Mark Zuckerberg's House Expansion Plans Thwarted by Palo Alto Officials
The billionaire is becoming notorious for his lofty housing plans.
Just because you’re worth billions of dollars, doesn’t mean you can get everything you want. Mark Zuckerberg is learning that the hard way, as Palo Alto officials have decided that his property expansion plans violate zoning codes and bylaws. The Facebook founder first purchased a $7 million USD, 5,000-sq.-ft. home back in 2011 located in Palo Alto, which is rife with a housing crisis. Two years later, the tech name purchased up four more nearby homes for $30 million USD, with plans to bulldoze them and rebuild smaller versions into a compound space for his friends and family.
Well, those plans have been halted because the Palo Alto Architectural Review Board decided that they would violate codes and ideal land-use, by removing four independent homes from the market. This would lower the amount of homes in the city’s already limited housing market, eventually driving up prices everywhere. According to the board, for a single family to use five homes would breach the city’s commitment to protecting single-family housing availability. This isn’t Zuckerberg’s first run-in with questions about his ambitious housing plans. Eyebrows were raised when he was accused of hoarding parking spots around his San Francisco home in 2014, and when he built a controversial six-foot wall around his Hawaiian island home.
