If you know how to work the law, chances are — you’ll get what you want.

The problem is the people who write it do their best to make sure no one without at least three degrees can really figure it out without serious effort.

Read how one Redditor’s family manipulated a town into agreeing with their build after a little scare tactic.

Another zoning law tale

This happened in the 80’s in a well-to-do Bay Area suburb, and several family members were the architects of this malicious compliance.

My dad and his cousins owned a large parcel of land (10 acres) that was full of junk, piles of dirt and rocks and a few abandoned vehicles beyond rusted out.

But it wasn’t going to stay like that for long…

Being the kids of real estate developers and entrepreneurs, they decide they wanted to build two office buildings, but their land was zoned for light industrial, and they needed it to be reasoned to commercial.

So, they file the necessary paperwork and make the surrounding community aware of their plans.

And once the community caught wind, this didn’t go over well.

This is where the community gets worried that a sudden influx of cars during the day at office buildings would lower their quality of life and start protesting and sending letters threatening legal action if they proceed with the rezoning process.

So, my dad and his closest cousin/best friend get this idea to use the mostly useless lot for something that the neighbors and the community would really hate, in order to make an office park seem reasonable by comparison.

This is when things get good…

After hours of ideas are thrown around, they decide to build a massive go kart track, as it falls under a light industrial zoning law loophole.

And then, they decide to go for the grand slam and make it a 24-hour go kart track.

Obviously, that idea didn’t go over well either — but that was all part of the plan.

The surrounding neighborhoods and community as well as the immediate neighbors were so vocal about this new venture that they began pleading with my dad and family members to re-apply for the re-zoning and that they would all support an office park [instead] of the god-awful 24-hour go kart track.

Not being that vindictive, they restarted the process a week later to convert the site to a commercial office park.

Does Reddit agree with this malicious compliance or is this just another example of gentrification at its finest?

Let’s read the comments below to find out.

Redditors in the industry weren’t at all surprised by this tactic.

Some commenters preferred to have the go kart track.

Others thought this story belonged in a different subreddit.

These developers manipulated a community into getting what they want.

Not cool.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.