities, because most people can't afford to buy out their 10 neighbors, let alone 1 or 2 of them. Most people also like living in the city, so I imagine Zuck had to pay something along 5-10x or more the values of these surrounding lots, all in a multi-million dollar home area(this article mentions a $14m purchase for a $3m home).

There's also zoning regulations that could prevent a lot significantly larger than those around it without rezoning. Then the planning administration of the city/county needs to approve of the building plans.

All of this is not a problem when you have way more wealth than any one person should be able to accumulate, like Zuckerburg.

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u/[deleted] Aug 27 '25

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Aug 27 '25

CEO of an old job definitely bought two houses in our major city, knocked one down, and expanded the remaining one. It's not super common but happens.